SAN DIEGO - A federal indictment unsealed in San Diego Friday charges a husband and wife with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly committing mortgage fraud to raise money to help avoid prosecution for tax evasion.
According to a second superseding indictment, Ronald Allen Fisher and his wife, Nancy Fisher, fraudulently refinanced their condominium in Florida in May 2007 by including false information on a loan application submitted to a lender.
The couple also caused the submission of false verification of employment letters to the lender, according to the second superseding indictment.
The second superseding indictment alleges that Ronald Fisher committed the mortgage fraud while on pretrial release for tax evasion charges pending in U.S. District Court in San Diego.
In August 2006, Ronald Fisher, his son Mark, daughter Kelly, and business partner Sterling Wayne Pirtle, were indicted for tax evasion arising from income they earned at a now-bankrupt company they ran, Commercial Money Center.
CMC operated out of offices in Escondido, Las Vegas and Florida, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven E. Stone.
Subsequently, a federal grand jury handed up a superseding indictment against Ronald Fisher, Mark Fisher, and Pirtle last December, adding conspiracy and bank fraud charges related to their operation of CMC.
The first superseding indictment alleged that the defendants engaged in a scheme through CMC that involved the sale of pools of fraudulent sub-prime equipment leases to financial institutions.
According to court filings, the defendants included $70 million worth of fraudulent leases in the pools they sold to the financial institutions. Before it declared bankruptcy, CMC obtained more than $300 million from financial institutions through its sale of sub-prime equipment leases.
The new charges against Ronald Fisher and Nancy Fisher allege that a purpose of the mortgage fraud was to pay for the services of a former state governor that included meeting with the United States Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to help Ronald Fisher avoid being prosecuted for the CMC-related bank fraud.
The money laundering charge against Ronald and Nancy Fisher centers on a $30,000 payment made to that former state governor using the proceeds of the mortgage fraud.
The defendants will be back in court Nov. 24.
