Former Saratoga Springs loan officers indicted on charges of falsifying applications

PHOTOGRAPHER: Steven Cook

Two former loan officers at a Saratoga Springs mortgage company have been indicted in an alleged scheme to artificially inflate borrowers’ income to get loans approved.

John Nazarian and Jon Yusaitis were charged in indictments unsealed recently in U.S. District Court in Albany with one count each of aiding and abetting bank fraud.

Nazarian and Yusaitis, whose ages and addresses were unavailable, are identified in the indictments as having been loan officers for First Guarantee Mortgage of Saratoga Springs from 2003 to 2008. First Guarantee Mortgage dissolved by 2008.

It specialized in bad credit and subprime mortgages.

According to the indictment, the two are specifically accused of falsifying information on loan applications in 2003. Yusaitis is accused of overstating an individual’s income on a June 18, 2003, mortgage application in Saratoga County. As a result, Wilmington Finance and AIG Federal Savings Bank issued a loan for $250,400.

Nazarian is accused of overstating the income of a borrower in an Aug. 26, 2003, loan application in Saratoga County. As a result of that overstatement, the indictment reads, the two companies issued a loan for $144,800.

The indictments also fault First Guarantee Mortgage, charging that from 2001 to 2007, the company, “acting through its officers, employees, and agents, conceived and executed a scheme” to defraud financial institutions.

According to the indictment, employees and agents of First Guarantee Mortgage would assist loan applicants in completing the mortgage applications. Those employees and agents would then enter false information “in order to qualify the applicants for the mortgage loans, or otherwise enhance the chances that the mortgage loan applications would be accepted and funded,” the indictment reads.

One of First Mortgage’s founders was David Silipigno. His previous mortgage business, National Finance Corp. of Halfmoon, closed suddenly in 1999, and he was convicted of felony wire fraud and perjury charges in 2003 in connection with its demise.

Silipigno was sentenced then to three years of supervised release, fined $100,000 and paid $5.6 million in restitution. He is not named in the new indictments.

Both Nazarian and Yusaitis are represented by attorney E. Stewart Jones. He said Wednesday both men deny any wrongdoing.

Jones said he represents a number of people contacted by the government in the case and is aware of more than 20 who have been identified as potential targets of the inquiry.