Jan Rozycka plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud in U.S. District Court. He was indicted, along with 10 other people, in April 2004. Rozycka was the alleged mastermind of an Illinois mortgage fraud scheme that resulted in lender losses of $9.6M.

In his plea he admitted to devising a scheme to defraud lenders. He located and paid straw buyers and sellers to participate in fraudulent real estate transactions and provided them with false identification. He further admits that he solicited mortgage brokers to arrange for financing. The mortgage brokers were often aware they were arranging financing for straw purchases. Rozycka appeared at many of the real estate closings and supervised the actions of the straw parties, sometimes falsely representing that he was an employee of a mortgage broker – other times representing that he was an attorney named “John Hanus.” Prior to the closings, Rozycka sometimes prepared mortgage releases that falsely represented that lenders with existing mortgages against the properties had been paid off. Rozycka or Skatulski would present the fraudulent mortgage releases to the title company employees. The plea agreement admits that between July 2002 and September 23, 2003, he and the other participants conducted and attempted to conduct at least 34 fraudulent real estate closings. The total loss caused or attempted was $10,055,290.81.

Further details of the scheme are in the plea agreement. Click here to view the Plea Agreement.