Mar.19, 2010, 3:05pm EDT, Source: Business First of Columbus

A Columbus man was sentenced Friday for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme where participants secured loans on low-income Columbus properties whose property values had been exaggerated.

U.S. Attorney Carter Stewart’s office said Charles E. Townsend, 40, was sentenced Friday to a day in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $333,206 to banks and investment firms defrauded in the scheme. Townsend in September pleaded guilty to a count of money laundering tied to the scheme.

Townsend’s money laundering charge is tied to “consulting fees” he kept in relation to the transactions when no such services were performed. Investigators tracked an instance in which investment firm Stillwater Capital Partners in May 2004 wired $227,500 for the purchase of a property worth no more than $50,000. The next day, Townsend deposited a $43,815 check for the so-called consulting fees into his personal bank account.

Townsend’s co-conspirators, Aryeh Schottenstein and Jeffery Lieberman, and two other men tied to the scheme already have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from one year to 42 months and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution to Stillwater and nearly two-dozen other banks.