Fraud Charges

A company out of New Hampshire claiming to help the deaf rework their mortages but is really a fraud, according to police. They say Eric W. Eliason (who police say also goes by the name Ricky Masci) defrauded deaf people, claiming to provide mortgage services but without the proper licenses through Deaf and Hard of Hearing Mortgage Consultants. Eliason is accused of taking money from clients and telling them their applications were in process but they were eventually told their mortgage companies rejected their refinancing. But he apparently never contacted the mortgage companies and never returned the money to clients, even though he promised to do so. His Web site - which is still up as of this writing - claims the company is "a nationwide deaf owned mortgage company.. utilizing American Sign Language or spoken English." Prosecutors say he could get as much as 30 years behind bars for trying to take advantage of people's hearing impairments.