PEORIA, ILLINOIS – On May 18, 2021, David Litman, 41, from the village of Foosland, Ill., was given the order to surrender to federal prison and serve a two-year conviction in relation to a short-sale scheme. Judge Litman to pay $279,900 in damages, and order him to complete two years in home detention after he is released after completing his jail sentence on March 10, 2021.
From 2008 to 2010, Litman used a number of short-sale frauds to get loans from financial institutions. Specifically, Litman induced pricing opinions for assets he wanted to go through a quick selling that did not retain the mortgages to be falsified. Litman also sent falsified listing agreements and proof-of-funds letters to financial firms in order to persuade them to sanction the requested short sales. Since Litman’s commission was provided on the basis of fake broker prices, his expense calculations and listing agreements, and real estate costs were false, his institutions allowed false collateral short sales of assets.
Additionally, Litman caused phony commissions to be added to HUD-1 settlement claims, including selling his own properties short. Con Lit often sought to cover the money-related costs by falsifying or delaying the issuing of some commissions.
The plaintiff is asking for many year’s worth of lost profits from the defendant’s fraudulent practices, claims United States Attorney Doug Quy. Had the defendant not been interested, the developers may have had more luck calculating the overall worth of the homes and more easily recovered more of the mortgages. The mortgage business would still suffer a loss in every instance of fraud.
It was Assistant United States Attorneys Boyle and Miller who prosecuted the case, the allegations were reviewed by the Department of the HUD’s OIG and the FBI.
