"I hope to be placed on probation," cooperator Walter Jenkins, the defendant's father, testified. "If I do have to go to jail, I hope I could get a sentence like Martha Stewart got."

The Camden, New Jersey trial of Kenneth Jenkins, which began on December 1, 2004, recessed for the holidays on December 22, 2004 and will continue on January 16, 2005.

Jenkins was indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and drug charges in October 2003 along with Sabena Ingalls, Walter Jenkins, Rita Jackson and Ronald Rogers arising from a mortgage fraud scheme that ran from 1996 to 2003 in Camden, New Jersey. All other defendants have already pleaded guilty.

At trial, Rogers testified that Jenkins became a cocaine wholesaler and earned 6 figures a week. Jenkins and Ingalls took the money and purchased run-down and dilapidated houses. Rogers would hire crews to patch defects. The workers were paid with crack cocaine and got high before doing the work. Kenneth and Ingalls would manufacture income documents and credit histories and obtain government backed loans for unsophisticated purchasers of the properties based on inflated appraisals. They used credit from other people, including a 7 year old girl and an invalid. Sometimes, within days of purchase, the patchwork repairs to the homes would begin to fall apart. Plywood put over roof leaks didn't hold - sewers backed-up spreading feces through the walls - kitchen cabinets fell off the walls. The homeowners couldn't afford the mortgage payments and defaulted on their loans.

The defense contends that the prosecution case is actually a drug case with no evidence and is based only on testimony of those who have plead guilty and are cooperating with the government to get lighter sentences.