Sentencing in Mortgage Fraud Case
Defendant Fined for Causing False Documents to be Submitted to Lender

ALBANY—United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian and Clifford C. Holly, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Albany Division, announced that Michael J. Pallozzi was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy to three years’ probation, with conditions including a fine of $5,000 and 100 hours community service, based upon the defendant’s plea to one count of wire fraud in connection with the submission of false documents to help secure the refinancing of a residential property located in Latham, New York.

Pallozzi, age 34, of Clifton Park, had admitted at the time of his plea in substance that, in or about March 2008, while employed as a mortgage broker and manager of the Waterford, New York branch of Advantage Mortgage, he caused the transmission by wire communication from the state and Northern District of New York to Equifirst, in the state of North Carolina, of materially false information and documents falsely reflecting the satisfaction of a secondary mortgage and inflating the income of the borrower in support of an application for a refinance loan for property located at 191 Maxwell Road, in Latham. As a result, the financing institution issued a refinance loan in the amount of approximately $372,300, and paid a gross commission of $9,100 on the transaction.

The case was investigated by the Albany Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York.

Contact:
Deputy Criminal Chief AUSA William C. Pericak, or Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert P. Storch, both at (518) 431-0247