No. BD-2016-013
S.J.C. Judgment of Disbarment entered by Justice Cypher on May 14, 2018.
S.J.C. Judgment of Disbarment entered by Justice Cypher on May 14, 2018.[1]
SUMMARY[2]
On October 29, 2015, Hyacinth Mckenna Bellerose (respondent) pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349. On March 23, 2017, the respondent was sentenced to supervised release in home detention for 12 months. The respondent was ordered to make restitution, jointly with others convicted of the same conspiracy, in the total amount of $2,274,876.78.
The respondent’s conviction resulted from her participation with others in a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders with sham short sales of homes. The respondent participated as closing attorney for some of the transactions that she knew to be fraudulent and prepared closing documents that she knew to be false, including HUD-1 settlement statements that misrepresented down payments purportedly made by buyers and prices paid to the sellers.
The transactions were shams in that the owners did not give up control of the properties but were able to reduce the amount of the outstanding mortgages.
On March 16, 2018, the respondent filed an affidavit of resignation with the Board of
Bar Overseers. In her affidavit, the respondent acknowledged that she had pleaded guilty to criminal charges as described above. On April 9, 2018, the board unanimously voted to recommend that the respondent’s resignation be accepted and that she be disbarred, retroactive to January 28, 2016, the date of a temporary suspension entered pending further disciplinary proceedings. On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County (Cypher, J.) so ordered.