Homeowner Facing Foreclosure Gets 3 Months For Lying To Score Loan Modification; Small-Fish Suspect Snagged By Broad Investigatory Fishing Net Targeting Sibling-Pol's Campaign Activities

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Washington, D.C.):

• Che M. Brown, 45, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced [] to three months of incarceration on a federal charge of bank fraud stemming from a scheme in which he submitted false documents to a mortgage lending service to win approval of a modification on a mortgage for his residence. [...] Upon completion of his prison term, Brown will be placed on five years of supervised release. During that time, the judge ordered that Brown perform 200 hours of community service.
  
  According to a statement of offense signed by the government as well as the defendant, Brown fell several months behind on his monthly mortgage in 2009. GMAC Mortgage LLC, a mortgage lending and servicing business, informed him that the mortgage was in default. GMAC also sent a letter to Brown in June 2009 that advised him that he should consider whether he was eligible for a loan modification that would make his monthly mortgage payment more affordable.
  
  From September 2009 through September 2010, Brown schemed to defraud GMAC by submitting documents that made it appear that he had received $35,000 in income that he, in fact, had never received. Based on those and other representations, Brown was deemed qualified for the mortgage modification, which ultimately reduced his payments by $717.44 a month, to $1,499.
  
  This marked the second time that Brown has been convicted of bank fraud. In 1995, he was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a scheme involving credit cards that resulted in $58,500 in losses.
  
  The current prosecution arose from a broader investigation into the campaign activities of Brown’s brother, Kwame R. Brown, the former chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia.(1) That investigation also led to the conviction of Kwame Brown in another bank fraud matter.
  
  Kwame Brown pled guilty in June 2012 to a federal charge of bank fraud stemming from false documents that he used to secure a $166,000 home equity loan, as well as a $55,335 loan that he used to purchase a boat.

For the U.S. Attorney press release, see Che Brown Sentenced to Three Months in Prison for Bank Fraud, Used False Documents to Modify His Mortgage (Claimed Income That He Didn’t Actually Receive).

(1) This incident serves as a reminder to take caution with who you hang around with (especially if you're up to no good and, in this case, have a criminal history of no good), lest you end up getting snagged in law enforcement's 'investigatory fishing net' intended for someone else. The cops may not have set out to look for you, but once they bag you (even for something unrelated to that which triggered the probe), they're not about to throw you back into the water.