June 10 (Reuters) - A California man has been criminally charged with defrauding Western Alliance Bancorp WAL.N out of nearly $100 million by falsifying title insurance policies to inflate the value of collateral he pledged to obtain loans.

In a complaint made public on Wednesday, Mahender Makhijani, 44, of Newport Beach, was charged with bank fraud, which carries a maximum 30-year prison term.

The case was announced by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in Los Angeles.

It relates to a civil lawsuit that Western Alliance filed last August against Makhijani's company Cantor Group V, in which the bank claimed it was owed $98.6 million. The case number is mentioned in the criminal complaint.

A federal public defender representing Makhijani did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lawyers who have defended Cantor in Western Alliance's lawsuit did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Western Alliance also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Phoenix-based lender ended March with $98.9 billion of assets and is one of the 30 largest U.S. banks.

Cantor shared a Newport Beach address with Continuum Analytics, a real estate investment firm whose offices were searched by FBI agents in September 2025, and was linked to bad loans from Western Alliance and Utah's Zions Bancorp ZION.O, Reuters has reported.

Neither Cantor nor Continuum is a defendant in the criminal case.

Prosecutors said Cantor lined up $100 million of financing from Western Alliance in 2024 to make or buy loans backed by real estate.

The complaint said Makhijani used Adobe software to create title policies that falsely put Cantor in a first lien position on some collateral even though other creditors were in line to be paid first, making Cantor's interests worth less.

Had Western Alliance known what Makhijani was doing, it would have declared Cantor in default and demanded "immediate, full repayment" of the nearly $100 million, the complaint said.

Western Alliance has not taken a loss because it might still recover the money from guarantors, the complaint said.

In a September 2025 filing in Western Alliance's civil case, Cantor denied committing fraud or delivering "doctored" title policies.