The Middle District of Florida has charged a Kissimmee couple for their role in an elaborate mortgage fraud scheme.
The court announced this week the return by a grand jury of an indictment charging Maria Del Carmen Montes, 46, with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, four counts of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Montes’ husband, Carlos Ferrer, 45, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and three counts of bank fraud.
If convicted, each faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison on the conspiracy count and up to 30 years for each fraud count.
Two of the four fraud accounts refer to loans for properties in St. Cloud and Champions Gate.
According to the indictment, from August 2017 to March 2021, Montes and Ferrer executed a mortgage fraud scheme targeting loan-issuing financial institutions. To ensure that otherwise unqualified borrowers she was representing as a licensed Realtor were approved for mortgage loans, the United States Attorney’s Office asserts Montes created fictitious and fraudulent paystubs and IRS Form W-2s in the names of companies for whom her clients had never worked. The bogus income documents falsely indicated that her clients had worked at these companies, including companies formed and controlled by Ferrer, for a certain period of time and earned income that they did not.
Montes submitted the fictitious paystubs and W-2s she created to financial institutions, who used them in making underwriting decisions, the court said. Additionally, Montes used her clients’ personally identifying information on these documents without their knowledge or authorization.
To further deceive the mortgage lenders, Montes and Ferrer recruited a co-conspirator working at a transportation company listed on certain false paystubs and W-2s to falsely certify Verifications of Employment sent by the financial institutions and instructed the co-conspirator to lie to the final institutions when they called to further verify the borrower’s employment. Ferrer and Montes sent the false and fictitious paystubs and W-2s to the co-conspirator so the co-conspirator could put the false information on the VOEs before certifying, signing, and returning them to the financial institutions.
Ferrer also falsely certified and emailed VOEs sent by the financial institution in the names of borrowers that he knew did not work for his companies, and lied to the banks during verbal VOE checks. Based on Montes’ and Ferrer’s misrepresentations, financial institutions approved and funded the mortgage loans.
