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Cowser, 60, of the 1700 block of Gales Street, NE, Washington, D.C., entered a guilty plea to an indictment in September 2007 before the Honorable Judge James Robertson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. During the previous plea hearing, Cowser admitted that the government had sufficient evidence to convict him of the fraud scheme. He also acknowledged that the government could prove that the intended loss to victims from the scheme was over $1,000,000. Cowser was sentenced by Judge Robertson to 71 months in prison on the mail fraud counts, and 12 months in prison on each of the D.C. First Degree Fraud counts, to be served concurrently with each other. The Court ordered Cowser to pay $559,183.79 in criminal forfeiture and $29,394.84 in restitution to his victims. Following his incarceration, Cowser was ordered to serve three years of supervised release, during which time he cannot buy, sell or list any property, or open any credit lines or engage in any financial transactions over $5,000 without permission of the U.S. Probation Office.

According to the indictment, between May of 2005 and March of 2006, Cowser devised a scheme to defraud owners of property, individual buyers, and a mortgage company, among others, and obtain money and property from these owners, buyers and the mortgage company by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises. The purpose of this scheme was for Cowser to sell or attempt to sell real estate property in the District of Columbia that he claimed to own personally, or in the name of a company he formed, Reverse Properties, Inc. Neither Cowser nor Reverse owned these properties, had an independent claim of ownership to these properties, or had any contract to sell these properties for the true owners. Even though Cowser knew he did not own these properties, he signed sales contracts, and closed on the transfer of D.C. real estate properties for significant personal profit at the expense of the true owners, defrauded buyers, and financial institutions.

As part of the scheme, Cowser profited, and caused real estate property to be transferred to him or Reverse. Specifically, Cowser used a forged deed to claim ownership of a home in the 1300 block of West Virginia Avenue, NE. He attempted to sell the property to three separate individuals, obtaining money from all three, and actually engaging in two separate closings on a sale to two separate persons in the same week in February of 2006. As a result of these two closings, over $540,000 was given to Cowser or a corporate designee of Cowser. Cowser used some of these proceeds to purchase a 2006 Mitsubishi Outlander XL.