Country Club Hills Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Mortgage Fraud

CHICAGO—A Country Club Hills man was sentenced today to 20 years in federal prison in one of the largest federal mortgage fraud prosecutions ever in Chicago. The defendant, Bobbie L. Brown, Jr., 47, pled guilty last year to charges in two separate indictments, each alleging of mail, wire, and bank fraud. U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall imposed the 20-year prison term and ordered Brown to pay restitution in excess of $32 million and to forfeit in excess of $24 million at a hearing today in federal court.

The sentence was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Thomas P. Brady, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to the first indictment, Brown, who operated several businesses, including Chicago Global Investments, Inc., B&M Customs Homes, Inc., Brown Trucking, Inc., and World Wide Investments, Inc., and 20 co-defendants were charged with fraudulently obtaining more than $95 million in loan proceeds from lenders for themselves and others. The victim lenders incurred losses totally approximately $24 million on the defaulted loans. The residences that were the subject of the alleged fraud scheme were located in various Chicago suburbs, including Country Club Hills, Flossmoor, Frankfort, Mokena, Woodridge, Elmhurst, Lemont, Orland Park, Addison, Homewood, Naperville, and Aurora.

The second indictment alleged that between August 2006 and April 2007, Brown and 12 co-defendants fraudulently obtained approximately 32 home mortgage loans in this case on homes in Nevada and California, from which they obtained more than $16 million in loan proceeds. The victim lenders incurred losses totaling approximately $7 million on the defaulted loans.

In the Chicago scheme, 14 of the 21 defendants have been sentenced and the sentences ranged from probation to 66 months in custody in the Bureau of Prisons. The remaining seven defendants are scheduled for trial in June, 2011. Ten of the 13 defendants have been sentenced in the Nevada scheme, with sentences ranging from six to 45 months in custody in the Bureau of Prisons. The remaining three defendants in that case have pled guilty and are scheduled to be sentenced at a later date.

The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel May and Erika Csicsila.