An Indian-American woman in California was sentenced to prison by a federal judge for mortgage fraud April 11.
United States District Judge Anthony W. Ishii sentenced Aruna Kumari Chopra, 66, of Modesto, California, to one year and one day in prison, to be followed by a year of home confinement, for her mail fraud conviction in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme.
According to court documents, in 2008, Chopra purchased property on Dale Road in Modesto that she intended to develop into a shopping center to be called “The Plaza at Dale.” She defrauded lenders by filing documents with the Stanislaus County Recorder’s Office that contained forged signatures in an attempt to conceal liens on the property from her lenders. The loans made by the defrauded lenders on the property totaled approximately $8.9 million. Chopra pleaded guilty on Nov. 30.
Aruna Chopra’s husband Sawtantra Chopra earlier pleaded guilty to one count of receiving illegal kickbacks and was sentenced to 180 days of home detention, fined $75,000, ordered to do 500 hours of community service and placed on three years of probation, relating to a real estate deal in Daville, California, according to a Dec. 1, 2014 report in the Modesto Bee. Sawtantra Chopra, who studied medicine in India and got a license to practice in California in 1975, cooperated with an investigation by the state Medical Board, which suspended his doctor license for one month and ordered him to take an ethics course, the Bee reported.
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