Man Sentenced After Defrauding Homeowners

One of the men said to have preyed on local homeowners threatened with foreclosure was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in county jail as part of a plea agreement reached with the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, the office announced.

Ashik Ahmed Azeez, 50, of Sacramento pled no contest to three misdemeanor counts of mortgage fraud. According to Sacramento Superior Court records, he was facing 23 counts for his involvement in a loan modification business that illegally siphoned advance service fees from seven victims, including individuals with properties in Fair Oaks and Carmichael.

An arrest warrant filed in March said a Fair Oaks couple that solicited the help of Azeez’s business, Turbo Mortgage Modification, ended up losing their home when Azeez didn’t follow up on his promise to deliver a loan modification.

The couple first entered Azeez’s Arden Way office suite in September 2010. According to the warrant filing by prosecutor Michael Blazina, Azeez gave the couple the impression that their “loan modification was guaranteed” and had them pay him $2,500 in cash the following day.

It is illegal to charge or collect advance fees for loan modification services that haven’t happened.

Even with the cash, the Fair Oaks couple’s loan modification never materialized, with Azeez telling them three months later they hadn’t gotten him additional information in a timely manner, the warrant filing asserted.

The couple lost their home to foreclosure last December.

As part of the plea agreement, Azeez was placed on three years of probation. He was also ordered to pay $8,250 in restitution to the victims, and is prohibited from engaging in any business activity involving real estate while on probation, a release from the DA’s office states.

Azeez ran the company, later named Turbo Solutions, with Frank Joseph Ferris, 69, and Vicente Jose Perez, 49, both of Sacramento.

DA spokeswoman Shelly Orio said the cases against those two individuals remain ongoing and declined to comment further. Online court data, however, shows that Perez was scheduled for a plea hearing Tuesday morning, just as Azeez was. He faces 11 misdemeanor charges.

Ferris is not yet facing active prosecution, at least according to online court records. In May 2007, he was sentenced to 48 hours on a sheriff’s work program and three years of probation following a no-contest plea to a single count of driving under the influence.

In 2005, Azeez was convicted in Sacramento Superior Court of two misdemeanor counts of violating a restraining order. He was sentenced to 20 days on a sheriff’s work project and three years of probation, but would be back in court six more times in relation to that case due to probation violation issues, online court records show.

Ten days after Fair Oaks Patch published the  against Azeez and his business partners, someone identifying himself as Ashik Azeez left a comment saying, “not true, ashik azeez."