In federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., Edward E. Bohm, president of sales and an undisclosed owner of Long Island mortgage lender Vanguard Funding LLC, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire and bank fraud.

The plea related to the illegal diversion of over $8.9 million of warehouse loans that the lender had obtained to fund mortgages.  The guilty plea was entered before U.S. District Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein. Bohm faces up to 30 years in prison, as well as restitution, criminal forfeiture and a fine.

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According to court filings and facts presented at the plea proceedings, between August 2015 and March 2017, Bohm engaged in a scheme in which he and others obtained warehouse, or short-term, loans for Vanguard by falsely representing that Vanguard would fund or refinance mortgages for clients.  Instead, Bohm and others used the money to pay personal expenses, compensation, as well as to pay off loans they had obtained with fraudulent loan submissions for improper purposes.

Richard P. Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, and Linda A. Lacewell, Acting Superintendent, New York State Department of Financial Services, announced the guilty plea.

The government’s case is being handled by the office’s business and securities fraud section. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Whitman G.S. Knapp and Elizabeth Losey Macchiaverna are handling the prosecution with assistance from assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Mantell of the office’s asset forfeiture section.