A Colorado man was sentenced to serve 72 months in federal prison for wire fraud, making a false statement to a pretrial services officer and escape. The man was ordered to spend three years on supervised release after he serves his term of imprisonment. He was also ordered to pay restitution totaling nearly $1.8 million. The man had appraisal reports prepared in which the appraiser fraudulently inflated the fair market values of the properties by $100,000 to $325,000. To make the inflated values in all the reports appear legitimate, the appraiser falsely represented that the purchases, which were actually sales at market value, were “distressed” sales, or “quick” sales below market value.

Then, based on the fraudulent appraisals, the man set the prices for the resales far beyond their true market values and arranged for the buyers to obtain 100 percent financing for them. To ensure that the desired funding would be approved for the buyers for both the purchases and the resales, the man caused false information about their qualifications to be incorporated into their loan applications to enable them to qualify for the loans. He caused the proceeds from the second sales to be directed to entities of his choice.