News Releases
LONGTIME FUGITIVE JUDITH HOOPER PLEADS GUILTY IN MORTGAGE FRAUD CASE
May 10, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
David E. Nahmias,
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia; Gregory Jones,
Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William
G. Creel, Special Agent in Charge of the Southeast Region, Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) Office of Inspector General, announce JUDITH H.
“JUDY” HOOPER, a/k/a “Jerry Dale Hunter,” 55, today
pleaded guilty to charges of mortgage fraud, obtaining false Social Security
numbers and conspiracy. According to Nahmias and the documents and evidence
in court:
HOOPER was indicted on the charges on May 13, 2004, along with former
closing attorney CHALANA C. MCFARLAND, 35, of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida,
and 11 other co-defendants in a mortgage fraud scheme based in the Atlanta
area. The defendants were charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering,
and conspiracy, all related to a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme.
According to the indictment, from mid-1999 through March 2004, MCFARLAND,
and the other defendants, with the assistance of HOOPER, defrauded financial
institutions and other mortgage lenders by submitting false qualifying
information and false documentation to obtain mortgage loans, using the
U.S. Mail and various wire transfers of qualifying information and scheme
proceeds. The indictment alleges that the defendants, as a group, conspired
to either use stolen identities and false Social Security numbers, or
to pay straw borrowers to obtain mortgage loans with falsely represented
employment, income, assets and liabilities. The scheme, which involved
the “flipping” of residential properties primarily in the Mountain
Oaks, North Shore, Southland and Waters Edge Subdivisions in Lithonia
and Stone Mountain, and other residential properties in Douglasville,
Elberton, Fairburn, Griffin and Atlanta, involved mortgage loans totaling
approximately $20 million.
JUDITH H. “JUDY” HOOPER was a former mortgage broker who allegedly
changed her identity to “Jerry Dale Hunter” and arranged for
loans to be originated through the mortgage brokerage firm, “American
Mortgage Exchange.” HOOPER is also charged in a separate indictment
with causing false statements to be made to the Social Security Administration
to obtain a Social Security number in the identity of a then two-year-old
male child and using that fraudulently obtained SSN to open a Citizens
Trust Bank account to receive proceeds of the mortgage fraud scheme. HOOPER
fled the country in mid 2000, when lenders began to suspect fraud, and
the investigation began. HOOPER fled to Belize, then Canada, and other
locations outside the United States for approximately five years.
CHALANA McFARLAND was convicted on all charges after a four-week trial
in January 2005. A total of 10 defendants have pleaded guilty in the scheme.
Charges were dismissed against the remaining two defendants.
HOOPER is scheduled for sentencing on July 27, 2005, at 10:30 a.m. before
United States District Court Judge Thomas Thrash.
The case is being investigated by Special Agents of the FBI and HUD-OIG,
with assistance from US Postal Inspectors, the DeKalb County District
Attorney’s Office, and the Florida A&M University Police Department.
Assistant United States Attorney Gale McKenzie is prosecuting the case.
For further information please contact David E. Nahmias, United States
Attorney or F. Gentry Shelnutt, Chief, Criminal Division, through Patrick
Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney's Office, at (404) 581-6016.
The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney's Office for
the Northern District of Georgia is www.usdoj.gov/usao/gan.