CLEVELAND -- A grand jury indicted 59 companies and individuals on 269 charges of using false information to obtain $2.85 million in home loans. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason will announce more indictments Thursday afternoon.

One case involves predatory lending and two cases involve mortgage fraud that total 70 defendants, 43 homes, and 319 counts of theft, forgery, and receiving stolen property offenses, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, Mason said.

In the predatory lending case, a mortgage broker and its loan officer were indicted on charges of deceiving a retired Brook Park couple in their 70s by falsely promising, but failing to deliver, favorable loan terms.

The nine defendants in the first mortgage fraud case were indicted on charges of engaging in a fraudulent scheme to purchase homes in Solon, Pepper Pike and Cleveland with $1.3 million in loans.

The second mortgage fraud case led to mortgage brokers and lenders accused of helping to push Cuyahoga County's foreclosure rate to among the highest in the nation.

The alleged scheme involved 38 properties in Cleveland and the suburbs of East Cleveland and Garfield Heights, the county prosecutor's office said Wednesday.

Buyers and sellers used false income and other information to obtain loans, prosecutors said. Third parties provided down payments and then recovered the money, plus a fee, when deals closed, according to court documents.

Eleven more defendants were to be indicted Thursday on 50 charges of predatory lending and mortgage fraud in Cleveland and the suburbs of Brook Park, Solon and Pepper Pike, said Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason.

The cases are being handled by an assistant prosecutor hired last year to focus on crimes such as mortgage fraud and predatory lending, in which lenders and mortgage brokers push high-interest loans on home buyers who have bad credit or low incomes.

"You predators are now put on notice," Mason said in a statement. "Those of you who engage in deception in the lending process will face criminal charges."