SOFT SENTENCE: Home detention for elaborate housing loan fraud scheme

PHOTO: Two couples wanted to enter the growing Auckland property market but did not have the income to secure loans. (file picture) Photo: 123RF

A woman convicted for her part in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme broke down in court as she apologised for the harm it has caused.

“I am so very sorry for the impact this has had on our family, my children, and our financial institutions,” Viki Cotter told the Auckland District Court this morning where she was sentenced to nine months’ home detention.

“If I could go back in time, I would never trust someone blindly again,” the 58-year-old said.

Cotter, her ex-partner Bryan Martin, and another couple Joshua and Sian Grant were convicted in the $8.7 million mortgage fraud case last year.

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The Serious Fraud Office said the four wanted to invest in the Auckland property market but did not have the income to secure loans.

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Martin set up a non-trading entity called Momentum Transition Developments and created fake employment agreements for the two women.

He then moved money between his private bank account, Cotter’s, and the Grants’, to give the impression they received regular salaries.

They made 14 loan applications to banks in total between August 2015 and October 2016, fraudulently getting a total of $8.7m in loans.

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The court today heard Cotter took a course and obtained a mortgage adviser licence about one year into her relationship with Martin.

Over some 14 months, she successfully applied for loans from two banks by providing false information that she was working at Momentum earning an annual salary of $160,000 or more.

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With the loans, she used her maiden name to buy several properties in Auckland and was also the broker for the transactions, without disclosing this to the banks.

Judge Stephen Bonnar said she relied on Martin to tell her what to do, but she was nevertheless culpable.

“You were not the architect of the scheme, and to some extent you were influenced and manipulated by Martin,” he said.

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“But you knew what you were doing was wrong. You participated in the scheme,” the judge said.

Letters of support sent to the court from Cotter’s family and friends, some of whom sat in the public gallery, described her as “kind, generous, empathetic” and “ordinarily with strong moral values”.

Her lawyer Yvonne Mortimer-Wang said her sheltered upbringing led to her naivete, and in her first marriage of 23 years she had little knowledge or control of her family’s finances.

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Reading out a short statement in court, Cotter said she had learned from her offending and would take more care before signing any documents.

“I’ve tried hard to rebuild my life in the last few years,” she said.

Cotter pleaded guilty in July 2021 to four charges of obtaining by deception relating to $2.9m worth of fraudulent loans.

The court heard she lived in one of the properties but received no other financial gain from the scheme.

The two victims, ANZ and ASB, did not sustain any actual loss because of a rising property market at the time which meant they were able to sell the properties and recover the money.

Judge Bonnar said offending of this sort harms the community regardless.

“Banks are reliant on people making honest applications and giving honest information, and may be less likely to lend to others in the future.”

“The defendants’ desire to enter the then-growing property market led them to create an elaborate scheme intended to deceive the banks into lending them millions of dollars,” Serious Fraud Office director Karen Chang said in a December news release.

This is harmful to New Zealanders who seek mortgage finance in good faith but miss out because lending was taken up by others through fraud, she said.

Earlier in the sentencing hearing, the judge declined Cotter’s renewed application for name suppression.

After significant discounts for her early guilty plea, otherwise good character, remorse, and low risk of re-offending, Cotter was sentenced to home detention for nine months.

* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.