Vincentian Lawyer charged in US$2.9 million fraud case

Vincentian lawyer Verbelle Williams is one of three persons charged in a three-count indictment in the United States for their involvement in a real estate fraud operation where US$2.9 million was obtained.{{more}}

Williams, Chuck Osakwe (owner of First Line Enterprises, a mortgage brokerage company) and Onochie Onobogu (who worked at Williams’ law office and at First Line) are facing maximum penalties ranging from 30 years in prison to fines of US$1 million.

The three are charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud.

The defendants are alleged to have executed the scheme by recruiting persons to act as nominal purchasers of properties with the promise of a fee of $5,000 to $15,000 per property.

Mortgage loan applications were then prepared and submitted under the names of these buyers which contained false personal, financial and employment information.

The defendants’ alleged scheme also utilized fraudulent pass through transactions that were not disclosed to the lenders to obtain loans in far greater amounts than they would otherwise have been able to obtain.

These transactions involved structuring the purchase and sale of a mortgaged property so that the property would be sold twice on the same day and would be bought by the defendants at a low price, and then re-sold back to the defendants at a substantially higher price, enabling the defendants to obtain a loan at the higher sale price allowing them (the defendants) to pocket the difference.

The charge alleges that Williams acted at times as the lawyer for the buyers, sellers, lenders, and as the settlement agent at closings while Osakwe, located properties to use in the scheme and recruited straw buyers.

Onobogu is alleged to have acted as a straw buyer in the above-described pass-through transactions.