An Antelope Valley man was sentenced today for his part in a mortgage fraud scheme that involved as many as six southern California people. Freddy Lentz, who is a former Bank of America employee, pleaded guilty to charges of accepting a $1,000 bribe in July of last year and was sentenced to three years of probation. In addition to Lentz being charged with accepting a bribe, Anthony Lewis, Maria Arriaza and Dion Jackson were each charged with wire fraud and conspiracy, while Jennifer Le was charged with conspiracy and Matthew Balz was charged with accepting bribes to facilitate the fraud.

All but one of the defendants has pleaded guilty. According to prosecutors, the group swindled as much as $4 million from various lending institutions by lying on mortgage loan applications, in many cases filling out the applications for people who did not exist and supplying false bank statements and other financial documents in order to get the loans approved. The rest of the defendants who pleaded guilty are set to be sentenced later this year.

Categorised in: Wire Fraud