Monday, 10 March 2008   A Jamaican-born couple who fled Fort Lauderdale allegedly to escape federal charges in a multi-million dollar mortgage scam is now facing extradition. 

United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida says fugitive mortgage broker 41-year-old Yvette Scott Patterson and her husband 45-year-old Delroy Patterson were arrested late last week in Kingston by local authorities. 

The couple is being held pending an extradition request by the United States government.

The Pattersons were fugitives on an outstanding federal indictment filed in Fort Lauderdale in 2006 as part of Operation Whose House.

That indictment had charged that the Pattersons conspired to commit mail and wire fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, and identity fraud involving mortgage fraud on properties in Broward County, Florida.

The case involved more than US$10 million in fraudulent mortgages. 

According to the indictment, Mrs. Scott Patterson was a mortgage broker from 2002-2005.

She is alleged to have submitted fraudulent mortgage applications and false documentation to mortgage lenders around the United States by using straw buyers and the fraudulent identification documents of innocent victims whose identities were stolen. 

To date, Operation Whose House has resulted in eight defendants pleading guilty and one defendant being convicted after a ten day trial in April 2007.

Another defendant Ishmael Grant was sentenced in June 2007 to ten years in prison for his role in the same scheme.