GREFPAC - New York Time GREFPAC NEWS 
Official Publication of the Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition, Inc. 
A service to our members, industries and communities.

        2011 Issue 4

INSIDE GREFPAC
Get Ready for the 8th Annual Educational Conference

GREFPAC's 8th Annual Educational Conference will be held March 7, 2012 at the Cobb Galleria Centre.  The agenda is being finalized, but outstanding speakers will address evolving fraud trends, as well as best practices to detect and prevent fraud.  CE credits will be available for attorneys, real estate brokers and salespersons, appraisers, and CFEs.

December Quarterly Education Meeting Planned

 

Join us December 7 at the Atlanta Junior League Headquarters for an update on the latest trends in reverse mortgage fraud.

September Meeting Focused on Impact of Fraud on Neighborhoods 

GREFPAC hosted a three-speaker panel at the September 7 quarterly education meeting.  Ann Fulmer, one of GREFPAC's founders and Vice President of Interthinx, spoke to what has caused the fraud, why it still exists and how it has changed in the market today.  Bill Kingsbury, Director of Gwinnett County's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, addressed the impact of fraud and foreclosure at the county level and how Gwinnett County's Neighborhood Stabilization Program is working to help reverse the impact.  John O'Callaghan, President and CEO of Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP), spoke to the impact of fraud and resulting foreclosures on the Atlanta Metro area, including the economic impact to the region, as well as what needs to happen for Atlanta to break out of the current economic and real estate market cycle.  GREFPAC extends its sincere thanks to Ms. Fulmer, Mr. Kingsbury, and Mr. O'Callaghan.
GEORGIA NEWS
Fulton County Grand Jury Returns Indictment for Real Estate Fraud Scheme
Ga. Attorney Gen. | Sep. 16, 2011

A Fulton County Grand Jury returned an indictment against a man for his alleged participation in a scheme involving the allegedly fraudulent sales of residential properties in Fulton County.  The charges alleged that the man purchased two residential properties in January and February of 2007 and received kickbacks from proceeds of each sale that were not disclosed to the mortgage lenders.  The man is also charged with misrepresenting that the properties being purchased would be primary residences, when purportedly he never lived at either and had no intention of doing so.  Read More
Bank President and CEO Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud
U.S. Attorney's Office for the N. Dist. of Ga. | Sep. 6, 2011

United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said of the case, "Corrupt bank insiders jeopardize their customers' deposits, the banks they serve, and ultimately the economic health of the country.  This defendant, the President and CEO of a local bank, used his customers' deposits to make fraudulent loans to a borrower who in turned paid him cash kickbacks for the special treatment.  Once their scheme started to unravel, the defendant tried to cover it up with lies and phony documents he provided to the FDIC during a bank examination."  Read More

Savannah Real Estate Developer Sentenced to Over 4 Years in Prison for Conspiring to Defraud First National Bank and Others

U.S. Attorney's Office for the S. Dist. of Ga. | Aug. 16, 2011

 

Richard D. Guerard, from Savannah, was sentenced to 52 months in prison in connection with a conspiracy to defraud over $2 million from the First National Bank, Savannah, and other banks from 2007 to 2009.  According to the evidence presented during the sentencing and guilty plea hearings, Guerard, a real estate developer acting on behalf of two businesses, entered into loan agreements with First National Bank and other banks for the purchase and development of areas within downtown Savannah.  During a two year period, Guerard submitted dozens of bogus subcontractor invoices to First National Bank for work that had not been performed.  As a result, Guerard fraudulently received well over $1 million in loan funds to which he was not entitled. Read More 
DBF Enters into Consent Orders 
Ga. Dep't of Banking and Fin.
  
