SCRANTON – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on March 22, 2022, Dory L. Sater, age 47, formerly of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 36 months of imprisonment by United States District Court Judge Robert D. Mariani. Sater previously was convicted following a jury trial, of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft offenses.
According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, the evidence presented at trial showed that in August 2017, Sater forged a mortgage satisfaction piece and filed the instrument with the Luzerne County Recorder of Deeds Office. The forged document erased a mortgage held by Fidelity Deposit & Discount Bank on the Mountaintop, Pennsylvania residence of Sater’s parents. The mortgage had served as collateral for a $50,000 line of credit that Sater had withdrawn in its entirety. Evidence at trial established that Sater’s parents were considering selling their residence while the forged satisfaction piece was recorded. In the process of forging the mortgage satisfaction piece, Sater also forged the signatures of a Fidelity bank officer and of a public notary, whose notary stamp he stole to use on the forged document. Sater was a personal injury attorney in Delaware County, who ran The Sater Law Firm LLC.
In pronouncing the sentence, Judge Mariani highlighted that Sater was arrested and charged by state authorities in Delaware County for running an unrelated fraud scheme while he was on pretrial release for his federal case. He ultimately pleaded guilty and served approximately seven months of imprisonment in his state case.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Phillip J. Caraballo and James Buchanan prosecuted the case.
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