Lawrence Goodwin, 53, real estate appraiser, Noble, Oklahoma, plead guilty to one count of wire fraud in connection with his preparation of inflated appraisals. Goodwin was charged by information with one count of wire fraud on May 19, 2006.

Goodwin lost his Oklahoma license to conduct real estate appraisals on March 3, 2000. From approximately January 1, 2000 through July 10, 2002, according to the information, Goodwin prepared residential real estate appraisals at the request of brokers employed at Wells Fargo Financial and other financial service companies. Christopher A. Richardson who was employed at Wells Fargo from February 12, 2000 until Wells Fargo Financial terminated his employment on January 14, 2003, along with other brokers, would tell Goodwin that they needed particular appraisals to state that particular properties were worth particular values. Richardson and other brokers typically wanted properties to carry a value high enough to make their companies' services, such as refinancing, available to the property owners. If Goodwin responded that he could not create a legitimate appraisal for the requested value, Richardson would indicate that Goodwin should go ahead and create an appraisal for the value requested and would pay Goodwin extra money in exchange for a fraudulently inflated appraisal.

According to the plea agreement, the loss sustained as a result of Goodwin's conduct was in excess of $1,000,000

If convicted, Goodwin faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Christopher A. Richardson, 31, Norman, Oklahoma was indicted on May 19, 2006 and charged with one count of wire fraud and three counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. According to the indictment, he submitted inflated appraisals for approval and entered false information on Wells Fargo Financial's computer databases concerning the prices at which real property to be financed had sold in the past. The false information caused Wells and investors to approve and fund mortgages in amounts greater than the fair market value of the real estate securing the loans. In order to obtain large bonuses and further his career, according to the indictment, Richardson sought to broker as many loans as he could by complying with consumers' requests for financing whenever possible. One property identified in the indictment was 1713 Eagle Nest, Norman, Oklahoma.

Richardson is also alleged to have obtained proprietary customer loan information of Wells so that he could solicit new customers for First United Mortgage, a financial services firm that Richardson helped establish after his termination from Wells. Richardson allegedly instructed Aaron Barnes as to how to obtain customer information from the Wells computers and paid Barnes to retrieve and print out Wells customer loan information. Richardson would them use the customer loan information to solicit potential customers for First United Mortgage, according to the indictment.

Aaron M. Barnes, 28, Stillwater, Oklahoma, a former manager of the Stillwater, Oklahoma branch of Wells Fargo Finance, was also charged by information with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and entered a guilty plea to that charge on June 7, 2006.