The following individuals were indicted Wednesday by a Arkansas federal grand jury on 15 counts of wire fraud on a financial institution and one count of conspiracy to make false statements to a financial institution:
Nelson Miller
Bertram Case "Casey" Miller
Michael Dorsey
Katrina Bowen Soukkaseum
Nelson Miller owned Freedom Financial Mortgage Company (Little Rock, Arkansas), Absolute Abstract and Title Co. (Little Rock, Arkansas) and controlled Jefferson Doc Prep (Louisiana.) Miller and Soukkaseum were team leaders for Freedom Financial and Soukkaseum managed the Freedom Financial Fort Smith office. Dorsey was comptroller of Freedom Financial and manager of Absolute Abstract.
The indictment alleges that the defendants defrauded lenders by submitted documents containing misrepresentations including inflated borrower income, inflated appraisals and title commitments with missing liens. They are alleged to have originated at least 84 fraudulent loans between January 2000 and March 2002 with a total value of more than $3.5 million.
FBI agents raided the offices of Freedom Financial in March 2002.
Employees that were mentioned in the indictment but were not indicted include Dave Fleming, Robert Byrd, Nichole Jones (team leaders and loan office managers), Melissa Horner (managed Freedom Financial Comptroller’s office), Arlene Ladd and Mike Ragsdale (managers of Absolute Abstract and Title.) Unindicted appraisers mentioned in the indictment include Bill Barnes and Mike Troutman.
Links to other articles about this fraud, Nelson Miller and Casey Miller:
Miller Shuts Down Freedom Financial; By Gwen Moritz, Arkansas Business - 5/6/02
Nelson Miller Takes Business to Louisiana; By Arkansas Business staff, Arkansas Business - 11/18/02
Mortgages for Arkansas Helps Clients With Loans; By Monica Carmichael, Arkansas Business - 12/2/02
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.