Portland, Oregon – Lee Howlett, 46, was sentenced to 41 months I prison and an additional three years of supervised release. Howlett pled guilty in February 2009 to a single account of conspiring to make untruthful statements to the financial institutions.

The Taylor Made Mortgage company in Portland, Oregon was previously operated by Howlett. According to information produced by the government at sentencing, over a two-and-a-half year period, from 2003 to 2005, Howlett submitted 14 forged loan applications in connection with the purchase or refinancing of seven properties. Those applications contained false employment information, false income information, false information about the source of down-payments and false information about the real buyer. Furthermore, each of these applications was accompanied by a fraudulent appraisal.

As a result of these falsehoods, Howlett obtained more than $3.7 million in financing, of which he personally got $1.3 million. Losses to the financial institutions as a result of these false loans were estimated at between $400,000 and $1 million.