The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance (DBF) entered into consent orders with licensees to resolve allegations pertaining to violations of the Georgia Residential Mortgage Act and agency rules, including allegations of making false statements or misrepresenting facts to lenders.  The orders include provisions that require education on mortgage fraud detection and prevention.  Read More
Mortgage Broker Sentenced for Mortgage Fraud

U.S. Attorney's Office for the N. Dist. of Ga. | Aug. 11, 2011

 

According to United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates, the charges and other information presented in court:  In approximately 2002, Rodney Wells worked as a mortgage broker through two companies he created and obtained financing for buyers of properties on which he had placed fraudulent liens.  Then, to qualify prospective buyers for loans, Wells prepared and submitted to lenders false appraisals inflating the price of homes and fraudulent information regarding the prospective buyer's finances including, false verifications of assets on deposit, false information regarding the source of down payment funds and a false representation that the purchaser intended to live in the property as their primary residence.  Eight properties were identified in the indictment, one being a refinance of the personal residence of Wells. Read More

Woman Pleads Guilty in Housing Scheme
WSB-TV | July 6, 2011
 
WSB-TV report:  Channel 2's Carol Sbarge attended an arraignment for a dozen racketeering suspects at the DeKalb County Courthouse on Wednesday morning.  It was the latest stage in the case against a group of people accused of using fraudulent deeds to take over metro Atlanta homes in foreclosure. Read More

Preacher Sentenced for Role in Mortgage Fraud Scheme

U.S. Attorney's Office for the S. Dist. of Ga. | July 1, 2011

 

Heyward Kelly McKnight, Jr., an Augusta area minister, was sentenced in federal district court to 15 months in prison for his role in causing a mortgage loan to be submitted based on misrepresentations to the lending bank.  According to the evidence presented during the guilty plea hearing, in late 2006 and early 2007, McKnight caused an application for a mortgage loan to be submitted to Wachovia Mortgage that contained false statements as to his father's income, his father's intent to occupy the property and other information. Read More
NATIONAL NEWS AFFECTING GEORGIA
CoreLogic Estimates $7.4 Billion in Fraudulent Mortgage Originations for 2011
CoreLogic | Sep. 29, 2011

CoreLogic announced the availability of its 2011 Mortgage Fraud Trends Report, which lists Atlanta as the fourth riskiest fraud area in the U.S. based on the first three digits of the ZIP code.  In the report, CoreLogic fraud experts predict that fraud-related U.S. residential mortgage originations will total $7.4 billion in 2011. This represents a nearly 40 percent decline from the estimated $12 billion in mortgage fraud-related originations experienced by the industry in 2010. Read More
Second Quarter Mortgage Loan Fraud; Suspicious Activity Persists; Debt Elimination, False Statement among Leading Scams
Fin. Crimes Enforcement Network | Sep. 28, 2011

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reported in its Second Quarter 2011 Analysis of mortgage loan fraud suspicious activity reports (MLF SARs) that financial institutions filed 29,558 MLF SARs in the second quarter of 2011 up from 15,727 MLF SARs reported in the same quarter of 2010.  A large majority of the MLF SARs examined in the second quarter involved mortgages closed during the height of the real estate bubble. Read More 
Freddie Mac Blog:  Teaming up to Fight Short Sale Fraud 
Fed. Home Loan Mortgage Corp. | Aug. 22, 2011

As posted on Freddie Mac's Executive Perspectives Blog:  "Since short sale fraud requires the cooperation of one or more real estate professionals involved in the transactions, we have begun reaching out to Realtor associations in target markets to educate them about the latest trends in short sale fraud, the red flags to watch for, and what actions they can take to stop it. We strongly believe responsible Realtors are America's natural first line of defense against such scams."  The blog entry also lists trends about which Freddie Mac has been alerting real estate agents. Read More
FBI Releases 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report

Fed. Bureau of Investigation | Aug. 12, 2011 

 

According to the report, which highlights current mortgage fraud schemes, perpetrators, and mortgage fraud "hot spots":  Mortgage fraud continued at elevated levels during 2010, and Georgia was one of the top states for known or suspected mortgage fraud activity during 2010.  In addition, the current housing market will likely remain an attractive environment for mortgage fraud criminals in the near future who will seek new methods to circumvent loopholes and gaps in the mortgage lending market. Read More

