Former mortgage broker sentenced to 5+ years for $8M loan fraud scheme

Former California mortgage broker Alex Ashod Dadourian was sentenced to five years and four months in prison for a loan fraud scheme in which Dadourian forged mortgage approval documents totaling more than $8 million to earn commissions for himself. 

Dadourian, a licensed mortgage loan broker with Success Funding in Northridge, took out 17 mortgage loans between 2017 and 2019 and received more than $254,0000 in fees and commissions in return, prosecutors said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the sentence on Wednesday, as well as an order to pay restitution, adding that the 61-year-old former broker was convicted on 91 felony counts of mortgage fraud, grand theft, identity theft, and conspiracy.

The prosecution was carried out by the California Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Division of Criminal Law, Special Prosecutions Section.

“We won’t stand idly by when bad actors take advantage of their professional position and break the law to enrich themselves,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Those who cheat the system to line their own pockets will be held accountable for their crimes.”

Dadourian, whose company did business as Pride Funding, forged documents such as employment verifications, inflated earnings statements, and education records that lenders use to assess applicants’ creditworthiness. The employers listed on the applications either did not exist or had no record of having employed the loan applicants, prosecutors said. 

The Department of Justice carried out the investigation with federal law enforcement officials, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General.

Dadourian’s broker license was issued in 2014, and California’s Department of Real Estate records showed that it was surrendered on September 6 “in connection with a disciplinary action and/or an enforcement investigation.”