EUGENE, Ore. – Tuesday, Del Barber, Jr., 46, of Bend, Oregon, was sentenced by U. S. District Court Judge Michael R. Hogan to 15 months in prison for mortgage fraud and health care fraud and was ordered to pay over $200,000 in restitution to the victims of his frauds.
In November 2009, Barber and 12 other individuals were indicted on a variety of bank and loan fraud charges arising out of the collapse of Desert Sun Development (“DSD”), a company previously headquartered in Bend, Oregon. According to the indictments, Barber, a licensed mortgage broker at the time, and the others charged in the indictments caused financial institutions to lose more than $19 million. On June 15, 2010, Barber pled guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, loan application fraud, and wire fraud. Barber admitted to preparing and submitting a false loan application for a DSD employee trying to buy a DSD-built home. The bank foreclosed on the property because the borrowers were unqualified and failed to make payments. Barber is the first of several defendants who have pled guilty in the DSD-related cases to be sentenced.
While on pretrial release for his mortgage fraud-related charges, Barber committed a new federal offense, health care fraud. According to court documents, Barber, after letting his medical insurance lapse, attempted to fraudulently reinstate his medical insurance by faxing his insurance provider a fraudulent letter and check, claiming that he had made his payments and that his insurance had not lapsed. After his claim for reinstatement was denied, defendant engaged in a pattern of harassment and fraud, including making threatening phone calls and harassing visits to his insurance provider, submitting additional fraudulent documents to his insurance provider, and filing a frivolous lawsuit against his insurance provider in state court.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford.
