Karl Oreste, Mortgage Fraud, Florida 2014

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Former North Miami Mayor’s Co-Defendant Sentenced in Multi-Million Dollar Mortgage Fraud Scheme

Miramar resident and mortgage lender Karl Oreste, 56, was sentenced to 100 months imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $8,215,197.28 in restitution for his recruitment of straw buyers and other conduct in an $8,000,000 mortgage fraud scheme.

Oreste pled guilty in July 2014 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. According to documents filed with the court and statements made in court during the plea, Oreste, president of KMC Mortgage Corporation of Florida, a mortgage lending business located in North Miami Beach, along with co-defendants Okechukwu Josiah Odunna, a/k/a “O.J. Odunna,” Marie Lucie Tondreau, a/k/a “Lucie Tondreau”, and Kelly Augustin, operated a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, between December 2005 and May 2008.

Oreste and Tondreau, who at the time was a community activist, hosted several radio show programs in the South Florida area which catered to the South Florida Haitian community. During these programs they advertised the services offered by KMC Mortgage. Oreste and Tondreau recruited and paid some of the listeners who responded to those advertisements, as well as other individuals, to pose as borrowers to purchase properties identified by Oreste.

According to statements made in court, Oreste, Odunna and other co-conspirators prepared or caused to be prepared applications on behalf of straw borrowers. Odunna was an attorney previously licensed to practice law in Florida and president of O.J. Odunna, P.A. and Direct Title and Escrow Services. These loan applications included false information relating to employment, wages, assets and intent to make the property being purchased a primary residence.

The loan applications and documents were submitted by co-conspirators to various mortgage lenders throughout the United States. Once the loan applications were approved, the defendant wired loan funds to O.J. Odunna, P.A., Direct Title or other title companies for closing.

In some instances Oreste, Odunna and other co-conspirators created and submitted duplicate HUD-Settlement Statement Forms, which grossly inflated the true purchase price of the properties. Lenders were not told how the loan proceeds were being disbursed.

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