Today the Chronicle reported that a Houston man was recently convicted of mortgage fraud and received a 15 years sentence.
Clarence Lewis III, 46, of Houston, was sentenced to 15 years Monday. He also must pay restitution in an amount to be entered early next year and serve three years of supervised release.
Federal authorities said Lewis was convicted May 13 of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud following a bench trial before Judge Lynn N. Hughes.
Lewis, who held a mortgage broker’s license and real estate broker’s license, garnered more than $12 million in fraudulent residential mortgage loans during the five-year scam, which began in 2002, federal officials said.
Lewis operated under the entities Motown Mortgage Group and Lewis and Associates Realtors.
He also used an assumed name business – Astro Construction – to extract loan proceeds from real estate closings. The loans on the majority of the properties fell into default and the properties were foreclosed.
It has been rumored that Texas will try to stop Real Estate Brokers from originating loans or Mortgage Brokers from selling real estate. There are too many conflicts of interest between roles and there are no checks which makes this type of fraud easy to commit. Fraud like this was rampant between 2005-2008 and I am sure we will hear about more convictions as these cases play out.
