Nevada mortgage fraud mastermind receives 22 year sentence

A former Las Vegas businessman, Brett Depue who was also the Nevada mortgage fraud mastermind receives 22 year sentence. He faced up to 3o years in prison.

Depue was accused of conspiring to recruit straw buyers  to purchase approximately 100 homes with falsified mortgage applications and then renting the properties before selling them at a profit.

According to the Justice Department,

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 from about February 1, 2005, to May 31, 2007, in Nevada and elsewhere, the defendants participated in a mortgage fraud conspiracy in which they used “third party disbursements” and “double escrow” methods to fraudulently obtain monies from the financial institutions. A third party disbursement is the issuance of money at the closing of a mortgage loan to a person or entity that is not typically entitled to the money. A double escrow is where two sales of the same property are conducted at the same time. Typically, the property is sold to a middleman, who then sells the property to a straw buyer at a substantially inflated price. The difference between the first sale price and second price is distributed to a conspirator as seller proceeds. The paperwork on the second sale is concealed from the seller, and the paperwork on the first sale is concealed from the lender.

He was found guilty in March of multiple conspiracy and wire fraud charges and allegedly admitted to making up to $13 million dollars between 2005 through 2007.  The financial institutions involved lost more than $24 million dollars.

Depue was also ordered to pay 1.6 ,million in restitution.

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