Maryland Woman sentenced in Straw Buyer Scheme

Kara McIntosh from Bethesda, Maryland was sentenced for mail fraud for her part in a mortgage scheme that involved several properties in the District of Columbia and Maryland.

Ms. McIntosh’s plea agreement states that all with her conspirators in 2006 they purchased properties in the District of Columbia and Maryland by recruiting straw buyers. The straw buyers were used to obtain funds from mortgage institutions and they had no intent to live in the properties being purchased. The straw buyers involved in the case on occasion purchase not just one property but several properties at the same time to increase their kickbacks from the purchases.

Ms. McIntosh paid a conspirator to provide false information on mortgage loan applications to assure that the mortgage loan application would be processed and approved by the mortgage lending institutions. The mortgage loan applications were completed with fraudulent income, assets and employment.

Court records reveal that the conspirators were able to fraudulently obtain mortgage loans in the amount of nineteen million twenty one thousand three hundred and sixty six dollars. The properties involved in the mortgage fraud scheme all have gone into foreclosure. Ms. McIntosh for her part received over seven million dollars as a result of her fraud.

Ms. McIntosh has received a sentence of three years in federal prison and three years of probation upon release. She was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of three million three hundred sixty two thousand nine hundred seventy dollars.