Ron Parker who made millions in a Jacksonville mortgage-fraud scheme was sentenced to four years in federal prison.

Ron Parker, who ran seminars on real estate investing and marketed hundreds of homes through a Northside office, pleaded guilty last year to a single charge of conspiring to commit fraud in the early part of the decade.Ron Parker who made millions in a Jacksonville mortgage-fraud scheme was sentenced Thursday to four years in federal prison.His lawyer asked a judge to request a cell in the same Panhandle prison where Parker’s brother is already serving time for fraud. Parker also is supposed to pay the government $7 million, intended to represent proceeds of fraudulent deals.Parker, 53, used printed ads and spots on gospel radio to get customers into his business, called Real Estate Trader, near Edgewood Avenue and Lem Turner Road.Parker marketed houses he had agreed to buy cheap from distressed owners or fed-up investors. Without actually buying the houses himself, he convinced others to buy them at a higher price and collected a profit from the difference.Prosecutors said mortgage companies specializing in subprime customers were duped into lending far more than the sales prices of the homes.Many of Parker’s buyers eventually lost the homes to foreclosure and some of the mortgage companies closed or went bankrupt as the subprime lending bubble collapsed nationwide. Some of those companies bundled loans into securities that were sold in massive amounts to banks and investment firms that became part of a widespread economic meltdown.Parker was interviewed by FBI agents in 2004 as part of a fraud probe. Soon after, he called a federal prosecutor and volunteered to hand over $664,000, lawyers said during his sentencing. That counts toward his debt to the government.He agreed informally to plead guilty around the same time, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Devereaux said during a hearing.No charges were filed until last year, though, and Parker told U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan he had reformed his life in the meantime.
“When I became aware of all the legal problems I had, my life took on a different meaning,” Parker told the judge. “I became acutely aware there were things I had done and I shouldn’t have done.”Parker, who now lives in Orlando, said he became a minister.“I am not the same self-centered person I was,” he said.Corrigan sentenced Parker to 52 months in prison, telling him there were inmates there who needed ministry.“I have every reason to believe you’re not that person,” he said, “but you’re still going to have to pay for what that person did.”Corrigan noted that the plea deal Parker made was for one charge carrying a maximum term of five years behind bars. If he had lost at trial, he might have faced up to 17 years, the judge said.Parker has been free throughout the case and was sent home to wait for word when he should report to prison.He’s seeking to be assigned to the federal prison in Pensacola where his brother, Russell Lee “J.R.” Parker, is serving a 13-year sentence for running a similar real estate investment operation.