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A federal grand jury in Utah has indicted six people on 40 criminal charges for allegedly operating a fraudulent home-loan modification scheme that involved more than 10,000 victims from nearly every state who suffered losses of more than $33 million.

Charged were Chad Gettel, 39, Salt Lake City; John McCall, 43, Park City; Noemi Lozano, 24, of San Diego; Sheridan Black, 66, South Jordan; James Scott Creasey, 36, Riverton; and Jeremiah Barrett, 33, Bountiful.

The indictment includes charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, telemarketing fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the operation of CC Brown Law LLC and other companies.

"The defendants here allegedly represented that CC Brown was a business comprised of successful lawyers who targeted individual homeowners with the false promise of quality legal representation and legitimate loan modifications," U.S. Attorney for Utah Carlie Christensen said Friday in a statement. "Their scheme allegedly took advantage of these vulnerable homeowners who were desperate to secure some financial relief and save their homes, but ended up in even deeper financial trouble."

All but Lozano were arrested in Utah on Thursday and the five pleaded not guilty in an initial appearance in federal court Friday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Thorley asked that they be held in jail pending trial, citing past illegal drug use and criminal records by some of the five, the nature of their alleged crimes and the fact that they could be facing several decades in prison if convicted.

"The nature of the scheme was one that targeted the weak and vulnerable," he told U.S. Magistrate Evelyn Furse.

Furse, however, allowed the five to be released, finding that restrictions placed on them such as GPS bracelet monitoring could manage any risks of them not appearing in court or harming the community.

Lozano was arrested in California and released Thursday on a $50,000 bond.

Gettel and Lozano hired an attorney and used his name to set up CC Brown Law LLC in July of 2009, making it appear that a law firm was offering the loan modifications when in reality attorneys did little or no work for the company, according to the 30-page indictment. Gettel then bought lists of homeowners who were delinquent on their mortgages and hired other companies to market CC Brown's services.

He allegedly provided false information to the telemarketers, who told potential clients that CC Brown had a 90 percent success rate in obtaining loan modifications, that there was a money-backed guarantee and that attorneys would provide the work necessary for a loan modification.

Around January 2010, Gettel hired McCall, who was a licensed attorney in Wyoming, Colorado and Idaho but not Utah and who came to control CC Brown along with Gettel, the indictment states.

They formed an in-house telemarketing staff in Utah and hired Black, Barrett and Creasey, who eventually managed or supervised the operation — which, according to the indictment, continued to make false statements to potential clients.

Those who agreed to hire CC Brown were billed about $4,000 and additional monthly fees, the charges state.

But there was little or no attorney involvement in any loan modification efforts, and some customers received no services for their fees.

Complaints about CC Brown were made to the Better Business Bureau, and the Utah attorney general's office and other states took regulatory actions against the company. That, according to the indictment, prompted Gettel and McCall to create other entities to mask their operations, including J.L. Martin Law PLLC, W.T. Lee and Associates LLC, Smart Document Processing LLC, Series Smart Law Media LLC, Series Attorney Platform LLC and Castlebar Processing LLC.

Federal agents and local officers raided CC Brown offices in Midvale and West Valley City in June 2012. The operation attracted investigators from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, the FBI, the Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General.

Thorley said some of the operations continued even after the raid.