Defendant Pleads Guilty in Mortgage Fraud Case Related to Collapse of Desert Sun Development

Michael A. Wilson, 58, of Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, pled guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court to bank fraud. In November 2009, multiple indictments were returned by a federal grand jury against 13 defendants, including Wilson, on a variety of mortgage and loan fraud charges arising out of the collapse of Desert Sun Development ("DSD”), a commercial and residential construction company headquartered in Bend, Oregon. Wilson's sentencing is set for June 28, 2010. In December 2006, Wilson moved from South Carolina to Bend, Oregon, where he joined DSD as a construction superintendent. In 2007, while working for DSD, Wilson fraudulently obtained two loans in his wife's name as her attorney-in-fact for the purchase and refinance of a DSD constructed home. To close the first loan to purchase the home for $530,000, DSD principals provided a cashier's check for approximately $112,000 at closing, falsely claiming that it was Wilson's money. Posted in: Internal Fraud