Daily News and Information for the Professional Real Estate Agent
Bizarre Story of The Month: Broker Uses Dead Peoples' Identities To Obtain Homes and Loans
Thursday, April 26, 2007
- By Staff Writer, National Realty News
DAYTON, OH - Mark D. Musselman, a mortgage broker accused of using the identities of recently deceased people to obtain fraudulent mortgages and steal more than $1.2 million, was convicted of 48 felony counts following a three-week trial.
According to the Dayton Daily News, The case against Mussel centered on 12 property transactions from 2002. All the transactions were made by people later found to have been deceased, prior to the purchases.
Musselman ran Phoenix Funding Inc. His former employee Mark Edwards pleaded guilty to 48 felony counts the week before the two were to go on trial. Edwards testified against his former employer.
Reportedly, Musselman's attorney John Rion told the jury that his client was an innocent dupe of Edwards, who was the mastermind of the scheme.
The events alleged by prosecutors occurred between April 2002 and February 2003, and involve 12 properties. Musselman and Edwards obtained fraudulent mortgage loans for deceased individuals by forging appraisals, loan applications and other documents, according to prosecutors.
The lender for all the loans was Interfirst Mortgage Lenders, owned by ABN AMRO Mortgage. The company lost $1.2 million from the acts of the defendants.
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