The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that Mark Steven Diamond, who was accused of “bilking elderly homeowners in a reverse mortgage and home repair scheme,” was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Diamond was criminally indicted in 2017 and “pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of wire fraud affecting a financial institution,” the DOJ said. He was sentenced to 205 months in prison by district court Judge Franklin Valderrama, who also ordered Diamond to pay $2.7 million in restitution.
Morris Pasqual, acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced the sentence alongside U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Inspector General Rae Oliver Davis, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and Douglas DePodesta, special agent in charge of the Chicago field office of the FBI.
“Mark Diamond repeatedly preyed on the elderly for years,” Pasqual said. “He damaged the most vulnerable in our community, both financially and personally. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to hold accountable anyone who seeks to deceive elderly homeowners through fraud.”
Davis said that Diamond’s scheme “defrauded more than 100 elderly and vulnerable homeowners, preying upon their trust and devastating them financially.” She added that his sentencing “is a sobering reminder of the unique harm caused by predatory reverse mortgage schemes. These egregious criminal acts will not be tolerated, and my agency will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to hold other individuals like Diamond accountable for their actions.”
DePodesta said that the scheme “preyed on some of the most vulnerable Chicagoans,” with Raoul adding that the victims’ only mistake “was trusting an individual who specifically targeted them to be victims of his scam.“
Alongside Diamond, four co-conspirators — two loan originators, an employee of Diamond’s and a title agency owner — “previously pleaded guilty and admitted their roles in the fraud,” and “are awaiting sentencing,” according to the DOJ’s announcement.
At his sentencing hearing, Diamond addressed the court, according to local reporting by WGN TV.
“If I could turn back the hands of time and change it, I would,” he reportedly said. “But I can’t. All I can say is, ‘I’m sorry.’”
