2nd Suspect Agrees To Go Down In Granite State Sale Leaseback, Equity Stripping Foreclosure Rescue Scam

In Concord, New Hampshire, The Nashua Telegraph reports:

• A Massachusetts woman will join a Nashua real estate agent in pleading guilty to federal mail fraud charges stemming from statewide "equity stripping" scheme that targeted financially trouble homeowners, court records show.

• Prosecutors filed a felony mail fraud charge on March 18 against Sadie Stanhope Ng, 34, of Quincy, Mass., and formerly of Milford and Bedford, U.S. District Court records show. A plea hearing is scheduled March 30, court records show.

• Stanhope Ng was part of the same conspiracy as former RE/MAX agent Richard Winefield of Nashua, who was charged last month and pleaded guilty earlier this month. The scheme involved buying the homes of people facing foreclosure, with the promise that the residents could rent the home and buy it back later, and then refinancing the houses with much larger loans, and pocketing the equity.

• The charge against Stanhope-Ng outlines the scheme in more detail than the one against Winefield, perhaps in part because of information Winefield provided after pleading guilty.(1)

• It includes the allegation that the conspirators also claimed fictitious second and third mortgages on properties when they refinanced, and got those paid off, too, but that practice stopped after Stanhope and two others ran afoul of the state Banking Department, the charge states.

• Stanhope, Michael Prieto and Walter Bressler III were sanctioned by state Banking Commissioner Peter Hildreth by a "cease and desist" order in 2007. The trio were fined $10,000, and they and their various limited liability companies were ordered to repay eight homeowners around the state (including two in Nashua) money gleaned from the sale of their properties. They also were ordered to stop being involved in mortgage brokerage or debt adjustment services in the state.(2)

For more, see Mass. woman charged in home re-fi scam.

See U.S. v. Stanhope Ng for the most recent charge.

(1) See Sale Leaseback Peddler Starts "Singing" To NH Feds After Copping Guilty Plea In Equity Stripping, Foreclosure Rescue Conspiracy.

(2) See Criminal Prosecutions Of Sale Leaseback Peddlers In Equity Stripping Foreclosure Rescue Deals for other incidents that led to criminal prosecutions in sale leaseback deals.