Dad/Son Duo Belted With Multi-Year Prison Sentences For Running Fraudulent Foreclosure Rescue Outfit Peddling Bogus Sale Leaseback Arrangements To High-Equity, No-Cash Homeowners

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Newark, New Jersey):

• A father and son who ran a mortgage loan fraud scheme that succeeded in obtaining $4.4 million in mortgage loans while masquerading as a foreclosure rescue operation were both sentenced to prison [], U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
  
  Vito C. Grippo, 58, of Jackson, N.J., the president of Morgan Financial Equity Shares and Vanick Holdings, LLC, based in Holmdel, N.J., was sentenced to 96 months in prison.

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• Frederick “Freddie” Grippo, 32, of Old Bridge, N.J., formerly a loan officer at Worldwide Financial Resources and an officer of Vanick Holdings, was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

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• According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
  
  Between January 2008 and February 2010, Vito Grippo held Morgan Financial out to the public as a company that could help homeowners who faced foreclosure on their homes through something Grippo called the “Equity Share Program.” As described by Grippo and his associates, the Equity Share Program involved creating a limited liability company (LLC) in the name of the homeowner’s house, in which the homeowner would supposedly own a 90 percent interest with the rest to be owned by one or two private investors.
  
  In reality, the so-called investors invested nothing and were instead straw buyers recruited by Vito Grippo or his son, Frederick Grippo, because they had good credit. The Grippos and their associates then applied for mortgages in the names of the “investors” for the purchase of the properties owned by the homeowners in distress.
  
  A homeowner in distress would come to a closing in Vito Grippo’s office in Holmdel and be given a stack of documents to sign to prevent foreclosure. The homeowners frequently did not understand that they would be transferring title to their homes to the “investor.”
  
  The new mortgage loan applications filled out by the Grippos or their associates in the name of one of the investors contained materially false information about the loan applicant’s monthly income, his assets and whether the residence to be bought would be applicant’s primary residence.

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• Properties that lost money through the Equity Share Program were found throughout the metropolitan area, including homes in Rutherford, N.J., Monroe, N.J. and Brooklyn, N.Y.

For the U.S. Attorney press release, see Father And Son Sentenced To Prison In Connection With Bogus Foreclosure Rescue Company.