Brooklyn developer gets 33 months in prison for mortgage fraud

Brooklyn developer Eliyahu Ezagui was sentenced yesterday to 33 months in prison for orchestrating a multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme that left dozens of residents “in fear of losing their apartments,” according to the Daily News. Prosecutors asked Judge Frederic Block to give Ezagui 20 years for the fraud against mortgage lenders and condominium unit buyers, but Block ruled that Ezagui, 49, had perpetrated a fraud primarily against the lenders, although he acknowledged the buyers were victims, too. “Twenty years is a sentence for rapists and murderers, not fraud like in this case,” he said. Defense lawyer Susan Necheles had argued that Ezagui did not personally profit from the scheme, in which he gave stolen deeds to family members to take out mortgage loans on apartments he did not own to fund construction costs. [NYDN]