ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that Mary Brainard, 62, of Seneca Falls, NY, who was convicted of devising a wire fraud scheme, was sentenced to 46 months in prison U.S. District Judge Frank P. Geraci and ordered to pay restitution totaling $277,456.90.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Field, who handled the case, stated that Brainard and her husband, Calvin Brainard, a former attorney, owned and operated BMC Capital, a mortgage brokerage business in Seneca Falls, NY. Through BMC Capital, the couple brokered mortgages for various clients, including private mortgages purportedly made with monies provided to Mary Brainard by various individual investors.
Over the course of a decade or more, Mary Brainard swindled over a dozen investors and clients of BMC Capital out of approximately $762,000 using a variety of schemes. The defendant sought to cover her behavior through lies and deception, including by forging bank records and property records. In the final phase of her fraud, Mary Brainard stole loan proceeds that were supposed to be used to pay off refinancing clients’ mortgage loans. On multiple occasions, Mary Brainard accessed Calvin Brainard's attorney trust account that contained the refinancing money and diverted it to a different account that she controlled. The defendant then used the stolen refinancing money for her own purposes, including paying for personal expenses as well as repaying earlier victims of her frauds.
The sentencing is the culmination of an investigation by Special Agents and Forensic Accountants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
