Florida AG Announces Criminal Racketeering Charges In Phony Docs Mortgage Scam

From the Florida Attorney General's office:

• Attorney General Bill McCollum and Office of Financial Regulation Commissioner Don Saxon [Friday] announced that criminal charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and grand theft were filed against a mortgage brokerage business and a law firm, both formerly located in Leon County, as well as three employees of the brokerage business and the firm. Belinda Dearing Mortgage and law firm Stephen C. Willis, P.A., were named in the charging document as well as Belinda Dearing Willis, Terinda Denise Watson and Clifford Lee Cummings.

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• The law firm of Stephen C. Willis, P.A., also known as the Willis Law Firm, participated in the fraud by deceptively reporting the amount of down payments and closing costs and by giving misinformation about how the lender’s loan proceeds were distributed when closing the transactions and preparing the settlement statements for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For more, see Racketeering Charges Filed Against Mortgage Company, Local Law Firm (Elaborate scheme to defraud included fraudulent application documents, fictitious bank statements).