Evergreen Reporter

Jason Trador, 46, of Scott Depot, was sentenced today to one year and six months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $65,302.16 in restitution for making false statements to federal agents, willfully overvaluing property on a loan application, and three counts of making false statements to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

A federal jury convicted Trador on April 10, 2024, after a two-day trial. Evidence presented at the trial showed that Trador fraudulently obtained a $223,870 home mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) from his then-employer, Victorian Finance LLC. At the time he applied for the FHA loan in August 2018, Trador was delinquent on paying his federal taxes for a prior tax year. Due to this tax debt, he was not eligible for an FHA loan under existing program rules. Trador deceived Victorian Finance into approving the application and the FHA into insuring the mortgage by providing falsified documents including an IRS tax transcript purporting to show a payoff of the delinquent $8,151 tax debt.

Trador also submitted three heavily edited bank statements to Victorian Finance that substantially inflated his account balances. Two falsified statements reported balances of approximately $27,000 and $15,000 when in fact the accounts had negative balances. Line items such as insufficient funds fees were removed from these statements while another line item was added to deceive Victorian Finance into believing he had paid off his delinquent tax debt.

On September 4, 2018, Trador willfully overvalued his assets on a loan application by signing a Uniform Residential Loan Application that included false balances from these bank statements.

On May 6, 2022, Trador lied to investigators with HUD’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during an interview at his residence about his FHA-insured mortgage application. He denied submitting false bank statements with his loan application and blamed fellow employees for their inclusion in the FHA loan file.

“Jason Trador was a loan officer with a duty to keep fraud out of the mortgage lending industry when he betrayed that position of trust and tricked his then-employer with his sophisticated criminal scheme,” said United States Attorney Will Thompson. “Since the fraud was discovered Mr. Trador has chosen to attempt to deceive rather than own his mistakes.”

Thompson commended the investigative work of HUD-OIG and FBI.

“Jason Trador took advantage of his knowledge of the mortgage industry... The sentence handed down today serves as a warning that significant penalties await those willing to commit fraud involving HUD-funded programs,” said Special Agent-in-Charge Shawn Rice with HUD-OIG.

“Fraud activity... underscores the seriousness of this crime," said FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek.

United States District Judge Robert C. Chambers imposed the sentence. Assistant United States Attorneys Andrew J. Tessman, Jonathan T. Storage and Erik S. Goes prosecuted the case.

A copy of this press release is located on the website of U.S Attorney’s Office for Southern District West Virginia.

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