Six counts of indictments were filed against an official and some employees of MTC Real Estate Inc. for fraudulent mortgage and Bank Owned Foreclosure Listings rescue activity. Indicted are Lavette M. Bills, chief executive officer of MTC and employees Omar Henry, Kirk Lacey and Peter Chevere.

The indictment were filed by Acting U.S. Attorney (Southern District of New York) Lev L. Dassin, Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Assistant Director-in-Charge (New York Field Division) Joseph M. Demarest Jr. and Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Secret Service Brian G. Parr.

The four were charged with perpetrating a mortgage fraud activity involving more than $3 million loans on six different homes. Criminal complaints were previously filed on Bills and Lacey before a federal court in Manhattan. Meanwhile, both Henry and Chevere surrendered voluntarily to authorities in relation to the alleged fraudulent mortgage and foreclosure prevention activity.

Based on the case filed with a federal court in Manhattan, Lacey, Chevere and Henry were all employees at MTC from 2008 to March 2009. Bills reportedly targeted delinquent homeowners who are facing the possibility of foreclosures. Through radio advertisements and programs, Bills would represent herself as a foreclosure prevention specialist who has the knowledge and capability to help troubled borrowers remain in their properties and save their homes from foreclosures.

Once distressed homeowners made contact with Bills and Lacey, the two would convince unsuspecting borrowers to transfer or sell their at risk foreclosed homes to them or to NNI LLC, the company that Bills control. The deal of selling or transferring the delinquent repo properties would be done through short sale.

Short sale involves selling distressed properties, usually with the agreement of the lender, for less than the total amount owed by homeowners on their loans. Bills would convince the homeowner to place her name on the equity and title of the property by making a promise that she would return and transfer the house to the homeowner.

What the homeowner did not know was that Bills and her co-conspirators would sell the distressed property themselves at a higher price. As a result of their Bank Foreclosure Listings fraudulent activity, Bills and her group earned huge profits, homeowners lost the titles to their properties and lending institutions suffered losses.