Mortgage fraud trial goes to the jury

By John Surratt
The federal mortgage flipping case against Richard Lucas, Kimberly A. Castle and Kenneth Stalnaker has gone to the jury.

The three are accused of buying distressed property at low prices, getting inflated appraisals to get high mortgage loans and then pocketing the proceeds. Lucas and Castle, his attorney, also are charged with money laundering by buying property to continue the alleged scheme.

U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett turned the case over to the jury late this afternoon after attorneys for both sides completed closing arguments.

Starrett later recessed court until 9 a.m. Wednesday, when deliberations are expected to resume.

During closing arguments, government prosecutors used documents and testimony from witnesses to link the pieces of the complex case to show how Lucas, Castle and Stalnaker worked together to make money off the alleged mortgage fraud scheme.

Attorneys for Lucas continued to paint him as a businessman with a good idea who was deceived by a mortgage company, while John Colette, Castle’s attorney, and Jim Davis, Stalnaker’s attorney, each tried to disassociate their clients from the government’s charges of conspiracy.

Colette and Davis told jurors that their clients were only guilty of doing their jobs and did not benefit from the supposedly large sums of money that Lucas and other associates allegedly received.