Majestic Mo'Mints: Interview with Chris Brown

Going back on the Majestic Mo'Mints Radio Show to talk about the National Foreclosure Settlement (its impact on the ability to get a loan mod and other effects), state of foreclosure challenges in VA, and US, state, county and municipal debt - how it will impact you.

You can listen or even watch on Ffx Public TV / online!! Mo has advised me that those interested in listening / watching should go to:

Radio Show-Majestic Momints
http://www.fcac.org

Please forward to anyone you think might benefit from hearing the interview -- those seeking loan mods, short sales, to challenge a foreclosure, or those interested in the state of the economy given the economic downturn caused by the reckless and criminal behavior of the largest banks (libor rigging, money laundering, targeting minorities with predatory loans, defrauding investors into purchasing "certificates" backed by loans designed to go into default, defrauding Fannie and Freddie by selling them loans that did not comply with underwriting requirements, bribery in municipal bond deals, etc).

MajesticMo'Mints: Interview with Chris Brown on September 14, 2011
http://majesticmomints.blogspot.com/2011/09/interview-with-chris-brown-on-september.html

Christopher Brown followed in his grandfather and father’s footsteps as a third generation principal of BB&B.  He graduated from Duke University with a degree in philosophy and history, excelling in the classroom and on the football field as running back for Duke's 1989 ACC Championship football team.  Mr. Brown graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1995 and joined the firm in 1997 after a judicial clerkship in the D.C. Superior Court.  He immediately made an impact litigating insurance defense cases and to date has tried over 75 jury trials in the DC and Virginia State and Federal Courts.
Mr. Brown has experience handling matters involving government leaders, top government officials, and local administrative bodies.  He is widely-known and widely-cited in briefs across the country for his 2003 record-setting $5.2 million verdict in the case of White v. BFI, an employment discrimination case in the Eastern District of Virginia - a reputedly difficult jurisdiction for discrimination claimants.

A seasoned litigator, Mr. Brown consistently proves that a small firm with the right talent can truly "level the playing field."

Contact Info:
Brown, Brown & Brown, P.C.
6269 Franconia Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22310
Phone: 703.924.0223
Fax: 703.924.1586
brownfirm@lawyer.com
http://www.metrotriallaw.net
http://www.facebook.com/virginiaattorney

*

Ex-UBS Bankers Guilty Of Scamming U.S. Cities
Basil Katz and Grant McCool
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/ex-ubs-bankers-guilty_n_1847501.html

Christopher Brown's Note: Manipulating Libor, laundering drug cartel money, selling assets to clients knowing they are worthless (mortgage backed securities), targeting minority communities with toxic loans, lying to shareholders about risk, using legally meaningless documents to foreclose on homes, and now bribing officials to get contracts to handle municipal bond transactions. Is there anything these banks do with any integrity?

NEW YORK, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Three former UBS AG executives were convicted on Friday of conspiring to deceive U.S. cities and towns by operating a scheme to rig bids to invest municipal bond proceeds.

The verdict by a federal court jury in Manhattan is the latest victory for the U.S. Department of Justice in its broad investigation of the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal bond market. The widespread probe has touched some of the world's largest banks.

The three defendants, Peter Ghavami, Gary Heinz and Michael Welty, were charged in 2010 as part of a probe focused on rooting out schemes to fix prices and rig bids on bond transactions. The former bankers denied wrongdoing and said government witnesses had lied to ensnare them.

Each defendant was found guilty on two counts of conspiracy. The jury also convicted Heinz and Welty on other charges, but found Welty not guilty on one wire-fraud count, and Heinz not guilty of witness tampering. Heinz was the only one of the three to face that charge.

Ghavami, a Belgian national, left UBS in 2007 as global head of commodities. Both Heinz, of Jersey City, New Jersey, and Welty, of New York, worked on UBS' municipal bond reinvestment and derivatives desk at the time of the suspected offenses.

The two conspiracy charges involved rigging bids in 2001 and 2002 for guaranteed investment contracts, which cities and counties use to park proceeds from municipal bond sales.

The conspiracy charges carry a maximum of five years in prison each. No sentencing date has been set.

Charles Stillman, a lawyer for Ghavami, told reporters: "We are obviously disappointed with the verdict. We are looking forward to an appeal ... "

Lawyers for the other two defendants declined to comment.

Stillman told the jury in his closing arguments this week that his client "did nothing more than his job entirely in good faith and that he never intended to and never did cheat a municipality, the Internal Revenue Service, anyone."

During the trial, the jury heard from government witnesses who pleaded guilty to similar crimes and agreed to testify against the defendants, and also heard audio recordings of conversations between the bankers.

"It was fraud, plain and simple. It involved greed, deception and betrayal," prosecutor John Van Lonkhuyzen said in his closing statement to the jury on Aug. 27.

The jury began deciding the case on Wednesday afternoon. The trial began on July 30.

"It was horrendously difficult. It was a big deal, what we had to weigh," said one juror, who asked not to be identified, after the verdict.

Thirteen people and one company have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the bid-rigging investigation. A total of 19 people have been charged.

The U.S. government has a 10-year window to bring criminal charges over suspected crimes that affect financial institutions.

In this case, since the three bankers were charged in December 2010, the case falls within the statute of limitations, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood has ruled.

