Beware of Mortgage Fraud 

 brought to you by Chrissy Neumann

Ex-Lawyer, Paralegals Named in Mortgage Scam

Just days after a federal grand jury subpoenaed the real estate closing files of The McFarland Law Firm in Stone Mountain, Ga., the firm's two paralegals arranged to have them destroyed. Then the lawyer who employed those paralegals claimed the files had been stolen in an office break-in.

Those allegations are contained in a sweeping federal indictment of Chalana C. McFarland, a disbarred attorney who until Thursday was closing real estate transactions in Miami; her paralegals; a mortgage broker; appraisers; real estate agents; and others who participated in an alleged $20 million mortgage fraud scheme.

The indictment reveals how mortgage fraud, which is pervasive in Fulton and DeKalb counties, is often aided by the collaboration of attorneys and other members of the real estate industry at virtually every step of a sale.

This week, U.S. Attorney William S. Duffey Jr. said the indictment signals his resolve to prosecute a crime that has plagued dozens of neighborhoods throughout metro Atlanta.

Named in the indictment are McFarland; her two paralegals, Brenda G. Brown, 45, of Lithonia, Ga., and Lisa R. Bellamy, 33, of Decatur, Ga.; fugitive mortgage broker Judith H. Hooper; and Melinda Renee "Little Renee" Tyner, one of Hooper's loan processors at American Mortgage Exchange.

The indictment also names husband and wife real estate agents Jewell and Sidney Williams, and Thomas Christopher Davis Jr.; appraisers Brandon G. Wilhite, James Frederick Pettigrew and Kenneth "Kenny" Earl Collins; Omar Rashad Turral, a former student at the Florida A&M University College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences who allegedly supplied stolen student identities to the suspected fraudsters; and Melvin Thomas Quillen, a Jonesboro, Ga., man accused of recruiting people willing to masquerade as borrowers on fraudulent loan applications.

The indictment, Duffey said, includes "those very people we entrust in maintaining the very integrity" of real estate transactions.

The 158-count indictment includes charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice and perjury. It alleges a complex financial scheme that, since 1999, has defrauded a string of banks, mortgage and title insurance companies nationwide of more than $20 million.

The alleged scheme involved multiple sales of more than 100 homes in the DeKalb communities of Mountain Oaks, North Shores, Southland and Water's Edge, and in Douglasville, Elberton, Fairburn, Griffin and Atlanta.

Duffey said it is one more sign that mortgage fraud in Georgia is at "disturbingly high levels."

This year, the ZIP code cluster that makes up Fulton has soared to No. 1 in the nation in mortgage fraud. DeKalb ZIP codes sit at No. 3 nationally for the number of loans containing misrepresentations, according to data compiled annually by the Federal National Mortgage Association.