BIRMINGHAM – A federal grand jury today indicted a Bessemer woman for mail fraud and making false statements on a mortgage application to a financial institution, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance announced.

SHARON TATE WILLIAMS, 45, is charged in a two-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court.

According to the indictment, WILLIAMS carried out the fraud as follows:

In March 2007, she applied for a mortgage to buy a house, causing the loan application and supporting documents to be mailed to Wells Fargo. In each of the documents, WILLIAMS falsely claimed she received monthly Social Security disability payments. Had she accurately reported her income on the documents, WILLIAMS would not have been eligible to receive the loan.

The maximum sentence for counts one and two is 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each count.

A notice of forfeiture for $64,450, the amount of the loan fraudulently obtained by Williams, is also sought through the indictment.

Special agents of the FBI, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of the Inspector General, and the Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, worked the case.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Carney is prosecuting it.

Members of the public are reminded that the indictment contains only charges.  A defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

 

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