A 52-year-old loan officer from St. Cloud is facing up to 90 years in prison after pleading guilty to lying to banks and creating fake child support records in order to get unqualified borrowers approved for mortgage loans.
On Wednesday, Omayra Ujaque was found guilty by a federal jury of three counts of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, according to a press release issued by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
Ujaque, who was indicted on February 15, 2023, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years’ imprisonment for each count of bank fraud, as well as a mandatory 2-year sentence for the count of aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment, Ujaque created and executed a mortgage fraud scheme that targeted the financial institution where she worked. During her employment, Ujaque falsified borrowers’ incomes through fabricated or inflated monthly child support payments on mortgage loan applications.
Furthermore, Ujaque created fictitious court judgements and orders that showed that borrowers were entitled to receive non-existent monthly child support payments. At the time, Ujaque used the names of judges and forged their signatures on the fake documents.
After creating the fraudulent documents, Ujaque created fake statements from the Florida Department of Revenue that showed the borrowers receiving monthly child support payments and fake, prepaid, debit card statements showing the borrowers withdrawing the non-existent monthly child support payments.
In most cases, the children did not exist or the borrowers had never been married.
Ujaque submitted the falsified paperwork to the financial institution showing false monthly income and, as a result, the mortgage loans were approved.
Ujaque is scheduled to be sentenced on July 5, 2023.