Easton Man Involved in Mortgage Fraud Scheme Sentenced to Federal Prison
| U.S. Attorney’s Office April 09, 2013 |
The United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut announced that Fred Stevens, 56, of Easton, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Janet C. Hall in New Haven to 12 months and one day of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in a Fairfield County mortgage fraud scheme. Stevens also was ordered to serve three months in home confinement after his release from prison and to pay a $7,500 fine.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Stevens, a mortgage broker based in Westport, participated in a mortgage fraud scheme with William A. Trudeau, Jr. and others. As part of the scheme, Trudeau and his co-conspirators submitted false mortgage loan applications to financial institutions to obtain mortgages on various properties in Fairfield County in order to develop and sell the properties for profit and to pay off debts owed to “hard money” lenders from whom they had previously obtained high interest loans. The mortgage applications, which included false income information and omitted the mortgage applicants’ true indebtedness, caused the financial institutions to issue mortgage loans on properties that Trudeau and his co-conspirators would not have otherwise been qualified to purchase, allowing the applicants to qualify for mortgages that far exceeded their ability to repay the loans.
Stevens submitted eight fraudulent mortgage applications on behalf of Trudeau and others in exchange for $130,142.38 in fees, and mortgage lenders lost approximately $2 million as a result of this scheme.
Stevens has been ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $2,070,000.
On November 25, 2008, Stevens pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud.
Stevens testified extensively at Trudeau’s trial. On October 9, 2012, a jury found Trudeau guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud. On February 12, 2013, he was sentenced to 188 months of imprisonment.
This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Rahul Kale and Christopher Schmeisser.