Michelle Cochrane aka Michelle Carver, 45, Folsom, Louisiana, pled guilty to a Bill of Information in connection with an on-going federal investigation into a “house-flipping” scam. The Information charged the defendant with conspiracy to make false statements to obtain HUD Insurance.

According to court documents which describe the roles Calvin Davis and Cochrane had in a housing flipping scheme, Davis is alleged to have purchased the properties and arranged for the straw buyers. Cochrane, a former underwriter at Citywide Mortgage, admitted that there she participated in a house flipping scheme in which a coconspirator purchased properties, obtained fraudulent appraisals which overvalued the property and then arranged for straw buyers to purchase them. Cochrane pled guilty to approving fraudulent FHA/HUD loan applications for the “straw buyers” while employed at Citywide Mortgage. The fraudulent loan applications included not only false tax information, but also false credit information and an inflated real estate appraisal. Based on the fraudulent applications, the Department of Housing and Urban Development insured the loans. Citywide then sold the loans to another mortgage company. Various properties eventually went into default and HUD became responsible for paying off those loans.

Cochrane is the fifth person to plead guilty to charges stemming from this investigation. Robert Green pled guilty to an identical charge and admitted that he prepared the fraudulent tax returns. Three straw buyers,Timothy Falls, Dennis Addison and Dennis Leblanc, pled guilty to making false statements in a HUD Transaction and will be sentenced at a later date. A sixth individual, Calvin Davis is also charged with various offenses related to the scheme and is expected to be arraigned before the United States Magistrate Judge on June 16, 2007.