Federal Criminal Prosecution Of Major Maryland Sale Leasback Foreclosure Rescue Scam Concludes With Sentencing Of Final Defendant To 38 Months

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Greenbelt, Maryland):

• U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus sentenced Rolando Alonzo Cousins, a/k/a “Junior,” age 32, of Bowie, Maryland, [] to 38 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud in connection with a massive mortgage fraud scheme which promised to help homeowners facing foreclosure keep their homes and repair their damaged credit, but left them homeless and with no equity. Judge Titus also ordered that Cousins pay restitution of $471,702.25. With Cousins’ sentencing all 11 defendants in the Metropolitan Money Store case have now been convicted and sentenced.

For the U.S. Attorney press release, see Senior Loan Officer With Metropolitan Money Store Sentenced To Over 3 Years In Prison In Mortgage Fraud Scheme (Eleventh and Final Defendant Sentenced in the Metropolitan Money Store Case).

(1) According to Cousins’ plea agreement, he was the senior loan officer with the Metropolitan Money Store, in Lanham, Maryland, which offered foreclosure consultation and credit services to financially distressed homeowners. Cousins also owned and operated Prosper Investments LLC. In 2005, Joy Jackson and Jennifer McCall incorporated Metropolitan Money Store. Also at that time, Jackson, Jennifer McCall, Jackson’s husband, Kurt Fordham, and McCall’s husband, Clifford McCall and others incorporated Fordham & Fordham Investment Group, Ltd. (F&F) and Burroughs & Smythe Financial Services, Inc. (B&S), based in Lanham and Greenbelt, Maryland, to assist Metropolitan Money Store in its foreclosure consulting and credit servicing business.

Cousins admitted that from September 2004 through June 2007, he, Jackson, McCall and others, operating through several companies, including the Metropolitan Money Store, fraudulently promised to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, keep their homes and repair their damaged credit, by directing the homeowners to allow title to their homes to be put in the names of third party purchasers (the straw buyers) for a one year period, during which time the defendants would help the homeowners obtain more favorable mortgages, improve their credit rating and eventually return title to their homes to them. Cousins, Jackson, McCall and others told the homeowners that the equity withdrawn from the properties would be used to pay the mortgage and expenses on their homes and to repair their credit.