Finally, it appears some people may start “paying” for the ridiculous amount of fraud that took place in the real estate and mortgage industry over the last few years.
ING Bank, the nation’s second-largest thrift, has filed an unusual racketeering lawsuit in federal court, alleging a criminal conspiracy by a local escrow agent, a mortgage broker and 10 couples to defraud the bank of at least $6 million through falsified mortgages
The bank alleges the conspiracy was led by Bellevue criminal-defense attorney Jacob Korn of Emerald City Escrow, and loan originator Alla Sobol, of Nationwide Home Lending. (It’s not affiliated with Nationwide Lending Corp. or Nationwide Mutual Insurance, large, out-of-state corporations.)
Sobol is listed in state records as the sole officer for Nationwide Home Lending, though it appears she employed others, according to court records.
According to the suit, Korn and Sobol duped the bank into funding loans based on inflated property appraisals and took excessive fees out of those loan proceeds at closing.
In one deal, the bank loaned a borrower $935,000 to buy a Tacoma house for $1.35 million – a house that, according to the real-estate Web site Zillow, is valued higher than 99 percent of homes in its ZIP code. Nationwide Home Lending was paid nearly $30,000 in fees on that loan.
It received a total of nearly $130,000 on all nine loans, according to the suit.
To keep these fraudulently gained fees out of creditors’ reach, Alla Sobol, head of the mortgage brokerage, and David Sobol, an officer of the escrow company, formed a family limited partnership in February 2007, the bank alleges.
Korn, who has denied any wrongdoing, had no comment on the suit.
Leslie Drake, an attorney for the Sobols and Nationwide Home Lending, declined to comment on the allegations.
To make the scheme work, the bank alleges, Korn and Alla Sobol conspired with appraiser Eric Perrigo and his Redmond company, Appraisals Unlimited, to provide inflated property appraisals that would support at least eight of the loans.
Perrigo, who is not yet a named defendant in the racketeering case, was shielded from ING’s lawsuit because he and his wife declared bankruptcy last fall. Last Tuesday, the bankruptcy court gave ING permission to pursue Perrigo in its suit.
Perrigo denied any wrongdoing. He said he was a victim of identity theft, and that a trainee appraiser who worked for him used his electronic signature to certify reports without his knowledge.
The state Department of Licensing, which oversees appraisers, says it has nine open investigations of Perrigo in connection with complaints received in 2007 and 2008.
The state Department of Financial Institutions says it investigated Perrigo’s allegation of identity theft and didn’t find sufficient evidence to take action.
The bank also alleges that on at least three loan applications, Viktor Mokhnach and his auto shop, Euro and Exotic Garage, of Woodinville, provided falsified paperwork to support borrowers’ income and employment statements.
According to the suit, two borrowers were listed separately as financial directors of the auto shop with six-figure incomes. In fact, the bank states, one is a house painter whose income is far lower and the other is a housewife.
Through his attorney, Mokhnach denied any wrongdoing.
