US cricket captain and former Guyanese player Steve Massiah is hoping for a plea deal with US authorities on mortgage charges by January 13, 2012.
According to court documents seen by Stabroek News, on December 16, 2011 Massiah and the US government jointly requested from the presiding judge that the period from December 13, 2011 to January 13, 2012 be excluded in computing the time within which an indictment must be filed or information provided as the parties are engaged in “plea negotiations which they believe are likely to result in a disposition of this case without trial”. The judge in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York granted the request.
Massiah and two others were charged in November in New York with defrauding banks and mortgage companies by falsifying mortgage- loan applications to make borrowers appear more creditworthy to financial institutions, court records show in a case connected to indicted Guyanese businessman Ed Ahmad.
Ahmad himself is in plea negotiations with US authorities and has been given up to February next year. Legal sources note that the Massiah plea deal could strengthen the US case against Ahmad.
Massiah is out on US$150,000 bail and his passport has been confiscated.
In a complaint and affidavit in support of an arrest warrant, FBI agent Bryan J Trebelhorn deposed that Massiah, the other two defendants and co-conspirators defrauded various lending institutions by obtaining mortgages on properties located in the eastern District of New York and elsewhere through fraudulent means. The falsified information made the borrowers appear more creditworthy and fraudulently enhanced the purported worth of the properties. Consequently, the lenders were fraudulently induced to issue mortgages.
The co-conspirators also fraudulently gathered fees and commissions in excess of those permitted by the lenders.
The complaint against Massiah cites a property in Jamaica, New York. Trebelhorn said that the mortgage application tendered by Massiah included numerous falsities as to his creditworthiness.
For example, it said that he was earning US$6,650 per month as a catering manager at a business which was owned by co-conspirator one. Further, the mortgage loan documents falsely stated that Massiah planned to occupy the Jamaica property as his primary residence.
The mortgage application was also accompanied by a certification of employment for Massiah to the effect that a manager at the catering business had verified that Massiah had been employed at the catering business – Ahmad’s own – since November 2002.
Trebelhorn said his investigation showed that Massiah never worked at the catering business but rather as a real estate agent with Ahmad’s realty.
“On July 13, 2011, I interviewed Massiah, who stated, in sum and substance, the following: (1) he never worked at the Catering Business; (2) in March 2007, he was employed as a real estate agent at the Real Estate Company; and (3) he never intended to occupy the Jamaica property as a primary residence”. Further, he said he had purchased the property in association with co-conspirator one even though the latter was not listed as a borrower on the mortgage application.
Trebelhorn said that two cooperating witnesses had told the US government that they knew Massiah socially and professionally and that he worked as a realtor but not a caterer.
One of the witnesses said that Massiah had purchased multiple properties on behalf of co-conspirator two.
Trebelhorn swore that real estate records showed that Massiah resold the Jamaica property on May 1, 2007, two months after purchase.
After speaking with the purchasers, Trebelhorn said he believed that Massiah acted as a straw buyer for co-conspirator one. He noted that the purchasers never met Massiah nor did he make any mortgage payments on the Jamaica property.
Promising Guyanese cricketers
Meanwhile, citing court documents, the New York Post on Christmas Day said that the US is arguing that Ahmad recruited promising Guyanese cricketers, lined them up with cricket clubs and used them as straw buyers in the mortgage scheme that he has been charged in.
Ahmad, the report said, would recruit promising cricket players from Guyana, link them up with New York cricket clubs and employ them in his scheme as straw buyers. The report sourced the information to court records.
The Post report said that by day they would “work” for Ahmad’s Century 21 realty office in Ozone Park. During off hours, they would be playing cricket.
The report said that some of the players participated in the annual Ed Ahmad Cricket Cup in Queens, one of the key contests for the national team.
Ahmad, both a broker and loan officer, the Post noted is accused of participating in 163 suspect loans with Countrywide in 2006 and 2007 alone and has been linked to a total of 361 shady property deals. He profited from sales commissions and excessive loan fees, the feds say.
Ahmad, 44, became an important cricket supporter in the city, starting his tournament in 2003, the Post noted. The competition ranged teams representing Caribbean countries against one another and would draw some 1,000 fans to its final game.
“He was definitely seen as an icon of sorts — someone who was actually able to get things done,” Lester Hooper, cricket director for the New York City region, told the Post.
