Fannie Mae Official Gets 4 Months in Treatment Center for $770,000 Theft

A former official of the Federal National Mortgage Assn. who embezzled about $770,000 to pay his gambling debts was sentenced Monday in federal court in Los Angeles to four months at a community treatment center.

Robert Masato Tanabe, 38, of La Canada, who was the mortgage association’s manager of property disposition, pleaded guilty June 30 to charges that he deposited more than 300 checks from foreclosure sales into his personal account at the Montrose branch of First Interstate Bank.

U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp had ordered Tanabe to spend 18 months in prison. But Hupp suspended that sentence so Tanabe could pay back the money.

Inmates at community treatment facilities are allowed to go to work during the day but must return at night and on weekends, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Feess.

The judge also ordered Tanabe, whose current employment was not disclosed, to pay $25,000 within 30 days and to turn over any profits from the sale of two condos and a Mercedes-Benz that he owns.

Tanabe also was placed on five years’ probation and ordered to get counseling for his admitted gambling addiction.

The judge said he decided against a jail sentence partly because of a Probation Department report that characterized Tanabe as remorseful for his crime. The report also noted that Tanabe already has paid back $120,000.

“I know I have committed a terrible mistake,” a tearful Tanabe told the judge Monday. “I want to make (my mother) happy and proud of me again.”