SANTA ANA – Two sisters have been sentenced for conspiring with relatives to commit more than $16 million in real estate fraud by forging documents and buying homes using straw buyers.

Suniti Shah, 51, of Newport Coast, was sentenced to eight years in state prison Friday after pleading guilty to more than 30 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit a crime, forgery, identity theft and other crimes, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Supriti Soni, 52, of Corona del Mar, pleaded guilty to nearly 40 counts, including conspiracy and grand theft and received 10 years in prison.

The women’s mother, Sushama Devi Lohia, 74, of Newport Beach, in December pleaded guilty to about 70 felonies related to the fraud and tax evasion and was sentenced to eight years. A case against Shah’s husband, Dinesh Valjeebhai Shah, 62, is pending.

Prosecutors say between June 2006 and October 2009, Lohia and the others obtained more than 15 fraudulent loans for properties in Orange County through the use of straw buyers’ credit. A straw buyer is a person who lets their credit be used in the purchase of property that someone else is really buying.

The four defendants fabricated loan applications, inflated the incomes of straw buyers, supplied altered bank statements, falsified employer information on loan documents and forged the names and signatures of straw buyers, prosecutors said.

They are accused of using personal and credit information of the straw buyers to complete fraudulent documents to obtain loans. The defendants also took out fraudulent loans under their own names, prosecutors said. The loans were all approved by then-Washington Mutual Bank.

Contact the writer: 714-834-3773 or vjolly@ocregister.com