Accountant accused of role in mortgage fraud
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
June 21, 2009
Federal authorities have accused a Virginia accountant of writing false letters verifying the incomes of homebuyers who were caught in a mortgage fraud scheme that caused banks to lose about $3 million when their homes went into foreclosure.
Maria E. Conrad would receive up to $400 each from loan officers at E-Star Lending for the letters she wrote supporting its clients’ loan applications, court documents said. In December, the owner of E-Star Lending, Gohar Mirza, was sentenced to 5 years and 3 three months in prison and ordered to pay back the $3 million he caused lenders to lose when the houses purchased by his straw buyer scheme went into foreclosure.
The E-Star Lending scheme ran from April 2005 through July 2008, court records show. Mirza and his co-conspirators would help homebuyers obtain 100 percent mortgage financing so they could purchase overpriced homes sold by members of the conspiracy.
The buyers, however, couldn’t afford the loans. Their applications, court documents show, were filled with false statements about their employment and income. Over the course of three years, hundreds of homes in Northern Virginia were purchased using the false mortgage loan applications. In almost every case, they went into foreclosure, records show.
The conspirators required help from accountants to support the false information in the loan applications, charging documents said. One of those accountants was Conrad, she reportedly admitted to a U.S. postal inspector.
When federal agents searched Mirza’s home, they found more than 20 files containing letters from Conrad, the inspector wrote in a sworn statement. Those letters said Conrad had reviewed the tax returns for the buyer and verified the buyer’s income. In many cases, she wrote that the buyer was self-employed.
The postal inspector wrote that he interviewed a sales representative from one of the swindled lenders. The representative said letters from accountants could “make or break” loans from self-employed customers.
One letter authored by Conrad in support of two loans for a property on Bluebonnet Lane in Woodbridge claimed the borrower was a self-employed chef, documents said. But when the postal inspector interviewed the buyer, the buyer said he never worked as a chef and did not know Conrad, the statement said.
Conrad has been charged with mail fraud for allegedly using FedEx to ship the letters.
