Federal prosecutors have charged two men with bank fraud and money laundering in their recent purchases of Hotel Vue and The Briars in Natchez.
Ryan P. Mullen and Duane A. Dufrene allegedly “utilized fictitious entities, falsified tax returns and provided fraudulent financial statements and appraisals to orchestrate their scheme to defraud the lenders for the purchases,” according to a statement issued Tuesday by U.S. Attorney Peter Strasser of Louisiana.
Mullen and Dufrene are Louisiana-based businessmen whose scheme also allegedly involved a third Natchez hotel, the Super 8 by Wyndham, according to the federal indictment. The three hotels are all adjacent properties by the Mississippi River and the Natchez-Vidalia bridges.
“The sales of The Briars and the two hotels were not only premised upon false information prepared by Dufrene
and given to the financial institutions by Mullen, but also upon inflated appraisals based on side sales agreements between Mullen and Dufrene,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.
“After the sales of the bed and breakfast (The Briars) and hotel properties, Mullen paid Dufrene $90,000. Mullen pocketed over $3 million from the overvalued loans and used the proceeds to buy at least 20 high-end luxury cars.”
The alleged scheme involved them purchasing The Briars for $1.75 million and Hotel Vue for $3.95 million, according to the federal indictment filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans.
While Mullen and Dufrene are presumed innocent until proven guilty, they each face a maximum sentence of 30 years for the bank fraud counts and a sentence of up 10 years on the money laundering counts, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
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