Department of Justice Press Release

For Immediate Release
December 8, 2009 United States Attorney's Office
Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Contact: (215) 861-8200

Five Indicted in Foreclosure Rescue and Mortgage Fraud Scheme

Scam Involved Lawyers, Mortgage Brokers, and More Than $14.6 Million in Loans

PHILADELPHIA—A 15-count indictment was filed today against five defendants charged in a $14.6 million mortgage fraud scheme that resulted in at least 35 fraudulent mortgage loans, announced United States Attorney Michael L. Levy, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI Janice K. Fedarcyk, and Pennsylvania Secretary of Banking Steven Kaplan. Charged are Edward G. McCusker and John Alford Bariana, owners of Axxium Mortgage, Inc., McCusker’s wife, Jacqueline, and Jeffrey A. Bennett and Stephen G. Doherty, owners of the Doylestown law firm Bennett & Doherty, P.C.

According to the indictment, the defendants targeted financially distressed homeowners facing foreclosure, falsely promised them help in saving their homes, engaged in real estate transactions with straw purchasers, and obtained dozens of fraudulent mortgages. The defendants took whatever equity the homeowner had left, funneled it through various shell corporations they controlled, used some of it to pay the new mortgages, and put the rest of the equity into their own bank accounts.

“Unfortunately, the downturn in the economy has given rise to unscrupulous predators looking to cash in on the misfortune of others,â€