David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, announced Friday that Dane Little, one of six defendants charged in a fraudulent mortgage loan scheme pled guilty in U.S. District Court to two counts of engaging in a conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and one count tax fraud.
 
Little, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, intentionally devised a scheme to defraud various banks and mortgage lenders by submitting fraudulent mortgage loan information in the purchase of properties in Louisville, Kentucky and Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The Indictment alleges that between November 1, 2006 and August 30, 2008, Little, along with five other men, perpetrated a fraudulent scheme against various banks and commercial lending companies, including Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America (formerly Countrywide Home Loans), Accredited Home Lenders, Primary Residential Mortgage Company, and First Franklin Financial Company by submitting applications and other documents for loans which contained false and fraudulent information, including false employment information, false and fraudulent bank account balances, and false representations that down payments were being made toward purchases of properties.

According to court records, after loan applications were approved for funding, the loan proceeds were wire transferred in interstate commerce to designated accounts with various banks in Louisville, Kentucky whereby the defendants and other unnamed co-conspirators appropriated, for their personal benefit and gain, portions of the fraudulently obtained loan proceeds.

In addition, Little was with conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a separate but similar fraudulent scheme against various banks and commercial lending companies, by submitting applications and other documents for automobile loans which contained false and fraudulent information, including borrower’s employment, income and assets, and identity of the seller of the vehicle. Little was also charged with one count filing a false and fraudulent 2006 federal income tax return.

Little faces a maximum sentence, on all charges, of 63 years in prison, a maximum fine of $2,250,000 and five years of supervised release. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jim Lesousky, and it was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Kentucky Department of Financial Institutions, and IRS Criminal Investigation Division.