A Rock Hill attorney has been suspended from practicing law after he admitted to hiding crucial information from authorities about a client who defrauded a bank for nearly two years.
Ivan N. Walters' suspension will last 12 months, the S.C. Supreme Court ruled in a case filed Monday.
Federal prosecutors said last year that Walters had been “silent” about the felony involving Kyle Wimmer, a Rock Hill real estate agent who later pleaded guilty in two counts of bank fraud against a local BB&T. But before the plea, officials say, Walters was not candid with officials about what he knew in the case.
Walters could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Walters was the closing attorney in the 2007 case against Wimmer, in which prosecutors alleged that Wimmer sought out and convinced investors to buy residential properties his real estate company owned, then qualified the investors for loans to buy the properties by inflating their financial information to BB&T representatives.
As a result, BB&T would qualify the investor for the loan based on the fradulent information, Wimmer's federal indictment says.
Wimmer also inflated appraisals to BB&T on the property to be purchased, so as a result, BB&T loaned money to investors “well in excess to the fair market value of the residential property,” the indictment states.
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