California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the sentencing of a Los Angeles broker who was involved in a mortgage loan fraud scheme in Southern California. The broker, Alex Ashod Dadourian, defrauded lenders by using forged documents and fraudulent records to obtain more than $8 million in mortgage loans for his clients in order to earn commissions for himself. He was convicted on 91 felony counts of mortgage fraud, grand theft, identity theft, and conspiracy, and was sentenced to five years and four months in prison and ordered to pay restitution. The prosecution was carried out by the California Department of Justice (DOJ)'s Division of Criminal Law, Special Prosecutions Section.
Dadourian, 61, was a licensed mortgage loan broker whose company, Success Funding dba Pride Funding, was located in Northridge, Calif. Investigators found that between 2017 and 2019, Dadourian defrauded financial lenders by taking out 17 mortgage loans based on fraudulent applications and supporting documentation. He forged documents such as employment verifications, inflated earnings statements, and education records that lenders use to assess applicants’ creditworthiness. The employers listed on the applications either did not exist or had no record of having employed the loan applicants. The fraudulent loans totaled more than $8 million and Dadourian received more than $254,000 in fees and commissions from them.
The DOJ carried out this investigation with federal law enforcement partners, including HUD-OIG and FHFA-OIG.