A third major player convicted of racketeering in a $5 million mortgage fraud scheme was sentenced this week to seven years in prison.

Eric Devon Bernard, also known as Eric Allen Shapiro, 24, was sentenced two months after he was found guilty in Hennepin County District Court. He must also pay a $10,000 fine and restitution to a man whose identity was stolen to initiate the scheme.

Bernard joins his co-defendants in receiving significant sentences in the case. On Oct. 7, David Schoenhofen, 43, was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison and had to forfeit a $250,000 Edina home to the Hennepin County attorney's office. Stacey Harrold, 43, was sentenced Sept. 27 to six years in prison and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and restitution to the same identity theft victim. Both pleaded guilty.

The $5 million scheme centered around the Enzo Mortgage Group of St. Paul. It involved stealing, or attempting to steal, the identities of two people in California and establishment of a bogus construction company. Five of the seven homes involved in the case went into foreclosure.

According to testimony in the case, Bernard set up bank accounts for Cire Builders and Cire Building. Cire is Bernard's first name spelled backwards. The statements were sent to his home.

Schoenhofen would either identify properties to buy or purchase them through one of his companies. Then Harrold, through her work as a loan officer at Enzo Mortgage Group, would create fraudulent documents and set up the sales first to Bernard and, later, to the California residents whose identities were stolen.

At closing, the three would share in fees, kickbacks of loan proceeds and payments to Cire Builders for work that never was done on the houses.

Schoenhofen's sentence included crimes resulting from a search of his Prior Lake house. Investigators found 70 grams of marijuana, $3,400 in cash and a handgun in a safe. He said the gun was for protection when he collected rent from some of his rental properties and many tenants paid in cash.

Enzo Mortgage co-owner Michael Hudalla is scheduled to stand trial Nov. 28 on a similar racketeering charge.

The case is one of more than 50 brought against 70 people and companies in an effort by the county attorney's office to aggressively prosecute white collar crimes that occurred during and after the housing market collapse.

Abby Simons • 612-673-4921