IN THE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

IN RE:
ROBERT A. ONG and DONNA L. ONG,

Debtors. : Chapter 7

Charles O. Zebley, Jr.,

Trustee/Plaintiff,

v.

First Horizon Loans, a division of
First Tennessee Bank, N.A. and
Mortgage Electronic Registration
Systems, Inc.,

Defendants.

EXCERPT:

The Trustee contends, and First Horizon concedes, that he has reviewed
the records at the Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds Office, and that
upon such review he was unable to verify that the Mortgage was ever recorded
there. Furthermore, First Horizon admits that it does not affirmatively assert that
(a) such a record search by anyone other than the Trustee would reveal that the
Mortgage was properly recorded, or (b) the Mortgage was ever properly
recorded. First Horizon, however, does not affirmatively concede that the
Mortgage was never properly recorded. Instead, First Horizon asserts, in its
Answer, that (a) it is searching to ascertain whether proof can be located that
would demonstrate that the Mortgage was properly recorded, (b) until such
search is completed, it lacks sufficient information to admit or deny the Trustee’s
allegation that the Mortgage was never properly recorded, and (c) it thus must
temporarily deny such allegation by the Trustee.

[..]

Because the Court converts the Trustee’s motions for judgment on the
pleadings into motions for summary judgment, the Court cannot immediately
dispose of such motions. Instead, the Court must give First Horizon a
reasonable opportunity to defend such converted motions in accordance with
Fed.R.Civ.P. 56. See Id. Therefore, First Horizon shall have 21 days from the
date of the instant Memorandum Opinion to produce evidence sufficient in weight
to withstand summary judgment regarding the Trustee’s contention that the
Mortgage was not properly recorded at the time when the Debtors filed for
bankruptcy, after which the Trustee will have 14 days to file a reply. If First
Horizon fails to timely produce such evidence, then summary judgments will
automatically be granted in favor of the Trustee, without any further hearing or
order by the Court, as to both of the Trustee’s avoidance actions.

[...]

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Oh my, this is getting very interesting. Now who is going to pay for MERS’ attorney fees? Oops there isn’t anyone. Where will the Counties get the money they claim? The lenders? Shareholders?

We’re talking in excess of Billions and Billions if every state files one of these for every county. This is going to get interesting very quick.

Dallas News-

The Dallas County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday in a press release that it expanded its lawsuit against the Mortgage Electronic Registration System and its parent company to a class action lawsuit that includes other counties.

It was not clear Tuesday afternoon which other counties were involved.

[DALLAS NEWS]

Ok, so what. So they won’t go to jail for Massive Fraud… I think we’ll take whatever comes their way.

I guess not mowing is much more serious crime…YAWN ~

LVRJ-

A proposal that could put bankers behind bars for failing to maintain foreclosed homes in Las Vegas will likely advance, albeit with some changes to the wording.

The City Council recommending committee on Tuesday voted to hold another hearing Nov. 15 on the measure, proposed by Ward 6 Councilman Steve Ross, which would make it a misdemeanor offense for lenders to allow distressed houses to fall into disrepair.

The delay will give banking, real estate and other special interest groups more …

[LVRJ]

Dylan Ratigan-

Janus Capital Chairman Emeritus Landon Rowland is worried about the corrupting influence of money in politics. This is not so unusual, except for two factors. Rowland is a mild midwestern businessman, the type of sober fair minded moderate who doesn’t express concern lightly. And Rowland’s concern isn’t bought politicians, but bought judges. Rowland believes that corruption in our courts, as usual spearheaded by money in elections, is slowly wrecking our economy. What makes America a great place to do business is the certainty provided by a world class court system that makes sure the rules of the road apply to everyone equally. This, he believes, is now in jeopardy.

I’ve written before about the unholy alliance of business and state that sells our elections and our legislative process to the highest bidder. That same unholy alliance is corrupting our courts through a deep and effective campaign to buy off judges the way that our politicians have been purchased. Rowland pointed this out in a 2009 op-ed opposing a significant change in the way that Missouri judges are chosen. Currently, the state has a nonpartisan commission of experts that screen judicial candidates, and then the governor picks among them. The electorate gets to vote judges out of office through “retention elections”. This protects the independence of the judiciary, and ensures that judges don’t have to go begging to corporate interests for campaign solicitations. This “Missouri Plan” was implemented to ward off machine corruption in the 1940s, and is so successful that it is in use by 24 states.

