Jury Slams Hubby & Wife Scam Team In Short Sale Flipping Scheme, Finding Them Guilty Of Duping Lender Into Taking 'Haircut' On Purportedly Underwater Mortgage w/out Disclosing They Were Using 3rd Party Straw Buyer To Quick Flip Property For $400K+ Profit

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Central Islip, New York):

• [On March 30, 2017], defendants Joseph Atias and Sofia Atias were convicted of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and Medicaid fraud by a jury in federal court in Central Islip. The fraud was designed to, and did, defraud Bank of America of over half a million dollars.
  
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  The defendants were convicted of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with the sale of property adjacent to Sacred Heart Academy for $925,000, after the defendants had sold the property in a short sale for $480,000 to discharge their mortgage debt. In the short sale process, the defendants and a co-conspirator, an attorney who pleaded guilty and testified against the defendants at trial, concealed the offer from Sacred Heart Academy from the Bank of America.
  
  In the short sale process, the defendants submitted a fraudulent contract of sale and other documents with false statements to Bank of America, and obtained approval of a short sale, wherein the proceeds from the sale of the property were less than the total amount of the mortgages on the property.
  
  The defendants submitted these documents to Bank of America, falsely representing that there were no funds to pay the mortgages when, in fact, the defendants knew that Sacred Heart Academy, a high school in Hempstead, New York, had offered to buy the property for an amount sufficient to cover the mortgages on the property.
  
  To accomplish the fraudulent short sale scheme, the defendants used a relative as a straw buyer of the property to create the appearance of an arms-length sale. Shortly after that sale, the defendant’s straw buyer sold the property to Sacred Heart Academy for approximately half a million dollars in profit.
  
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For more, see Husband And Wife Defendants Convicted Of Mortgage Fraud And Medicaid Fraud (Defendants Conspired to Engage in Fraudulent Short Sale of Real Property to Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead, New York, For New Athletic Fields).