Appraiser facing Sentencing in more than 80 cases of Mortgage Fraud

Last August a federal jury convicted Lila Marie Risk, from Trabuco Canyon of conspiracy, bank fraud and several counts of loan fraud involving a scheme that used inflated appraisals to defraud mortgage institutions. The inflated appraisals were used to purchase and refinance properties in California’s most expensive neighborhoods.

Prosecutors in the case are recommending to the court that Ms. Rizk, age 42, receive a sentence not less than nine years for her actions according to court documents filed in the United States District Court in Los Angeles.

Ms. Rizk used her position as an appraiser to defraud lending institutions and therefore according to prosecutors abused and breached her duties as a licensed certified real estate appraiser. She assisted in enabling the masterminds of this mortgage fraud scheme to steal over forty million dollars in funds from those lenders that relied on her appraisals to lend against the properties involved.

The properties involved are located in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Malibu, Carmel, Mill Valley, Pebble Beach and La Jolla. Conspirators in this mortgage scheme submitted fraudulent documentation including inflated appraisal to mortgage lenders to purchase homes in affluent neighborhoods. The conspirators willing set out to deceive the lending institutions and thus cause over forty million dollars in financial losses.

Lehman Brothers one of the mortgage lending institutions involved funded over eighty mortgage loans between 2000 and 2003 causing the lender millions in losses.

Prosecutors in the case have received guilty pleas for eight other individuals charged in the case. Those individuals are serving sentences that range from probation to upward of fourteen years in federal prison.