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Akron Man Sentenced for $36M Mortgage Fraud
An Akron man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for leading massive mortgage fraud schemes in Ohio and Florida, said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.
Jack R. Coppenger, age 50, will have his restitution amount determined later this year. The government has asked for $35 million.
More than 40 people have been found guilty of crimes for their various roles in the mortgage fraud, which has led to losses of more than $36 million.
“This defendant led a ring whose crimes covered two states and resulted in losses of tens of millions of dollars,” Dettelbach said. “Mortgage fraud crimes devastate entire neighborhoods and communities.”
U.S. District Judge John Adams said to Coppenger, “This was all greed. This was all planned, this scam and scheme. You knew and you had to know when this house of cards began to fall. You’re still out looking for new people to prey on.”
Coppenger previously pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy. In the first count, Coppenger conspired to commit bank fraud and to make false statements to influence a bank to make a loan in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme involving property in the Panama City, Florida area, resulting in approximately a $36 million loss.
In the second count, Coppenger conspired to defraud the United States by impairing and impeding the ability of the I.R.S to assess Coppenger’s taxes in 2006 by concealing funds Coppenger received from a land “flip” conducted by Andrew Norman and Jason Herceg.
Norman and Herceg were both recently sentenced to 40 months in prison and ordered to pay $14 million in restitution. According to court documents, they operated a company in Stow under the name of V.P. Equity LLC and, with Coppenger, procured “straw buyers” and submitted false loan documents to banks to purchase Coppenger’s lots in Florida (which had already been inflated in value as part of a land flip) in a mortgage fraud scheme.
Coppenger, with assistance from Herceg and Norman, perpetrated a large mortgage fraud scheme involving numerous straw buyers primarily from the Akron, Hartville, and Mentor areas. These straw buyers essentially sold their good credit scores to Coppenger in order for Coppenger to secure loans, through straw buyers’ names, for properties in Florida.
Coppenger promised the straw buyers that if they signed the loan application and paperwork, Coppenger would pay them an inducement amount. Coppenger then promised the straw buyers that he would make all the mortgage payments for the property and would make any down payments that were necessary, and that, once the property was developed and sold, they would split the profits equally.
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Key Facts
- State: Ohio
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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