Thursday, August 2, 2012

Forest Hills mortgage fraud

From Forest Hills Patch:

Two attorneys with a Forest Hills practice were convicted of mortgage fraud this week, according to the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn.

Matthew Burstein and Aaron Rabinowitz, both 40, were found guilty on ten felony counts of fraud for illegally obtaining $25 million in loans from half a dozen lending agencies, including Countrywide and Wells Fargo, part of a Byzantine scheme to enrich themselves in the midst of a down housing market.

According to U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, the defendants worked with a co-conspirator network of straw buyers and real estate agents to draw up dummy sale documents for homes in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. They would then file for mortgages and pay themselves attorney's fees from the falsified loans.

The incidents took place between January 2006 and September 2008.

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