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Leader in Mahoning Valley mortgage fraud case to be sentenced
youngstown
The man accused of leading a complex mortgage-fraud scheme that involved more than $7.5 million in mortgage loans will be sentenced July 6.
Attorneys for Romero Minor of Macon, Ga., filed a motion Friday to continue his sentencing.
Minor is one of seven people indicted last August on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 48 counts of wire fraud, one for each of the Mahoning Valley houses involved, most of which went into foreclosure.
The other defendants were Timothy Corey of Youngstown; William Helbley of Poland; Wendell Kerr of Gautier, Miss.; Robert Lunsford of Hubbard; Damon Petrich of Boardman; and Michael Wagner of Canfield.
Loan officers Roy R. Root of Warren and Dwayne Townsend of Youngstown were charged only with the conspiracy count.
Root was with Keyrock Financial, and Townsend was with Gerspacher Mortgage during the conspiracy.
Court papers indicate that seven out-of-state victim companies suffered a combined loss of more than $1 million during the conspiracy, which operated between July 2003 and January 2006.
Minor pleaded guilty to all 49 counts of the indictment. He could face a maximum sentence of a five-year imprisonment on count one and a statutory fine of $250,000 and for counts 2-49, a maximum imprisonment for 20 years and statutory fine of $250,000.
He was arrested June 3 in Macon by U.S. marshals on charges relating to outstanding warrants from Michigan.
Plea agreements show that the scheme was orchestrated primarily by Minor. According to Minor’s plea agreement, Minor pretended to be a minister and operated the religious groups Minor Ministries and an investment group identified as BFB Investments, LLC — which stood for “Big Financial Blessings.”
He approached investors and said he was helping people with poor credit obtain housing by providing a purchaser with good credit. The person with good credit would purchase the houses and enable the person with bad credit to pay rent for a year, boosting their credit, and then purchase the property, he claimed. Minor told investors he would pay them for helping in this process and that he would collect rent and maintain the properties.
Court documents state that Corey and Petrick provided falsely inflated appraisals and that Minor kept excess funds created by the inflated appraisals and used part of the money as kickback payments to investors and co-conspirators.
Minor also had help from mortgage brokers such as Root, Townsend and Lundsford by offering them “under the table” cash incentives to prepare and submit mortgage-loan applications to lenders with false information to fraudulently secure mortgage loans for properties.
Minor used Helbley and Wagner to act as the title agents on the various fraudulent transactions, and the two prepared settlement statements, or HUD-1s, that made it appear Minor was entitled to loan proceeds for work done on properties. But Minor had not done such work and “had no legitimate reason to receive any of the mortgage-loan funds from the title agencies,” according to records.
Minor told Root, Townsend, Lunsford, Helbley and Wagner that he was the one actually providing funds for the down payments and closing costs — and on some occasions, Minor forged the signature of the investor on the loan application, documents state.
The result was a loss to the lenders of more than $1 million.
Root and Townsend have pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and were scheduled to be sentenced June 8, but that hearing was continued.
Documents filed June 14 state Lunsford pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay a total of $235,173 in restitution to Argent Mortgage in Santa Ana, Calif.; BNC, Aurora Loan Services in Littleton, Colo.; and New Century in Woodmere, N.Y.
A week earlier, Petrich had entered a similar plea agreement and given three years’ probation and ordered to pay $337,980 restitution to Argent Mortgage. The other charges against Lunsford and Petrich were dropped.
In April, Helbley, Wagner and Corey pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and they will be sentenced July 6. The other charges were dropped.
Last month, Kerr pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was expected to be sentenced Tuesday but died June 2 in Jackson County, Miss.