TRENTON – Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that a mortgage broker who owned a property management company in Jersey City pleaded guilty today to laundering the proceeds of a criminal scheme in which he conspired to steal more than $1.2 million from lenders by filing fraudulent mortgage applications, diverting mortgage proceeds and falsifying settlement statements.
Brian Lyles, 43, of Jersey City, the owner of BKL Property Management, LLC, pleaded guilty today to first-degree money laundering before Superior Court Judge Stuart A. Minkowitz in Morris County. Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that Lyles be sentenced to eight years in state prison, including three years and four months of parole ineligibility. His company, BKL, pleaded guilty through its attorney to second-degree theft by deception. BKL must pay $200,000 in restitution. Judge Minkowitz scheduled sentencing for Lyles and BKL for March 13.
In pleading guilty, Lyles admitted that he laundered the proceeds of a criminal scheme in which he conspired with others to falsify loan applications in order to cause banks to loan money to unqualified home buyers for the purchase of homes in Jersey City at inflated prices. He and his co-conspirators fraudulently obtained four loans totaling more than $1.2 million.
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