In May, three former financial executives were convicted of similar charges by another federal jury in Manhattan.

In July, former JPMorgan Chase & Co banker Alexander Wright pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for manipulating the bidding process for a June 2002 contract.

Wright and former UBS employee Mark Zaino testified for the government at the trial of the former UBS executives. Zaino pleaded guilty in 2010 to bid-rigging charges.

The case is USA v. Peter Ghavami et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 10-cr-1217.

Foreclosure fraud whistleblower found dead

11-29-2011
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/29/9099162-foreclosure-fraud-whistleblower-found-dead

A notary public who signed tens of thousands of false documents in a massive foreclosure scam before blowing the whistle on the scandal has been found dead in her Las Vegas home.

NBC station KSNV of Las Vegas reported that the woman, Tracy Lawrence, 43, was scheduled to be sentenced Monday morning after she pleaded guilty this month to notarizing the signature of an individual not in her presence. She failed to show up for her hearing, and police found her body at her home later in the day.

It could not immediately be determined whether Lawrence, who faced up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000, died of suicide or of natural causes, KSNV reported. ?Detectives said they had ruled out homicide.

Lawrence came forward earlier this month and blew the whistle on the operation, in which title officers Gary Trafford, 49, of Irvine, Calif., and Geraldine Sheppard, 62, of Santa Ana, Calif. — who worked for a Florida processing company used by most major banks to process repossessions — allegedly forged signatures on tens of thousands of default notices from 2005 to 2008.

Trafford and Sheppard were charged two weeks ago with 606 counts of offering false instruments for recording, false certification on certain instruments and notarization of the signature of a person not in the presence of a notary public. You can read a .pdf version of their indictment here.

Police said at the time that the alleged scam had thrown into question the legality of most Las Vegas home foreclosures in the past few years, leaving many people living in foreclosed-upon homes that they unknowingly don't actually own.

"I would suggest you review your documents and bring them to an expert and an attorney," said John Kelleher, chief deputy attorney general for Nevada's fraud unit.

Occupy Our Homes

J.A. Myerson, Truthout
Wednesday 7 December 2011
http://truth-out.org/occupy-our-homes/1323268606

Yesterday, no one had lived in 702 Vermont Street for three years. Vermont Street sits in East New York, the Brooklyn neighborhood where foreclosures are five times more frequent than in the rest of the state. Today, Alfredo and Tasha and their son and daughter moved in, with the help of a number of friends whom they'd never met. Some were from the advocacy groups Picture the Homeless and Vocal New York, others were clergy or members of the city council. They had been organized and brought together by Occupy Wall Street for a national day of action to promote foreclosure resistance, an event kicking off a project they call Occupy Our Homes.

Alfredo, Tasha and the kids, way back yesterday, were homeless, having been foreclosed upon by a bank and hundreds upon hundreds of people who had never heard of them came to East New York today to get them a home. Occupy Wall Street is itself somewhat homeless these days, having been evicted from Zuccotti Park on the orders of the 12th-richest man in the United States. A few weeks ago, the media tycoon in question deployed what he openly calls his "army" to dispossess the occupation, including, naturally, everyone who called it their home. Much wondering has been going on in the press about what Occupy Wall Street would do now that it was homeless. Today's answer seems to have been: get other people homes.

The few hundred activists marched through the streets of East New York and took a tour of the foreclosed properties in the area, which is very easy to do, since they are everywhere. "On every block, we have one or two homes either for sale or in foreclosure," Lorraine, who lives in the neighborhood, told me. "I think we have three houses for sale on my block alone."

On the Upper West Side, there are always street fairs. There are museums and libraries and there are parks and concert venues. And on the Upper West Side, there are places for kids to go after school and there are places for people who want to get healthier to exercise. On the Upper West Side, there are churches made of stone. In East New York, there is a church called Hope Christian Center, which looks like an abandoned office building, the paint on the façade stripping away to reveal the brick beneath.

"There's nothing to do here," said longtime East New Yorker Corinne Gonzales, who attributes the many people who watched the march from their windows to this. Revealingly, it was at their windows where people found themselves on a chance Tuesday afternoon in this neighborhood and not, perhaps, at work. Many of them joined the march, which, at its peak, swelled to what was widely estimated to include 1,000 participants - on a Tuesday afternoon in the rain.

Corrine had never seen anything like it. News cameras and satellite vans don't come here, except, occasionally, in the case of a shooting. Now, they'd come here to document the difficulty of a life of poverty and the attempt to change that dynamic. If Occupy Wall Street had chosen to do something else today, another day would have gone by in which no one in the media or politics paid any attention to East New York.

"It's not fair to us low income families," Corrine told me. "Everybody's talking about middle class. Middle class? What about us? We got children. It's not fair to us. And I thank God that you guys came out today to represent us low income families. And I appreciate it very much."

Some activists brought housewarming gifts for the new residents of 702 Vermont Street. Yates McKee, 32, marched carrying a large houseplant. "A plant is important because it's something that helps make it a nice environment," he told me. "It's also a metaphor for sustaining life."

