Florida mortgage loan officer indicted, accused of bank fraud, Identity theft

FLORIDA – An Osceola County mortgage loan officer has been charged with bank fraud and identity theft, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida (USAO) has announced.

United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg on Monday announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Omayra Ujaque, 52, of Saint Cloud, with three counts of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. If convicted, she faces up to 30 years in federal prison on each bank fraud count and a mandatory consecutive two years imprisonment for the aggravated identity theft count, the USAO said.

According to the indictment, Ujaque, in her capacity as a licensed mortgage loan officer, created and executed a mortgage fraud scheme targeting the financial institution where she worked.

Allegedly, to ensure that otherwise unqualified borrowers were approved for mortgage loans, Ujaque reportedly falsified borrowers’ income through completely fabricated or inflated monthly child support payments on mortgage loan applications that she signed and certified to the financial institution’s underwriting department.

In furtherance of her scheme, Ujaque is accused of creating fictitious Final Judgments of Dissolution of Marriage and Final Orders Modifying Child Support showing the borrowers were entitled to receive non-existent monthly child support payments. Ujaque is alleged to have used the names of judges from the Circuit Court of the Ninth District of Florida and forged their signatures on the fabricated Final Judgments of Dissolution of Marriage or Final Orders Modifying Child Support.

Ujaque then allegedly created bogus Florida Department of Revenue Statements showing the party purportedly paying monthly child support payments to the borrowers and reportedly manufactured phony prepaid debit card statements showing the borrowers purportedly withdrawing the non-existent monthly child support payments, the USAO said in a statement.

“In most cases, the children did not exist, or the borrowers had never been married. Ujaque submitted bogus paperwork to the financial institution to support the false monthly income on the loan applications. Based on Ujaque’s misrepresentations, the financial institution approved and funded the mortgage loans,” the USAO said.

An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The case was investigated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency – Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – Office of Inspector General, and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. It will be prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Chris Poor.