A former detective with the Atlantic Country, New Jersey prosecutor’s office will spend the next 18 months in prison after admitting to participating in a mortgage fraud scheme that defrauded Wachovia and Wells Fargo out of $200,000.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, Betsy Borges, previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Court documents show that in December 2002, Borges purchased a property in Mays Landing, New Jersey, but failed to make mortgage payments to Wachovia and its successor, Wells Fargo, despite collecting rental income from tenants living in the property.
Borges also concealed that income from the banks.
Additionally, on multiple occasions, Borges falsely represented to Wells Fargo that she could not make the mortgage payments for the property.
Borges then arranged for an associate, Iraida Fuentez, to purchase the property through a short sale but did not tell Wells Fargo that she and Fuentez had a “familial relationship,” although the U.S. Attorney's Office does not define exactly what that relationship was.
Fuentez and Borges also concealed the fact that Borges and another conspirator provided Fuentez the funds to purchase the property.
On Sept. 20, 2012, Fuentez purchased the property in question at a price well below its actual value. Then, on Nov. 22, 2016, B&B Properties, a company owned in part by Borges, purchased the property from Fuentez for $25,000.
And finally, on Feb. 3, 2017, Borges individually purchased the property from B&B Properties for $1.
The bank fraud conspiracy charge carried a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but Borges received a sentence of 18 months. Borges was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution of $206,405.
Fuentez pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced earlier this year to two years of probation.
