A former Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office detective was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Thursday for more than $200,000 in mortgage fraud.
Betsy Borges, 38, of Mays Landing, pleaded guilty in federal court in November to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.The charge carried a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She also must forfeit the $206,450 she made from the scheme.
Borges was not yet a detective for the Prosecutor’s Office when she started the scheme, which had her taking money from tenants at 4957 Cardigan Court in Mays Landing but not paying the mortgage payments on the property.
She concealed the rent from the banks, while telling Wells Fargo on multiple occasions that she could not make the mortgage payments.
Borges began working for the Prosecutor’s Office in 2005, and was a detective there until Feb. 4, 2014.
On four separate occasions in August 2012, Borges used her work-issued vehicle to drive to the bank to set up an account for Iraida Fuentes and deposit thousands into it that would then be used to sell the property to Fuentes at well below the property’s value in a short sale.
In the Sept.20, 2012 sale to Fuentes, Borges did not disclose that she was related to Fuentes nor that the money used was actually hers and that of an unnamed co-conspirator.
On Nov. 22, 2016, B&B Properties – a company partly owned by Borges – purchased the property from Fuentes for $25,000. On Feb. 3, 2017, Borges then individually purchased the property from B&B Properties for a dollar.
Borges was originally set to be sentenced March 23.
Fuentes, 35, of Pleasantville, pleaded guilty Nov. 6 to making a false declaration to the grand jury in this matter and was sentenced to two years' probation in February.
