Loan Fraud: Don’t Do the Crime and you Wont Do any Time

Loan sharks and fraud are pretty much a thing of the past in this industry I would say for the most part.

There used to be agents everywhere creating false fraudulent documents but the penalties are just too crazy now.

Don’t do the crime and you won’t do the time.

This guy is one of the few hi profile lending officers to recently plead guilty and is now facing 10 to 14 years in prison!

10 TO 14 YEARS!!!

A Puyallup banker whose prodigious generation of home loan applications made him one of the nation’s top mortgage loan originators during the housing bubble told a federal judge Tuesday that many of the loans were based on false information.

Shawn L. Portmann, 40, pleaded guilty to two federal charges of conspiracy to submit false loan applications and submitting false statements to a financial institution to obtain a loan.

Under a plea deal negotiated between his attorneys and federal prosecutors, the government dismissed 28 other charges and agreed to recommend a sentencing range of 10 to 14 years in prison for Portmann. Under that bargain, Portmann must make yet undetermined restitution for his financial crimes and forfeit all ill-gotten gains from his false representations. His sentencing is set for Jan. 28.

The ultimate failure of dozens of those loans led to the demise of Tacoma’s Pierce Commercial Bank under a mountain of millions of dollars in defaulted debt.

The former senior vice president at Pierce Commercial Bank, speaking in a voice tinged by laryngitis, told Tacoma U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle that he had fabricated employment, financial and housing records to ensure that loans would be funded.