Real Estate Lawyer 'Stacked' Mortgages on Family Homes, Prosecutor Says
A former Massachusetts real estate lawyer and title company agent has pleaded guilty to criminal charges concerning what a prosecutor says was a “mortgage stacking” scheme in which he obtained new mortgages on family homes without paying off the old ones. Meanwhile, a Massachusetts real estate lawyer has been indicted in another alleged scheme.
Kevin Carey, 49, will be sentenced in November in Bristol Superior Court on the eight larceny counts and seven counts of willfully making a false statement regarding financial condition to which he pleaded guilty, reports the office of State Attorney General Martha Coakley in a press release.
Although lenders had title insurance, the title insurers lost $2 million, the release states. It says the multiple mortgages on one property came to light during a Fannie Mae database search, which triggered a notification to one lender. Allegedly, the scheme involved one to three additional mortgages that were “stacked” between 2002 and 2004 on four properties owned by Carey or family members
Lenders didn’t immediately realize there was a problem, because the mortgage payments were timely made.
Meanwhile, another Massachusetts real estate lawyer was among four individuals indicted last week in an apparently unrelated case involving an alleged scheme to defraud homeowners and mortgage lenders by extracting “apparent” equity from distressed property in Worcester County, reports the Boston Business Journal.
Attorney Raymond Desautels III, 43, was charged with inducing a lender to part with property, the publication reports. He and the three other defendants were indicted by a Worcester grand jury last week following a 24-month investigation by Coakley’s office.
Neither the press release nor the Boston Business Journal article includes any comment from the defendants or their counsel.
It appears from an ABAJournal.com search of the Massachusetts Bar of Board Overseers website that Desautels, like Carey, is no longer in practice.
Hat tip: Wicked Local Somerville (Somerville Journal).
