Restitution

Two Owings Mills-based mortgage firms accused of running a "foreclosure rescue scheme" have agreed to pay $110,000 in cash restitution as part of a settlement that saved the Ellicott City homes of two elderly women, one of whom has since died after becoming a victim. Poor health and related bills left the two women behind on mortgage payments in 2006, when they responded to a refinancing offer contained in packets labeled "Your Best Hope has just arrived." But instead of a promised rescue from the brink of foreclosure, the women found that they had unwittingly signed away the titles to their homes and were facing eviction.

A civilian employee of the U.S. Navy who for years sold government scrap metal from Naval installations for a personal profit was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 30 months in prison for the scheme, according to U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Christopher M. Hill, 47, of Lusby, who handled recycling and scraps for the Patuxent River Naval Air Station and other military installations, was also ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow to pay more than $630,000 in restitution to the Navy and almost $135,000 in restitution to the IRS. According to a plea agreement in the case, a private contractor collected scrap metal owned by the government — but Hill had the firm submit payments for those scraps directly to him. Between 2004 and 2010, Hill deposited 124 checks from the company into his personal bank accounts, and did not report the earnings to the IRS. In a statement, Robert Craig, special agent in charge for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, one of the agencies involved in the investigation, said Hill's arrest shows those agencies and Rosenstein's office "will doggedly investigate and prosecute those that decide to break the rules — or make-up their own rules — to steal and cheat from the Department of Defense.

A Westminster woman, found guilty yesterday of violating probation, was given a one-year suspended sentence, ordered to perform 62 hours of community service by Dec. 31 and to pay $100 restitution within 60 days or go to jail.Probation officials said Wendy J. Jirsa, 24, of the 1200 block of Guadelupe Drive has paid no restitution and completed three hours of community service. She was ordered to perform 65 hours of community service after being convicted of battery and trespassing in 1995.

A sixth Baltimore Police officer was sentenced Friday for his role in a massive kickback scheme involving an auto body shop, receiving two years in prison and being ordered to pay $24,000 in restitution. Officer Rafael Concepcion Feliciano Jr., 31, admitted last year that he referred accident vehicles to the Majestic Auto Body shop in Rosedale after being introduced to the store's owners by a fellow officer, Rodney Cintron, prosecutors said. Prosecutors estimate that Feliciano alone caused a loss of between $120,000 and $200,000.

Some disgruntled staffers have charged that top officials of the Resolution Trust Corp., the government agency responsible for cleaning up the nation's failed banks and thrifts, is easing its commitment to collect damages from former directors. Their congressional testimony suggests the RTC is no longer interested in seeking restitution.Three lawyers testified that subtle changes in the agency's guidelines have thwarted their recent recovery efforts. Instead of going after people whose thievery, negligence or inattention contributed to the collapse of S&Ls, three RTC lawyers said they were subjected to political pressure not to pursue certain cases.

Prosecutors will not pursue charges against a former state health official who has agreed to pay restitution for breaking into three houses in western Howard County in 1993.John Martin Staubitz Jr. has agreed to restitution of about $2,500 for property stolen from the houses, two in Woodbine and one in West Friendship.Assistant State's Attorney Sue-Ellen Hantmann told Howard Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney yesterday that the charges were dropped because of the lengthy sentences Staubitz must serve in cases in Carroll and Baltimore counties.

A former Baltimore County firefighter was ordered yesterday to pay $37,590 in restitution and serve 90 days of home detention for fraudulently obtaining health benefits for his ex-wife, whom he divorced 12 years ago, the state attorney general's office said.Charles C. Carter, 57, of the 8000 block of Pine Ridge Road, Pasadena, also received a two-year suspended sentence and five years' probation.Pub Date: 12/09/97

A Westminster man received two suspended two-year sentences and was placed on probation for a year after pleading guilty yesterday to forging two checks in January.Michael J. Graham, 25, of the first block of Sullivan Road paid $300 in restitution yesterday and must pay an additional $89 by Monday or risk a probation violation, said Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr.Graham also must pay court costs within six months.FireWestminster: Firefighters from Reese, Pleasant Valley and Reisterstown in Baltimore County assisted Westminster at 6: 45 p.m. Wednesday, responding to a building fire in the 800 block of Baltimore Blvd.

A Baltimore man has been sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $249,000 for his involvement in a scheme to defraud the state's Medicaid program.An investigation by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit found that Sherman L. Snell received $249,003 after submitting false claims. Snell and Steven Herlich, the former owner of the Medicine Shoppe in Baltimore, received more than $450,000 from Medicaid after submitting the claims.Snell forged prescriptions and submitted invoices to the state's medical assistance program from 1986 to April 1989.

