East Quogue woman arrested for mortgage fraud

Recommend

Comment

Email this article

Print this article

Get news alerts

RSS Feeds

Share Digg Mixx Linked In Facebook Twitter Delicious

A 50-year-old woman from East Quogue was arrested on December 8 and charged with first-degree grand larceny after the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office discovered that she set up a scheme using false documentation to obtain a mortgage and purchase a home in East Quogue.

According to a press release from District Attorney Thomas Spota, Marie Poulard and her partner, Frank Spindel, 49, of Miller Place, swindled a now-closed mortgage lender, American Brokers Conduit of Melville, into giving them $1.2 million in loans. The couple used a “straw purchaser,” an intermediary who provided the mortgage lender with false documentation overstating his income, to obtain a first mortgage of $927,000 and a second mortgage of $247,000.

The district attorney’s office said that Ms. Poulard and Mr. Spindel purchased a home with a pool and tennis court located on 1.4 acres in East Quogue using the mortgage.

The straw buyer, who earned $20,000 per year parking cars in New York City, provided American Brokers Conduit with papers stating that he earned $23,000 per month as a regional sales manager for a Lindenhurst company as a high-end boat salesman, according to the release.

Ms. Poulard’s and Mr. Spindel’s arrests are part of a larger mortgage fraud investigation across Suffolk County being completed by the district attorney’s Mortgage Fraud Unit of the Economic Crimes Bureau.

“What we’re seeing in Suffolk County is an explosion of fraud involving, depending on the scheme, every facet of the mortgage process; from applicants to the mortgage brokers to bank employees to appraisers,” Mr. Spota said in a prepared statement.