Five indicted in mortgage fraud scheme that targeted banks and home sellers

A federal grand jury in Seattle has indicted five people in an alleged mortgage-fraud scheme that prosecutors say involved dozens of falsified real-estate sales used to scam banks and innocent sellers in the Puget Sound area out of at least $18 million in loans.

When the indictment in U.S. District Court was unsealed today, federal agents arrested real-estate agents Humberto A. Reyes-Rodriguez, 42, of Federal Way, and Alexis Ikilikyan, 29, of Auburn, along with Ikilikyan's ex-husband, William S. Poff, 37, of Michigan. Also arrested were Micki S. Thompson, 54, an escrow agent from Tacoma, and Mario A. Marroquin, 38, of Kent.

Several of the defendants were due to appear for detention hearings this afternoon in Seattle.

They are charged with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, and money laundering. The charges could result in sentences of up to 20 years in prison.

The case is the latest in a string of major mortgage-fraud cases that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle has brought over the past year or so. The Department of Justice nationally has placed a priority on such cases.

In this latest case, like the others, prosecutors allege that the defendants set up "straw buyers" who would purchase and resell homes using falsified loan documents and false appraisals to obtain loans.

The defendants also allegedly set up shell repair companies to funnel some of the ill-gotten money.

Prosecutors allege in this latest case that it wasn't just the banks that were harmed. The defendants in some cases got unwitting home sellers to extend their own private loans to the phony buyers, and then lost it all when no one paid on the bank loans and the homes were foreclosed.