Admitted NJ Mortgage Fraud Ringleader Sentenced

The admitted ringleader of a northern New Jersey mortgage fraud scheme has been sentenced to a decade in state prison and ordered to pay restitution.

The state's attorney general says Genilza R. Nunes led a team that defrauded a mortgage lender out of more than $431,000 by obtaining a loan and purchasing a Newark property in the name of a dead man.

Prosecutors says the 38-year-old Kearny resident pleaded guilty May 8 to second-degree money laundering and was ordered to pay more than $42,000 to the lender, Provident Funding Associates. She was also fined $150,000.

Nunes' five co-defendants have been ordered to pay the balance of the $$254,425 owed to the lender.

Nunes and one of her co-defendants were sentenced Friday in Superior Court in Morris County.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)