Mortgage fraud indictments

Today's Globe reports that a Massachusetts attorney has been indicted by the US Attorney for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme which recruited "investors" to purchase condominiums, mostly in Boston, under false pretenses. It seems that the condo buyers never had any intention in living in the units, but were persuaded by the attorney and his co-defendants to obtain mortgages by falsifying financial information and by indicating that they would occupy the condo units as personal residences when that was not the case. Predictably, most of these units are in foreclosure.

Although bending and breaking the rules becomes commonly accepted practice during boom times, the state must aggressively prosecute all who participated in schemes such as this and fully publicize such prosecutions, both as a deterrent to future wrongdoing and as an acknowledgment to the public that those who break the rules will be punished.