Operation "Life is Good 1" and its outcome.

Yesterday we talked about the new Task Force arrests from last Thursday in, today we'll look at the arrests that were made in Operation Life is Good 1. Here are the names of the people that were arrested from the press release:

- Mario Herrera – DOB 07-29-66
- Deborah H. Herrera – DOB 06-27-66
- Diana G. Diaz – DOB 10-01-67
- Luis H. Garcia-Lopez – DOB 07-24-75
- Mari Rodriguez-Triana – DOB 02-24-64
- Raisa Diaz – DOB 12-11-73
- Mario Jesus Lubian – DOB 10-03-61
- Marlene M Norono – DOB 09-08-60
- Sacha Rodriguez – DOB 12-27-80
- Josephine Martinez – DOB 06-09-74
- Andres Leiva-Medina – DOB 02-04-65
- Danny A. Valdes – DOB 08-04-78
- Lashinda Shawtrese Bois Moore – DOB 10-08-78
- Fernando Boix-Lopez - DOB 5-15-62

This group was accused of doing the following (again, from the press release):

"Authorities believe the scheme involved the use of two separate title companies located in Miami-Dade County. The conspiring title agents would prepare fraudulent HUD-1 statements on behalf of the other co-conspirators which would then be provided to the lender. A HUD-1 settlement statement is a document that informs the lender how disbursements will be made after a loan is funded. Many of the HUD-1 statements involved in this case contained fraudulently inflated sales contract prices. For example, a seller might believe his or her property sold for $1.6 million, but a fraudulent HUD-1 statement might reflect the contract sales price for the property as $2.25 million.

Upon receiving the fraudulent HUD-1 statement, the lender would fund the loan believing the property sold for the inflated sales price. The title agent, acting on behalf of the other co-conspirators, would then transfer the fraudulently obtained profits into a bank account of either a third party or a shell company controlled by one of the co-conspirators."

How does that compare with what we've been talking about over the last few months? Inflated sales prices? Fraudulent HUD-1 statements? Does that sound like anything we've heard in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case? Hardly. Actually this criminal enterprise sound a whole hell of a lot more like what Attorney David Rodriguez and his gang were accused of doesn't it? Come to think of it, the Barrera fraud case looks rather simple compared to this mess! All told, 14 people were arrested, from what I've seen it looks like everyone has either gone to trial or plead out since the arrests, let's take a look at every ones status as it sits today:

Mario Herrera – DOB 07-29-66

Deborah H. Herrera – DOB 06-27-66

Diana G. Diaz – DOB 10-01-67

Luis H. Garcia-Lopez – DOB 07-24-75

Mari Rodriguez-Triana – DOB 02-24-64

Raisa Diaz – DOB 12-11-73

Mario Jesus Lubian – DOB 10-03-61

Marlene M Norono – DOB 09-08-60

Sacha Rodriguez – DOB 12-27-80

Josephine Martinez – DOB 06-09-74

Andres Leiva-Medina – DOB 02-04-65

Danny A. Valdes – DOB 08-04-78

Lashinda Shawtrese Bois Moore – DOB 10-08-78

That leaves defendent Fernando Boix-Lopez, who was rearrested last week, I can't seem to find anything on him in the first round of arrests. From the looks of it, at least two of the people charged were adjudicated guilty and the rest either got their charges dropped or were handed hefty probation terms. This doesn't exactly jive with the "Probation is not an option" quote from yesterday, but at least all these folks were brought to justice with two possibly serving some sort of jail time.

The test I've devised to determine if the punishment is fitting the crime is the following, considering the punishment, would I have committed the crime? I.E., if I could pocket $800,000+ in a matter of a few months, would I commit the crime if I knew the worst I could get is probation? That's pretty tempting once you do a cost benefit analysis. On the other hand, if I made $800,000 and had to spend a year or more in jail, that wouldn't be such a great deal now would it? That's what I would call a DETERRENT! Now, what if I told you I had a desk full of files representing tens of millions of dollars of mortgage fraud where the worst punishment that was handed out was probation? Could you imagine that? I leave all that for a little later on in our story, I know what you're thinking...


I'll get to it, first though were going to dissect a typical mortgage fraud/straw buyer scheme and see how it goes down.