Lorraine had brought brownies. She started a "part-time cooking thing" to make extra money before she lost her job. "They're free," she said, offering me one. "It might energize you, with a little sugar. I have a sweet tooth." These brownies were to welcome the activists who had come to help, though the baker herself faces foreclosure. "Any person at this point is one step away from being jobless and homeless," she remarked. "It's a reality. This is the life that we're living right now. It's like this is what we worked for, all those other years. This is the point that we've come to."

If anybody wanted demands, they were clear today. As Brian Gibbs of Picture the Homeless said by way of the people's microphone, "What we need is real, affordable housing now. It has to change." Gibbs was once homeless on the street and spoke of the police harassment routinely visited upon him and others in his situation. "The problem with homelessness is that people get so desperate, they are willing to risk arrest in order to get off the streets," he told the crowd.

At one stop along the tour, a young man named Quincy, who works as a part time plumber, took the people's mike. "I was tricked into signing over my deed," he confessed. "Now I'm getting evicted. I have a loan of $475,000."

Standing beside him, his city council member, one-time Black Panther Charles Barron, announced, "We will not let this young man lose his home. We've stopped other foreclosures and we're going to stop this one." Thereupon, Quincy began to weep, the friends and comrades he never knew he had gathering around him to place their calming hands upon his shoulders and his arms and his head. He didn't know they were out there, but 1,000 people ready to protect his home happened to be around the corner the day upon which he was getting foreclosed.

As Quincy wrapped up his remarks, a cry from the crowd drew everyone's attention to another longtime resident of the neighborhood, who told the story of having bought her house in 1997, putting $80,000 down. She'd been working two jobs all of her life and had paid her mortgage responsibly, putting down months in advance when she went on vacation. Her son did four years in Kuwait and four years in Iraq and now he's dead. The Pentagon, the woman said, doesn't know whether he died by enemy bullets or friendly fire. Since then, she's become sick and the bills for her medical treatment have ruined her hopes for paying off the rest of her mortgage. Crying to the sky, she asked again and again, "How am I going to do it?"

At the march's destination, balloons announced the block party to be thrown for the incoming neighbors. A tent appeared on the roof, on which was scrawled, "You cannot evict an idea whose time has come." Remarks were shared by, among others, Alfredo, a 27-year-old community organizer around stop and frisk, and Tasha, whose shyness in the face of the people's microphone moved her to nervous giggles and a swift conclusion to her brief thanks.

I went into 702 Vermont Street with the Occupy Wall Street Sanitation Working Group, who entered before anyone else to get the house ready to be, so to speak, occupied. This was a formidable charge. It very much seemed to one as though the people who left 702 Vermont Street did so in a big hurry. Crumbled dry wall, copious mold, piles of refuse - the house might as easily have been Sarajevo in 1996 than in the same city as Wall Street in 2011.

The sun set over Vermont Street behind the clouds, steadily drizzling on the block party. Eventually, Bloomberg's army, consisting of quite a smaller number of people when there wasn't rich people's property to protect, asked the block party to stick to the sidewalk, and the event drew to a close, teams of occupiers agreeing to stay with Alfredo and Tasha and with Quincy for the night, vowing to put their bodies between the residents and anyone attempting to turn them into something else.

The police's boss has $19.5 billion. He's got places to stay all over the world, luxury townhouses in the swankiest neighborhoods in the finest cities in the world and sprawling mansions in lush paradises in the tropics. And no one ever threatens to kick him out of any of them. For the time being, anyway.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

J.A. Myerson is an independent journalist who is involved in the Media and Labor Outreach committees at Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy’s next frontier: Foreclosed homes

A campaign to defend families from evictions and protest foreclosure fraud launches next week
Justin Elliott
Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/30/occupys_next_frontier_foreclosed_homes

Occupy Wall Street is promising a “big day of action” Dec. 6 that will focus on the foreclosure crisis and protest “fraudulent lending practices,” “corrupt securitization,” and illegal evictions by banks.

The day will mark the beginning of an Occupy Our Homes campaign that organizers hope will energize the movement as it moves indoors as well as bring the injustices of the economic crisis into sharp relief.

Many of the details aren’t yet public, but protesters in 20 cities are expected to take part in the day of action next Tuesday. We’ve already seen eviction defenses at foreclosed properties around the country as well as takeovers of vacant properties for homeless families. Occupy Our Homes organizer Abby Clark tells me protesters are planning to “mic-check” (i.e., disrupt) foreclosure auctions as well as launch some new home occupations.

“This is a shift from protesting Wall Street fraud to taking action on behalf of people who were harmed by it. It brings the movement into the neighborhoods and gives people a sense of what’s really at stake,” said Max Berger, one of the Occupy Our Homes organizers and a member of Occupy Wall Street’s movement-building working group.

The backdrop for all this is a new study suggesting the foreclosure crisis is only half over, with 4 million homes in some stage of foreclosure. Meanwhile, reports of illegal or questionable behavior by banks and mortgage lenders continue to stream in.

Like many of the Occupy actions that have focused on specific policy questions, this one is being organized by established progressive and labor-affiliated groups along with their allies in the movement. Among the allied groups listed on Occupy Our Homes’ website, for example, are the New Bottom Line and New York Communities for Change. On the Occupy Wall Street side of things, members of the direct action working group and the movement-building group in New York have been involved in the project.

