Advertising Company Owner Gets 3 Months House Arrest, Agrees To Cough Up $175K For Running Deceptive Ads To Create Source Of Leads Used By Unaffiliated Loan Modification Rackets To Target Financially Distressed Homeowners

In New Haven, Connecticut, The Day reports:

• An East Lyme man was sentenced to two years of probation [] after using his New London-based media agency to produce and disseminate false advertisements, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
  
  Forty-six-year-old Matthew Goldreich's sentence includes three months of home confinement as well as a $100,000 fine and $75,794 in restitution.
  
  The federal misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty, false advertising or misuse of names to indicate federal agency, makes it illegal to use the word "national" in the name of a business or firm that deals with loans.
  
  According to court documents, Goldreich, owner of advertising production firm National Media Connection, used his company to produce commercials for National Mortgage Help Center, a shell company Goldreich created that existed only on paper. The commercials in question aired between May 2009 and February 2013.
  
  Those commercials, the U.S. attorneys' sentencing memorandum alleges, misled viewers to believe NMHC was affiliated with the federal government in an effort to "to capitalize on the Home Affordable Modification Program ... announced by the United States Department of the Treasury on or about March 4, 2009."
  
  That program encourages people and businesses to modify their mortgages in order to keep their properties out of foreclosure.

For more, see Owner of New London firm gets two years’ probation for false advertising.

For the U.S. Attorney press release, see Owner of Connecticut Media Agency that Falsely Advertised Mortgage Modification Services is Sentenced.