Loan Officer Cops Plea In Alleged $25M Mortgage Fraud, Kickback Scam Involving 200+ Home Buyers

In Columbus, Ohio, The Columbus Dispatch reports:

• A Michigan woman admitted [yesterday] that she approved fraudulent mortgage loan applications for Columbus homes and might have been responsible for as much as $1 million in losses. Kenyatta Johnson, 28, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus to conspiracy and wire fraud in connection with a $25 million mortgage scam that affected more than 200 home buyers.

• In a plea agreement, Johnson admitted that, as a loan officer for a bank in Ann Arbor, Mich., she approved loans brought to her by Dwayne L. Carter of Reynoldsburg that she knew included inflated, fraudulent employment information. In exchange, Carter wired her kickback money.

• Johnson is the seventh of nine defendants to plead guilty in the conspiracy case. [...]
  The nine are accused of using bogus appraisals of more than 500 properties to obtain mortgages beginning in 2002.

For more, see Woman admits she Ok'd fraudulent loan applications in Columbus mortgage scam.