MacPherson Gets 4 To 12 Years For Role In Mortgage Fraud Case

Donald MacPherson was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison Monday morning, having pleaded guilty late last year to multiple felony charges related to an $82 million mortgage fraud scheme targeting the East End that involved former Suffolk County Legislator George O. Guldi.

Mr. MacPherson, 68, also was ordered by Suffolk County Court Judge James F.X. Doyle to pay back $44 million to the lending institutions that he cheated as part of the scam, according to Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota. Mr. MacPherson was ordered to pay back the money as part of 34 restitution judgment orders.

“J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and other lenders were swindled by this defendant and his associates who arranged for the filing of mortgage applications that were filled with fraud, specifically false employer information supplied to straw purchasers, forged notary signatures, and falsified powers of attorney and fictional bank balances,” Mr. Spota said in a prepared statement.

“Every one of these mortgages for some 60 homes ended up in default,” he continued. “The defendants’ greed inflicted massive economic damage to the banking industry and the regional economy.”

Mr. MacPherson, the former owner of Magic’s Pub in Westhampton Beach, pleaded guilty in November to 45 felonies, including grand larceny, insurance fraud, possession of a forged instrument and scheme to defraud. Over the summer, Mr. MacPherson, who has homes in both Westhampton Beach and Manhattan, rejected a plea bargain in which he would have served between 28 months and seven years in prison for his role in the crime.

Following his sentencing on Monday, Mr. MacPherson was remanded to the Suffolk County Jail in Riverside. He will eventually be transferred to a prison in upstate New York.

Mr. MacPherson’s wife, Carrie Coakley, pleaded guilty in December to two felony counts of grand larceny and fraud for her role in the scheme. She is expected to be sentenced next Thursday, March 8, pending the completion of a Suffolk County Department or Probation pre-sentencing report.

Mr. Guldi, a Democrat and longtime county legislator, was also a co-defendant in the mortgage fraud case and was sentenced to one to three years in prison last year for his role. That sentence will run concurrently with a four- to 12-year sentence he received last March for an unrelated insurance fraud case in which he was found guilty of misusing insurance funds after a fire gutted his family home in Westhampton Beach.