Daniel J. Nichter, a former Franklin County development director and Hilliard city councilman, was sentenced today to four years in prison for stealing the identities of licensed appraisers as part of a mortgage-fraud scheme.
http://liarcatchers.com/identity_theft_investigation.html
Nichter, 51, of Snowberry Lane in Hilliard, pleaded guilty in November to three counts of identity theft.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kimberly Cocroft imposed the sentence, which was recommended by the prosecution and defense in a plea agreement.
She also sentenced him to 18 months of probation, to be served after his prison term, for one count of passing bad checks. He pleaded guilty to that charge at today’s hearing.
Nichter was ordered to pay $26,000 in restitution as part of the bad-check case. A restitution amount has yet to be determined for the victims in the identify-theft case.
Nichter’s appraiser’s license was revoked in March 2008 and his loan-originator’s license was placed in escrow in June 2009. He was accused of completing nearly two dozen appraisals under the names of licensed appraisers without their knowledge in 2009 and 2010 and including false information that inflated the values of properties.
The guilty pleas were linked to three 2009 transactions, each of which used a different appraiser’s name.
Nichter resigned as a Hilliard councilman in March 2010 after a Franklin County grand jury indicted him on charges of passing bad checks. He was indicted in the identity-theft case in December 2010.
Nichter was the county’s development director from 2000 to 2005.
