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Two New York men were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Omar A. Williams in Hartford, Connecticut, for perpetrating a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme.

According to the charges brought against them, Jacob Deutsch and Aron Deutsch worked at B H Property Management LLC (BHPM), a multifamily property management company in Hartford. Between September 2016 and May 2021, then pair engaged in a scheme to defraud several financial institutions, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by providing false information overstating the value of multifamily housing properties managed by BHPM in connection with loans secured by those properties.

In this scheme, Jacob Deutsch provided false rent rolls and falsified leases to the victim financial institutions and their appraisers; he also deceived inspectors into believing that unoccupied apartments were occupied by staging the apartments with furniture and by requiring BHPM employees to lie to the inspectors about their occupancy status. Jacob Deutsch also provided the victim financial institutions with false and inflated income statements and financials for the properties, doctored bank statements, doctored or false documents overstating the purchase price of various multifamily housing properties, and doctored checks and invoices showing false or overstated capital improvements made to those properties.

The fraud also included providing photographs of money orders and checks purporting to reflect rent payments from fake tenants on the falsified rent rolls – the money orders and checks had been purchased by Aron Deutsch or BHPM employees at Aron Deutsch’s direction.

Jacob and Aron Deutsch were arrested on May 19, 2021. After his arrest and while released on bond, Jacob Deutsch victimized another lender to secure an $11 million loan.

The pair pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud affecting a financial institution on July 12, 2022, and June 1, 2022, respectively. Jacob Deutsch was sentenced to 62 months of imprisonment and four years of supervised release and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine; he is required to report to prison on March 8. Aron Deutsch was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay a $1 million fine.

Jacob Deutsch has a prior criminal history with a wire fraud conviction stemming from an insurance fraud scheme. In October 2003, he was sentenced to three months of imprisonment for that offense.