More Fall Out from WaMU / Long Beach Fraud

United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced on April 19th that United States District Judge William B. Shubb handed down a sentence of twenty one months in prison, one year of supervised release and an order to pay restitution over one million dollars to William T. Bridge.

Mr. Bridge, age 43 from Cambria, California pleaded guilty in June of 2008 to filing fraudulent tax returns and receiving kickbacks in connection to real estate deals. The kickbacks came from John Ngo. Mr. Ngo was a Long Beach Mortgage employee. Long Beach Mortgage was a subsidiary of Washington Mutual Corporation.

Assistant United States Attorney Laurel Loomis Rimon prosecuted the case and according to court documents Mr. Bridge between the years of 2003 and 2006 failed to report more than three million dollars of earnings to the Internal Revenue Service. The earnings he failed to report were from his work as a Real Estate Mortgage Broker doing business as The Loan Center based in San Francisco. The tax returns that he filed only report the compensation that he earned as yield spread premium that was reported to lending institutions themselves and not the amount to the Internal Revenue Service. He failed to report the full commission.

Mr. Bridge also received kickbacks from John Ngo as compensation for processing what he knew were fraudulent mortgage applications on residential properties located in Sacramento and Stockton, California.

Mr. Ngo pleaded guilty to perjury on December 17, 2007. He admitted that he lied to the Grand Jury about the kickbacks. Mr. Ngo is scheduled to be sentenced on August 9, 2010.

Mr. Bridge’s brother Paul Bridge who also worked as a Loan Broker for The Loan Center was also charged with receiving kickbacks. He pleaded guilty on June 16, 2008. Paul Bridge is scheduled to be sentenced on August 26, 2010.

Joel Branford, a former Account Executive for Long Beach Mortgage was charged with mail fraud in regard to the submission of fraudulent loan applications. Mr. Blanford has not admitted any wrong doing and his case is schedule to go to trial on June, 15, 2010.

The case has been the work of the Interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force that was initiated by President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

The task force includes representatives from a wide range of agencies.


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