122 federal counts for Daniloo

Indictment of DreamLife broker alleges money laundering and fraud

By GARTH STAPLEY
BEE STAFF WRITER

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A federal grand jury in San Francisco handed down a 122-count indictment Thursday against former Modesto mortgage broker Tony Daniloo.

Prosecutors allege the 32-year-old DreamLife Financial executive embezzled more than $5.1 million from clients, including at least $4.5 million from people in and around Modesto.

Thursday's indictment represents the first charges against Daniloo stemming from this area. Though he has been in custody in Alameda County since December 2004, he previously was charged only with Bay Area crimes.

A trial date was not released. The Bee was unable to reach his attorney for comment.

Daniloo faces 77 counts of money laundering, 41counts of wire fraud and four counts of mail fraud, according to the indictment, the result of a two-year Internal Revenue Service investigation.

The maximum penalty for each count is 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution, according to a Department of Justice statement.

At least 29 counts stem from transactions in Modesto, where authorities say he used ill-gotten gains for luxury living and to pose as a philanthropist.

In the fall of 2004, DreamLife pledged $4.5 million to Turlock's Emanuel Medical Center and $1 million to California State University, Stanislaus. The now-defunct company was a finalist for naming rights of the San Francisco 49ers football stadium, according to the indictment.

The indictment says Daniloo preyed on low-income and minority clients with poor credit and forged documents to qualify them for loans they wouldn't have received otherwise.

"Approximately 90 percent of the loans that DreamLife processed involved false representations," the indictment states.

Took cash for 'personal use'

Daniloo "diverted much of the cash for his own personal use," including buying expensive jewelry and fancy cars, according to documents.

"Fraud in real estate deals can deprive innocent victims of their life savings," said Kevin Ryan, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California. "Unfortunately, this fraud is all too easy to perpetrate, given the complexity of escrow documents."

A Bee investigation exposed Daniloo's history of Bay Area bankruptcies, tax penalties and civil lawsuits, and he and his wife, Nansi, were arrested in December 2004.

A subsequent Bee review found that the Turlock homes of both sets of the couple's parents were "sold" to an elderly Alzheimer's patient about the time Tony Daniloo was setting up his business in Modesto.

He used the same woman's forged identity in other schemes, resulting in foreclosure on her South San Francisco home, according to a separate lawsuit. The woman had moved to Colorado and had no knowledge of the deals there or in Turlock, her son has told The Bee.

Thursday's indictment identified no victims. It is not known whether the counts reflect events associated with The Bee's investigations.

Plea bargain in state case

Previously, Daniloo faced 55 state charges of siphoning money from elderly clients while he worked as branch manager of Residential Credit Corp. in Dublin.

He recently struck a plea bargain to settle that case with state authorities that would put him behind bars for six years and eight months and require him to repay $1.34 million to victims.

U.S. attorneys in June charged him with a single count of wire fraud while pursuing the more robust federal indictment, which criminal grand jurors returned Thursday.

Nansi Daniloo, 31, recently agreed to settle state charges by repaying victims $368,000 and performing volunteer work. She faces no federal charges.

Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at 578-2390 or gstapley@modbee.com.