South Florida family ran a $1.3 million mortgage fraud scam. Mom now headed to prison

Even in South Florida, where family fraud cases are commonplace, it’s rare that several members of a family go to prison quite like Davie’s Ana Cummings, her children and a son-in-law.

As the six guilty pleas attest, the group collaborated to defraud multiple banks on a combined 10 real estate transactions. They’re now all headed to federal prison, with Cummings’ sentence on Monday completing the set after each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Cummings, 61, got two years and three months in prison and paid $1,342,928 in restitution, the exact same sentence as her 43-year-old daughter Grace Pazmino, also of Davie. Miami daughter Diana Pazmino, 31, received one year, 10 months hard time and coughed up $1,201,531 in restitution. Cummings’ son Valentin Pazmino, 34, got two years and three months prison time, paying out $1,173,249 in restitution. Cummings’ son in Hialeah, 36-year-old Rene Pazmino, took a year and a half prison sentence along with an order to hand over $347,403 in restitution; Grace’s husband, Jared Marble, 43, got one year, four months and was forced to shell out $371,818 in restitution.

“The defendants made a full payment of the restitution judgment prior to their sentencings,” the Justice Department said.

Short sale shenanigans

As detailed in the proffer statement — the admission of facts with a guilty plea — the scheme they ran from May 2012 through June 2015 was simple.

“In reality, the sales were between and among the defendants, companies controlled by the defendants and/or individuals recruited by a defendant to participate in the fraud scheme,” the admission states. They told the banks via affidavits that each of the 10 short sales — sales in which the sale price is less than the mortgage owed — were between unrelated parties.

They also created faux HUD-1 settlement statements, which fabricated that the buyer made the necessary cash-to-close payment. So, lenders “authorized property sales for amounts less than the outstanding principal balances due on mortgages they held on the properties, thereby incurring losses.”

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