Accountant Nearly Pulls Off $19,000,000 Bank Fraud Scam After Tricking Lenders With Forged Documents and Fake Rent Rolls: DOJ

A certified public accountant is pleading guilty to defrauding banks by giving false information in order to obtain loans, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The DOJ says Christine Gendron was a financial manager at real estate firm JLL Realty Developers, where her sister, Jeanette Norman, and brother-in-law, Masaschi, were partners.

According to the DOJ, Gendron entered into a conspiracy with her brother-in-law and, allegedly, her sister to defraud financial institutions.

“Specifically, Masaschi, Gendron, and allegedly Norman, provided materially false, fictitious and fraudulent financial information, including false rent rolls and forged lease agreements, to obtain loans for their companies.”

Gendron’s brother-in-law and, allegedly, her sister were partners in several other limited liability companies, which mostly owned commercial and residential properties in, among other places, Connecticut and Western Massachusetts.

The DOJ says that after obtaining the loans, Gendron’s brother-in-law and, allegedly, her sister, as well as their firms, only partially repaid the loans or didn’t pay at all. This resulted in financial institutions incurring substantial losses of over $19 million, per the Justice Department. Gendron could now spend decades in prison once convicted of her criminal charges.

“The charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud provides for a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million or twice the gross gain or loss.”

Gendron’s sister, who has pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to stand trial in October.

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