In case you missed it because it was an L.A. story: A former Beverly Hills real estate appraiser who last week was sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $46 million for her role in an extensive mortgage fraud scheme is an Orange County resident. The scheme cost banks tens of millions of dollars in losses, the U.S. Attorney’s office says. Lila Rizk, 43, was conviced last summer on conspiracy, bank fraud and loan fraud charges. Some records show her having owned a large home with a swimming pool on a cul de sac in Coto de Caza, though the news release says that she’s now from Rancho Santa Margarita. The judge in the case warned that if other real estate appraisers inflate appraisals and lie about home values, “there is an overwhelming likelihood that they will be caught and go to prison,” the release stated. It read, in part: “The evidence presented at Rizk’s trial last summer showed that she was part of a wide-ranging and sophisticated scheme that obtained inflated mortgage loans on homes in some of California’s most expensive neighborhoods, including Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Malibu, Carmel, Mill Valley, Pebble Beach and La Jolla. “Members of the conspiracy sent false documentation, including bogus purchase contracts and appraisals, to the victim banks to deceive them into unwittingly funding mortgage loans that were hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the homes actually cost. Lehman Brothers Bank alone was deceived into funding more than 80 such inflated loans from 2000 into 2003, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses .

Read more here – O.C. woman ordered to pay $46 million