Posted by 101livescan on 11/18/13 8:38am
Msg #493131

Life of Crime does not Pay!

As this husband/wife team are learning.

Ohio Title Agent Gets Lengthy Sentence
11/18/2013 TITLE SOURCE


An Ohio title agent has received a 66 month prison sentence for her role in a $9.6 million mortgage fraud conspiracy, despite appeals from her family that she receive only probation.

Deborah L. Kistner, 50, Hilliard, Ohio was sentenced last week to 66 months in prison, five years of supervised release and ordered to repay victims $9,644,601.84 for deceiving lenders while securing fraudulent real estate loans in three different conspiracies between July 2006 and July 2010. Her husband, Mark A. Kistner, 52, was sentenced to five years of probation, ordered to forfeit his retirement account worth about $300,000 and make restitution of $381,764.92.

“Over five years, Kistner participated in an ongoing, multi-million dollar mortgage fraud in which banks and lending institutions were defrauded out of several million dollars in mortgage loans,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Fulton told the court prior to sentencing. "Her role as a title agent mandated that she be a ‘gatekeeper’ for banks funding these mortgages, and she violated that position of trust.”

The Hilliard couple pleaded guilty on January 18, 2013, four days after their trial started. Deborah Kistner pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, three counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of bank fraud. Mark Kistner pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Several other members of the fraud conspiracy have previously pleaded guilty.

Deborah Kistner operated Premiere Title Company in Hilliard. She deceived lenders in connection with the purchases of real estate in Ohio and Florida. She conspired with others to secure inflated loans for real estate and kept the excess proceeds or used them to pay others involved in the conspiracy, and prepared the fraudulent documents for the scheme.

In many of the fraudulent transactions, the Kistners purchased a newly built home in a suburban development using Mark Kistner's name and inflated financial credentials and other misrepresentations. Using Deborah's title company to close the transaction, dual settlement statements were created to hide from lenders the fact that significant kickbacks were paid to the Kistners or a sham company under their control from loan proceeds at closing. The kickbacks would either be labeled on the lender version of the settlement statement as a finder's fee or would be omitted altogether. The kickbacks would range from a little over ten thousand dollars to over a hundred thousand dollars.

The Kistners and their co-conspirators allegedly engaged in at least six transactions of this type from 2006 to 2008, according to prosecutors.

In 2009, the Kistners allegedly switched over to short sale fraud. A co-conspirator would allegedly approach homeowners who were behind on their mortgages, offering to buy the home in a short sale. The same co-conspirator would then negotiate with the lender for a short sale, representing that he was acting on behalf of investors-- disguising the fact that he was in fact the purchaser. The actual purchaser in these transactions was allegedly a sham "investor trust" set up by and under the control of the Kistners. The Kistners would typically put up half the money for these transactions and the unnamed co-conspirator put up the other half. There was often already a prearranged buyer for the property at a higher price. This buyer was often deceived into believing that he was buying the property directly from the distressed homeowner.

Deborah Kistner, through her title company, allegedly prepared the documents for these transactions, hiding from lenders the true nature of these transactions, including her involvement in the investor trust and the fact that there were buyers willing to pay more than the arranged short sale price at the time of the short sale. The Kistners and their co-conspirators allegedly pocketed the difference in price between the fraudulent short sale and the sale to the pre-arranged buyer, laundering the profits through bank accounts controlled by Mark Kistner. Using this recipe, the Kistners and their co-conspirators repeated short sale frauds at least four times in 2009 and 2010, according to prosecutors.