[DYLAN RATIGAN]

by azipaybarah

Mayor Michael Bloomberg blames congress and defends banks, over the mortgage crisis, during a November 1, 2011 breakfast in midtown.

But Who Created The Fraud? Who got paid to let Wall Street do what they so desired?

Marcy Kaptur knows her stuff and is one of the few that is for the people. Wall Street has been controlling our lives for way too long and if the Government doesn’t do anything about this problem, we are going to see riots like never seen before.

by Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein
ProPublica, Nov. 1, 2011, 5:51 p.m.

Federal prosecutors sued Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp. and two top executives Tuesday, accusing them of running a massive fraud scheme that cost the government at least $834 million in insurance claims on defaulted home loans.

Houston-based Allied and its founder and chief executive, Jim Hodge, were the subject of July 2010 stories by ProPublica [1], which detailed a trail of alleged misconduct, lawsuits and government sanctions spanning at least 18 states [2] and seven years. Borrowers recounted how they had been lied to by Allied employees, who in some cases had siphoned the loan proceeds for personal gain. Some borrowers lost their homes.

Despite years of warnings, the federal government had not 2014 until this week 2014 impaired the company’s ability to issue new mortgages.

The suit [3], filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, seeks triple damages and civil penalties, which could total $2.5 billion. Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suspended the company and Hodge from issuing loans [4] backed by the Federal Housing Administration. The company was also barred from issuing mortgage-backed securities through the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae).

Allied has billed itself as the nation’s largest, privately held mortgage broker, with some 200 branches. (At one point, the company operated more than 600.) The sprawling network made Hodge a rich man [5] with properties in three states and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and two airplanes to get to them.

Allied and Hodge played the “lending industry equivalent of heads-I-win and tails-you-lose,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a news conference Tuesday. “The losers here were American taxpayers and the thousands of families who faced foreclosure because they could not ultimately fulfill their obligations on mortgages that were doomed to fail.”

The government’s complaint alleges that between 2001 and 2010, Allied originated 112,324 home mortgages backed by the FHA, which typically go to moderate- and low-income borrowers. Of those, nearly 32 percent 2014 35,801 2014 defaulted, resulting in more than $834 million in insurance claims paid by HUD.

In 2006 and 2007, the company’s default rate was a “staggering” 55 percent, the complaint said.

In addition, another 2,509 mortgages are currently in default, which could result in another $363 million in insurance claims paid by HUD.

Borrowers told ProPublica last year that company employees falsified records to bolster their credit worthiness and lured them into unaffordable deals by lying about the terms.

The government’s complaint says: “Allied has profited for years as one of the nation’s largest FHA lenders by engaging in reckless mortgage lending, flouting the requirements of the FHA mortgage insurance program and repeatedly lying about its compliance.”

Tuesday’s action against Allied follows criticism that the government has been slow to act on rampant fraud and abuse in the mortgage market. In the case of Allied, the government had reams of evidence of possible misconduct. Among ProPublica’s findings last year:

• Allied had the highest serious delinquency rate [6] among the top 20 FHA loan originators from June 2008 through May 2010.
• Nine states had sanctioned the firm from 2009 to mid-2010 for such violations as using unlicensed brokers and misleading a borrower.
• Federal agencies had cited or settled with Allied or an affiliate at least six times since 2003 for overcharging clients, underpaying workers or other offenses.
• At least five lenders had sued, claiming Allied tricked them into funding loans for unqualified buyers by falsifying documents and submitting grossly inflated appraisals, among other allegations.

Allied spokesman Joe James said the company was aware of the government lawsuit but had not received a copy of it and could not comment.

Hodge did not return a phone call and email message seeking comment. But last year, he told ProPublica that the problems experienced at some of Allied’s branches should not tarnish his firm’s overall record. “If you look at the volume that we did or do,” he said, “it’s not significant.”

