A former loan officer from Brookfield is gearing up to face the music in federal court after getting hit with charges for a home equity line of credit (HELOC) scheme, involving nearly $1 million dollars siphoned off from his employer. The Department of Justice announced that 45-year-old Brian Socha is expected to plead guilty to one count of bank fraud, although we're still on standby for the official scheduling of his plea hearing.
Socha's game plan, as laid out by indictment details, was to repeatedly hack into his co-workers’ computers, over 20 occasions to jack up his own HELOC credit limit from a starting point of $135,500 to just shy of a cool million. Alongside this, he finessed the HELOC interest rate, bringing it down from a steep 7.25% to a cozy 1.99%. And the empire he built on these pixels and passwords stood unchecked for six long years.
If convicted, Socha might need to get comfortable with the not-so-cushy confines of a prison cell, facing up to 30 years of hard time. There's also the potential kick in the pants of five years of supervised release and fines that could climb to $1 million – but as they say, the judge's gavel hasn't swung yet. The charges set forth by United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and FBI Boston Division head honcho Ted E. Docks, the gravity of jump, which Socha may soon face, is according to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the pertinent sentencing statutes.
The case ball is currently in the court of Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Merck of the Springfield Office, tasked with prosecuting this dance of digits and deception. However, as the rules of the justice game dictate, Socha sits on the bench of the presumed innocent until the prosecutors can cross the line and prove him guilty beyond that shadow of a doubt.
