A Connecticut property manager and a New Jersey contractor now face up to $4M in restitution
A Connecticut property manager and a New Jersey plumbing contractor have admitted to orchestrating a two-year kickback scheme that stripped more than $3.6 million from a 924-unit residential cooperative.
Federal prosecutors in the District of Connecticut announced the guilty pleas on consecutive days this week.
Charles A. Pitcher, 58, of Trumbull, Connecticut, and Carmine Gentile, 37, of Freehold, New Jersey, each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud before US District Judge Vernon D. Oliver in Hartford. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
The case was announced by David X. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, alongside federal agents from the FBI, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, and the US Postal Inspection Service.
Read more: Florida attorney pleads guilty in six-year real estate fraud
Fraudulent invoices and a kickback arrangement
Success Village Apartments, Inc. (SVA) is a residential cooperative comprising 96 buildings in Bridgeport and Stratford, Connecticut. Pitcher was appointed SVA's general manager in May 2022 at an annual fee of $250,000.
Shortly after, Umbrella Mechanical LLC — a New Jersey-registered plumbing, heating, and air conditioning firm in which Gentile holds a partial ownership stake — began providing services to the property, including work on the boiler systems supplying heat and hot water to residents.
Between June 2022 and September 2024, Pitcher, Gentile, and others executed a scheme in which vendors submitted fraudulent invoices to SVA for services not rendered or at artificially inflated rates.
Under the arrangement, those vendors then diverted between 10% and 30% of the payments they received back to Pitcher and a second unnamed co-conspirator identified in court documents as "Person-1."
Umbrella alone received approximately $2.63 million from SVA over that period, with more than $526,000 of that total siphoned off to Pitcher and Person-1.
Pitcher also collected at least $232,479 in fraudulent "consulting fees" from SVA for services prosecutors say were never delivered.
In total, Pitcher received more than $403,150 in diverted funds across more than $3.66 million in vendor payments.
Read more: Two indicted in $15M mortgage modification fraud scheme
Penalties and broader implications
Gentile entered his guilty plea on September 14, agreeing to forfeit at least $750,000 and pay a minimum of $1.5 million in restitution, and was released on a $100,000 bond.
Pitcher pleaded guilty the following day, agreeing to forfeit at least $635,629 and pay restitution of no less than $2.5 million. He was released on a $250,000 bond. No sentencing dates have been announced.
The case lands at a time of heightened scrutiny of fraud across the residential real estate sector. In the segments where mortgage brokers need to watch closely for elevated risk, the multifamily category has drawn consistent warnings from fraud analysts.
According to Cotality's Q1 2026 National Mortgage Application Fraud Risk Index, approximately one in 29 multifamily applications showed indications of fraud risk, compared to the industry-wide average of one in 129.
"Lenders should remain diligent on fraud reviews, especially around investor and multi-unit homes," Matt Seguin, senior principal of fraud solutions at Cotality, previously told Mortgage Professional America.
"The underlying data does continue to show some risk there even with an overall decreasing fraud index."
NAMB's ongoing campaign for mortgage fraud awareness across the industry has similarly spotlighted the speed with which residential fraud schemes can move undetected, and the need for brokers to maintain diligence on every transaction.
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