Scarsdale Executive Makes Plea In Mortgage Fraud Case

SCARSDALE, NY — A Scarsdale man is one of two top executives at a Long Island mortgage lender to plead guilty to mortgage fraud. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, Edward J. Sypher Jr., 41, of Scarsdale, and Matthew T. Voss, 42, of Northport, Suffolk County, pleaded guilty Feb. 15 to conspiring to commit wire and bank fraud in connection with their diversion of more than $8.9 million of warehouse loans that Vanguard Funding LLC had obtained to fund mortgages.

When sentenced, each man faces up to 20 years in prison, as well as restitution, criminal forfeiture and a fine.

According to court filings and evidence presented at the plea proceeding, between August 2016 and March 2017, Sypher, Vanguard’s chief financial officer, and Voss, Vanguard’s chief operating officer, engaged in a scheme in which they obtained warehouse loans — short-term loans — for Vanguard by falsely representing that Vanguard would use the proceeds of those loans to fund mortgages or mortgage refinancing for Vanguard’s clients.

Once Vanguard received the loans, however, the men diverted the money to pay personal expenses and compensation, and to pay off loans they had previously obtained with fraudulent loan submissions for improper purposes, authorities said.

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