Occupy Our Homes’ website (which was registered by a former SEIU official staffer) has the trappings of a slick professional campaign, with videos featuring the stories of families facing foreclosures and a pledge visitors are encouraged to sign stating:

… that until the banks do their part to help homeowners and to fix the economy, by writing down mortgage principal to current home values, I will:

•I will support homeowners resisting wrongful foreclosure evictions.
•I will resist any attempt by the bank to take my home.
•If they come to foreclose, I will not go.
A network of groups organized as Take Back the Land has been doing eviction defenses and related actions around the country for five years, according to organizer Max Rameau.

“Now with this Occupy movement ramping up, I think we have a significant chance to keep large numbers of people in their home,” Rameau told Democracy Now earlier this month. “[The goal is to] not only force the banks to allow the family to stay in the home. But also then force policy changes that would help thousands of other people for whom we’re not doing eviction defenses.”

We saw a similar dynamic in the preexisting campaign to extend the millionaire’s tax in New York, which has benefited from new energy and a new banner offered by the Occupy movement.

Will the new Occupy push on foreclosures pick up any steam? I’ll be covering whatever happens on Dec. 6, so stay tuned to find out.

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin

Foreclosure firm has Halloween party dressed as depressed homeowners

Andrew Jones
Saturday, October 29, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/29/foreclosure-firm-has-halloween-party-dressed-as-sad-homeowners

Based on their Halloween costumes from last year, it would not be surprising if employees from foreclosure firm giant Steven J. Baum dressed up this year as homeowners who’ve lost their property thanks to firms like them.

In a column from The New York Times Joe Nocera, a former employee of the Baum firm revealed that his former co-workers did indeed dress as downtrodden individuals with signs representing their depressed state. The ex-Baum employee, who Nocera kept anonymous, told the Times reporter that she wanted to show how the firm had a “cavalier attitude” towards foreclosing people’s homes.

After getting word of Nocera’s story, the firm vehemently defended itself, saying the column was “another attempt by The New York Times to attack our firm and our work.”

The Baum firm represents virtually all the prominent mortgage lending Wall Street giants, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

Support Cheri Honkala, Occupy Candidate for Sheriff of Philadelphia

Running on Platform of No Foreclosures, No Evictions
Webster G. Tarpley Ph.D.
October 27, 2011
http://tarpley.net/2011/10/27/cheri-honkala-for-sheriff-of-philadelphia

I urge support for Cheri Honkala, who is running for Sheriff of Philadelphia on a platform of no evictions and no foreclosures. Cheri Honkala may be the only Occupy candidate in the United States, and her example deserves to be imitated wherever possible. An experienced activist, Cheri is running on the Green Party ticket against a Republican and a Democrat, neither of whom has matched her pledge to protect American working people from the outrageous thievery of the banksters. Cheri knows the drama of homelessness first hand: she and her nine-year-old son became homeless and were forced to take refuge in an empty home owned by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she was arrested. Cheri Honkala regards housing as an inalienable human right, which places her firmly in the tradition of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Economic Bill Of Rights of January 1944. She has also called for permanent solutions to the homelessness crisis through the construction of low-cost, affordable housing.

As Sheriff of Philadelphia, Cheri is pledged to refuse to throw any family out of their homes, nor will she honor or issue any writ to that effect. She is a critic of the totalitarian Patriot Act and an advocate of the free exercise of Constitutional rights, including the economic rights implicit in the general welfare clause. She will also refuse to cooperate with the racist witch-hunts of the ICE, which has continued under Obama to conduct raids, separate families, and deport immigrant workers.

Philadelphia Needs a People’s Sheriff, Not a Robo-Sheriff for the Banksters

Cheri Honkala’s campaign is a model and paradigm for what activists should be doing all across the United States. She is showing how campaigns for elected office can cooperate with the mass strike movement more generally. Bank of America and other zombie banks have notoriously used robo-signers, bribed robo-judges, and corrupt robo-cops to steal people’s homes. As People’s Sheriff of Philadelphia, Cheri Honkala will provide a lesson in how local governments can be used to assert justice against tyranny. Philadelphia needs a People’s Sheriff, not a Robo-Sheriff in the service of Bank of America.

Cheri is not foundation funded and needs contributions now to get out the vote on November 8. For more information, please go to cherihonkala.com or call 215-923-3747.

Foreclosure Defense: Tilting at Windmills

by Christopher E. Brown & R. Michael Smith

This article will be coming out soon...

Banks Foreclosure Solution

From PublicRadio.org:

The great flaw in the American housing market right now is pretty fundamental: too much supply, not enough demand. There are just way too many foreclosed and abandoned properties out there, which is making everything else tougher to sell.

So since they haven't been able to drive any new demand, some banks are doing the completely rational -- if kind of unbelievable -- thing and cutting their supply. In states like Ohio, banks are finding it's cheaper to tear houses down than to try and sell them...

Banks demolish foreclosed homes, raise eyebrows
Jeff Tyler
Thursday, October 13, 2011
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/13/pm-banks-demolish-foreclosed-homes-raise-eyebrows

Squatter Nation: 5 years with no mortgage payment

Millions are staying in their homes without paying their mortgages
Les Christie
June 9, 2011
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/09/real_estate/foreclosure_squatter/index.htm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Charles and Jill Segal have not made a mortgage payment in nearly five years -- but they continue to live in their five-bedroom West Palm Beach, Fla. home.

