Former Alabama Real Estate Investor Indicted for Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud | WPN World People News

A federal grand jury in Mobile, Ala., returned a one-count indictment against a former real estate investor, charging him with conspiracy to commit mail fraud as part of a scheme related to public real estate foreclosure auctions held in southern Alabama, the Department of Justice announced.

The indictment, returned on March 27, 2014, and entered in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, charges former real estate investor Chad E. Foster, of Theodore, Ala., with conspiracy to commit mail fraud affecting a financial institution. The department alleged that the scheme defrauded financial institutions, homeowners and others with a legal interest in selected foreclosure properties, for the unlawful purpose of obtaining money and property through fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises.

The indictment charges Foster with conspiring with others to, among other things, conduct secret, second auctions open only to members of the conspiracy, to make payoffs to and receive payoffs from co-conspirators and to divert money away from financial institutions, homeowners and others with a legal interest in selected properties. Several financial institutions suffered actual monetary losses as a result of the conspiracy. According to the charge, Foster participated in the mail fraud conspiracy beginning at least as early as February 2005 and continuing until at least January 2007.

“Conspiring to defraud financial institutions and distressed homeowners is a crime the Antitrust Division takes seriously,” said Bill Baer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “The division will vigorously prosecute those who subvert the competitive process for their own gains.”

“The public demands that the integrity of our nation’s financial institutions and processes be free from fraud and deceit,” said Stephen E. Richardson, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Mobile Field Office. “These indictments in this investigation reflect the FBI’s unwavering commitment to protecting the citizen’s reliance on those processes.”

To date, nine individuals and two companies have pleaded guilty in connection with the department’s ongoing investigation into bid rigging and fraudulent schemes in the Alabama real estate foreclosure auction industry.

The charge of conspiracy to commit mail fraud affecting a financial institution carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release, and a $1 million fine.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice