Washington, D.C., area early in 2009 and were arrested for plans to defraud Washington area banks of $5.5 million. A federal judge recently sentenced the father to nine years in prison.
Michael Milan, 49, conspired with at least six others to defraud mortgage lenders into lending funds to buy and refinance residential properties. He ran two mortgage consultant companies from October 2007 to June 2008, said court documents. He also ran a company that produced a hot-beverage container top that quickly cooled hot liquid and made it immediately drinkable, Coollid.
Milan, whose original Iranian name was not given, used his companies to falsify bank loan documents. He said Coollid employees earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in order to qualify for mortgage loans. He wrote checks so clients could pay their credit card bills and boost their credit scores. Immediately after his clients paid their credit card bills, he pulled clients’ improved credit check and submitted the new scores to lenders. Milan’s checks would eventually bounce, but Milan received the improved credit score he needed, and he was able to charge his customers a fee for credit counseling and improving their credit score.
Banks and mortgage companies lost between $2.5 million and $7 million because they granted loans to his clients based on false information, reported The Washington Examiner.
The investigation came to a head when the primary co-conspirator, Navid Housein Mahdavi, turned himself in and tattled to the FBI on May 29, 2008. Milan’s offices were searched on June 25. Milan and his son, Dustin, fled to Iran and didn’t return until April 2009.
In court, Milan said his return to the United States was delayed because the Iranian government had imprisoned him. He provided documents to prove his case, but later admitted the documents were fake.
A federal court judge has ordered Milan to pay $3,141,409 in restitution and to forfeit the $1,061,890 he received in proceeds. He has been sentenced to 108 months in prison followed by three years of supervised released. His son admitted he knew about his father’s activities, but said he did not collude with him; he has been sentenced to two years of probation.
Mahdavi was sentenced to a year in prison for his assistance in the conspiracy; he pretended to buy a building in Bethesda, a Maryland city just outside Washington.
Michael Milan’s girlfriend, Talin Zeighani, was sentenced to 90 days for falsifying documents that enabled one of Milan’s mortgage consultant companies to receive loans. Melanie Ekstrom was sentenced to two years and three months for creating fake documents to support Mahdavi’s loan applications.
