Irving Fryar, who spent 16 years in the National Football League, starring for the New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins and Philadelphia Eagles during his career, was convicted in August for his role in a mortgage fraud scheme that involved his 74-year-old mother and cost several financial institutions $1.2 million.
In October, Fryar received a sentence of five years for his convictions on charges of conspiracy and theft of deception. Allene McGhee, Fryar’s mother, was sentenced to three years of probation.
Now, Fryar and McGhee have been ordered to pay $615,600 in restitution to five lenders that were targets of a scheme that saw Fryar allegedly take out six home equity loans his mother’s home – at the same time.
According to Philly.com, Fryar is currently serving his five-year term at Jones Farm, a minimum security facility in Trenton, New Jersey, but he will now have to pay $200 a month in restitution.
From Philly.com:
Fryar, a wide receiver who played for the Eagles and three other teams during his 17-year career, and Allene McGhee, a retired school bus driver, will have to contribute in monthly installments.
Fryar, 53, is serving a five-year prison term at Jones Farm, a minimum security facility in Trenton. He will pay $200 a month under a consent agreement between the Attorney General's Office and his defense team. That amount can be increased when he is released if he earns an income that would support larger payments, Judge Jeanne T. Covert said during a hearing in Mount Holly.
In a brief exchange with the judge, Fryar, now a pastor, told Covert that he was worried about making the payments because he is paying $500 a month in back taxes on his Springfield, Burlington County, house. His lawyer, Michael Gilberti, said the $500 is being paid from a settlement he reached after his divorce.
McGhe was ordered to pay $300 a month in restitution.
During Fryar’s trial, court documents revealed that five of the six loans taken out on McGhee’s home were taken out within a six-day period and four of the loans closed on a single day –Dec. 21, 2009.
According to a release from the state of New Jersey, Fryar and McGhee deceived the six banks by applying for and closing on the loans within a short period and purposefully failing to disclose the existence of any prior loans, so each bank funded its loan in the belief that it held the first lien on the property and the loan would be secured by adequate equity.
Fryar, who made the Pro Bowl five times during his 16-year career, claimed during the trial that he and his mother were the victims of a con artist who took advantage of them, but the jury did not believe Fryar’s claims.
“The defense attorneys tried to convince the jury that their clients were tricked by a devious mortgage broker who drove the entire scheme,” Director Elie Honig of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice said when Fryar and McGhee were convicted.
“I’m pleased that the jurors recognized the absurdity of the notion that Fryar and McGhee could believe that it was legal to take out six loans at one time on a single home and not tell the lenders,” Honig continued.
“This was not a situation where Fryar and his mother simply made a few misrepresentations on a mortgage application; they participated in an elaborate and devious scheme to defraud seven banks of more than $1 million,” Honig said in October. “This was a major theft case, and it rightfully has landed Fryar in state prison.”
