Attorney Pleads Guilty As "A Broken Man" In Alleged Atlanta-Area $19M Flipping Scam

In Atlanta, Gerogia, Daily Report reports:

• When Atlanta attorney R. Joseph Costanzo Jr. pleaded guilty to bank fraud this month, he did so as “a broken man,” Costanzo's attorney said. The lawyer's prosecution by federal authorities for his role as a real estate closing attorney in a mortgage fraud ring left him “financially devastated … his career as an attorney over, medically and mentally severely impaired, and greatly suffering shame and remorse,” said his attorney, Edward T.M. Garland. It also garnered Costanzo 41 months in federal prison and an order to pay jointly with his co-defendants more than $7.8 million in restitution to banking, insurance and investment firms—among them Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage.

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• For two years, Costanzo closed fraudulent loans for a mortgage fraud ring that federal authorities believe included at least 21 people—among them builders of multimillion-dollar homes in Atlanta's wealthy northern suburbs, according to a federal indictment issued in January 2005. The fraudsters—many of whom, like Costanzo, have either entered guilty pleas or were found guilty by a federal jury late last year—stole more than $19 million from lenders by “flipping” properties, according to the indictment.

For more, see Fraud case ruins real estate lawyer, attorney says ('Scrivener' pleads guilty to bank fraud, gets 41 months in federal prison).