Ex-loan officer gets 12 years for mortgage fraud

A former loan officer has been sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison for his part in a mortgage fraud scheme in which he enriched himself with more than $700,000.

Fred Haywood, of Chicago, was also ordered at Thursday’s sentencing to pay more than $1.4 million in restitution to various lenders. Haywood was the last of six people sentenced in the case.

Prosecutors say the scheme involved 65 real estate deals, most of them involving properties in poorer neighborhoods on the city’s South Side.

Haywood and the other defendants recruited buyers with good credit to obtain mortgages even though they had no intention of meeting payment obligations or living in the properties. They were promised money in return for putting the properties in their names.