Couple receives 10 Years for Bank Fraud

Terrance Tucker, age 65 and Sonya Tucker, aka Cheri Tucker, age 65 have been sentenced to ten years in prison for bank fraud and five years of probation. The couple was live in Thousand Oaks, California pleaded guilty to two counts each of bank fraud.

The United States District Court Judge, Manuel L. Real in his sentencing referred to Terrance and Sonya Tucker as financial predators that preyed on elderly victims and that the couples were a danger to society based on their crime.

The couple falsified the source of down payments on mortgage loans they submitted for borrowers they represented. The down payments on the mortgage loans came from hard money loans that were funded by investors. Investors involved many of whom are elderly lost all their savings in the scheme. The borrowers who received the hard money loans for the down payments on their mortgages were largely unaware that their down payment was borrowed. The borrower only became aware that their down payments were borrowed funds when they began making mortgage payments. The borrowers were left with not only making their mortgage payments but making payments on the down payment loans.

Court documents reveal that the Tuckers often encouraged the homeowners to process home equity lines of credit in order to pay off the hard money down payment loans.