Justice William J. Hibbler sentenced Thomas Groh to 24 months in federal prison and 5 years supervised parole. The sentence was handed down on Wednesday, June 1, 2005 in Courtroom 1225 of the U.S. Northern District Court. Groh was the appraiser who pled guilty to one count of mail fraud in the Mohammed (Mike) Kakvand scheme to sell over 150 condominiums in Rogers Park at inflated prices to straw buyers. He was also ordered to pay restitution of over $11,000,000 to the banks who were defrauded in the scheme.
He is the only one of the three indicted co-conspirators in custody, and received a reduced sentence because he has cooperated in testifying before the grand jury and working with the U.S. Attorney’s office. According to Brian Havey, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Kakvand and the other alleged conspirator, Ali Razvi, are “in the wind” and have never appeared in court after they were indicted by the grand jury. There are currently federal warrants for their arrest.
Groh is to surrender on July 25, 2005 before 2 p.m. to begin his prison term. He apologized in court to his family and co-workers for the problems he caused them.
The foregoing article was submitted by the Rogers Park Community Council (RogersPark 2000)
Previous articles on this scheme:
Rachel Dollar, the editor of Mortgage Fraud Blog is an attorney and Certified Mortgage Banker who handles litigation for lending institutions and secondary market investors.