The man federal authorities say is the architect of a multimillion-dollar Internet fraud scheme appeared briefly yesterday in U.S. District Court in Providence, two weeks after his arrest in California.

David Whitaker, 33, is suspected of leading an illegal enterprise that bilked $13 million from customers of Mixitforme.com, a Providence Internet company he cofounded in 2005. A Georgia business hired by the company to process credit-card sales also claims it lost $2.2 million as a result of the scheme.

Whitaker, who has a long criminal history, was arrested March 20 at Los Angeles International Airport by U.S. Secret Service agents and other federal authorities after he disembarked from a flight originating in Mexico. He had been living in Acapulco until Mexican authorities expelled him.

Whitaker was taken to Rhode Island this week by federal authorities and appeared yesterday before Magistrate Judge Lincoln D. Almond, who was expected to formally notify Whitaker that he faces 10 fraud charges in the case, each of which has a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine.

But Whitaker asked Almond for more time to confer with a court-appointed lawyer, Thomas G. Briody of Providence. Almond granted the request and set a new hearing for Monday at 3 p.m.

Whitaker was ordered held in federal prison until then.

pgrimald@projo.com