Lawyer, officer get time for fraud
By From staff reports
Published in News on October 5, 2011 1:46 PM
RALEIGH -- William Devaughn Orander III, a disbarred Goldsboro real estate attorney, and Mark David Webb, a former loan officer at Mount Olive-based Southern Bank and Trust and Dunn-based New Century Bank, received active prison sentences in federal court Tuesday for their roles in a mortgage fraud scheme.
A third defendant, Harold Overby, was sentenced in January after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail, wire and bank fraud.
Webb pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and was sentenced to 45 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
Webb, Orander and Overby were ordered to make a combined $1,072,565.10 in restitution to Southern Bank, said David Curtis, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Raleigh.
Orander pleaded guilty to one count of mail, wire and bank fraud and was sentenced to 42 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.
Orander and Webb were ordered to pay $709,990.44 in restitution to New Century Bank.
The crimes occurred over a four-year period beginning in 2004.
According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Webb and Orander, through a carefully orchestrated closing process, were able to deceive the banks into funding home and land transactions at premium refinancing terms by creating two sets of HUD-1 documents with two simultaneous closings instead of one.
The first closing appeared as a cash transaction between the seller and buyer. Another closing was simultaneously conducted whereby the bank issued a loan to the buyer under the auspices of a refinance.
Orander used his trust account to disguise the flow of funds from buyer to seller. This allowed buyers to purchase a home and leave the closing table with title to the property and as much as 50 percent over the purchase price in cash.
The transactions were handled through Southern Bank and New Century Bank, neither of which was aware the statements were fraudulent.
Orander also participated by being a party to numerous transactions through his closely held real estate holding companies named Goldtower Properties, LLC; Abbey Road Investments, Inc.; and Ladder 39, LLC.
The case was handled by the U.S. Attorney office's Mortgage Fraud Task Force with the investigation being conducted by SBI, and FBI. Assistant United States Attorney William M. Gilmore represented the government.