The reputed ringleader of a mortgage-fraud Ponzi scheme could spend decades in prison when he is sentenced March 4, the state attorney general’s office said.
A Denver jury on Monday found John Reinholdt II, 39, former head of Lafayette-based Jaguar Group LLC, guilty of scheming to defraud commercial lenders from Colorado and Arizona of $3.4 million.
Banks also foreclosed on numerous homeowners after Jaguar Group LLC’s affiliates failed to forward payments to its lenders, which held the promissory notes on the properties.
Reinholdt faces up to 24 years in prison on each of the two main charges against him, violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act and conspiracy to violate the act.
The jury also convicted Reinholdt of 14 counts of theft, seven counts of defrauding a secured creditor and nine counts of forgery, all felonies.
Prosecutors with the state attorney general’s office said that starting in 2006 Reinholdt used at least 19 entities to obtain loans at interest rates between 5 percent and 7 percent. He then used that money to make subprime loans with interest rates of at least 11.5 percent.
He used money raised from new loans to pay back older lenders, sometimes using nonexistent “straw” homebuyers, prosecutors said.
Four of his employees were named in the 40-count indictment handed up last year, but their cases have been resolved, and Reinholdt was the only one to stand trial, said Mike Saccone, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
