A former executive at GMAC Mortgage LLC will spend more than three years in prison for accepting bribes so that bids on loans sold by the former lending giant would be accepted by his accomplices.
Around three years ago, a pair of businessmen in Southern California were buying loans from the likes of GMAC, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and National City Bank.
But the two investors wanted an edge over their competition, so they hatched a scheme to bribe executives at the financial institutions that helped their inferior bids to win out over better offers.
Among those who were bribed by Israel Hechter and Ben Keisari was Robert Moreno, who worked at GMAC.
According to an announcement from the
U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, Moreno used his position and influence to ensure that Hechter and Keisari won their bids to purchase mortgage loans being resold by GMAC. The alleged crimes took place from December 2011 through July 2013.
“In order to ensure Hechter’s and Keisari’s bids won, Moreno would alter other bids, reject bids and erase or ignore bids from qualified competitors so that his corrupt customers would appear to be the most-qualified bidders,” the Justice Department said. “Moreno also provided Hechter and Keisari with ‘inside information’ about prices and competing bids, giving them a leg up in the bidding process and ensuring that they won the most lucrative deals.”
In all, Morena admitted to taking in more than $1 million in brides.
At first he took personal checks or hand-delivered cash in order to avoid being noticed by the Internal Revenue Service. The income was never disclosed on his tax returns.
Then, he created a sham consulting agreement, opened a business account and disguised the payments as consulting fees unrelated to his work at GMAC.
Moreno came clean in October 2014, and was sentenced earlier this month to 37 months’ hard time.
At his sentencing, U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez called Moreno “the kingpin in this whole nasty affair.”
He was ordered to
pay $1,143,560 in restitution to GMAC and $140,941 to the IRS.
More than a half-dozen defendants have been convicted in the case, the Justice Department said, while five defendants including Moreno have been sentenced.
