TV sports anchor pleads guilty, will testify in fraud

PROVO — A television sports anchor has pleaded guilty to communication fraud Tuesday and agreed to testify against others in what officials are calling a multimillion-dollar fraud and conspiracy ring.

Dave Fox, anchor/reporter for Channel 2 news, and Mark Atkin both pleaded guilty Tuesday in 4th District Court, signing a plea agreement in which they admitted that in April and January of 2006, the men signed loan papers to get homes that they said they would live in but never actually intended to.

The plan was to buy the homes and turn them around and sell them as quick investments,

The problem was Fox and Atkin allegedly applied for homeowner loans, which meant better interest rates and a quicker approval than an investment-type loan, which is what should have been obtained for the moneymaking venture.

The Utah County Attorney's Office filed charges Tuesday. The same day, Fox and Atkin pleaded guilty and were placed on 36 months of a plea in abeyance.

A plea in abeyance means that if the men don't violate any other laws and agree to pay their fees, the case will be dismissed after three years, according to court documents.

"Mr. Fox has taken what we feel is appropriate action for his responsibility in this, and we are perfectly satisfied with this resolution," said Mariane O'Bryant, deputy Utah County attorney.

If the men violate a clause of the plea in abeyance, they will be called back to court to face sentencing on the second-degree felony of communications fraud, which has the potential of 15 years in prison.

As part of the plea deal, Atkins and Fox also agreed to testify against other individuals involved much more deeply in the alleged housing conspiracy ring.

"This is one level of a multilayered criminal fraud involving millions of dollars," said Joe Christensen, director of the State Insurance Fraud Division, whose office has been investigating the case along with the Utah County Attorney's Office.

He said the ring — which allegedly involves real-estate appraisers, mortgage brokers, title insurance agents, investors and in some cases the homeowners — is working together to defraud mortgage companies out of millions of dollars by artificially and fraudulently inflating the values of the homes, then trying to sell them.

Fox and Atkin made factual misrepresentations on their loan applications and were not charged with anything to do with the actual home price inflation. Christensen said there is no indication that Fox and Atkin knew about the entire fraudulent scheme.

The County Attorney's Office is looking at filing charges within the next two weeks against two other individuals involved, but also to a lesser degree, O'Bryant said.

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