(Source: By Neil Harvey, The Roanoke Times, Va. (MCT) A Hardy man pleaded guilty Thursday to attempting to hide his role as a straw buyer in a Smith Mountain Lake mortgage fraud scheme.
Dana Nuccio, 45, admitted in federal court in Lynchburg he did not declare on his 2007 tax return a payment he received in exchange for applying for loans, according to Brian McGinn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said the scheme involved about 30 homes, most in the Moneta area of Bedford County, which were valued at roughly a half-million dollars each. Loan applicants in the case used falsified information and were paid by a construction company called Genesis Mansions, prosecutors have said.
In September, mortgage brokers Timothy Scott Brooks of Lynchburg and Adam Nash Spruill of Forest, who worked for Genesis Mansions, each received three-year prison terms after they admitted lining up fraudulent home-building loans on Smith Mountain Lake.
In May, Edna Ledoux Jamieson, 44, of Moneta, also admitted to filing a tax return for 2007 which did not include a $20,000 payment from Genesis Mansions for serving as a straw purchaser, or an additional $300-a-week income she received into 2008.
Nuccio and Jamieson both face a maximum possible penalty of up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Brooks, Spruill and Jamieson have previously been described by officials as low-level participants in the plan.
The owner of Genesis Mansions, Susan Helbig, has not been charged, McGinn said. The investigation is continuing, he said.
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