LOS ANGELES – A Glendale man has agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud charges, admitting that he ran three separate scams, including a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 30 families out of more than $8 million.
Kaveh Vahedi has also admitted his role in a mortgage fraud scheme that submitted hundreds of falsified loan applications to banks through his brokerage firm, Countywide Financial. Vahedi has also acknowledged stealing more than $700,000 from his parents by draining their bank account and taking out a loan on their home.
Vahedi, 51, who has been in federal custody since last May, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors that was filed late Monday in United States District Court. Vahedi agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud in connection with the Ponzi scheme and one count of conspiracy in relation to the mortgage fraud scheme. Vahedi also agreed to plead guilty to one count of bank fraud to resolve a previously filed criminal case related to the fraud against his parents.
Vahedi is scheduled to plead guilty tomorrow morning before United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson. Once he pleads guilty to the three felony counts stemming from the three schemes, Vahedi will face a statutory maximum sentence of 55 years in federal prison.
According to the plea agreement, Vahedi ran an elaborate Ponzi scheme through his investment company, KGV Investments, which he used to give victims the appearance that he was a successful businessman who made hundreds of millions of dollars brokering international bond deals. He also told investors that his contacts gave him unique opportunities to invest in real estate development projects overseas, including commercial developments in China and Dubai, as well as large real estate projects in the United States. Vahedi admits in the plea agreement that he convinced more than 30 investors to give him approximately $12 million to invest on their behalf. Instead of investing the money in bond or real estate deals, Vahedi used the investors’ money for his own benefit, including to make monthly mortgage payments on several properties, luxury vehicles and private school tuition. Ultimately, investors suffered losses of more than $8 million.
Vahedi also ran a successful Glendale-based mortgage brokerage firm that he called Countywide Financial, which was an approved broker for several major lending banks including Countrywide Home Loans, Countrywide Bank, and Bank of America. (There was no connection between Vahedi’s Countywide Financial and the Calabasas-bssed Countrywide Home Loans.) Vahedi admitted in his plea agreement that he submitted at least 250 fraudulent loan applications that included falsified employment and income records to these lenders. Relying on the lies in the loan applications, as well as the forged records that were provided by Vahedi in support of these applications, lenders were duped into approving and funding millions of dollars in loans.
In addition to these crimes, Vahedi also agreed to plead guilty to one bank fraud count in a pending indictment against him related to a fraud he perpetrated against his own family. In his plea agreement, Vahedi admits that he posed as his father in order to withdraw approximately $250,000 from his parents’ bank account. He also impersonated his father and took out a $493,000 home equity loan against his parents’ home.
The cases against Vahedi are the result of a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service.
I was at the plea hearing in court today and there a sentence in this report that is wrong. It says in paragraph 6 that: “There was no connection between Vahedi’s Countywide Financial and the Calabasas-based Countrywide Home Loans.” This is untrue, as the sentence immediately before admits, since Kaveh’s company was “an approved broker for several major lending banks including Countrywide Home Loans, Countrywide Bank, and Bank of America.”
The 1999 Wholesale Broker contract between Countrywide Home Loans and Kaveh’s wholly-owned company made it Countrywide’s exclusive contract for all his direct face-to-face meetings with loan applicants and made his company a Countrywide Home Loans “business partner.” It paid him to advise borrowers on the affordability of their loans. Countrywide allowed Kaveh’s company Countywide Financial to use a name confusingly similar to its own parent company, Countrywide Financial.
Countrywide Home Loans allowed Kaveh’s company to close loans for it with unlicensed loan officers and loan originators from 1999 through 2008, including Kaveh himself who was unlicensed during that entire time. And the Countrywide entities and Bank of America seem to have never checked the hundreds of IRS Form 4506-T forms signed by loan applicants on the hundreds of Kaveh Vahedi submitted loans that he has admitted falsified income. If Countrywide had checked with the IRS using the anti-fraud (and free!) IRS Form 4506-T to ascertain the applicants’ true income, Kaveh would have been exposed as a fraud and imprisoned long before the 30 innocent families loaned him millions and lost the millions that he today admitted he defrauded them out of — $8.8 million and still counting.
It is unfortunate situation. My family have and will stand behind Kaveh and provide him all the resources necessary to go through this difficult journey. We will become stronger as a result of this.
It is not however to be forgotten that the ” so called” victims knowingly signed documents in order to receive the highest amount of loan from the banks. No one complained when the checks arrived. They had full knowledge of what they were doing and are equally to blame.
He admitted to 250 fraudulent loan applications
He admitted to falsified employment and income records
He admitted lies in the loan applications, as well as the forged records that were provided by Vahedi in support of these applications, lenders were duped into approving and funding millions of dollars in loans.
FBI and Secret Service is after him and this person Kevin who is related to this animal is saying “we will stand behind kaveh” are you insane? Anyone steeling from their parents is capable of lie and deception
The only reason your family would support him is because his the escape goat and you benefited from the victims money