WASHINGTON – The brother of former D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown has been charged with bank fraud, the same charge that led Brown to resign his seat earlier this year.
Che Brown was charged Wednesday in a criminal information – a charging document that can only be filed with the defendant’s consent. His attorney, A. Scott Bolden, says Brown plans to plead guilty.
The document says Che Brown claimed $35,000 in income that he never received when he made a loan modification request to GMAC Mortgage in 2010.
It would be Brown’s second conviction for bank fraud. He pleaded guilty to the charge in 1995.
Kwame Brown pleaded guilty to inflating his income on bank loan applications in June. He used one of the loans to buy a powerboat.
He was sentenced in November to one day in custody and six months of home detention.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office tells WTOP Che Brown’s bank fraud was uncovered while federal investigators were looking into his brother’s campaign, for which Che Brown worked.
“This was uncovered during the course of that investigation,” William Miller writes in an email to WTOP.
Bolden said in a written statement that Brown would admit to his “personal mistakes relating to his desire, like millions of other Americans with reduced or limited income during a failing U.S. economy, to modify his home mortgage at a time with housing interest rates were extremely high and the value of his home was extremely low and “under valued and under water.”
Bolden said the charges, although serious, are a far cry from the claims of missing or stolen campaign finance funds.
“None of these alleged funds were ever stolen or misappropriated by Che Brown and all of these funds have been accounted for – regardless of whether the U.S. Attorney, the media or political observers believe this to be the case – no charges have or should be brought against my client for theft of campaign funds or political corruption,” Bolden’s statement said.
WTOP’s Mark Segraves and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow @SegravesWTOP and @WTOP on Twitter.
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