St. Pete Mortgage Closer to Plead Guilty to Fraud

As expected, Tampa Bay area mortgage fraud prosecutions continue to accumulate in federal court. Last week, a St. Petersburg mortgage company employee agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud.

Randy Griffin admitted to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Griffin worked as a real estate closer at Diamond Title and Associates, where he falsified records on at least three closings, according to his plea agreement.

One of the loans was for a property in Miami Beach, which sold for nearly $1.8 million. The lender disbursed almost of $1.4 million on the condition that the borrower (an unidentified co-conspirator with Griffin) put down just over $500,000 of his own money as a down payment at closing. Griffin was also required by the lender to verify that its mortgage was the first and only mortgage lien on the property.

The borrower was, in fact, borrowing the $500,000 down payment, which loan authorized another lien on the property. This loan transaction was not disclosed to the primary lender. And the lender of the smaller amount was not aware of the conditions of the larger mortgage loan.

Ultimately, the unnamed borrower/co-conspirator received cash at the closing(s) instead of making appropriate down payments. And then he defaulted on both loans. Because Griffin was apparently complicit in the deceit, he was charged with fraud.

Prosecutors estimated the amount of money obtained through all three fraudulently authorized loans at more than $5.3 million. Records show the ultimate loss to the lenders to be $1 million to $2.5 million (the properties were ultimately foreclosed upon and resold at a loss).