Mark Blunt, 44 years of age, was sentenced to 41 months in prison on charges of conspiracy to defraud banks and mortgage lenders. Blunt was also ordered to pay $1,904,012.80 in restitution.

According to the government’s sentencing memorandum, Mark Blunt stole over $1 million by orchestrating a series of sales of residential real estate in the District of Columbia. He targeted houses in poor condition, and recruited straw purchasers to fraudulently obtain bank loans which they were not capable of repaying, and which were greatly in excess of the true value of the properties.

The government noted that Blunt was the mastermind of the scheme. He arranged for the sales transactions and recruited the buyers, whose loan applications contained false statements in order to justify the millions of dollars of mortgages in their names.

The current amount of unpaid loans on these properties exceeds the resell price or estimated value by almost $2 million.