Kevin Wiggins, the mastermind of “rehab fraud”, Frank Aswood, a corrupt appraiser, and Lydia Wiggins Christopher, office manager, will be sentenced at the federal building in Atlanta, Georgia, in front of Judge Jack T. Camp.
Wiggins had 88 houses inflated approximately $100,000 each. He would buy them low, say they were rented and rehabbed, hook them up in relatives and friends names, get re-fi’s, buy them back, flip, etc. with phony appraisals. Some of the houses literally were missing part of their structure, like the front was painted and finished and other parts of the house didn’t exist. They were not rehabbed. There were no real renters.
In the sentencing hearing a mortgage company (victim/lender) representative is anticipated to testify that Wiggins‘ scheme put them out of business, a common byproduct and problem of such large scale frauds.
At the hearing, a Fulton County Tax official is expected to testify and say that there was a 50% tax increase for the areas where Wiggins mortgage fraud jerked up the values.
Also in this hearing a 9 minute videotape will be played, shot and produced through a neighborhood association, that shows what happened to their neighborhood because of mortgage fraud. Copies of that tape will be made available once the court accepts it into evidence and approves of its distribution.
This “corrupt appraiser”‘s name is Frank ASTWOOD, not Aswood.