A 45-year-old woman was in custody Saturday on suspicion of using the identities of her in-laws to apply for a $625,000 mortgage in order to purchase a home in La Habra Heights.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Laurie Uesugi in a criminal complaint Jan. 26 with 12 felony counts including theft from an elder, grand theft, procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, use of a counterfeit seal and mortgage fraud, said Sgt. Alex Gilinets, a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau, Real Estate Fraud Team.
A warrant was issued for her arrest and she was arrested Thursday in Seal Beach.
It is alleged that in late 2015, Uesugi used the identities of her 80- year-old father-in-law and 78-year-old mother-in-law and applied for a $625,000 mortgage in their names in order to purchase a house in La Habra Heights.
During the loan process, Uesugi told the lender that her in-laws were in Japan, which was false, and provided the mortgage company with phone numbers and email addresses she claimed belonged to her in-laws, but were actually controlled by her, Gilinets said.
Uesugi also forged the elderly couple’s signatures on power-of- attorney documents, which allowed her to sign the loan documents on their behalf, according to Gilinets.
A $170,000 down payment for the purchase of the house was provided by a friend of Uesugi, who claimed Uesugi persuaded her to provide the down payment as an “investment,” the complaint alleges.
The fraud was discovered when documents that were fraudulently recorded in connection with the loan were received by the elderly victims in the mail.
Uesugi is being held on $760,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Department 30 at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, Gilinets said.
—City News Service