Sharon Chamberlain, 39 -- Wire Fraud Conspiracy

Colleen Chiavetta, 35 -- Wire Fraud Conspiracy, Money Laundering Conspiracy

John Chiavetta, 68 -- Wire Fraud Conspiracy

Erika Stanford, 34 -- Wire Fraud Conspiracy, Money Laundering Conspiracy

Aaron Thompson, 32 -- Wire Fraud Conspiracy

Leon Truskowski, 37 -- Wire Fraud Conspiracy, Money Laundering Conspiracy

The Pennsylvania grand jury returned separate but related indictments charging Leon Truskowski, Colleen Chiavetta, Daniel Gillen, Erika Stanford, Sharon Chamberlain, Aaron Thompson, and John Chiavetta with participating in a Mortgage Fraud Conspiracy.

Leon Truskowski and Colleen Chiavetta operated a mortgage broker business, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's West End, called People's Home Mortgage that assisted borrowers in obtaining financing to purchase homes. According to the indictments, Truskowski, Colleen Chiavetta, Erika Stanford and Daniel Gillen, who were employed by People's Home Mortgage, submitted loan applications on behalf of borrowers that contained material misrepresentations about the borrowers' financial condition. They also submitted false documents in connection with the loan applications, including but not limited to, appraisals that inflated the true value of the properties, appraisals that represented that they were prepared by licensed appraisers when they were really prepared by unlicensed appraisers, and employment and income verification documents that misrepresented the borrowers' employment status and overstated the borrowers' income. In addition, the conspirators arranged for the payments associated with the loan transactions to be distributed contrary to the representations to the lender about how the loan proceeds would be distributed, and they inflated sales prices so that the conspirators could obtain money at the real estate closings. Gillen, according to the indictment charging him, also prepared fraudulent appraisals despite not being a licenses appraiser, that overstated the true market value of the properties acting as collateral for the loans.

John Chiavetta, Sharon Chamberlain, and Aaron Thompson, according to the indictments charging them, were conspirators in the scheme that acted as buyers and borrowers of properties knowing that the loan applications contained misrepresentations and many of the supporting documents submitted to the lending institutions were fraudulent.