When her husband left for good a few years ago, Nadine Bostic became a single mother, her income suddenly reduced by more than half. Her salary as a cosmetologist barely covered her expenses, let alone the mortgage payments on her home.
"I needed to figure out what I was going to do," Bostic said from Elkridge, where she lives with her 9-year-old daughter and ailing 73-year-old mother. "I went from two incomes for 14 years down to one. I had to regroup."
Bostic's savior, she thought, was Joy Jackson, who helped run a real estate business in Lanham called Metropolitan Money Store that occupied elegant offices in which clients, seated on plush leather couches, were promised help in staving off foreclosure. That, Bostic said yesterday, was where her nightmare began.
Jackson, a former stripper who used the stage name Night Rider, was one of seven people arrested Thursday after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that they bilked more than 100 homeowners in a mortgage fraud scheme that netted more than $35 million and that cost many of its victims their homes. Authorities believe it is the largest mortgage scheme in Maryland history.
"They hurt a lot of people," said Bostic, who is a plaintiff in a class-action civil suit against some of the federal defendants. "I never thought I'd ever say I wanted someone to be in jail, but I do. They need to be put underneath the jail. Not on top, not inside - underneath."
If convicted on the federal charges, the defendants face 30 years in prison on each of 15 counts of mail fraud.
"That's not even long enough," Bostic said.
The defendants also face conspiracy charges, and five of them also are charged with laundering money. Federal prosecutors said they expect to make other arrests as the investigation progresses.
News of Thursday's arrests was both welcome and surprising, Bostic said.
"When I was told they got them, I didn't know if I should jump for joy or what," she said. "It was a strange feeling. I never thought anyone was going to do anything."
For the time being, at least, Bostic has a roof over her head but is in a worse predicament than she was before. The title to her home is no longer in her name but in that of a "straw buyer" set up by Metropolitan Money Store, she said. As part of the supposed refinancing of her home, she said, members of the firm forged her signature in order to cash a $67,000 check that had ostensibly been intended for Bostic.