Lynn, from St. Petersburg, Fla., has been living without paying for three years.

In Thousand Oaks, Calif., an actor has missed 30 payments, and still, he has not lost his home.

They're not alone.

Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years.

These cases can go on and on. Nationwide, it takes an average of 565 days to foreclose on borrowers in default from their first missed payments to the final auction. In New York, the average is 800 days and in Florida, where the "robo-signing" issue is particularly combative, it's 807.

If they want to fight evictions hard, borrowers can remain in their homes even longer while their cases are being worked through.

The Segals have been doing that -- in court. They bought their home in 2003 with an adjustable rate mortgage. After a few years, their monthly payments tripled to $3,000, just as their home-inspection business was cratering.

The Segals want the bank to modify the mortgage so payments are affordable, and they think the court will agree that their lender put them into a toxic loan.

"The evidence will show that we were defrauded," said Jill Segal.

Walk away from your mortgage? Time to get ruthless

If they lose, of course, they'll finally have to leave. And, unfortunately, more than 50 months of missed mortgage payments hasn't translated into big savings.

"It's very hard to save," said Jill Segal. "Our company's billing is 90% off and my husband is only working about four days a week."

Lynn, who didn't want her last name used, purchased a two-bedroom on Tampa Bay in 1998 for $135,000.

As the waterfront property's value skyrocketed, eventually reaching $750,000, she refinanced twice (once to expand a business), and took out a second mortgage. She now owes more than $600,000 on the home, which is worth only $235,000.

Living in this foreclosure limbo is "Hell," Lynn said. "I feel like I'm locked in a box. I work for a financial organization and if this came out, it could cost me my job."

Able to pay, but walking away

She's still hoping to negotiate the loan. In the meantime, small things bother her. "A couple years ago, I lost my dog and I can't decide on getting a new one," she said. If she has to move, she can't be sure she'll go somewhere that allows pets.

The actor from Thousand Oaks, Calif. began having problems during the screenwriters' strike in late 2007, followed by a threat of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild.

He's working with his lender toward a mortgage modification, submitting page after page of documents, which the bank has often misplaced or waited so long to examine them that they had grown too old to use.

His ideal outcome is get the loan modified and get all his late fees waived. He feels entitled to that because the bank advised him to stopped paying in the first place to qualify for one of the government's foreclosure programs. Before that, he had missed only one payment.

Meanwhile, he has cobbled together some income streams -- small acting parts, teaching acting classes and even handyman work.

"In a way, I feel like I'm lucky because I haven't had to pay any 'rent' for 30 months," he said.

But he feels like he's always under a cloud. "I haven't slept in three years," he said. "It's terrifying. I have to have the ultimate poker face in front of my kids."

Ruben Martinez, a Staten Island, N.Y., man trapped in a particularly bad adjustable rate mortgage, stopped paying more than three years ago. His attorney, Robert Brown, has managed to stave off one foreclosure.

Martinez, still struggling to find work, has little in savings despite the missed payments. He's earning some income as a pastor and consulting for a non-profit family counseling organization.

"There's pressure on me every day," he said. "I have a wife, three daughters and two grandchildren. Where are we going to live?"

Will Bankers go to Jail for Foreclosure-gate?

http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/10/19/will-bankers-go-to-jail-for-foreclosure-gate

Will Bankers go to Jail for Foreclosure-gate?
Stephen Gandel
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Foreclosure-gate is getting uglier by the day

More and more, Foreclosure-gate is looking like the housing bust's Enron.

One of the amazing developments of the unraveling of the financial crisis has been the fact that there have been so few people we can actually point to and say without a doubt that guy or gal is a crook. Yes, Bernie Madoff and his fellow ponziers, but they were only flushed out by the financial crisis. They didn't really cause it. The Bear Stearns hedgies beat their case. The mastermind of AIG's demise Joe Cassano looks to have made a clean getaway. Lehman's Dick Fuld is still in the clear. Goldman and just last week Countrywide's executives had to pay out large fines. But none of them are headed to jail. John Paulson and other hedge funds that help construct CDO debt bombs and bet against them, haven't even been forced to give some of their winnings back. I can't think of anyone of any real consequence who is facing hard time.

Thanks to foreclosure-gate that may soon change.

CNN is reporting that law enforcement officials are investigating whether banks and their employees broke federal law in the handling of foreclosures:

Two sources familiar with the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force indicated the multi-agency effort by investigators in the Justice, Treasury and Housing Departments would determine whether prosecutors would ultimately pursue criminal or civil penalties - or both.

The Task Force has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday morning at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Upon conclusion a briefing is likely at the White House, officials said.

"The administration's Federal Housing Administration and Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force have undertaken their own regulatory and enforcement investigation into the foreclosure process," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed Tuesday. "We remain committed to holding accountable any bank that has violated the law," he said.

So who is likely to go to jail? Obviously the first candidates are the robo-signers who were putting their names to documents that attested they had reviewed the loans documents when they hadn't. But here's the problem with just putting those people in jail. A number of the robo-signers have already admitted that they didn't know what they were signing. Jeffrey Stephan, the robo-signer at GMAC who got the current crisis started, has said that it wasn't actually his job to review the loans, just sign the paperwork. So clearly someone must have told him that was his job. Federal prosecutors are trained to use the small fish to catch the big ones.

