A real estate broker has been sentenced after pleading guilty to obtaining $8.5 million in unauthorized mortgage loans for properties that belonged to a 91-year-old man.
Lyndon Chin was sentenced to one to three years in state prison, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced this week. The 58-year-old Northport, Long Island, man was indicted in 2018 and later pled guilty to two counts of first-degree grand larceny in September 2020, according to the Manhattan DA’s Office.
Chin, acting as a real estate broker for the unidentified victim, used knowledge of the victim’s real estate holdings to falsify documents in his company’s name and land $5 million in mortgage loans in October 2015 for four of Chin’s Lower Manhattan properties, without the victim’s knowledge.
Chin then put about $4.4 million of the funds in a bank account he opened in the name of the victim’s company. The broker did the same thing from March through May of 2016, obtaining an additional $3.5 million in mortgage loans and depositing approximately $1.9 million in a bank account specifically opened for the funds.
Chin used the money for car payments, jewelry and insurance payments.
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“Mr. Chin blatantly took advantage of an elderly victim in order to line his own pockets,” said Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr.
The victim was later rejected for a mortgage loan in a separate business opportunity due to the mortgages Chin had obtained on his properties. The Manhattan DA’s Office then took over the case.
It’s not clear what the nonagenarian’s real estate holdings are, but he purchased and sold both residential and commercial real estate. It’s also not clear where Chin will be serving his sentence.
According to a representative from the Manhattan DA’s Office, however, Chin is required to pay full restitution to his victim.