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St Paul women charged in $5 Mil Mortgage Fraud

St Paul, MN: A 29-year-old St. Paul woman has been charged with participating in a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders out of more than $5 million. Lindsey Rae Loyear was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud.

Loyear allegedly conspired with two others from 2006 through October of 2008, to defraud mortgage lenders in connection with financing real estate transactions in the Twin Cities, including the purchase of Cloud 9 Sky Flats in Minnetonka, MN. The fraud reportedly involved the submission of false information to lenders in order to obtain mortgage loans.

Loyear was a real estate agent and mortgage broker. Loyear allegedly concealed information from potential lenders, including that she had arranged short-term loans to buyers to use as down payment and that she paid cash kickbacks to buyers for purchasing the properties. Altogether, more than 130 units were sold through the scheme, and more than $8 million was transferred to accounts, which were then used to pay kickbacks and share loan proceeds among co-conspirators.

If convicted, Loyear faces a potential maximum penalty of five years in prison. This case is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

Many of these fraud convictions appearing today were for crimes done during the height of the mortgage boom (2004 – 2007).  Tighter mortgage lending rules and regulations in place today make most, if not all of these scams nearly impossible to pull off today.

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