Woman pleads guilty to tax fraud in lake mortgage scheme

By: CHRIS DUMOND | The News & Advance
Published: April 24, 2012

A fourth member of an $11 million mortgage fraud scheme pleaded guilty to related tax fraud in federal court in Lynchburg Tuesday.

Anita Myers, 52, of Moneta, pleaded guilty to filing a false 2007 tax return, leaving out more than $18,000 she made from participating in the mortgage fraud scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

In earlier cases, prosecutors have said principals at SB Mortgage Consultants and Genesis Mansions Ltd. would find straw buyers with good credit to apply for construction and home loans. Those principals would then falsify loan applications in order to qualify buyers like Myers for larger loans than they could afford.

Buyers would get a $5,000 up-front payment, prosecutors said, and were promised 10 percent of the proceeds when the homes sold to real buyers. Prosecutors said the members of the conspiracy at Genesis Mansions and SB Mortgage used the scheme to build houses they otherwise couldn’t have financed.

Prosecutors say Myers failed to report $300 to $400 she earned per week at Genesis Mansions and her $5,000 payment.

She is free on an unsecured $5,000 bond pending sentencing July 24.

Timothy Scott Brooks of Lynchburg and Adam Spruill of Forest, owners of SB Mortgage Consultants, were each sentenced in September to three years in prison and ordered to pay $11.1 million in restitution. Kevin Scott Wiebe, Spruill and Brooks’ office manager, pleaded guilty last month to submitting a falsified mortgage application as a straw buyer. His sentencing is set for June 8.

Slummin'

Wednesday, April 25, 2012