A federal jury found a former Toledo-area real estate agent and a mortgage broker guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in a $1.5 million mortgage-fraud scheme.
Jurors, who reached a verdict Friday evening after nearly five hours of deliberating in U.S. District Court, also concluded that Timothy Bradley, 41, was guilty on 11 of 18 counts of bank fraud and Martha Ednie, 54, guilty on 20 of 32 counts of bank fraud.
Prosecutors said the two obtained fraudulent bank loans for real estate by concealing the true purchase price from lenders. Bradley, now of Cary, N.C., was the real estate agent listed on the contracts, and Ednie, of Toledo, secured financing as the mortgage broker.
Spiros Cocoves, Bradley’s attorney, and John McMahon, Ednie’s attorney, declined to comment after the verdicts were reached.
Three others, including Bradley's parents and brother, were convicted on similar charges for their roles in the scheme.
His father, Herman “Wayne” Bradley of Rossford, and brother, Nicholas Bradley of Haskins, Ohio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and filing a false tax return.
The elder Bradley also pleaded guilty to money laundering, and his wife, Jacquelyn, also of Rossford, pleaded guilty to structuring a currency transaction to avoid a reporting requirement.
The elder Bradley is serving a 46-month prison term. He was also ordered to forfeit more than $2 million cash seized in 2011 from a safe at his Glenwood Road home. Nicholas Bradley was sentenced to 16 months.
They both testified during the trial.
In closing arguments, Mr. McMahon told the jury Wayne Bradley controlled the transactions to defraud financial institutions and manipulated Ednie to notarize documents to satisfy accountants for tax reporting purposes.
“It was not Martha's role to negotiate the agreements,” he said. “It was the buyers and sellers who changed the agreement.”
Mark Geudtner said in closing arguments that his client, Timothy Bradley, as a licensed real estate agent, lined up potential buyers with willing sellers of houses, but didn't participate in the transactions of providing addendums to the financial institutions.
Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.
First Published March 19, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
