Mesa mortgage broker guilty of bank fraud in cash-back scheme
T he crackdown on mortgage fraud in Arizona has resulted in another conviction in the Valley. Jeffrey Todd Crandell, 33, of Mesa has pled guilty to six counts of Bank Fraud
According the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Arizona, Crandell was the leader of a sophisticated cash-back mortgage fraud scheme. In 2005, he obtained the rights to properties in Queen Creek, then hid his interest in those properties by putting them in his brother-in-law’s name. Then Crandell recruited friends to buy the properties for inflated prices—often hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the cost of the land.
Crandell brokered the …
