Mark Diamond gets over 17 years in prison in reverse mortgage scam targeting seniors
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A man who pleaded guilty of scamming seniors on the city's South and West sides in a reverse mortgage scheme was sentenced Thursday.
Mark Diamond was sentenced to 205 months—or 17 years and one month—in prison. He was also ordered to pay $2.7 million in restitution.
Diamond admitted of scheming to trick homeowners into unwittingly obtaining reverse mortgage loans to pay home repairs he offered to perform, but didn't. The U.S. Attorney's office said Diamond and his co-schemers targeted elderly homeowners in the Chicago area, and selected them based on both their lack of financial sophistication and how much equity they had in their homes.
He told the victims they were signing paperwork for the repairs, when they were really signing documents related to the reverse mortgage loan, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said at least 122 victims were targeted, losing about $10 million in the equity of their homes.
One victim, Effie Herron, had dementia and was approached about making repairs to the home she owned and was tricked into signing a reverse mortgage. When Heron died, her daughter, Barbara, started getting letters that $180,000 was owed to Diamond's business, Reverse Mortgage Solutions.
Gloria Muldrow told CBS News Chicago in 2017 that her late mother also trusted Diamond to remodel her home. But instead, according to Muldrow, Diamond tricked her then-89-year-old mother, Lillie Williams, into signing a reverse mortgage for $110,000; he allegedly took the money and almost took their home before the feds arrested him.
As far back as 2003, then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan banned Diamond from doing loan closings in Illinois.
Diamond, 68, pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of wire fraud affecting a financial institution. U.S. District Judge Franklin U. Valderrama imposed the sentence Thursday.
