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Guyanese-born NY lawyer gets 5 years for $23M scheme

Jun 09, 2011 News

New York- A New York real estate attorney who pleaded guilty to his role in a US$23 million mortgage fraud scheme was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to five years in prison and ordered to repay $4.7 million in restitution.
Prosecutors said that Queens, N.Y., attorney Cheddi Goberdhan, made hundreds of thousands of dollars from a scheme that duped mortgage lenders. Goberdhan pleaded guilty to seven counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy in January.
At sentencing, Goberdhan took responsibility for his role in the fraud, in which he acted as the closing attorney for multiple “straw buyers,” purported home buyers who were only interested in pocketing a portion of the mortgage, according to prosecutors.
Goberdhan choked up when he told the court, packed with family and friends, that he lost his law license as a result of the scheme.
“I should have known better and I should have done better,” Goberdhan said. “What has been taken from me is something I wanted my whole life.”
Goberdhan’s counsel, Anthony Ricco, described his client as a charitable and respected lawyer who made a “terrible mistake in judgment.”
“When we look at his life, he’s done more good than bad,” Ricco said. “He is an extraordinary man who has fallen a long way.”
U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin was set to give Goberdhan 70 months in jail, on the low end of the recommended sentencing guidelines, but decided on 60 months after he and his lawyer spoke.
Still, Judge Scheindlin noted the seriousness of the fraud. The company that arranged the straw purchases of houses, GuyAmerican Funding Corp., often preyed on distressed homeowners eager to break free from their mortgages, the indictment said.
In the scheme, GuyAmerican used the same straw buyers to take out mortgages on multiple homes, typically flipping the homes between straw buyers to artificially drive up their value so they could take out even larger mortgages, according to the indictment.
Goberdhan and GuyAmerican executives kept most of the mortgage money for themselves, only passing a portion of it on to the straw buyers who had actually taken out the loans, the indictment said.
“People put their trust in him and he violated that trust. I can’t see any motive but greed,” Judge Scheindlin said of Goberdhan. “Many innocent people were swindled by this scheme.”
In addition to the prison sentence and restitution, Goberdhan was ordered to forfeit his proceeds, totaling between $1 million and $2.2 million. The actual amount will be determined at a later date.
Six GuyAmerican employees have already pleaded guilty in the case and two others were convicted at trial.
Goberdhan also faces civil charges in the Eastern District of New York brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as receiver for IndyMac Bank FSB, one of the defrauded lenders, which has since defaulted.
Goberdhan is represented by the Law Office of Anthony L. Ricco.

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