ANNAPOLIS -- Cottman Transmission Inc. customers who think they were overcharged for repairs stand to get some money back, thanks to a Court of Special Appeals decision.Maryland's second-highest court held that the company should have been ordered to pay restitution to customers by a Baltimore Circuit judge who ruled in 1989 that Cottman engaged in deceptive trade practices.The court also ordered that Cottman, based in Fort Washington, Pa., be tried on charges that it tricked customers into paying for unnecessary repairs.

Under an agreement announced Thursday by the Maryland attorney general's office, Wells Fargo has agreed to make loan modifications and pay nearly $1 million in restitution to customers of two lenders acquired by the bank. The office's Consumer Protection Division, which reached the agreement with Wells Fargo, said lenders Wachovia and Golden West Financial used deceptive marketing in offering consumers adjustable-rate home loans. Wells Fargo will pay $940,056 to borrowers with "Pick-a-Payment" mortgages written by Wachovia and Golden West who lost their homes in foreclosure, the agreement says.

A federal judge has shuttered a Baltimore couple's businesses and frozen most of their assets after the Federal Trade Commission accused the prominent pair — well known within the city's Hispanic community — of illegally selling slipshod immigration services to hundreds of local Latinos. Manuel and Lola Alban, ages 70 and 66 respectively, are accused in court documents of lying about their qualifications and taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 800 foreigners for services they weren't authorized to perform, such as filing documents required for U.S. residency.

The corporate officer of a Baltimore scrap-metal recycling company was sentenced Wednesday to six months in federal prison followed by six months home detention for bribing a National Security Agency official, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced. Adam Wayne Berg, a third-generation leader of Berg Bros. Recycling Inc., was also ordered to perform 100 hours of community service, pay a $30,000 fine and $105,000 in restitution. The restitution amount equals the bribe he and a colleague paid NSA employee Robert Adcock for access to valuable recycling materials stored at a Fort Meade warehouse, according to court records.

A 29-year-old College Park man was sentenced Monday in federal court to more than five years in prison for defrauding a mortgage company that made loans on six Baltimore properties. Dema Daiga was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Marvin C. Garbis, who ordered Daiga to pay restitution of $664,493 and a special assessment of $1,200. The sentence, which is to be followed by three years of supervised release, also included two counts of aggravated identity theft. According to testimony, Daiga and another mortgage broker, Laurel resident Olu Campbell, also known as Oluseun Oshosanya, 30, recruited "straw" purchasers and used names of four others, without their knowledge, to apply for mortgages on six properties.

The bespectacled man in the collared shirt and red tie had the face of an accountant, and police who dubbed him the "preppy burglar" surmised he dressed like a door-to-door salesman to help him break into homes unnoticed. A video from a surveillance camera that spread across the Internet captured the sandy-haired man holding what appeared to be an official piece of paper and knocking on the front door of a rural Clarksville home. Then it showed him emerging, wearing gloves and carrying computer equipment.

Stacie L. Price, the former PTA president at Johnnycake Elementary School, was given a suspended three-year prison term Monday after being convicted of stealing more than $9,000 from the organization. Price was also fined $500 and ordered to pay court costs, and must serve three years of unsupervised probation. Prosecutor Michael S. Fuller had asked the judge to send the 39-year-old defendant to jail, saying she had violated a position of trust by writing checks to herself from the PTA's bank account over six months and stopped only "because she got caught.

Carroll County Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. yesterday sentenced a Westminster woman to six months in jail after she failed to make restitution in three bad-check cases.Burns ended probation for Victoria L. Cunningham, 27, and ruled her debt of more than $1,100 uncollectible. The woman had paid only $45 in restitution in more than four years.The woman told Burns she was waiting for her grandmother to lend her money for restitution.Man who fought officers during raid gets five yearsA Westminster man who fought with officers during a drug raid at his apartment was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison.

A 38-year-old Rosedale woman who falsely claimed she was dying of cancer, and who a prosecutor said "ripped off person after person" to pay for nonexistent treatments, was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison by a judge who called her a "professional thief. " Dina Perouty Leone, a former real estate agent whose license was revoked in 2007 for unrelated offenses, was ordered to pay restitution of $14,090 to two of her victims, each of whom had lost a parent to cancer before they went to Leone's aid. Leone, who had astonished investigators with her lack of remorse and combative nature when they first interviewed her last year, was contrite and tearful Thursday before the judge, and said she had found religion.