Ida Mathis, 52, Kansas City, Missouri, pled guilty to charges contained in a federal indictment admitting that she and co-defendant Larry D. Wills, 50, who resides with her, defrauded New Century Mortgage by submitting several fraudulent documents with a $472,500 loan application to purchase property at 100 W. Bannister Road, Kansas City, Missouri. Wills pled guilty to the same charges earlier this year.

Mathis represented to New Century Mortgage that she was employed by WB Enterprises, of which Wills is the sole owner and employee, and that her salary was $116,100 in 2000. Mathis included a fraudulent W-2 form, several fraudulent pay stubs from WB Enterprises and a fraudulent income tax return with the loan application. Mathis also included in the loan application a letter from an accountant and a verification form signed by Mathis, both fraudulently claiming that she had been making substantial monthly payments on the residence.

As a result of these false representations, a wire transfer of $478,383 was transmitted from New Century Mortgage's bank account in Minnesota to Chicago Title Insurance Company's bank account in Kansas City, Missouri, on Aug. 14, 2001.

Mathis and Wills admitted that they engaged in a monetary transaction involving criminally-derived property. Mathis and Wills caused the transfer of funds in the amount of $352,000 – derived from the wire fraud – from Chicago Title Company's bank account in Kansas City, Missouri, to Countrywide Home Loans, Inc.'s bank account in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 21, 2001.

Mathis never made any payments on this loan; foreclosure proceedings began and the property was sold on May 21, 2003, for $142,213. As a result of this loan and subsequent foreclosure, New Century Mortgage sustained a loss of $393,484.

Under federal statutes, Mathis could be subject to a sentence of up to 15 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $500,000. Wills could be subject to a sentence of up to 39 years in federal prison without parole, plus a fine up to $2 million. Sentencing hearings will be scheduled after the completion of presentence investigations by the United States Probation Office.