NEW YORK, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A New York man is facing charges he stole a six-story apartment building and then tried to get a $1 million mortgage on it, city officials said Wednesday.

Fernando Maldonado, 47, of Brooklyn allegedly filed a phony deed with the New York City Finance and Buildings departments and then tried to defraud a lender, the city said in a news release. He now faces numerous charges that could land him behind bars for years, city officials said.


"Stealing a building and using it in an effort to steal more than a million dollars in loan money, as charged here, is about as brazen a scam as can be imagined," city Investigation Department Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said. "But with a paper trail of phony documents, and a string of charges that can lead to substantial prison terms, the foolishness of the scheme has been exposed."

Maldonado allegedly was able to move his scheme forward because he previously had been president of the property's cooperative board and his name appeared on the original deed. But he hadn't even been a tenant of the building since 1992.