Appraiser Guilty in Mortgage Scheme

A Trabuco Canyon real estate appraiser and a Beverly Hills broker were convicted Monday for their roles in a $40 million fraud that involved "flipping" homes – or buying and then quickly reselling them – in some of California's most prestigious neighborhoods, federal prosecutors said. Lila Rizk, 42, a licensed appraiser from Trabuco Canyon, and Kyle Grasso, 38, a Beverly Hills real estate agent, were found guilty by a jury of conspiracy, bank fraud, and numerous loan fraud charges after a five-week trial in federal court in Los Angeles. In addition, Grasso was convicted of three counts of money laundering. The defendants defrauded mortgage lenders by obtaining inflated loans on homes in areas such as Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Malibu, Carmel, Mill Valley, Pebble Beach and La Jolla, prosecutors said. The conspirators sent false documents, including bogus purchase contracts and appraisals, to deceive the banks into funding mortgage loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the homes actually cost, prosecutors said. Posted in: Internal Fraud