CONNECTICUT
More than 1,000 homeowners who had problems making mortgage payments believed that Ari Maleki and others could help them. The homeowners paid between $2,500 to $4,300 to get their mortgage payments reduced but ended up getting ripped off by Maleki’s California-based companies.
More than 1,000 homeowners, who suffered losses totaling more than $3 million, were duped by this scam, officials said.
The ringleader Maleki, 33, of Santa Ana, California, plead guilty today to conspiring to defraud homeowners across the U.S. who were seeking reductions of their mortgage payments with extremely favorable terms, according to officials.
The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in federal court in Bridgeport.
Maleki used many business names: “First Choice Financial Group, Inc.,” “First Choice Financial,” “First Choice Debt,” “Legal Modification Firm,” “National Freedom Group,” “Home Care Alliance Group,” “Home Protection Firm,” “Hardship Center,” “Network Solutions Center, Inc.,” “Premiere Financial Center,” “Premiere Financial,” “Rescue Firm,” “International Research Group LLC,” “Hardship Solutions,” “American Loan Center,” “Loan Retention Firm,” “Clear Vision Financial,” “Green Tree Financial Group,” “Green Tree Financial,” “Enigma Fund, Inc.,” “National Aid Group,” “Southern Chapman Group LLC,” “Save Point Financial,” “Best Rate Financial Solutions,” “Best Rate Financial Solution,” “Best Rate Financial,” “Best Rate Finance Group,” “Nation Star Financial,” and “Nation Star Fin Group.”
To get homeowners to pay the thousands of dollars in fees, the defendants made the following false representations:
- That the homeowners already had been approved for mortgage loan modifications on extremely favorable terms
- That the mortgage loan modifications already had been negotiated with the homeowners’ lenders
- That homeowners qualified for and would receive financial assistance under various government mortgage relief programs, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the Home Affordable Modification Program
- If for some reason the mortgage loan modifications fell through, the homeowners would be entitled to a full refund of their fees.
But homeowners had not been preapproved for mortgage loan modifications with lenders, mortgage loan modifications had not been negotiated with the lenders, homeowners had not qualified for and did not receive any financial assistance through government mortgage relief programs, and homeowners did not receive a refund of their fees upon request.
Few homeowners ever received any type of mortgage loan modification through the defendants’ companies, and few homeowners received refunds of their fees.
Participants in the scheme used pseudonyms and periodically changed their business and operating names to evade detection.
The defendants also directed homeowners to mail their checks to addresses and mail boxes that the defendants and their co-conspirators had set up in states other than California.
On January 21, 2016, a grand jury in New Haven returned an indictment charging Maleki and six other California residents with conspiracy and fraud offenses related to this scheme. The defendants were arrested on Jan. 26.
Maleki plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, an offense that carries up to 20 years in prison. He also has agreed to pay restitution of about $3 million. Sentencing is scheduled for June 14.
Maleki also has agreed to forfeit approximately $350,000 that investigators seized from various bank accounts, about $362,000 sized from a Bitcoin account, a $100,000 cashier’s check, and a 2013 Ferrari 458 Italia.
Three other defendants, Mehdi Moarefian, a.k.a. “Michael Miller,” 36, and Daniel Shiau, a.k.a. “Scott Decker,” 30, both of Irvine, Calif., and Serj Geutssoyan, also known as “Anthony Kirk,” 33, of Santa Ana, Calif., previously plead guilty to the same charge and await sentencing