A woman who became a fugitive after she failed to show up for a mandatory pretrial meeting with a court official pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to charges related to a $3 million mortgage fraud scheme.
Jennifer Ann McTigue, 48, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and one count each of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. She faces maximum prison terms of 20 years each for the mail and wire fraud, 10 years for the money laundering and one of the conspiracy charges and five years for the other conspiracy charge at sentencing in October.
McTigue said her co-defendant Marc Melton created bogus satisfaction-of-mortgage documents on properties that still had mortgages due, then sent the documents to her. She said she took the documents and recorded them at the Bureau of Conveyances.
At a later date, McTigue said another co-defendant, Sakara Blackwell, “would sell the properties representing that they were free and clear of mortgages when they were not.”
The government says the trio did that with seven properties in Kakaako, Waikiki and Kona in 2011 and 2012 and that the buyers did not know that there were outstanding mortgages on them.
Melton and Blackwell had already pleaded guilty to both of the conspiracy charges and agreed to testify against McTigue at trial.
McTigue chose not to have a lawyer and instead represented herself in the federal legal proceedings.
She had earlier claimed that she is not the defendant in the case because the entity named Jennifer Ann McTigue is a trust created by the government and that she had resigned as trustee.
In court Wednesday, she said she was pleading guilty to take responsibility for the damage she caused people because of her actions. But she continued to maintain that “I am a private, noncitizen national” who gave up her American citizenship.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Wallenstein said in court Wednesday that McTigue was born in Honolulu and is a U.S. citizen.
McTigue’s trial was scheduled to begin July 13. That was postponed when McTigue missed a meeting with her pretrial services officer and authorities were not able to locate her, and a manhunt was started. She had been free on an unsecured $50,000 bond co-signed by her ex-husband.
FBI agents, U.S. marshals and Honolulu police officers apprehended McTigue on July 11 in a home in Kaimuki. Her father said it is the home of an old boyfriend. McTigue has been in custody since her arrest.
McTigue’s trial was rescheduled to begin with 100 prospective jurors, some from the neighbor islands, called to court for jury selection. That too was put on hold when visiting U.S. District Senior Judge Consuelo B. Marshall ordered a mental competency evaluation. McTigue started negotiating a plea agreement with the government Tuesday after Marshall found her competent.
Marshall was to preside over the trial because all of the Hawaii judges were recused from the case due to a conflict of interest. One of the court’s probation officers is a victim of the scheme and would have been called to testify at trial.
