Virginia Man Sentence to 20 years for Mortgage Fraud

United States District Judge Robert G. Doumar sentenced Richard N. Garries, 45 to twenty years in federal prison for charges stemming from mortgage fraud. Mr. Garries was also order to pay restitution in the amount of nine hundred thousand dollars. He was charged with all twenty-four counts against him. The charges include wire fraud, money laundering, and mail fraud, concealing transactions and making fraudulent statements.

The Assistant United States Attorney Brian J Samuels requested the judge for a stiffer sentence. He noted Mr. Garries past felony conviction for wire fraud. Mr. Samuels want the judge to take into consideration that Mr. Garries was on probation while he committed these last crimes and therefore the court should not have leniency. Mr. Samuels stated that Mr. Garrie preys on the public and will always use deception to fraud individuals. He believes that Mr. Garrie’s prior incarceration and rehabilitation did little to deter him from continuing his predator behaviour.

Mr. Garrie’s Lawyer, Stephen A. Hudgins was not pleased with the sentence. He believes his client should not be receiving the same length of prison time that a gun-toting criminal receives; yet his client is facing the same length of time a murder would receive. He also noted that a large portion of the one million dollar in losses that were incurred because of the financial institutions. The way the financial institutions set up their system of operation allowed for these types of loans and thus tempted his client to commit fraud.

Mr. Garrie operated a home-based mortgage brokerage company called Security First. He inflated income and bank accounts on mortgage loan applications in order to qualify the borrowers involved. He also forged documents and often cut and pasted signatures in order to present the best possible picture to financial institutions.

Mr. Garrie stated on one mortgage application that the borrowers monthly income was six thousand three hundred dollars when in fact the borrowers income was far less; two thousand four hundred dollars monthly.  He also forged 401K statements in another case to make it appear to the mortgage lender that the couple had more assets than what they truly had.

Mr. Garrie commission on the loans was over one hundred eighty thousand dollars of which he has spent and then continued to make fraudulent loans.

Mr. Garrie in addition used his daughter to make deposits of less than ten thousand dollars into different bank accounts in order to evade detection. His daughter was unaware this activity was fraudulent in nature.

The charges against Mr. Garrie came in May of 2008 when the Justice Department Operation Malicious Mortgage crackdown on mortgage fraud. The crackdown has charged over four hundred defendants nationwide since its inception.