HUD Unveils New Web-Based Mapping Tool to Display Nearly Half of U.S. Foreclosed Properties

U.S. Dep't of Hous. and Urban Dev. | Aug. 10, 2011

 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development launched a new web-based mapping tool displaying the location of all foreclosed properties held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).  These foreclosed homes collectively account for nearly half of all real estate-owned or REO properties in the U.S.  HUD's REO Portal is intended to help local communities, homebuyers and responsible investors to acquire these properties and accelerate efforts to stabilize local housing markets. Read More 
NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER:
Copyright 2011 Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of the Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition, Inc. or GREFPAC names or logos is prohibited.  You may reproduce a reasonable number of copies of this newsletter for your own personal use or for non-commercial distribution, but all all copies must be unmodified and must include the above copyright notice.  Reproduction or distribution of this newsletter for commercial purposes is prohibited. GREFPAC cannot guarantee that material accessible from this newsletter is free of viruses or other malicious code, and GREFPAC does not accept any responsibility for any loss caused by any such code.  GREFPAC is not responsible for any third party content, products or services that may be accessed through this newsletter, and the availability of links in this newsletter to such third party content, products or services should not be construed as referrals to, or endorsements of, the linked entities or the content, products or services that they make available. GREFPAC will cease providing links from future issues of this newsletter upon request from the linked party.  The information in this newsletter is presented as general information and is not intended to be, and should not be relied upon as, legal advice or legal opinions on specific facts.  You should not rely on information in this newsletter or its applicability to any specific questions or circumstances without first seeking your own professional's advice.  GREFPAC is not a law firm and does not offer professional legal services.  The information in this publication is not intended to create, and the transmission and receipt of it does not constitute, a confidential or lawyer-client relationship.  The act of contacting GREFPAC will not create a confidential or lawyer-client relationship, and your communication will not be treated as confidential. GREFPAC makes no warranties, representations, or claims of any kind concerning the information available from, or the distribution of, this newsletter.  GREFPAC and contributing authors expressly disclaim all liability to any person in respect of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done wholly or partly in reliance upon the use or contents of this newsletter.  The information contained in this newsletter may concern allegations made in civil lawsuits and in criminal indictments. Such allegations may be found by the court to be untrue.  All persons are presumed innocent of criminal allegations until convicted of a crime.  Court opinions may be subject to the parties' motion for reconsideration, the court's reconsideration, and editorial changes made by the reporter of decisions.  We are eager to make corrections quickly and candidly.  An aggrieved party need not have a letter to the editor published for us to correct a mistake. We will publish corrections on our own and in our voice as soon as we are told about them and can confirm them.
10-Years
UPCOMING EVENTS
 AT A GLANCE 

   
 
 
   

Dec. 7, 2011
Quarterly Educational Meeting
9:30am - Noon
Atlanta Jr. League
3154 N'side Pkwy.
Atlanta, GA 30327

 
Mar. 7, 2012
Annual Educational Conference
7:30am - 5:00pm
Cobb Galleria Centre
2 Galleria Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30339

  
THANK YOU
2011 SPONSORS


Diamond

Fannie Mae 

Silver

BurrForman

GREFPAC - New York Time

GREFPAC - New York Time

LotsteinLegal

Southeastern Evaluation

SSI

Valuation Management Group

Bronze

Accurate Quality Control, Inc.

Brand Mortgage Group

ComplyShare, LLC

Georgia Dept. of Community Affairs

Georgia Real Estate Closing Attorneys Ass'n (GRECAA)

Morris | Hardwick | Schneider, LLC

Old Republic National Title Insurance Co.

Real Property Law Section of State Bar of Georgia

Stewart Title Guaranty Co.

The StoneHill Group, Inc. 
Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition, Inc.
1188 Dorby Park Drive
Atlanta, GA
30319
Quick Links