Mortgage fraud lands Chaska woman in federal prison

In addition, Molly L. Heise, an ex-officer of an escrow firm, must pay more than $3.9 million in restitution.

By JAMES WALSH, Star Tribune

Last update: August 19, 2008 - 11:29 PM

Another mortgage fraud mastermind was sentenced to federal prison on Tuesday.

This time, Molly L. Heise, 50, of Chaska, was sentenced to nearly six years behind bars for a money-laundering scheme involving more than $2.5 million from the clients of her real estate closing company, Profile Title and Escrow.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim sentenced Heise to 70 months in prison and three years supervised release. He also ordered Heise to pay more than $3.9 million in restitution.

Heise was the president and sole shareholder of Profile in 2002 and 2003. Profile accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in wire transfers and check deposits from buyers and lenders to be held in an escrow account for closing real estate deals.

Chicago Title Insurance Co. was the underwriter for Profile and required Profile to deposit the funds into an account that Chicago Title monitored.

But Heise diverted some of those funds into a secret escrow account, using that money to pay for personal expenses. She pleaded guilty on Feb. 20 to diverting $3.7 million to her secret account.

Another woman, Christine A. Hein, 38, of Buffalo, also pleaded guilty in the case. Hein was Profile's chief financial officer in 2002 and 2003 and was responsible for accounting and reconciling money held in trust by Profile to close real estate transactions.

Hein knew about the secret escrow account. On Aug. 13, 2003, she wrote a check from the account for more than $134,000 and used it to purchase a home.

Hein was sentenced on July 14 to two years probation.

The FBI and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division investigated the case.

The Profile case is the most recent of several major mortgage fraud cases to conclude in the past several weeks. The others involved the $100 million Parish Marketing scheme and cases against Universal Mortgage and First Rate Mortgage.

James Walsh • 612-673-7428