A Rockland County attorney was sentenced by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York to four months in prison for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme.
Laurence Savedoff of New City had been convicted of misprision of a felony ”“ a misprision occurs when a person is aware that a felony took place and fails to notify the authorities while taking steps to aid in its concealment. In Savedoff”™s case, he represented The Funding Source, a mortgage bank, as the settlement attorney between 2008 and 2009, and his office was used for the closings for eight real estate transactions in the Bronx that involved efforts by five other individuals to fraudulently obtain mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration on behalf of unqualified borrowers.
Prosecutors argued that Savedoff signed legal documents in all of the transactions knowing they were false. Also, he failed to notify authorities of the fraud while concealing the scam by either signing or having his paralegal sign documents that would be sent to banks, including M&T Bank. The total amount of the mortgages involved in this fraud was $4.8 million.
