By Shawn Hogendorf

Staff Writer

The crime of mortgage fraud continues to be a priority with the United State’s Attorney’s Office as the first defendant in the LHS mortgage-fraud case, involving a Prior Lake woman, a Credit River Township man and a Minneapolis man was sentenced in federal court today in Minneapolis.

Mario Augustin Lewis, 37, of Minneapolis was sentenced to serve four-and-a-half years in prison and ordered to pay $437,814.41 in restitution by U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim.

Lewis pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering in connection with a mortgage-fraud scheme involving Ronald Joseph of Credit River Township, Jill Lehn of Prior Lake and Isadore Stewart.

Lewis also pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premise in connection with a marijuana growing operation that was discovered in one of the houses Lewis purchased as part of the scheme, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Lewis was an employee of LHS, Inc. Lewis admitted that between 2004 and 2006, he received more than $400,000 in concealed payments as a result of real-estate transactions, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The mortgage scheme involved fraudulent loan applications that misrepresented the terms of the proposed transactions by overstating property purchase prices, among other things.

Joseph, an owner of LHS, Inc., Lehn, a closing agent and Stewart have all pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, between 2004 and 2006, the scheme involved about 40 separate real-estate transactions in which lenders were provided with fraudulent loan applications on behalf of the buyer.

Among other things, the fraudulent loan applications misrepresented the terms of the proposed real-estate transactions by overstating the actual property price and concealing payments that were made from the loan proceeds to the buyers and other individuals.

After the loans were approved based on false documentation, loans proceeds were provided to a title company.

The conspirators then worked with Lehn as a closing agent to disperse some of the proceeds to the property buyer and other third parties including Joseph and Lewis.

In total, the real-estate transactions were worth about $18 million in loan proceeds and produced about $3 million in fraudulent, concealed payments.

The mortgage-fraud scheme was initially uncovered based on a drug investigation by the West Metro Task Force that found the marijuana grow operation at one of the houses Lewis purchased through the scheme.

The case was a result of an investigation by the Federal Mortgage Fraud Task Force, including the IRS-Criminal Investigation Division. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Joe Dixon.

Shawn Hogendorf can be reached at (952) 345-6374 or shogendorf@swpub.com.