As a follow-up to the mortgage fraud story Rainbow Investigations reported in October 2014, another Albertan has been sent to jail for mortgage fraud. Former Red Deer lawyer Roy Elander was sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $426,000 in restitution during May of 2015.
Elander was convicted of 14 counts of fraud over $5,000 in October of 2014.
Elander was involved in a mortgage fraud scheme masterminded by Allen Dawson MacMullen from 2000 to 2004. MacMullen was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of 38 counts of fraud related charges. As well, MacMullen was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution.
Judge Adam Germain ruled that Elander was “instrumental” in facilitating the mortgage fraud scheme, while acting as a lawyer for both the financial institutions involved, and the victim buyers who were pushed into buying properties they otherwise would not have purchased.
The Judge added that Elander was guilty of “greed, deceit, and dishonesty and a lack of empathy for his victims.”
Elander’s current health conditions played a role into the sentence, as the judge took into account that Elander was currently suffering from kidney failure, and was waiting for a kidney transplant. The Judge made it clear that a prison sentence was necessary due to the magnitude of the offences, and ruled that the prison hospital system could care for Elander.
Roy Elander is the fourteenth Albertan, and the third former lawyer to be sent to prison for mortgage fraud since 2008.
