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A Plymouth man sent to prison for mortgage fraud in 2008 faces new charges of ripping off his former employer. For at least five years, investigators say that Christopher Erik Septon stole more than $1 million from Ellis Properties, the family-owned commercial real estate firm where he worked.
According to a federal indictment, Septon, 52, made more than $800,000 in fraudulent charges on a company credit card and directed the payments to card processing accounts that he controlled.
Septon allegedly falsified hundreds of transactions by putting the names of public agencies such as the Met Council, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Minneapolis Finance Department and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in the transaction memo lines. The agencies were not targets of the alleged fraud. In the indictment, prosecutors write that Septon then transferred money from the card processors to his bank accounts.
According to the indictment, Septon also allegedly requested and received at least 53 reimbursement checks for business expenses that he did not incur by creating “fake invoices purporting to be from various fake and real third parties.”
Septon is charged with four counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
In 2008, U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen sentenced Septon to two years in prison after he pleaded guilty along with his late father Edward Septon and four others to running a mortgage fraud scheme.
Christopher Septon oversaw First Rate Mortgage Group, which his father founded. Prosecutors wrote in court documents at the time that the business was "built completely on fraud" and financed homes “regardless of the borrowers’ credit worthiness.” They noted that Christopher Septon cooperated with the investigation.
In 2004, the group submitted fraudulent loan applications for a borrower purchasing a property in Wayzata and obtained a $1.3 million loan from Washington Mutual Bank and a $378,555 second mortgage from Associated Bank. The applications falsely stated the source of a down payment for the home that was in reality from First Rate, and inflated the borrower’s income.
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