Three individuals who previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the federal program to help distressed homeowners were sentenced in federal court Friday to jail terms ranging from 21 months in prison to six months of home detention, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced today.
Ziad Nabil Mohammed Al Saffar was sentenced to serve 21 months in federal prison and Sara Beth Bushore Rosengrant to serve 12 months home detention as a part of a three-year term of probation. A third person, Daniel Al Saffar, was sentenced to serve six months home detention and three years of probation in the case that was heard by Federal District Judge Anthony J. Battaglia in San Diego.
| ‘That reassurance was nothing more than a lie to dupe victims out of what little money they had left and is evident of a profound disrespect for those suffering through and bearing the brunt of the housing crisis. — SIGTARP’s Christy Romero’ |
“In their guilty pleas, each admitted that they operated the loan audit and modification scam, located in San Diego, under the names Compliance Audit Solutions, Inc. (CAS) and CAS Group, Inc., (CAS Group),” the SIGTARP said. “The Court also ordered the defendants to pay restitution to the victims of their criminal conduct. Each defendant made a restitution payment in an amount of $30,000 prior to Friday’s sentencing hearing. As a part of his plea agreement, Ziad Nabil Mohammed Al Saffar, who is not a citizen of the United States, stipulated to being deported following the completion of his sentence.”
Christy Romero, the SIGTARP, said the CAS and CAS Group fraud scheme “specifically targeted the most vulnerable homeowners struggling to cope with the collapse in the housing market.” The three defendants, she said, “mass marketed their scam with Web sites such as www.HAMPnow.org as if it were affiliated with HAMP and other federal mortgage aid programs.
“That reassurance was nothing more than a lie to dupe victims out of what little money they had left and is evident of a profound disrespect for those suffering through and bearing the brunt of the housing crisis. SIGTARP and its law enforcement partners will continue to pursue TARP-related fraud and bring accountability to American taxpayers,” she said.
The convictions were a result of SIGTARP’s participation in “President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which was established to wage an aggressive and coordinated effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes,” according to the announcement of the sentences.
For more on the case, go here.
