Straw Buyer Gets 6 Months

Alicia Martineau got $10,000 in bills in a black plastic bag. Then she got a six-month prison sentence.

Martineau (pictured) was a young waitress drawn into a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme involving prominent New Haveners. The scammers cheated lenders, including the government, of an estimated $4.75 million while contributing to the decline of struggling streets in New Haven’s Newhallville and Fair Haven neighborhoods. (Read some of the stories about that here and here; see full list of stories below.)

Martineau’s role: To serve as a ​“straw buyer.” She pretended to purchase a home, based on falsified documentation and at an artificially inflated price, so the scammers could proceed to milk it of mortgage money, then walk away from the ravaged property without spending a dime on it. Her life subsequently fell apart, a tragic tale she tearfully told in federal court as she pleaded guilty to one count of mortgage fraud. Read all about that here.

Last Friday U.S. District Court Judge Alvin W. Thompson sentenced Martineau, who’s now 25, to the six months in prison as well as three years of supervised release. She also has to pay $102,181.28 in restitution.

Thompson also sentenced another straw buyer, named Lisa Depa, to five years of probation of her role in the scheme’s fake purchase and pilfering of 39 Lilac St. and 433 Shelton Ave.; she got $40,000 in cash for her efforts. A straw buyer named Wilson Nicolas was sentenced to three months in jail for his role in the scam.

Why did Martineau receive a harsher sentence than Depa, who got more money and conducted more transactions? Both cooperated with authorities. But authorities concluded Martineau’s testimony in the case was less useful and credible, thanks to other of her actions: participation in a gift-card scheme and posing as a fiancee of a relative of the scam ring’s leader to try to help him get into the U.S. Depa got credit for being straight with authorities from the beginning of her participation in the case. She also got credit for appearing sorry.

Previous coverage of this case:

• Rabbi Spared Prison In Mortgage Fraud Case
• Rabbi Pleads Guilty
• Mortgage Fraud Mastermind Gets 10 Years
• ​“Big Liberal” Gets 5 Years For Ripping Off Poor
• White-Collar Criminals Sent To Slammer
• Judge Baffled By Two Morris Olmers
• Feds Will Retry Avigdor
• 4 Convicted In Fraud Scam; Mistrial For Rabbi
• Jury Can’t Agree In Scam Trial
• Avigdor’s Final Plea: Follow The Money
• Claire: The Rabbi Is Kosher
• Wednesday The Rabbi Took The Stand
• Straw Buyer Lured Into A Wild Ride
• After Big Fish Plead, Smaller Fry Point Fingers
• Slum-Photo Doctor Makes A Call
• What Happened At Goodfellas Didn’t Stay At Goodfellas
• Fraud Trial Opens With Oz-Like Yarn
• ​“Partying” MySpacer Lined Up Scam Homebuyers
• ​“Straw Buyer” Pleads Guilty
• Neighbors, Taxpayers Left With The Tab
• FBI Arrests Police Commissioner, Slumlord, Rabbi
• One Last Gambit Falls Short
• Was He In ​“Custody”?
• Is Slum Landlord Helping The FBI?
• Feds Snag Poverty Landlord
• Police Commissioner Pleads