UPDATE: Frank Ward Mortgage Fraud Case

businessman, frank ward. track a wicomico county circuit court judge has decided — for the most part — to uphold the commissioner of financial regulation’s final order — which states frank ward must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution and penalties — for willful unlicensed mortgage lending, mortgage fraud, and for violating a 2010 cease and desist order. the only part of the final order — the judge did not agree with — was a ten-thousand dollar civil penalty — for violating the maryland mortgage fraud protection act. apparently the statute was enacted after all of ward’s fraudulent lending practices occurred — and the judge ruled that statute does not work retroactively. what still stands? ward must pay forty-three of his victims — more than four-hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in interest. on top of that – ward owes the state two-hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars in penalties. ward’s employee — annette coston — must also pay civil penalties to the state — in the amount of two-thousand two-hundred and fifty dollars. despite this latest decision — it appears ward, his businesses, and coston — can still fight the circuit court ruling — in the court of special appeals. however — until they pay the penalties and satisfy the conditions of the final order — ward and coston will be ineligible for mortgage related licenses. the mortgage broker license for “the money center, limited” — has been officially revoked. firefighters from each station in salisbury