Albany-Area Title Agent Admits To Pocketing $125K In Closing Cash Intended To Satisfy Existing Mortgages In Real Estate Transactions

In Albany, New York, The Business Review reports:

• The owner of a title company in Clifton Park, N.Y., will spend three to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $125,000 that should have been used to pay off her clients’ old mortgages. Susan Laverne, 64, pleaded guilty on Feb. 10 to one count of second-degree grand larceny, a felony. Laverne initially was charged in September 2009 with three counts of second-degree larceny in connection with the transactions. Laverne, who also goes by Susan Zenner, owned and operated the now-defunct JTR Abstract, a title and settlement company [...]. The charges stemmed from a few house closings in Albany County that were handled by Zenner, said Christopher Baynes, assistant district attorney and chief of the financial crimes unit for the Albany County district attorney’s office. Most of the deals involved mortgage refinancing. [...] The scam caught up with her in December 2008, when clients from Bethlehem learned that their old $125,000 loan was never paid off.(1)

For more, see Title company owner pleads guilty to grand larceny.

(1) Reportedly, Laverne faces separate charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of a forged instrument for allegedly conspiring with a Saratoga Springs couple to steal $2.3 million from mortgage lenders. Law enforcement officials said Laverne allegedly helped Stephen Sutliff and his wife, Nickole Sutliff, fraudulently obtain multiple mortgages for homes on the same day, the story states.