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A District of Columbia resident was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison for his role a scheme where stolen residential property was used to generate more than $850,000 in fraudulent loans.

According to the charges brought against him, Jeffrey M. Young-Bey Young-Bey conspired in November 2019 to steal a residential townhome located in the LeDroit Park section of the District, with the goal of obtaining mortgage financing against the stolen property. Young-Bey identified a target property owned by an elderly homeowner and prepared a fraudulent property deed, including forged signatures of the true owners and used a fake notary stamp to make the deed appear legitimate.

Young-Bey filed the fraudulent paperwork with the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds, successfully transferring the title from the true owners to a corporate entity. Young-Bey passed a check to the Recorder of Deeds to pay for the transfer taxes but put a stop payment order on the check before the city government could cash the check. After causing the fake deed to be recorded with the Recorder of Deeds, he falsely told a mortgage services business that another individual had inherited the property and wanted to take a large loan against the value of the home.

Young-Bey then created a fake rental lease and deceived the mortgage company into loaning one of his associates approximately $360,000 against the value of the home they did not own, which was split evenly between the two. Young-Bey used his half of the proceeds to buy a BMW 3-Series valued at approximately $23,000.

Young-Bey executed a second fraudulent scheme on a Shephard Park property in the District, forging the names of the two owners, using the fake notary stamp, and recording the deed at the Recorder of Deeds Office. Young-Bey repeated his scam by putting a stop payment order on the transfer tax check before it could be cashed, enabling him to use the recorded deed to obtain a construction loan of more than $500,000 against the value of the house. Young-Bey took a portion of the loan and purchased a BMW 7-Series worth approximately $120,000.

Young-Bey sold the home in the second scam to a legitimate real estate company at a $42,000 profit. However, the fraud was discovered when the real estate company began performing renovations on the home and the rightful owners were alerted to the construction and demolition by their neighbors.

Young-Bey was found guilty by a jury on Feb.12, 2024, on 12 federal charges: one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and bank fraud, two counts of bank fraud, two counts of mail fraud, two counts of money laundering, and five counts of aggravated identity theft. In addition to his term of incarceration, Young-Bey was also sentenced to five years of supervised release.