New trial denied in massive mortgage fraud scheme
A federal judge this week denied defense motions to grant a new trial for a once high-profile couple convicted in the largest mortgage fraud case in Nevada.
In a 12-page ruling, U.S. District Judge James Mahan found that no government misconduct occurred before and during the 2011 trial of former real estate broker Eve Mazzarella and her ex-husband, Steven Grimm, a former mortgage broker.
Federal prosecutors had argued that they presented overwhelming evidence of the guilt of the two defendants during the 10-week trial, and their convictions were not undermined by any evidence the government failed to turn over in the massive case.
Mahan agreed with prosecutors.
He said he didn't find a "reasonable probability that disclosure of the materials would have resulted in a different outcome at trial."
Mahan also ruled that the defense failed to prove during a two-day hearing last week that the government violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the defendants with an unlawful search of Mazzarella's business.
Two of Mazzarella's former employees, attorney David Mark and Kimberly Brown, testified that they secretly brought thousands of pages of documents from Mazzarella's real estate company to FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents in November 2007.
They said they provided the documents at the direction of the agents months before the agents raided the business in an investigation into the multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme.
But FBI and IRS agents took the witness stand to rebut the testimony of both Mark and Brown, denying that they instructed them to turn over the mass of documents and that they even obtained such a vast amount from them, according to Mahan.
Brown was not charged in the case, but Mark was convicted in April 2013. His conviction was overturned by a federal appeals panel in July.
A Las Vegas jury had found Mazzarella and Grimm guilty in December 2011 of orchestrating a mortgage fraud scheme prosecutors alleged cost banks more than $52 million from 2003 to 2008.
Grimm was sentenced to 25 years in prison and Mazzarella 14 years, but both have been released while their appeals are being heard.
Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Find him on Twitter: @JGermanRJ
