A Windy City businessman is facing a potential 30-year vacation behind bars after admitting to scamming seniors in a reverse mortgage racket. Mark Steven Diamond, 67, escaped a federal wire fraud charge for his role in a scheme that fleeced elderly Chicago-area homeowners out of nearly $1 million, officials said.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois, Diamond conned at least 18 homeowners, many lacking in financial savvy, using their home equity as his piggy bank. He was slick, critics say—duping his victims into signing loan documents under the guise of initiating repair work, which often was left undone while he pocketed the cash.

During his day in court, Diamond acknowledged the scam that pilfered approximately $929,000 from financial institutions. Yet the government will argue at his Sept. 4 sentencing that the true cost of his swindle stretches far wider, impacting at least 80 individuals and totaling about $6 million in losses, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois.

The case against Diamond was laid out by the federal team, including Acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual and FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Robert W. "Wes" Wheeler, Jr. His guilty plea, secured with the backing of experts from HUD's Inspector General's Office and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, was shepherded by Federal prosecutors Brian P. Netols and Erin Kelly.

Meanwhile, Diamond's accomplices—loan originators Gary Bohn and Matthew Fefferman, employee Cynthia Wallace, and title agency owner Forrest C. Fawcett—have all pled guilty. Like their boss, they, too, are on deck to learn their fates from a federal judge.