The Wolf Guarding The Chicken Coop Is Now Behind Bars

Posted in Foreclosed Homes, Foreclosed Properties, Foreclosure, July 20th, 2007 |

Desperate house owners about to be disposed and thrown out on the streets will clutch at any straw. There was quite a stir and talk about ways and means out of the foreclosure mess. It seemed all that one had to do was to seek help. But the victim’s state of mind was such that the helper’s bona fides were not property checked. Fortunately in this one instance this person extending the helping hand to people under the cloud of foreclosures was pinned and accused. Last Thursday the fellow was sentenced to serve a five-year term in federal prison for swindling borrowers and duping lenders.

On Thursday 35-year-old Christopher Craig was ordered by USA District Court Judge, Morrison England to a five-year stint in jail. This was to be followed by another five years of supervised release in addition to payment of $1 million as compensation.
Craig had seen the end of the road when on 10th May he had pleaded guilty in USA District Court at Sacramento. He was charged for falsely helping himself to $1.2 million on home equity loans from Washington Mutual Bank. The houses involved were scattered over Auburn, Lincoln, Stockton, Elk Grove, Sacramento and Manteca.

Craig went about his scheme with a purpose. First he found out details of those properties that were about to be foreclosed and then came smilingly forward with an extended hand of help. His trick was to offer assistance by forwarding them loans. But in reality he prepared documents to give their property to a straw buyer who would in his turn apply for home equity loans.

The straw owner in his turn lied to the lenders by stating that they were the one and only owners of the said units. This meant that the units were free from mortgage restraints. In this way Craig pulled into his net $1.2 million into this account. From this haul he paid up only one loan due to Washington Mutual. The loan was for $974,452.

From Craig the focus has now turned to the straw buyers. Donald Edgecomb and Jacob Esteves are both in their mid thirties and came from Auburn. They too pleaded guilty to misprison of a felony – that is they failed to report a crime connected with the Craig affair. Their case will be taken up the following month.

Via