Having once been accused of mortgage fraud reaching upward of $500 million, prominent regional developer Robert “Bob” Morgan was sentenced Friday to no jail time and no federal parole.
He was also ordered to pay more than $16.3 million in restitution to resolve the civil and criminal charges against him. Morgan, 65, has already made that payment.
The culmination of what was once touted as one of the region’s largest-ever mortgage fraud prosecutions ended with far more questions than answers. Prominent among those questions is: Were serious crimes committed, and, if so, by who? Morgan earlier this year pleaded guilty to a single fraud felony for conspiring to submit false information to ESL Bank for a loan.
“I do believe that the record supports a conclusion that … this was not isolated, the crime of conviction,” U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford told Morgan at his sentencing. “On the other hand, the allegations in this indictment were never tested and that is unfortunate in many respects, because you never had the opportunity to present defenses to the allegations. They were never tried before a jury of your peers.”
Morgan and three co-defendants, including his son, were originally accused of swindling banks by falsifying information that secured loans far greater than would otherwise have been given. All three co-defendants pleaded guilty to much lesser fraud-related crimes and their pleas helped ensure they would not be incarcerated.
Morgan’s son,…
