2 Plead Guilty In Plot To Steal From Pension Plan

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Two Maryland men have pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to steal $9 million from a Vienna-based company's employee pension plan through a series of bad mortgage loans.

Robert Fulton Rood IV, 45, of Potomac, Md. and Nikolaos Hepler, 32, of Gaithersburg, Md. entered the plea in federal court in Alexandria Tuesday.

Prosecutors say Rood led a scheme to defraud Southern Management Corporation Retirement Trust, which funds pensions for the Southern Management Corp., a prominent property management firm in the Mid-Atlantic region with 1,200 employees. Rood brokered a series of 32 mortgage loans which he sold to the retirement trust in 2006 and 2007. All but eight loans went into default.

Authorities say Hepler, Rood's employee, misrepresented information about the loans.

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