Elk Grove Man Makes $8 Million in Mortgage Fraud Scheme, Will Spend 43 Months Behind Bars
Elk Grove Man Makes $8 Million in Mortgage Fraud Scheme, Will Spend 43 Months Behind Bars
Gabriel Viramontes, a 49 year old man from Elk Grove, was found guilty of organizing a mortgage fraud scheme. Viramontes was found guilty of perpetrating this fraud on at least 19 homes
with loans upwards of $8 million. The sentence of four years and 9 months in prison was handed down by US District Judge Edward J. Garcia. Viramontes has also been directed to pay restitution to his innocent victims. On March 31st of last year, a federal jury also found Viramontes guilty of seven counts of mail fraud and six counts of bank fraud. Three co-defendants entered a guilty plea to related charges prior to the trial.
The fraud was carried off in the Sacramento area through the months July and October of 2006. The con men used the “services” of Esnian Mortgage Realty, VFM Investment Group and Freedom Capital Mortgage to rip people off. The bait was set by them asking the targets to buy single family houses at absolutely no down payment whatsoever. These people were further told that they are doing so on behalf of people whose bad credit ratings would not allow them to enter into such transactions. As a further hook, the people thus solicited were given an assurance of financial benefits. It all sounded nice and juicy indeed.
To give the false stamp of credibility to their scheme, the fraudsters then duped lenders like Fremont Investment and Loan, Washington Mutual Bank and Long Beach Mortgage to close such home purchase transactions. They achieved this by submitting imaginatively fabricated employment records of the buyers, statements that the property would be occupied by the owners and also loan applications that showed the buyers were earning much more than what they were in real life. Once the transactions were shown as closed, then the defendants – Viramontes and others – went home with their hefty commissions as loan brokers and from real estate sales as well.
Viramontes and his partners in crime – Mario Fellini III, Joseph Salvatore Gallo and James Roy Martin come from the Sacramento area and will now be bonded in doing prison time as well. Each of them has received different sentences though but have been punished for their roles in executing this fraud.
