Two Lyndhurst residents have been named in a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark alleging they took part in a $30 million mortgage fraud scheme between September 2006 and May 2008.
Klary Arcentales, 44, and Michael Rumore, 54, were among eight defendants – including two from Brazil still at large – charged on Sept. 13 with having engaged in a mortgage fraud conspiracy through a company known as Premier Mortgage Services.
The complaint alleges the defendants targeted properties in low income areas in Belleville (27 Linden Ave.), Nutley (24 Evelyn Place), Irvington, Linden and Riverside for purchase; then, after recruiting “straw buyers,” they used fake documents to make it look like they had plenty of assets and income to make the payments and submitted those papers as part of mortgage loan applications to various banks which then provided mortage loans for those properties.
The conspirators allegedly split the proceeds from the loans by using fraudulent settlement statements, depositing the cash into accounts they controlled. Many of the properties, meanwhile, went into foreclosure, the complaint said.
Arcentales was alleged to be a PMS loan officer while Rumore, an attorney and former Lyndhurst volunteer fire chief, was alleged to have performed real estate closings on many of the properties, according to the complaint.
At the time he was charged, Rumore was already in prison, having received a 15-year sentence in June 2009 on charges of money laundering and theft by failure to make required disposition of property received, according to published reports. His attorney told the court at sentencing that Rumore used $4 million in real estate closing funds from various mortgage companies to gamble for high stakes in Atlantic City. The court ordered Rumore to make restitution to the companies owed the money.
