Times staff
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The former chief financial officer of Ocala's Taylor, Bean and Whitaker, one of the nation's largest private mortgage companies until its 2009 collapse, pleaded guilty to his role in a $3 billion fraud scheme. Delton de Armas of Carrollton, Texas, on Tuesday, became the eighth person convicted in one of the biggest fraud schemes to emerge from the nation's housing crisis.
The 41-year-old faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to conspiracy to commit fraud and making false statements.
Taylor Bean hid billions of dollars in debts with phony accounting and by double- and triple-selling mortgages it held to various financial institutions. Taylor Bean's collapse also helped bring down Alabama-based Colonial Bank.
Taylor Bean's former CEO, Lee Farkas, the government's biggest criminal conviction of the financial crisis, is now ...