Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011 | 5:58 p.m.
A federal judge today sentenced a Las Vegas woman to 27 months in prison after she pleaded guilty to submitting six fraudulent mortgage loan applications in 2004 and 2005, Nevada's U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said.
Gail Bilyeu, 54, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson to pay roughly $1 million in restitution to five federally-insured financial institutions. Bilyeu pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud.
She was indicted in November 2009 along with co-defendant Malcolm Childress, who also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Childress was sentenced in September to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $964,250 in restitution. He also was ordered to forfeit $2.6 million to the government.
From October 2004 to December 2005, Bilyeu and Childress participated in a conspiracy to submit fraudulent mortgage loan applications to financial institutions. Bilyeu recruited and paid straw buyers to purchase homes in Las Vegas. These straw buyers did not intend to occupy the homes. Bilyeu caused false information to be included on the straw buyers’ loan applications so that they could obtain loans for which they would not otherwise qualify.
Bilyeu also caused the loan applications to be forwarded to the financial institutions for funding of the mortgages. Six mortgage loan applications were sent to financial institutions by Bilyeu and Childress. The loans totaled $2.6 million, and were used to purchase four homes in Las Vegas and two in Henderson.
The cases were investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Pugh.
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