Texas Woman Gets 99 Year Sentence for Fraud

After being found guilty by a Navarro County jury for orchestrating a $3 million mortgage fraud scheme, Kandace Yancy Marriott of Gun Barrel City, Texas, was sentenced to 99 years in prison, according to a report from the Texas Attorney General's office. According to prosecutors, Marriott received monthly mortgage payments from her clients, failed to remit those payments to the lender and embezzled the homeowners' funds, causing her clients to default on their home loans. Marriott's conviction stems from her involvement in a complex mortgage fraud scheme that defrauded the federal government. The scheme's principal operators were said to be the defendant and her husband who sold manufactured homes through their company, One Way Home & Land. State investigators allege both defendants illegally forged homebuyers' signatures, inaccurately completed loan applications and falsified supporting documents, including the buyers' rent payment verification statements, proof of employment and Social Security Administration benefits data. The scheme involved predominantly low-income purchasers whose residential loans were guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a result, when the unqualified buyers defaulted on their home loans, their lenders did not suffer financial losses. Instead, HUD had to cover the default costs. Investigators believe the defendants' scheme cost the taxpayers more than $3 million. The defendants closed the One Way Home & Land after litigation and investigations ensued in late 2005. As a result, they opened a Kaufman County firm under a different assumed name, and additional criminal charges in Kaufman County stem from that later operation.