Missouri Residential Real Estate Lawyers

Real Estate Investor Pleads Guilty To $17.5 Million Mortgage Fraud

 Bradley J. Schlozman, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Kansas City, Mo., real estate investor pleaded guilty in federal court today to a $17.5 million mortgage fraud scheme that involved 280 residential properties.

Jeffrey Tyler Wine, 28, of Kansas City, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty before U.S. Chief District Judge Dean Whipple this morning to a federal information that charges him with mortgage fraud conspiracy and money laundering.

"Not only were dozens of financial institutions directly victimized," Schlozman said, "but this type of fraud scheme ultimately impacts all consumers. When unscrupulous individuals lie on loan applications and misrepresent the condition of properties, they undermine the integrity of the real estate market and the local economy suffers as a result. We will prosecute criminals who steal with the stroke of a pen as aggressively as we prosecute those who carry a gun."

By pleading guilty today, Wine admitted that, from November 2001 to May 2005, he conspired with others to defraud mortgage lenders by inducing them to loan victim-investors $17,558,440 to purchase 280 residential properties. Wine was in the business of purchasing, rehabilitating, managing and selling residential properties in the metropolitan area through various business entities that he created and operated, including Sunrise Equities, Inc.; Sunrise Assets, LLC; Sunrise Investments Holdings, LLC; Brooklyn Properties, LLC; Arsenal Investments, LLC; sunrise St. Louis, LLC; Woodland Properties and Larch Investments. Read more at fbi.gov

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