6 indicted in mortgage-fraud cases

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office announced the indictments of six people yesterday in three separate mortgage-fraud cases.

Yu Jane Chen, 42, whose last known address was in Philadelphia, and Yi Feng Reid, 48, of Closter, N.J., are accused of using stolen identities to obtain more than $1 million in unauthorized mortgages, lines of credit, and credit cards.

Attorney General Anne Milgram said the women, along with two men who now live in China, were involved in brokering mortgages and small-business loans in Bergen County in North Jersey from 2004 to mid-2007.

Deborah Gramiccioni, director of the state Division of Criminal Justice, said some clients gave Reid and Chen personal and financial data when obtaining loans, while others first supplied the necessary information and then chose not to seek mortgages.

With that information, the state alleges, the two women helped the men named in the indictment, Ji Gang Chen, 53, and George Liu, 33, then living in New York City, obtain mortgages on houses owned by family members totaling $850,000, as well as $300,000 in loans and credit accounts from lenders in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.

Indicted in the other two cases were:

Ramon Coscolleula, 30, of Union, N.J., owner of Temple Group L.L.C. of Newark, who is alleged to have falsified five loan applications submitted to Commerce Bank in 2007 and 2008.

Terrence Givens, 32, of East Orange, charged with one count of theft by deception in connection with alleged falsification of employment on a mortgage application in 2005.

Milgram's office has been actively pursuing mortgage-fraud cases in New Jersey, which was ranked 12th among the 50 states in the number of such incidents reported to the Mortgage Asset Research Institute in 2008.

In March, Milgram announced the indictments of three firms, two in Camden County and one in Totowa, accusing them of offering loan-modification services even though they were not licensed to do so.

The firms took up-front fees and did not provide the services promised, the attorney general said at the time.