Dinner at Goodfellas: How A Real Estate Ring Unraveled

After dinner at Goodfellas, a police commissioner slipped into a car and was handed an envelope with thousands of dollars in cash by the alleged mastermind of a mortgage fraud scheme.

Little did they know, their dining companion who watched from the back seat would not stay quiet.

The back-seat passenger, Kenneth Perkins, recounted that alleged transaction Thursday in federal court in Hartford. It was day two of a jury trial for six members of an alleged mortgage fraud ring before Chief Judge Alvin W. Thompson.

Perkins, a 28-year-old Groton man, is an admitted co-conspirator in a scheme that allegedly cheated private lenders and the U.S. government out of millions of dollars and left a trail of blight across New Haven’s Fair Haven, Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods, as well as other towns.

After the feds caught up to him, Perkins agreed to wear a wire and help the feds take down 14 other people in the scheme.

Government prosecutors say a group of 15 conspirators falsely inflated the cost of homes, took out government-backed mortgages with trumped-up loan applications, bought the homes for their actual prices, pocketed the difference, and let the homes fall into foreclosure. The conspirators allegedly pulled the scheme on numerous homes in New Haven and surrounding towns, defrauding lenders of over $3.2 million.

Several members of the ring, including alleged mastermind Syed Babar, have already pleaded guilty to their roles in the operation.

Six who claim their innocence are currently on trial, all packed in the same courtroom.

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