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Mortgage fraud cases increase

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI

esilvestrini@tampatrib.com

Published: November 4, 2009

TAMPA - At the peak of the housing boom, an unemployed Tampa day trader managed to get two mortgages worth more than $300,000, despite having no income, authorities say.

A Land O' Lakes woman fled to Amsterdam after she got five mortgages and home equity loans worth $670,000 on a house she bought for $217,000, court papers show.

The two are among scores of mortgage fraud cases filed by federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Florida since they began a surge in such investigations in January.

In the past week alone, cases were filed in Tampa federal court against at least 11 people accused of lying to lenders and property appraisers to obtain millions in mortgage loans during the property boom that ended last year.

In the past nine months, authorities say, the increased focus has led to charges against more than 100 defendants accused of fraudulently getting about $400 million in loans on at least 700 properties. The Middle District stretches from Jacksonville to Fort Myers and is among the nation's busiest.

Thirty of the defendants were charged in Tampa.

By comparison, there were four mortgage fraud cases brought in Tampa in the 2008 fiscal year.

The surge is "designed to address the epidemic amount of mortgage fraud here in the Middle District of Florida, and frankly, throughout Florida," U.S. Attorney Brian Albritton said at a news conference Tuesday.

Among the recent cases outlined in court documents:

•Jason Anthony Martinez, a licensed mortgage broker, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and mail fraud affecting a financial institution.

According to his plea agreement, Martinez lied to induce lenders to provide $4 million in mortgages from 2005 to 2007. He and his co-conspirators obtained loans on at least 21 properties, resulting in losses of $1 million to $2 million to the financial institutions.

•The FBI has asked a judge for an arrest warrant for Beatriz Sanchez, who authorities believe left the United States on a flight to Amsterdam in July.

Sanchez is accused of obtaining loans totaling $670,300 on a property at 3436 Red Rock Drive in Land O' Lakes that had been purchased for $217,000 in April 2006.

•The FBI also sought an arrest warrant for Richard Likane, an unemployed day trader who authorities say obtained two loans totaling more than $300,000.

Likane, 44, of Tampa, faces a charge of mail fraud. According to court papers, he lied about his monthly income in obtaining a mortgage of $161,000 for 10808 Dragonwood Drive in Tampa in February 2006, a year in which he lost $3,000 trading stocks and had no salary or wages.

In March 2007, he obtained a home equity line of credit for $195,000 on a property at 3857 Mariner Drive in St. Petersburg, falsely representing his annual income as $75,000 when it was zero.

In January 2008, Likane filed for bankruptcy and testified under oath that he had not been employed since 2000. He said he had been a day trader of stocks and a house flipper since then.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837. Keyword: Mortgage Fraud, for a list of mortgage fraud prosecutions.

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