San Diego Feds Bag Attorney, Three Others In Alleged Foreclosure Rescue Ripoff That Screwed 1000's Of Homeowners In $11M Loan Mod Racket

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (San Diego, California):

• United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy announced that Oceanside attorney Dean G. Chandler and telemarketing salesman Shelveen Singh were arraigned [] in federal court in San Diego on a 50-count indictment charging them with defrauding thousands of homeowners in an $11 million “loan modification” fraud scheme.
  
  According to the indictment, these defendants (and two others previously arraigned) used Chandler’s Oceanside-based law firm, 1st American Law Center (“1ALC”), to persuade victims to pay thousands of dollars each by deceptively touting 1ALC’s purported success and legal resources, and falsely promising that 1ALC would successfully modify their residential mortgage loans.

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• 1st American Law Center's telemarketers were encouraged (using call “scripts” and other training) to say virtually anything to customers in order to close the deal. The indictment alleges that among other ruses, employees pretended that that they had helped “thousands” of happy homeowners save their homes, that 1ALC had been in business for 20 years, that clients' fees would be deposited into a client-trust account and remain untouched until the client was satisfied, and that there was a money-back guarantee. Conspirators even persuaded financially strapped homeowners to pay 1ALC’s fees, instead of the clients’ monthly mortgage payment.
  
  According to the indictment, lead defendant Dean G. Chandler was the Oceanside attorney at the head of 1st American Law Center. He appeared in television commercials and on the company's websites as the attorney in charge of the company, soliciting customers throughout the United States.
  
  Chandler is charged along with telemarketers Shelveen Singh, Anthony Calandriello, and call center manager Michael Eccles, with conspiring to commit the offenses of mail fraud and wire fraud through the operation of 1st American Law Center. Defendant Chandler is also charged with money laundering because he conducted financial transactions with the proceeds of the fraudulent conspiracy.

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• Nine other participants in 1ALC’s telemarketing scheme have already entered guilty pleas in federal court for their roles in the criminal enterprise and the subsequent cover-up.

For the U.S. Attorney press release, see Oceanside Attorney Indicted for Operating $11 Million Loan Modification Scam.

See also, Courthouse News Service: Accused Loan Scammers Appear in Court.

For the indictment, see U.S. v. Chandler, et al.