Oregon loan officer pleads guilty to bank fraud
Friday, October 3, 2008 11:01 AM PDT
PORTLAND (AP) — A real estate loan officer who put together fraudulent mortgage deals has pleaded guilty to bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
Marty Ray Folwick, 50, of Portland is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 8. Prosecutors recommend more than five years in federal prison.
Folwick reportedly made more than 70 fraudulent deals during the housing boom that led to today’s high housing prices. The charges to which Folwick pleaded guilty relate to a single property in Woodburn that he must forfeit as part of the plea agreement.
The indictment alleges that Folwick found buyers for the property and then falsified their loan application by overstating their monthly income, failing to disclose that the buyers had an outstanding mortgage on another property and failing to disclose that Folwick was receiving a $25,000 kickback from the deal. The crisis in the U.S. financial sector has its roots in the unknown number of mortgage applications that were fudged in an effort to give loans to people who lacked the income to pay them back.
Lenders looked the other way in the false belief that house prices would continue to rise and give even the most questionable borrowers the ability to escape by selling their homes.
‘‘This case involves the kind of fraud that is at the very heart of the mortgage crisis,’’ U.S. Attorney Karin J. Immergut said, adding that her office would ‘‘continue to hold accountable those who seek to profit from the mortgage industry through lies and deception.’’