The question when it comes to the paperwork is just how high up the chain of command the order to sign without reviewing goes. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan was B of A's chief legal officer for a brief time. Did he know that the bank was filing potentially fraudulent documents with courts around the country? Did he look to make sure the bank's foreclosure processes were sound? I mean at the end of 2008, when Moynihan was the head of B of A's law department, foreclosures were becoming a very big part of the bank's daily life. So I would think that a chief legal officer would look into that. FULL DISCLOSURE, I have no knowledge about Moynihan's situation, and have not asked B of A for a comment. He was only in the job for a little while, so it is entirely possible this is an area he skipped over. I'm just saying it could get messy for some bank higher-ups.

But the real blood on the Street would be if the Feds are looking into the some of the more salacious charges that are coming out about the securitization of mortgage bonds. One being that the bankers knew many of the loans they sold to investors were deficient, and got a discount when they bought them, but then passed those loans along to investors at full face value anyway. Or, two, a charge that surfaced again today, that bankers sold the same mortgage to numerous bond pools ensuring that investors would lose money.

Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture has a very good round-up of most recent developments in the continuing to unfold foreclosure-gate scandal. And there are a lot of them. Enjoy, unless you are a banker or someone facing foreclosure or really anyone who used to think our financial system was, well, functional, then cry.

New Blog of the Month: VA Foreclosure Defense

Covering the news and stories that relate to the national foreclosure crisis.
http://vaforeclosuredefense.blogspot.com/

Welcome!

Finally, our office now has a blog to monitor stories and reports of issues and incidents impacting homeowner foreclosure defense in Virginia, and nationwide! We will use this blog to monitor, report, and dissect stories concerning foreclosure defense, the financial sector, and the efforts of the government to attempt to assist homeowners through this difficult period.

We are hopeful that by visiting our blog you will learn something that will assist you, or someone you know, in defending their home from foreclosure. Future posts will focus on particular stories and (hopefully, time permitting) provide some context / interpretation of the meaning and/or impact on foreclosure defense.

Axelrod suggests White House won’t support foreclosure moratorium

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/axelrod-foreclosure-moratorium/

Axelrod suggests White House won’t support foreclosure moratorium
David Edwards
Sunday, October 10th, 2010

President Barack Obama's top adviser said Sunday that he wants Congress to address improper foreclosures but indicated that the White House doesn't support calls for a national moratorium.

"I'm not sure about a national moratorium because there are, in fact, valid foreclosures that probably should go forward and where the documentation and paperwork is proper," Axelrod said on CBS' Face the Nation.

"We are working closely with these institutions to make sure that they expedite the process of going back and reconstructing these and throwing out those that don't work," he said.

CNN reported:

State attorneys general have stepped up pressure on banks after it was revealed that some bank employees had signed foreclosure affidavits without verifying that the documents were accurate, a process now known as "robo-signing."

Ohio's attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Ally Financial and its subsidiary GMAC Mortgage for allegedly submitting fraudulent documents in hundreds of foreclosure cases across the state.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, called on major mortgage servicers to consider halting foreclosures in all 50 states in a statement released Friday.

"It is only fair to Nevada homeowners to suspend foreclosures until a thorough review of foreclosure processes is completed and homeowners can be assured that their documents are being analyzed properly," Reid said.

The White House announced Friday that the president would block a bill that would have made it more difficult for home owners to challenge foreclosures.

Banks Agree To Foreclosure Moratoriums

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200902131828DOWJONESDJONLINE000900_FORTUNE5.htm
Banks Agree To Foreclosure Moratoriums
February 13, 2009
By Meena Thiruvengadam

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Citigroup Inc. (C), Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) have committed to temporary moratoriums on foreclosures as the government works on a financial stability plan slated to include billions of dollars aimed at keeping people in their homes.

"We will not add to the foreclosure process any new owner-occupied residential loans that are owned and serviced by JPMorgan Chase," the company's chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said in a letter Thursday to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The moratorium on new foreclosure actions will remain in effect through March 6 and is similar to a 90-day foreclosure freeze JPMorgan announced Oct. 31.

"We believe three weeks is adequate time for the Treasury to announce - and for us to implement - a new plan," Dimon said.

Citigroup in a statement issued Friday said it will place a moratorium on foreclosures for all Citi-owned first mortgage loans that are on principal residences and on loans for which understandings with investors have been reached. The moratorium is scheduled to last until March 12 unless the government finalizes a loan-modification program before that date.

Bank of America on Friday said it will delay foreclosure sales on owner- occupied properties whose mortgage loans are owned and serviced by it or Countrywide Financial Corp. through March 6. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in July.

"If the program's development is not complete in three weeks, we will consider a possible extension," a Bank of America spokeswoman said.

Wells Fargo, which recently acquired Wachovia Corp., has imposed a moratorium on foreclosures for loans it holds, company spokesman Kevin Waetke said Friday. That moratorium is expected to remain in place until the government's foreclosure prevention plan is announced.

