March 23rd, 2010 by Reed Allmand 
A former loan officer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has been sentenced to over 3 years in a federal prison and ordered to $751,075 for falsifying mortgage documents sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Lynn Anne Ingle, 36, of Burleson is the second person to admit guilt in a scheme that cost HUD $964,814 after 21 mortgages defaulted, according to HUD and court documents.
Ingle was accused of creating false documents that enabled people to get mortgages for homes in Fort Worth, Arlington and Haltom City, according to an August indictment.
Ingle admitted falsifying work and rental histories, certificate of deposit statements, and verifications of rent and employment, according to a factual résumé, a court document.
Ingle is only the most recent loan officer convicted of mortgage fraud. Mortgage fraud is slowly being revealed as another major contributing factor in this foreclosure crisis. While it is not currently evident whether homebuyers willingly participated in the fraud, what is evident is that unqualified buyers put into inappropriate loans eventually succumb to foreclosure. The more mortgage fraud runs rampant in the lending industry the more homeowners become vulnerable to foreclosure. Stopping the foreclosure crisis means stamping out mortgage fraud and educating borrowers on how mortgage fraud can lead them into foreclosure and ruin their finances. While it is a good sign that regulators are giving jail time to mortgage fraudsters, it is also imperative that mortgage companies who employ these unscrupulous individuals are fined heavily if fraud is common in their company. Imprisoning individual mortgage lenders is not enough, penalizing the mortgage lending companies would be a step towards lessening mortgage fraud and in turn easing the number of foreclosures we will face in the future.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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