College president’s wife pleads guilty in fraud case

? The former president and co-owner of a Great Bend mortgage company admitted that she falsified documents.

Debra Lorraine Law, 48, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to one count of wire fraud and one of mail fraud. In exchange for her plea, another charge of wire fraud was dismissed. The case was scheduled to go to trial Tuesday.

Law appeared in court with her husband, Barton County Community College President Veldon Law.

She admitted in her pleas to falsifying documents from 1998 through 1999, when she was president and co-owner of Community Home Mortgage.

For purposes of sentencing, the government agreed that Law never intended for anyone to lose money.

Law is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 16. She faces a maximum of five years in federal prison without parole.

Law’s former business partner, Scott Phillips of Macon, Mo., said customers who received questionable loans may not have been hurt, but he and others were. The company eventually closed, and a lawsuit suit over the company’s assets is pending in Barton County.

“It would be a shame if she doesn’t serve some time after all the people she hurt,” Phillips said. “It’s been so maddening. Everything was always my fault, according to the Law family. They always said she was going to be vindicated.”