Sale Leaseback-Peddling Prosecution Ends Up With 6-Months House Arrest For One; Sentencing For Another Delayed Pending Evaluation Of Snitch's Help

In Concord, New Hampshire, The Nashua Telegraph reports:

• A former Nashua man’s sentencing on federal mail fraud charges for stripping equity from troubled homeowners facing foreclosure has been postponed again. Walter Bressler, now of Frisco, Texas, will be sentenced on federal mail fraud charges March 12. Bressler has pleaded guilty to the charges and was supposed to be sentenced Dec. 5, according to documents filed at U.S. District Court in Concord.(1)



• Meanwhile, a second man who admitted to his role in the same mortgage scheme was sentenced Dec. 6. Richard Winefield was sentenced in U.S. District Court on felony mail fraud charges and was given three years probation with special conditions, including a six-month period of home detention and electronic monitoring. He was ordered to pay $407,500 in restitution.



• Bressler’s sentencing hearings have been postponed several times to give him and prosecutors time to evaluate his cooperation in “resolving other targets,”(2) according to court documents. Bressler was supposed to be sentenced Aug. 11 and then Dec. 12, according to court records.



• Prosecutors claim Bressler and Winefield helped persuade financially troubled homeowners to sign over the deeds to their properties with the promise they could stay on as tenants, pay rent for two years and then buy the property back at a prearranged price.



• Instead, the scheme’s participants resold the homes to “straw buyers,” often in amounts that exceeded the original owner’s loans, according to the U.S. attorney. Some of the rent money was used to pay off the new mortgages, but the loans eventually went unpaid and the homes fell into foreclosure.



• The original owners had no “realistic opportunities” to buy their homes back because they had been stripped of equity and encumbered with large defaulted loans, according to the U.S. attorney.



• Michael Prieto has been identified by prosecutors as a partner of Bressler’s and Winefield’s, but he hasn’t been charged. Prieto said it was no scheme, but rather a refinancing program intended to help struggling homeowners, which would have worked if they had paid their agreed-upon rent.



• “The agreement and the program … was not a scam,” Prieto previously told The Telegraph. “It was designed for its purpose, which was helping people pay off their debts, giving them breathing room, giving them an opportunity to stay in their homes for two years.”

For the story, see Former Nashua man’s sentencing for mortgage scheme postponed.

(1) Go here for:

• Bressler's plea agreement,
• Bressler's motion to delay sentencing.

(2) "Resolving other targets" is an apparent euphemism used by the Feds and other insiders in place of the more common vernacular familiar to the public, 'throwing under the bus'. The existence of negotiations to assess the value of Bressler's contribution in dragging down more of the scam's confederates reinforces the observation made by one learned Federal judge with regard to plea deal negotiations and the so-called race to the prosecutor's office:

• "When a conspiracy is exposed by an arrest or execution of search warrants, soon-to-be defendants know that the first one to "belly up" and tell what he knows receives the best deal. The pressure is to bargain and bargain early, even if an indictment has not been filed." United States v. Moody, 206 F.3d 609, 617 (6th Cir. 2000) (Wiseman, J., concurring) (referring to the not-uncommon 'race to the courthouse' that breaks out among participants in an uncovered criminal conspiracy).