Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 6, 1991                   TAG: 9103061196
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short

FORMER MORTGAGE OFFICIAL ARRAIGNED

Eric M. Freedlander requested a jury trial that was set for June 17.

Freedlander's attorney said he would prefer a September trial. U.S. District Judge Richard Williams said he might postpone the trial if lawyers need more time to prepare.

"It's a massive case," said Russell Williams, Freedlander's court-appointed attorney. Prosecutors "admit to having 100 bankers' boxes of documents."

Freedlander, the former president of Freedlander Inc., The Mortgage People, was indicted last month on multiple counts of bank, mail wire and travel fraud, misapplication of funds of a savings and loan association, making false reports to a financial institution and conspiracy.

The charges resulted from a three-year probe into the collapse of the second-mortgage business, once the fourth-largest in the country.

Freedlander was living in the Los Angeles area when he was indicted. He is free on $150,000 bond and is staying with friends in Strasburg, his lawyer told reporters. He said Freedlander is broke.

"He was fortunate to have people who were willing to help him with his bond," Williams said.

If convicted, Freedlander faces a maximum sentence of 425 years in prison and fines of more than $20 million.

His mother, Eve Freedlander, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year on bank and mail fraud convictions in federal court.

Early this year, his brother, Benjamin Freedlander, was sentenced to a year in prison on fraud convictions.