A Collier Township, Pa., appraiser convicted in two mortgage fraud schemes filed an emergency motion to keep from reporting to a federal prison in West Virginia because “he’s afraid of a witness against him who is jailed there.”
But the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that a federal judge told the appraiser he had to report Monday and denied his request for a delay in a case.
In April, U.S. District Judge Terrence McVerry sentenced James Lignelli, 59, to 42 months behind bars for schemes involving two properties and three banks, and allowed him to report to the federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va., on his own in June.
Over the objection of the U.S. Attorney’s office, the judge granted him a delay after he said he needed time to arrange for health care for his parents and surgery for his wife, and to take care of business transactions. Prosecutors had said he had plenty of time to arrange for all of that in the year since he’d been convicted, but the judge set a new reporting date for Aug. 17.
Lignelli and his lawyer, though, filed an emergency request for another delay because they said they found out that one of the other participants in the mortgage schemes, Michael Staaf, is housed at the same Morgantown facility. Lignelli believes Staaf, a former operator of Beaver Financial Services, was a witness against him, and is dangerous.
But Judge McVerry issued a one-page order denying the delay, saying Lignelli’s reasons for the request don’t justify an “emergency” and ordered him to report to the prison.
Prosecutors said Lignelli provided inflated appraisals for loan applications in two schemes. In the second, Lignelli worked with Staaf preparing a fake appraisal for a property on Perry Highway in the North Hills.