The majority of Wells Fargo's mortgage loans, however, are serviced by it and owned by other investors. The company is "working with these investors and related contractual commitments to determine how we will support the moratorium request," it said in a statement issued Friday.

Lawmakers in a congressional hearing Wednesday asked the executives of several of the nation's largest banks to institute a moratorium on foreclosures until the details of a revamped government bailout effort are announced. The Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates U.S. thrifts, on Wednesday also called for institutions it oversees to suspend foreclosures for the next few weeks.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday unveiled the outlines of the revamped government effort and said details will be released later. Geithner has been meeting with other members of President Barack Obama's economic team and the secretary of housing and urban development to discuss foreclosure prevention.

Obama is scheduled to outline his plan to stem foreclosures next week.

"I am asking you at this time to commit to this committee and to the people across America that you will do something here ... and that is to commit to having a moratorium on all foreclosures that each of your banks and affiliates deal with until the Treasury secretary can put together this package," Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., said at Wednesday's hearing.

Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit in that hearing first told lawmakers of his company's intent to institute a foreclosure moratorium, saying Citigroup "would commit to making sure that people stay in their houses."

Also in that hearing, Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis indicated his firm would consider freezing its foreclosure activity. "If we could put a time frame on it, ... say it's two weeks or three weeks, we would do that," he told lawmakers.

Some lawmakers have suggested Geithner "strongly encourage" banks receiving government capital through the controversial $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, to temporarily stop foreclosures. "TARP-assisted financial institutions should allow struggling homeowners more time to qualify for any systematic loan modification plan," Frank and Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to Geithner on Wednesday.

JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo each have received billions of dollars in federal aid through TARP.

-By Meena Thiruvengadam, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6629; meena.thiruvengadam@dowjones.com

(Henry J. Pulizzi contributed to this article.)

New Year, New Scams

http://money.aol.com/special/best-and-worst-2007/winners

New Year, New Scams
By ALEKSANDRA TODOROVA

It's been a tough year for consumers. With housing prices falling and the subprime-mortgage mess raging on, we won't blame you if you're looking forward to a fresh start in 2008.

Better watch out: The financial woes and natural disasters of 2007 have armed scammers with plenty of new tricks -- or resourceful spins on old ones -- aimed at separating you from your cash. Here the five most treacherous scams to watch out for in 2008.

1. Fake foreclosure rescue

As foreclosures plague communities throughout the country, scammers are jumping at the opportunity to squeeze money out of troubled homeowners. The problem has become so widespread in some states, like Nevada, that the attorney general's office recently issued an official warning that homeowners anywhere in the country should consider.

The most common foreclosure rescue scam entails approaching homeowners in default — notices of default are public record, easily accessible at the county clerk's office or local court — with an offer to help them avoid foreclosure by negotiating with their lender. Some even offer to lend them the money needed to become current on the mortgage. The problem: They charge hefty upfront fees, do nothing in return and the property is foreclosed anyway. Minnesota's attorney general recently filed suit against two out-of-state companies — Florida-based Foreclosure Assistance Solutions and Nevada-based American Housing Authority — for allegedly charging $1,200 and $1,395 fees upfront, respectively, and delivering no services in return.

Many homeowners are afraid of contacting their lender when they fall behind on mortgage payments, explains Mark Huffman, an editor at consumer web site ConsumerAffairs.com. In reality, it is in their best interest to contact the lender at first sign of mortgage trouble — even if they haven't fallen behind on payments yet. Some homeowners may be eligible for a rate freeze under the Bush administration's new plan to help subprime-mortgage holders. Even those not eligible could negotiate another solution with the help of the Hope Now alliance, a group that brings together housing counseling agencies, lenders and mortgage servicers. Call them at 1-888-995-HOPE. Foreclosure assistance received from legitimate sources should be free of charge.

2. Foreclosure rental scams

Even more perilous is a scheme to trick homeowners threatened by foreclosure into signing over the title to their home. The scammers typically target those who have some home equity left, with the goal to pocket that equity and disappear.

How it works: The scammers approach you with an offer to buy your house for the total amount you owe, plus a small amount of cash. You can then continue to rent the home, with the idea of buying it back later when your financial circumstances improve. The problem is, as soon as you sign over the deed to the house the new "owner" stops making the payments and collects your rent until the house is foreclosed. They may also refinance the property to take whatever equity is left. Eventually, the home goes into foreclosure and the tenants are evicted.

The only protection against this scam is vigilance. "The chances of someone good knocking on your door offering to help you save your house is very slim," says Ralph Roberts, author of "Protect Yourself From Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud."

3. Disaster-related schemes

Floods in the Northwest, wildfires in California. Scams proliferate whenever and wherever a disaster hits.

Residents in the affected zones should be particularly wary of offers for cheap home repair and clean-up. Earlier this month, the Washington State attorney general issued a warning against such scams, cautioning residents that the con artists typically demand payment upfront and "never do the work, do a shady job or require additional money once the job starts." To protect yourself, be sure to check up on your contractor: They must be registered with the state's department of labor and carry liability insurance coverage.

