Dix Hills man sentenced to prison for swindling Lynbrook residents

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A Dix Hills man was sentenced to three to six years in prison on July 18 for scamming 32 homeowners out of more than $600,000 in a mortgage modification scheme, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced last week.

Mark Savransky, 59, pleaded guilty in October before Supervising Judge Teresa Corrigan to two counts of grand larceny in the second degree, a class C felony, and scheme to defraud in the second degree, a class A misdemeanor. Savransky must also pay more than $601,500 in restitution, Singas said in a news release.

“Today’s sentence sends a strong message to those who would prey on vulnerable homeowners during tough financial times in their lives,” Singas said in a statement. “Victims were close to losing their homes because of this defendant’s scheme and lies.”

Singas said the defendant operated a mortgage modification business in Nassau County under the name Mark Savran. Between 2008 and 2014, he promised 32 homeowners in Nassau County and elsewhere that, after securing modifications, he would hold their mortgage payments in trust and forward them to the financial institutions servicing the homeowners’ mortgages.

Instead, the defendant converted the funds for personal use, stealing about $601,500 from the homeowners. Savransky used the funds for ATM cash withdrawals, credit card payments, child support, car payments, gasoline, travel expenses, restaurants, grocery stores, department stores and Netflix.

Savransky’s victims include residents from Lynbrook, Baldwin, Amityville, Brentwood, East Northport, Farmingdale, Hempstead, Hicksville, Huntington, Levittown, Lynbrook, Malverne, Merrick, Mount Vernon, New Hyde Park, Riverhead, Uniondale Westbury, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.

His clients were typically residential homeowners who had purchased their homes using a subprime adjustable rate mortgage sometime between 2006 and 2009, according to the news release. When the payments became more than the homeowner could afford, homeowners hired the defendant to assist in obtaining a mortgage modification.

Savransky requested that all paperwork from the bank be given to him and if additional paperwork was sent by the bank to the victim, he demanded that it be given to him immediately, preferably unopened.

The defendant then counseled clients to give him the monthly mortgage payment that was due under the modified mortgage. He informed his clients that he would make the payments on their behalf and, in doing so, create a record of payment that would prevent a lender from denying that payments were made or from reneging on any mortgage modification that was obtained. At the defendant’s request, these payments were mostly made in cash or by check that did not include the payee. He later completed the payee portion of the check, thereby giving him the means to misappropriate the funds.

Because the mortgage payments weren’t made, lenders started to foreclose on the properties belonging to the defendant’s clients. When some of the homeowners complained to him, some of them received a limited amount of repayment.

The case was initially referred to the NCDA’s office by the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office. Additional cases were also referred by the Suffolk County DA’s Office in conjunction with the Suffolk County Police Department.

Savransky was arrested in August 2015 by NCDA detective investigators and arraigned on grand jury indictment charges in October 2017. Deputy Bureau Chief Peter Mancuso of DA Singas’ Financial Crimes Bureau is prosecuting the case and Joseph Conway, Esq. represents the defendant.