Jacksonville Foreclosure Rescue Operator Faces Criminal Charges; Allegedly Stripped Equity From Homeowners, Allowed Mortgages To Go Into Default

In Jacksonville, Florida, The Florida Times Union reports:

• [Thomas] Cuomo wasn't a white knight of the souring housing market, prosecutors and victims say. He was one of its villains. Cuomo ran a private company, soliciting one desperate person after another and offering them help: The chance to sell him their homes and rent them back. Foreclosure Counselors Inc. is listed as a nonprofit with the Florida Division of Corporations, but not on the Internal Revenue Service's list of 501(c)3 charities.

• Prosecutors say Cuomo bought homes, lied on mortgage applications to buy them, took what equity the former owner had built up, and then let the houses go into another foreclosure. In some cases he took out a second loan on the house, documents show. The [Jacksonville area] State Attorney's Office has charged him with mortgage fraud and schemes to defraud.

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• While other victims have ultimately been evicted, [Jacksonville Area Legal Aid Society's April] Charney has challenged Cuomo's foreclosure on [homeowner/victim Lester] Thomas' behalf. She believes his salvation could be the very cause of the mortgage collapse: Cuomo's loan was already in default when it was bundled with others and sold to securities. Often, in cases like this, no one can produce the original loan to prove who it belongs to. The trustee bank, Wells Fargo, has asked for an extension of time in the case.

For more, see Mortgage aide accused of scam on homeowners (Prosecutors say he let homes be foreclosed after buying out owners).

Go here for more on criminal prosecutions of foreclosure rescue operators.