MANHATTAN (CN) - Real estate developer Ivy Woolf-Turk pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges Wednesday in a $27 million mail and wire fraud scheme, prosecutors said.
Woolf-Turk, 52, of Port Washington, N.Y., working through The Kingsland Group, of Manhattan, fraudulently induced 70 people to loan Kingsland more than $27 million, purportedly to renovate apartment buildings. "Woolf-Turk and a coconspirator,
Michael Hershkowitz, falsely represented that the lenders would hold, as collateral for the loans, interests in bona fide first mortgages in the various properties in which they thought they were investing," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a press release. "In fact, the lenders did not hold recorded, first mortgages in the properties. Interest was paid on the loans for some years after they were first made, but ultimately the principal on the loans was not repaid when due and it was determined that the lenders did not have valid first mortgages on the properties in question."
Charges against Hershkowitz are pending, the U.S. Attorney said.
Woolf-Turk faces up to 20 years in prison at her May 27 sentencing.
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