Couple Get Suspended Sentence After Copping Pleas To Fraudulently Scoring Section 8 Rental Benefits, Mortgage Loans

From the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General:

• [P]aulo Montenegro, age 45, and his wife, Rosana Pereira, age 48, each pleaded guilty in Middlesex Superior Court to charges of Larceny by False Pretense (3 counts) and Conspiracy to Commit Larceny by False Pretense (3 counts), in connection with fraudulently obtaining Section 8 public housing benefits and fraudulently obtaining mortgage loans from financial lending institutions.
  
  After the pleas were entered, Judge Maureen Hogan sentenced Montenegro and Pereira to two years in the House of Correction, sentence suspended for four years, and ordered Montenegro and Pereira to pay restitution and $25,000 each in fines.

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• Pereira and Montenegro misrepresented material information to the Cambridge Housing Authority and HUD in order to obtain the benefit of Section 8 public housing subsidies. Pereira, in conspiracy with Montenegro, under-reported her income and assets, and reported that she was unmarried, when in fact she was married to Montenegro, and they lived together, shared finances, and benefited from each other’s incomes.
  
  As a result of such misrepresentations, Pereira and Montenegro received the benefit of renting a three bedroom apartment in Cambridge at a greatly reduced rate, while the Cambridge Housing Authority and HUD covered most of the rent.
  
  For two years during the period when Pereira and Montenegro fraudulently benefited from Section 8 public housing subsidies, they were not even living in the Cambridge apartment that they were renting at a reduced rate; instead, they were living in a home in Weston that Montenegro had purchased for $860,000.

For the Massachusetts AG press release, see Weston Couple Pleads Guilty, Sentenced in Connection with Section 8 Public Housing Fraud and Mortgage Fraud (Defendants Defrauded Public Housing Subsidy Program and Mortgage Lenders).