Fraud Friday – Virginia Lawyer Gets 15 Years for SBA Loan Fraud
June 28, 2013
By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report
The fallout of one of the largest SBA loan fraud schemes continues with the lawyer and mastermind getting 15 years and eight months in federal prison for his role in a 17 lender, 124 loan, $100 million fraud.
Between 2003 and 2011 Joon Park and his co-conspirators brokered loans that contained fraudulent documents, including: bank statements for borrowers that were altered to make it look like the borrowers had more cash to inject into the business they were buying than they in fact did; counterfeit cashier’s checks and fake gift letters that made it look like the borrowers had more assets at their disposal to use as down payments than they did; fabricated resumes that made it look like the borrowers had more experience running the businesses they sought to purchase than they did; fake tax returns that made it look like the borrowers had greater income than they did; phony interim financial statements that made other businesses the borrowers owned look more profitable than they were; and a number of other misrepresentations.
The Parks charged a loan brokerage fee to both the financial institutions and the borrowers for assembling and submitting loan application packages that resulted in the issuance of SBA-guaranteed loans. The fees charged to borrowers were hidden from the financial institutions underwriting the loans. The Parks also had undisclosed ownership interests in businesses involved in some of the transactions and received loan proceeds, unbeknownst to the lenders, in a number of transactions. In one instance, the Parks did not have an ownership interest in a company involved in a transaction but persuaded the seller to assign some of the loan proceeds to them and then converted those proceeds to their own personal use.
Park’s brother is still at large and believed to be in South Korea.