Two men from Long Island have been charged with running a $30 million mortgage fraud scheme. The case is pending in Federal Court in the Eastern District of New York located in Central Islip. The prosecutor on the case, Artie McConnell, in his closing statement to the jury stated these two “stole more money than a man with a mask and a gun ever could,” referring to the two men charged with the mortgage fraud. The two defendants in the case are Aaron Wider, who was the head HFTC Corp. in Garden City and Joseph Ferraro, Jr., who is from Long Beach.
The Scheme
Ferraro and Wider were involved in a scheme where homes were purchased and thereafter sold to a trust on the same day. The homes were then subject to an inflated appraisal and they were resold at much higher selling prices, sometimes as much as double. Thereafter Mr. Ferraro and Mr. Wider sold the “toxic mortgages” in the secondary mortgage market and kept the difference 
between the real and inflated values. This scheme took place between 2003 and 2008. Each home involved in the scheme ended up in foreclosure. In the end, the mortgage holders on these homes were high and dry.
Elliot S. Schlissel and his associates are foreclosure lawyers. They help homeowners who have fallen behind in their mortgages stay in their homes.
