Man facing financial scheme charges busted again

TAMPA — Leigh Fiske, 52, of Tampa, has been indicted on two counts of bank fraud for a mortgage repayment scheme.

According to the indictment, Fiske submitted two fraudulent financial instruments to the servicer and the bank trustee of a mortgage he used to finance the purchase of a Tampa property in 2005, a statement says. He is facing a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison for each count.

The instruments and documentation, which both received funds from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, directed the financial institutions to apply the face value of the instruments to his outstanding mortgage debt in attempts to extinguish the obligation, the statement says. Neither instrument conveyed anything of monetary value, according to the statement, and the intended loss of the scheme was more than $650,000.

Fiske was indicted in March for a separate fraud scheme in which he allegedly funneled money obtained from counterfeit or altered business checks through a trust account he created for a shell company he controlled. That case is pending trial.