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A federal judge in Santa Fe has sentenced the former head of Keyworth Mortgage Funding Group of New Mexico and Arizona to 13 months in prison and five years of supervised probation for his bank fraud conviction.
Manuel Garcia, 70, also was ordered to pay $585,243.59 in restitution to US Bank of Albuquerque, formerly known as First Community Bank, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Garcia, currently living in Los Angeles, was ordered to surrender to a federal correctional institution to be designated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to serve his sentence.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales said Garcia was indicted and charged with six counts of bank fraud on June 7, 2011. At the time of the offenses, he was president of Keyworth Mortgage Funding Group, a business incorporated in New Mexico and Arizona that made mortgage loans and sold them to investors such as the Federal National Mortgage Association, Fannie Mae.
Garcia illegally obtained money from First Community Bank by falsely representing the money was to be used for new residential mortgage loans, according to the indictment. Garcia actually used the money to pay Keyworth’s debt to Fannie Mae.
He pleaded guilty to all six counts in the indictment in October. In a plea deal, he admitted he devised a scheme to submit requests to First Community for advances for non-existent mortgages, using property addresses of prior clients.
Garcia used names, addresses and requested loan amounts of Keyworth’s prior clients to support his requests for advances.
Garcia admitted receiving six advances totaling $1,279,650 by submitting fake requests. Because he repaid $535,450 with interest to First Community as if they had been legitimate loans, that sum was not included in the restitution Garcia is required to pay.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara C. Neda.
