Miami Radio: Feds Charge Mayor With Mortgage Fraud

Lucie Tondreau

Before she was elected mayor of North Miami last year, Lucie Tondreau co-hosted several radio programs on WLQY 1320 AM  and Radio Mega 1700 AM that federal authorities say were the key to an $8 million mortgage fraud scheme.

According to The Miamia Herald, an indictment unsealed on Monday asserts, Tondreau and co-host Karl Oreste, a mortgage company owner, used the Creole-language airwaves to reel in “straw borrowers” who filed bogus loan applications to buy 20 homes across South Florida — and then cut the future mayor and her partners in on the profits.

Tondreau, 54, technically wasn’t under arrest yet as of Monday afternoon — but only because she wasn’t home when FBI agents showed up at her door. She was attending a convention in Las Vegas.

But she faces criminal charges when she returns, possibly as early as Monday night, and a potential suspension from office by Gov. Rick Scott, who has the power to remove elected officials charged with a crime.

Charged along with Tondreau are Oreste, 56, of Miramar, and two other defendants, Okechukwu Josiah Odunna, 49, a disbarred Lauderdale Lakes lawyer, and Kelly Augustin, 57, a former North Miami recruiter for Oreste’s mortgage firm. All four face charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud and actual wire fraud between 2005 and 2008 — offenses that carry up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors claim that lenders suffered loan losses of $8 million.

Tondreau hosted a number of radio programs on the AM dial, including L’ouvri Je or Open Your Eyes. She is also a regular guest on Haitian targeted programs on WLQY 1320 AM and Radio Mega 1700 AM.