Canino is going to prison-Gerard Canino was the president and owner of a mortgage brokerage firm based in Long Island, New York

First Class Equities Was A First Class Mortgage Fraud, Owner Admits | Financial Fraud Law:

'via Blog this'Gerard Canino was the president and owner of a mortgage brokerage firm based in Long Island, New York, with a classy name: First Class Equities. Unfortunately, the firm did not live up to that name, and now Canino is going to prison. He has pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and bank fraud in connection with a $66 million mortgage fraud scheme. 

Prosecutors say that from 2004 to 2009, Canino and his firm engaged in a massive mortgage fraud scheme that recruited “straw buyers” – individuals who posed as home buyers but had no intention of living in, or paying for, the mortgaged properties – to purchase homes from willing sellers, many of whom were in financial distress. Canino and his co-conspirators often paid the straw buyers for their participation in the scheme, according to court documents. At Canino’s direction, loan officers at First Class Equities submitted applications to banks and lenders on behalf of the straw buyers that made fraudulent representations about their net worth, employment, and income, the government asserts. Moreover, the government alleged, they also fraudulently stated that the sham buyers planned to live in the properties for which the mortgage applications were made. After approving the loans, the lenders sent the mortgage proceeds to their attorneys, including several who allegedly were participants in the scheme. These attorneys allegedly submitted false statements to the lenders about how they were distributing the loan proceeds and then, the government contends, they made huge illicit payments, typically totaling tens of thousands of dollars or more per transaction, from the loan proceeds to members of the conspiracy.