Four Bay Area men, including a loan officer from San Jose, have plead guilty in a sweeping scheme to obtain $55 million in home loans with falsified incomes, divorce decrees, alimony checks and bank statements, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Three of the conspirators plead guilty to conspiring to originate 102 home loans worth a combined $55 million on fraudulent information — costing the Federal Housing Administration nearly half a million dollars to keep insured loans from going into foreclosure.
The trio will face sentencing before a federal judge in October. A fourth conspirator, who also pleaded guilty, is scheduled for a hearing in November.
“These defendants used their professional knowledge of the mortgage industry to perpetrate a fraud on unsophisticated home buyers, funneling these victims into loans for which they were not qualified,” Ismail J. Ramsey, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, said in a news release. “My office is committed to protecting all victims of fraud, whether federal agencies, Northern California residents, or—as happened here—both.”
Jose Tellez, a 27-year-old loan officer from San Jose, plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on July 24. In his plea agreement, he admitted that between 2019 and 2022 he helped originate more than 30 loans worth a combined $17 million that he knew were based on fraudulent information submitted by real estate professional Tjoman Buditaslim, 52 of Daly City.
Buditaslim plead guilty Wednesday, admitting that he worked from 2018 to 2022 to originate the loans. Jose de Jesus Martinez, a 59-year-old licensed real estate agent from Daly City, plead guilty July 24 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As a real estate agent, he referred clients to Buditaslim for a loan, knowing Buditaslim would use fraudulent paperwork to grant them loans they for which they would otherwise not qualify.
Martinez admitted that he earned more than half a million dollars in real estate commissions through the scheme, according to the press release. His clients received $27.7 million across 49 loans.
“The defendants took advantage of their knowledge and training in the mortgage industry to circumvent the rules and abused the positions of trust they held as real estate professionals and gatekeepers of FHA-insured loans in order to line their own pockets,” Mark Kaminsky, western region special agent-in-charge with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General, said in the release. “They created and passed false documents to qualify individuals unaware of their schemes for loans those individuals would not have otherwise qualified for.
The fourth defendant, Travis Holasek, 51 of San Francisco, pleaded guilty on an unspecified date, federal officials said. He is set for a status conference in November.
The four conspirators were indicted by a grand jury in November 2023 and charged with multiple counts of wire fraud. Buditaslim, Holasek and Martinez also faced charges of aggravated identity theft.
Buditaslim, Tellez and Martinez are scheduled for sentencing October 30, facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison plus a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain from the crime plus restitution, according to the release.