Feds charge Burlington County deputy mayor with arranging sham short sale to escape foreclosure debt

Federal authorities on Wednesday accused the deputy mayor of Willingboro Township with lying to banks and setting up a phony short sale of his home — the latest in a series of scandals to plague the Burlington County municipality’s fractious local government.

Prosecutors say Nathaniel Anderson, a 56-year-old Democrat and a fixture on the township council for over a decade, conspired with a business associate to save his home while facing foreclosure in 2015.

But the plan, according to a complaint filed in federal court in New Jersey, involved that associate — Chrisone D. Anderson, 56, of Sicklerville — fraudulently posing as a buyer of the home and claiming that Anderson would no longer live there so that the deputy mayor’s mortgage lender would forgive the rest of his loan.

The Andersons, who are not related, now face charges including conspiracy, bank fraud, and making false statements on a loan application that could send them to prison for decades on the most serious count.

Neither replied to requests for comment Wednesday.

Nathaniel Anderson’s lawyer, Daniel M. Rosenberg, declined to comment on the charges against the deputy mayor. Troy Archie, an attorney for Chrisone D. Anderson, said his client intended to plead not guilty and “looks to clear her name in this matter.”

This is not the first time Willingboro has faced the prospect of an extended court fight involving one of its elected leaders. Its mayors and deputy mayors are chosen by the township council, not by a popular vote.

And though Democrats have held all five seats on the council for decades, the township’s politics tend toward the personal, divisive, and litigious.

In 2016, Anderson, then serving as mayor, sued his own deputy mayor and fellow Democrat, Christopher Walker, for defamation. In a bit of political theater, he served Walker with the lawsuit and a subpoena during a township meeting.

Their civil dispute settled in 2018, but not before Walker replaced Anderson in the mayor’s seat — only to abruptly resign himself after a week due to litigation alleging he did not actually live in the township.

Anderson’s own problems with his residency began in 2009 as he and his then-wife fell behind on mortgage payments, federal prosecutors said in court papers this week.

Though the couple divorced, Anderson was determined to hold onto the home through a short sale — a process by which a mortgage lender agrees to write off the remaining debt of a mortgage holder in default if they can arrange a sale of the property to dispense with most of the remaining debt.

Short sales typically require the new buyer to have no personal or financial ties to the owner of the foreclosed home and the owner must agree to vacate the property within a certain period of time.

Prosecutors said Wednesday Anderson had no intention of doing either. Twice in 2015, they maintained, he unsuccessfully tried to arrange a sham short sale before finding a willing partner in Chrisone D. Anderson.

The pair allegedly arranged for Chrisone D. Anderson to obtain a $162,000 mortgage for the property and submitted various documents to the bank that held the deputy mayor’s mortgage, saying she intended to use it as her primary residence.

In exchange, that bank forgave the rest of the money Nathaniel Anderson owed on his home loan — roughly $122,000.

But rather than move out, Nathaniel Anderson continued to live there for years, secretly leasing the property from its new owner, paying the new mortgage payments, and covering all its utility bills, prosecutors said.

Anderson’s fiancée eventually bought the house back from Chrisone D. Anderson in 2017, according to public records.

In addition to the charges of conspiracy and bank fraud, Chrisone D. Anderson was also charged Wednesday with lying to federal authorities about her involvement in the scheme.

When agents approached her in 2022, she maintained she wasn’t aware that the home she purchased was being sold by Anderson and that she’d lived at the property from 2016 to 2017.

Prosecutors say both of those statements were lies.

Both Andersons were released on $50,000 unsecured bonds after an initial court appearance Wednesday. A trial date has not yet been set in their case.