Florida Man Cops Plea In Combo Home Improvement Scam & Mortgage Fraud

An investigation into an alleged mortgage fraud / home improvement scam operation that hit the Tampa / St. Peterburg, Florida area which has implicated six defendants has claimed its first conviction.

The alleged ringleader, Scott Almeida, is the first of the defendants to "get to the courthouse" and successfully agree to a plea bargain with authorities, an agreement which requires him, among other things, to "cooperate with prosecutors" (ie. become a "snitch") in the prosecution of his five now former confederates. The following excerpt comes from the Office of the Florida Attorney General's Office:

• Attorney General Bill McCollum [last week] announced that a Hillsborough County man pleaded guilty to multiple charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, mortgage fraud, and grand theft. Scott Anthony Almeida will be sentenced to 10 years prison at a later date for a mortgage fraud scam that victimized more than 100 individuals. As part of his plea agreement, Almeida will cooperate with authorities in both the cases pending against his co-defendants and in several active investigations. He is also prohibited from working in the mortgage or title industries.

• The three-year investigation began when victims filed complaints about incomplete or substandard construction work being performed by construction companies affiliated with Almeida. Almeida and his associates secured mortgages for these homeowners to finance the home repair projects by submitting fraudulent documents to Argent Mortgage Company, one of the nation’s largest wholesale “sub-prime” mortgage companies. Investigators followed the trail of fraudulent applications back to the organized criminal operation which submitted nearly 130 loans to Argent which were funded for approximately $13 million.

The cases against co-defendants Orson Benn, Frank Giffone, Samuel Green, Adrienne White and Bradford Peck are still pending.

For more, see Ringleader of Mortgage Fraud Group Guilty of Racketeering, Grand Theft (Hillsborough County man organized scam involving fraudulent mortgage loans and bad contractors). Go here for the Spanish version of the AG's Press Release.

For media reports on this conviction, see:

• Tampa man gets 10 years in fraud case (The mortgage scam bilked millions from homeowners) (St. Petersburg Times),
• Mortgage fraud ringleader pleads guilty (Tampa Bay Business Journal).

Go here for prior posts on this alleged scam and the arrest of the defendants.