The New York man defrauded banks including Amtrust, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase
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A New York City man has been sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment for his role in a scheme to defraud mortgage lending institutions, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced.
In addition to the prison term, James Bayfield was sentenced by US District Judge Eric Vitaliano to three years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. Bayfield was also ordered to pay $184,651 in forfeiture.
A self-described mortgage specialist, Bayfield was convicted by a federal jury in January 2017 for his role in the multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme.
Along with his co-conspirators, Bayfield caused mortgage loan applications with false information to be submitted to lending institutions, including Amtrust, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase, in connection with the purchase of residential properties located in Brooklyn and Queens. The scheme ran between September 2008 and May 2011.
The applications contained fraudulently inflated purchase prices and false information about the assets and income of the purported purchasers, many of whom were paid to act as straw purchasers. Bayfield and his co-conspirators also provided false down-payment checks to make it appear as if the straw purchasers and other borrowers had made down payments on the properties.
To complete their scheme, Bayfield and his co-conspirators conducted simultaneous and secretive purchases and sales of the properties at inflated prices. Ultimately, the lending institutions issued millions of dollars of mortgage loans secured by properties with inflated appraisal values. Many of the loans went into default.
