Kentucky man with local ties sentenced on federal fraud, money laundering charges

NC GAZETTTE / WBRT RADIO
STAFF REPORT

Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024 — A Kentucky man with ties to Nelson County, Louisville and LaGrange, was sentenced recently to 9 years and 2 months in prison for loan fraud and money laundering.

According to court documents, Wavy Curtis Shain, 42, a former Louisville attorney and real estate title agent, pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court in Louisville.

He was ordered to pay $4,455,755 in restitution, for one count of bank fraud and one count of money laundering.

There is no parole in the federal system.

Shain took part in a scheme to defraud two financial institutions through efforts to refinance property he didn’t own, doing sham real estate deals and buying real estate in the names of other people without their knowledge, according to the court record and a news release from federal authorities.

Shain arranged for just over $4 million in loans from two lenders.

He also got a fraudulent loan of $431,065 from a federal program set up in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to help businesses keep workers on the payroll.

Court documents listed properties in Louisville, Owensboro and Morehead that federal authorities sought to take in order to recoup money from Shain, as well as a Range Rover, a red Lexus convertible, a Cadillac and a BMW, and the proceeds of sales of properties in New York, Colorado and Florida.

Records show it was his third federal conviction for fraud.

In the first case, he pleaded guilty in Kentucky in September 2009 to bank fraud and wire fraud.

Shain admitted he did loan closings for people and took money from the proceeds.

He also admitted a scheme in which he wrote cold checks on accounts at two different banks and deposited them in the other bank, pumping up the account balances, and then withdrew the money.

A judge sentenced him to 57 months in prison and ordered restitution of $1.8 million, according to court records.

In July 2020 he was charged in federal court in Michigan with helping the owner of a healthcare company — who had served time in prison for fraud and identity theft — apply for two fraudulent loans.

In a January 2021 document in that case, the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam B. Townshend, said Shain had paid only $13,076 of the $1.8 million in restitution he owed.

Despite that, he spent more than $100,000 for two vehicles in 2019, the prosecutor said.

While awaiting sentencing, Shain told a woman her ex-husband should commit a couple of felonies to get money because, “I mean . . . that’s what I did,” according to the prosecutor’s memorandum.

A judge sentenced Shain to two years in prison in that case and fined him $40,000.

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