MN man pleads guilty in Mortgage fraud Case

Thomas John Hunter, age 30 pleaded guilty on March 3rd to mortgage fraud for his part in a mortgage scheme that used inflated income and inflated appraisals on properties that were claimed to be owner occupied.

Court documents reveal that the scheme ran between 2005 and 2007. The conspirators used straw buyers to purchase the homes involved.

Mr. Hunter was a co-owner of Legacy Lending along with Frederick Earle Dean, age 30. Mr. Dean was scheduled for sentencing for his involvement on March 5th of this year. Mr. Dean according to court documents was the loan officer for a majority of the mortgage transactions and has pleaded guilty last summer to wire fraud and tax evasion.

Mr. Hunter was involved in over thirty seven transactions that generated over twenty million dollars in loan proceeds. Two million two hundred thousand dollars of those proceeds directly went to Hunter and his co-conspirators. Mr. Hunter for his part pleaded guilty to a home in Rogers, MN that was purchased in April of 2006. The property was financed for eight hundred twenty five thousand dollars and the conspirators obtained over one hundred ten thousand dollars from the sale.

Mr. Hunter is facing a sentence in regard to wire fraud that carries a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison and money laundering that carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.

The informant in case appears to be Taylor Trump who was sentenced in August of 2008 for his involvement in the conspiracy. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison and his plea agreement was sealed.