By Andrew Gorosko

A Westport man, who was convicted in state court in 2008 of swindling Newtown Oil Company customers in 2002, is awaiting trial in federal court on charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud stemming from his alleged participation in a $3.5 million Fairfield County mortgage fraud scheme.

Free on $250,000 non-surety bond is William A. Trudeau, Jr, 47, as he awaits trial on the charges listed in a nine-count federal indictment that was returned last November by a grand jury sitting in Bridgeport.

Thomas Carson, a spokesman for the US Attorney’s Connecticut District Office, said this week that Mr Trudeau is scheduled for trial on the charges on March 8. A status conference on the case is scheduled for February 18, the spokesman said.

The indictment alleges that Mr Trudeau, a property developer, was an unnamed principal in both Aspetuck Building & Development and in Huntington South Associates, LLC, the latter of which was a shell company that Mr Trudeau used to pay for personal expenses and to secure loans fraudulently.

From approximately February 2004 to April 2010, it is alleged that Mr Trudeau conspired with Joseph Kriz, Heather Bliss, Fred Stevens, Thomas Preston, and others to defraud federally insured financial institutions and mortgage lenders, according to the indictment.

Through this scheme, it is alleged that Mr Trudeau and his co-conspirators submitted false mortgage loan applications to financial institutions to obtain mortgages on various properties in Fairfield County in order to develop and sell the properties for profit, and to pay off debts owed to “hard money” lenders from whom they had previously obtained high interest loans.

The mortgage applications, which included false income information and omitted the mortgage applicants’ true indebtedness, caused the financial institutions to issue mortgage loans on properties that Mr Trudeau and his co-conspirators would not have otherwise been qualified to purchase, allowing the applicants to qualify for mortgages that far exceeded their ability to repay the loans, according to the indictment.

The indictment further alleges that Mr Trudeau’s name did not appear on any documentation related to the loans or the properties for which the loans were obtained, and that money was hidden in bank accounts that were not in Mr Trudeau’s name, in part to prevent the collection of more than $450,000 in restitution that a court had ordered Mr Trudeau to pay in July 2003.

Through this scheme, it is alleged that Mr Trudeau and his co-conspirators fraudulently obtained more than $3.5 million in mortgage loans.

The indictment charges Mr Trudeau with one count of conspiracy commit bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud, three counts of mail fraud, and three counts of wire fraud. If convicted, Mr Trudeau faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 240 years.

Last July, Ms Bliss, 35, who is Mr Trudeau’s wife, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud stemming from her participation in the same mortgage fraud scheme.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Ms Bliss was employed as a paralegal for a real estate lawyer in Wilton and, in that capacity, had responsibility for preparing and maintaining all legal and bank documents related to real estate transactions handled by her employer. According to court documents, between approximately April 2006 and April 2007, Ms Bliss, the lawyer for whom she was employed, a property developer, and others conspired to defraud various lenders in a mortgage fraud scheme.

Ms Bliss, who is free on $250,000 non-surety bond, is awaiting sentencing in the case, according to Mr Carson. Ms Bliss faces a maximum term of imprisonment of five years and a fine of up to approximately $5 million.

In November 2008, a judge in Danbury Superior Court spared Mr Trudeau and Ms Bliss from serving prison time because they came up with almost $122,000 in restitution to be distributed to customers of the former Newtown Oil Company who were bilked out of that money in late 2002, when the firm failed to honor fraudulent prepaid contracts for home heating fuel delivery.

The judge, however, did give Mr Trudeau and Ms Bliss lengthy suspended prison sentences, plus probation, intended to serve as a deterrent against their again committing white-collar crimes.

In August 2008, the judge had found both Mr Trudeau and Ms Bliss each guilty of nine larceny-based felonies in the Newtown Oil Company scam involving the firm’s failure to deliver #2 home heating fuel in late 2002 to about 1,400 customers from nine towns who had entered prepaid fuel contracts with the firm.