MIAMI – A federal judge in Miami sentenced disgraced North Miami Mayor Marie Lucie Tondreau's former fiancée to eight years in prison Monday.
Aside from his time in prison, Karl Oreste, of Miramar, was also sentenced to pay $8.2 million and five years of supervised release. Tondreau's former business partner plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution July 2014.
Recommended Videos
Prosecutors said that for years the former president of mortgage lending business KMC Mortgage Corporation of Florida worked with Tondreau, 54, a Haitian-American activist and radio host with notoriety among Miami's Caribbean community.
They operated an $11 mortgage fraud scheme in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, between December 2005 and May 2008, prosecutors said. Oreste, 56, used advertisements on her radio shows to recruit straw buyers, fraudsters who posed as borrowers to purchase properties.
"When he [straw buyer] went to her [Tondreau] for help ... Ms. Tondreau said he had money in his pocket, and he shouldn't complain," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lois Foster-Steers said during Tondreau's trial.
Tondreau's defense attorney said Oreste misled her and used her. She was North Miami's first female Haitian-American mayor in 2013. She was indicted and suspended from office May 2012. A jury found her guilty of six counts of wire fraud and she will face up to 30 years in prison at sentencing in March.
Follow Local 10 News on Twitter @WPLGLocal10