Even more treacherous are scammers who prey on people's goodwill, soliciting donations for charitable organizations that don't exist — or aren't really charitable. "If there's something in the news that's on people's minds and is likely to have them open up their wallets, scammers will make a pitch," says Nat Wood, assistant director for consumer and business education at the Federal Trade Commission. "But while giving in times of crisis is great, people should give to legitimate charities." To make sure your money is going to the right place, check that your solicitor is from a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. A good place to verify that a nonprofit is legitimate is GuideStar.org.

4. Aggressive car warranty pitches

Senior citizens are often targeted by scammers and the extended car warranty scam is one of their latest tricks. It typically starts with the victim receiving a letter, postcard or prerecorded phone call informing them that their car warranty has expired and they have to purchase a new one. After an aggressive sales pitch, the victim agrees to buy an expensive extended warranty that they don't really need. Alternatively, the scammers could be simply "phishing" for personal information, such as the victim's Social Security number, address and date of birth, which can later be used for identity theft.

Several weeks ago, North Carolina's attorney general issued a warning against the scam after receiving an average of 30 calls a week from targeted consumers. Consumers should always verify mailings that appear to come from their car manufacturer with the manufacturer itself, and should never give out personal information over the phone. (Keep in mind, extended warranties — even if offered legitimately — are rarely necessary.

5. "Red Cross" military scams

A particularly repulsive twist on the "phishing" scam (where the victim is tricked into giving out personal information later used by identity thieves) is one targeting military spouses.

How it works: Someone claiming to be with the American Red Cross calls a military spouse to inform her that her husband has been hurt while on duty in Iraq and has been transported to a hospital in Germany. To complete the necessary paperwork and proceed with treatment, the caller asks for verification of the husband's Social Security number and date of birth. The information is then used by identity thieves to obtain credit in the victim's name.

Military spouses beware: In a statement issued earlier this year, the Red Cross said its representatives do not contact military members or dependents directly, but rather do that through a commander or first sergeant. Meanwhile, pretending to be a member of the American Red Cross is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Frightened as you might be by a phone call about your spouse, be sure you are speaking with legitimate sources. "Scammers are very ingenious, and although they sound nice and interested, they can be heartless as well," says the FTC's Wood.

California cities fill top 10 foreclosure list

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/14/real_estate/California_cities_lead_foreclosure/index.htm

California cities fill top 10 foreclosure list
Stockton, Calif. records highest foreclosure rate among nation's metro areas according to a new survey.
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
August 14 2007

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The binge that many housing markets went on in the early- to mid-2000s is over, and some of the hottest markets like California are now experiencing the worst hangovers.

But other areas, especially many that recorded slower home price growth earlier this decade, have seen little increase in foreclosure rates, according to the latest data released Tuesday from RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosure properties.

"While foreclosure activity has skyrocketed over the past year in many cities, particularly in California, Ohio and the Northeast," James Saccaccio, RealtyTrac's chief executive, said in a statement, "foreclosure activity seems to be subsiding in parts of Texas, South Carolina and other states."

"Still," he said, "the overall trend is toward escalating foreclosure rates, with 82 of the top 100 metro areas reporting year-over-year increases in the number of homes affected by foreclosure."

Stockton, California now leads the nation in foreclosures. Of RealtyTrac's top 10 metro areas for foreclosures, four are in Central California.

Coastal California cities are doing relatively well, although foreclosures are up there too. San Francisco had one foreclosure for every 263 households, a fairly low rate, but up 83 percent from the first six months of 2006.

Stockton city drew thousands of home buyers to the Central Valley area from the prohibitively expensive Bay-area markets during the housing boom and saw home prices nearly double in the four years ended December 31, 2005, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Because of California's outsized home prices, option and hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) interest-only loans became widespread. They enabled home buyers to get into properties they could not otherwise afford.

But often these loans were time bombs; hybrid ARMs, for example, reset to much higher rates - and payments - after the first two or three years of low fixed rates.

Many buyers were also approved for expensive mortgages based on applications in which income or assets went unproven, the so-called no- or low-doc loans, AKA "liar loans."

Lenders underwrote mortgages for these borrowers based on their income or asset claims without proof and many times the claims were exaggerated. When hard times hit, these borrowers had fewer resources to fall back on than the lenders anticipated and foreclosures followed.

Mortgage meltdown contagion

Seven of the nation's top 10 metro areas are in the Sun Belt. Only three are in economically hard-hit areas, historically the kinds of places that once produced the highest rates of foreclosure filings.

Stockton recorded one foreclosure filing for every 27 households during the six months ended June 30, a 256 percent increase compared with the first six months of 2006.

Number two in the nation was Detroit, where job losses in the auto industry drove foreclosures higher. One of every 29 households recorded a foreclosure filing there, almost double the rate of a year ago. Las Vegas (one of 31, up 142 percent) was third.

The other California cities in the top 10 were Riverside/San Bernardino (one in 33, up 198 percent), Sacramento (one in 36, up 231 percent) and Bakersfield (one in 47, up 222 percent).

The lowest foreclosure rate recorded by RealtyTrac among the 100 metro areas surveyed was in Richmond, Virginia. It had just one for every 2,319 households, about the same as a year ago and a rate barely more than 1 percent of Stockton's.

Other low foreclosure metro areas included Greenville, South Carolina (one in 1,721, down 66 percent), McAllen, Texas (one in 1,494, down 35 percent) and Honolulu (one in 1,151, up 68 percent).