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Weston CPA gets prison for foreclosure rescue scam

By Palm Beach Business.com

FORT LAUDERDALE — A Weston CPA will serve a year and a day in prison for his role in a foreclosure rescue scam that ripped off both financially distressed homeowners as well as banks.

Barrington Coombs, 58, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud, following a two-week jury trial in July. Coombs is the last of three defendants to be sentenced in connection with Foreclosure Solution Specialists of Pompano Beach.

Foreclosure Solution and its two principals, Lisa Wright and Cathy Saffer, would target homeowners facing foreclosure and promise that they could help them keep their homes.  The company told its victims that it would sell the house to investors who would allow them to continue living in their homes and even allow them buy back their homes when they got back on their feet, financially speaking.

Unfortunately for the victims, Foreclose Solution did none of that. Instead, the company arranged sham sales of the homes to phony parties using bank loans obtained with the help of equally phony documents that Coombs provided. Wright and Saffer would milk whatever equity remained in the houses, and promptly defaulted on the loans. The scam left its victims left high and dry.

A federal jury convicted Coombs of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud following a two-week jury trial in July 2012.

Wright received 66 months in prison and Saffer five years.

Said U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer: “Foreclosure rescue schemes are the latest fall-out from the mortgage fraud crisis. Defendant Coombs, an accountant, participated in this scheme by creating false paperwork to support the false information contained in loan applications. We will continue to prosecute all those who prey on vulnerable homeowners at risk of losing their homes.”