First published Mar 18 2011 07:27AM

Updated Mar 18, 2011 11:30PM

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/51458592-79/johnson-loan-documents-federal.html.csp

A federal jury found disbarred Salt Lake City attorney Jamis Melwood Johnson guilty Friday night on 27 federal charges related to a mortgage fraud scheme that used false loan documents and straw buyers to strip millions of dollars from lenders.

The jury returned the guilty verdicts after about eight hours of deliberation that started shortly after noon, following closing arguments of a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups.

The judge ordered Johnson taken into custody after the verdict was returned and set sentencing for July 18.

Johnson was found guilty of conspiracy, money laundering and wire and mail fraud. His court-appointed attorneys declined comment on the verdicts.

Johnson, 59, was indicted in March 2009, along with Ronald W. Haycock Sr., 62, of Bountiful, and Lyle Smith, 45, of Roy.

They were charged with a series of alleged mortgage loan frauds from 2005 to 2007. But jurors heard two descriptions of Johnson’s involvement that were greatly at odds with each other.

In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Elggren said Johnson was at the heart of the scheme in which the group falsely inflated the appraised value of houses in order to obtain loans above the actual sales price. They recruited straw buyers and greatly exaggerated incomes and assets on loan documents and then skimmed off the difference between the actual sales price and the loan, prosecutors said.

Johnson came up with the joint venture agreements that helped the trio inflated the loan amounts by disguising from lenders the actual sale prices of the homes, Elggren said.