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Incandela gets prison for $2.5 million reverse mortgage scam
By Palm Beach Business.com
FORT LAUDERDALE — A Palm Beach loan officer will being going to a prison for his role in a $2.5 million reverse mortgage scam that victimized both Genworth Financial and the Federal Housing Administration.
Federal Judge William Dimitrouleas sentenced John Incandela, 25, of Palm Beach to 41 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay over $1.9 million in restitution for his role in the scam. Another defendant, Louis Gendason, 42 of Delray Beach, is to be sentenced on Jan. 20.
Two other defendants, Marcos Eschevarria of Palm Beach and Kimberly Mackey of Pittsburgh, are serving sentences of two and five years respectively.
A reverse mortgage allows borrowers who are at least 62 years of age to convert the equity in their homes into a monthly stream of income, or a line of credit. The mortgage lender is essentially buying the homeowner’s equity and making installment payments to him or her.
Working as a loan officer, Incandela, along with co-defendant Echevarria, solicited senior homeownerss to refinance their mortgages with a reverse mortgage loan financed by Genworth. To qualify the borrowers for these loans, co-defendant Gendason fraudulently inflated real estate appraisals when in fact none of the borrowers had sufficient equity in their properties to qualify for a reverse mortgage. Genworth approved and the FHA insured more than $2.5 million in reverse mortgage loans that should never have gone through.
Mackey, a Pittsburgh-based a licensed title agent, closed the Genworth loans but did not pay off the borrowers’ existing mortgage loan. The defendants divided up the loan proceeds and used the money for their own benefit.
