Woodbridge Man Gets 3 Years In Prison For Role In $2 Million Mortgage Fraud

A 73-year-old Woodbridge man has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for his role in a $2 million mortgage fraud scheme, authorities said.

Delio Coutinho, a former loan offers for a north Jersey mortgage brokerage company, was ordered Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton to serve 36 months in federal prison.

The judge also ordered him to serve three years of supervised release upon completion of his sentence and to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution, according to a news release from Paul J. Fishman, the U.S. Attorney in Newark.

The Woodbridge man previously pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the news release said.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Between March 2008 and June 2012, Coutinho and others “conspired to release liens on encumbered properties via fraudulently arranged short sale transactions.”

That allowed them to profit from new fraudulent loans obtained on the properties.

They submitted fraudulent mortgage applications to obtain new loans on properties in Elizabeth, and others obtained about $2 million in illegal mortgage proceeds.

Fishman credited law enforcement agents of the FBI Newark Mortgage Fraud Task Force, postal inspectors of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and special agents of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General; Federal Housing Finance Agency, Office of Inspector General; Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP); IRS–Criminal Investigation; and he Hudson County Prosecutor’s Officer for their work on the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Kogan of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Economic Crimes Unit in Newark, as well as Barbara Ward, Acting Chief of the office’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Unit handled the government’s case.