Illicit Loan Proceeds From Alleged Long Island Sexual Fantasy Club-Based Mortgage Fraud Ring Now Up To $82M, Says Suffolk County DA

In Suffolk County, New York, Newsday reports:

• A dominatrix, her male personal assistant, two employees at her Manhattan sexual fantasy club and her 65-year-old mother are among the latest defendants charged as part of an $82-million mortgage fraud scheme in which a former Suffolk legislator is accused of having a central role. Former Suffolk Legis. George Guldi, 56, of Westhampton Beach, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a Riverhead courtroom to 23 counts of a 130-count indictment against him and 16 others.

• When his arrest was announced in March, prosecutors described the scale of the scheme to be $50 million. Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said the investigation has "become more expansive," now involving more than $80 million, and it could be bigger. "We're not finished," he said, adding it is the largest mortgage-fraud ring uncovered in Suffolk County.

• The scheme involved the fraudulent purchase of 60 homes from Cold Spring Harbor to Bridgehampton by straw buyers using fake employer information and phantom bank balances, Spota said. Donald MacPherson, 65, of Manhattan, publisher of the SoHo Journal magazine, was central to the scheme, prosecutors said. They claim he recruited straw buyers and provided fake employment information using his corporations, including the magazine and the sexual fantasy club he owns with his wife.

For more, see DA: Guldi mortgage fraud scheme 'more expansive'.

For earlier post on this story, see Lawyer, NYC Dominatrix Bagged In Alleged $50M Mortgage Scam; Scores Of High End Homes End Up Foreclosed; Fetish Customers "Posed" As Straw Buyers: DA.

Thanks to Bill Collins of Crossroads Abstract, Rochester, NY for the heads-up on the update to this story.