• Font Size    

Most Watched On KDKA.com

Washington Man Drowns In Yough River
        Delicious  
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

Local Mortgage Brokers, Appraisers Indicted

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print
Feb 4, 2009 8:38 pm US/Eastern

Local Mortgage Brokers, Appraisers Indicted

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― They knowingly put people into houses they couldn't hope to afford.

Corrupt mortgage brokers, appraisers and closing attorneys greased the skids for the massive numbers of sheriff sales, foreclosures and evictions in the U.S.

And they played no small role in creating the economic crisis that grips the country and the world.

"Everything that's happening - all the dominos that are falling around the globe - this is what started it -- these loans," Randi Lowe of the Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group said.

A year ago, the U.S. Attorney created the mortgage fraud task force and today a grand jury handed down indictments of a number of businesses and people accused of preying on unsuspecting homebuyers.

Squirrel Hill lawyer Robert Danenberg is accused of misrepresenting the income of buyers at home closings, conveying the impression that buyers could afford loans which they could not.

The owners of Steel City Mortgage were also accused of submitting false documents with loan applications, misrepresenting the borrower's income, employment and assets.

Steel City has now gone out of business.

So has Equitable Lending, another indicted business which once occupied a building in Brentwood.

"I think it's important to go after them because, you know, if they're unscrupulous in their heart, they're going to come up with something else to do," Lowe said.

Since the real estate boom went bust and the financial markets followed, the state and federal government have required a whole new level of oversight and certification.

"They're going to build more laws around this but every time you build another mousetrap, they build a better mouse," Lowe said.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Featured Slideshows On KDKA.com

You need the latest Flash player to view video content.
Click here to download.

Click here to bypass this detection if you already have the latest Flash Player.

Local News

Top News Stories

© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.