In an interview Tuesday, Helen Kanovsky, HUD’s general counsel, defended the time it took her department to take action.

“We had tried sanctions before,” she said. “We had assessed civil monetary penalties, and that had not worked.

“The extraordinary remedy that we have 2014 to be able to terminate somebody’s FHA capacity [and] basically put them out of business 2014 requires a very high level of evidence and a high level of proof.”

The government’s 41-page lawsuit details an alleged scheme by Allied to deceive HUD about its employees and the risks associated with its loans. For years, it operated a network of “shadow” branches that were not approved by HUD and falsely certified that they met legal requirements.

Allied also disguised the high default rates of some branches, the complaint alleges, by tinkering with their addresses to apply for new HUD identification codes for the same offices. When HUD updated its system to prevent such manipulation, Allied simply moved all of its branches to a sister company and obtained new IDs, “thus again achieving a clean slate on its default rates,” the suit said. The sister firm, Allied Home Mortgage Corp., is also named as a defendant.

Hodge created a “culture of corruption,” the suit said. He “intimidated employees by spontaneous terminations and aggressive email monitoring, and silenced former employees by actual and threatened litigation against them.”

In one case, Hodge instructed his chief information officer to capture the password for the personal email account of Jeanne Stell, the company’s executive vice president and compliance officer. Then he installed an electronic listening device under the information officer’s desk, the complaint alleges.

Allied also was employing felons, including a state manager who had been sentenced to 60 months in prison for distributing methamphetamine, as well as a branch manager running the office under a false name, the suit said.

The government joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former Allied branch manager in Massachusetts, Peter Belli. In addition to Allied and Hodge, the suit also names Stell as a defendant.

Belli had filed other suits against Hodge and Allied. He said Tuesday that, while his legal pursuit of his former employer has been long and hard, “I never really ever felt like quitting because I was married to the cause.”

Allied is also facing at least one federal criminal investigation into its now-shuttered Hammond, La., branch. In multiple lawsuits, borrowers allege that the office deceived them from 2005 through 2007 by misrepresenting loan terms, falsifying records, failing to pay off prior mortgages and diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At his news conference, Bharara said Tuesday’s filing was a civil matter and that the investigation into Allied is continuing. “We will go wherever the facts lead us.”

Looking over the so called Foreclosure Review FAQ’s, I found it extremely surprising that the word “ROBO” was not in there, heck not even close to any interpretation that your review may consist of any robo-signed documents.

The most disturbing part is that the servicers are going to start sending out letters today, the question is to whom? THE PEOPLE WERE ALREADY EVICTED, IDIOTS!!

This leads to the next information as Prof. Adam Levitin explained:

Financial harm? Yes. How much? Impossible to determine. Will it be considered? Not a chance. Welcome to Robosigning 2.0.

As if we were going to turn the right or left cheek to this and think all this bullshit would actually be “independent“ when the regulators let the banks hire the Foreclosure Fraud reviewers.

Once again more proof you’re being thrown under the bus!

p.s. anyone prior to 2009, you’re out of luck as well. AND we know there is thousands of you.

Below are the FAQ’s

Scribd

Washington, DC—Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings issued the following statement on a new GAO report issued regarding AIG. The report found inconsistent accounts of attempts by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to negotiate with AIG’s counterparties to lower U.S. taxpayer exposure.

“GAO’s report cries out for the full and immediate implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act. As distasteful as the AIG bailout was, the systemic risk posed by AIG to the domestic and international economies was real, and cannot be overstated. This report reinforces the need to implement provisions in Dodd-Frank that will prohibit the use of tax-payer dollars to artificially prop up or benefit one firm, and ensure that massive, nonbank companies cannot engage in financial transactions that put our nation’s economy at risk again.”

Cummings was one of the Members of Congress who asked GAO to examine the decision to provide AIG with taxpayer funds. The report echoes the findings of investigations conducted, at Cummings’s request, by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (SIGTARP) which found clear shortfalls in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s negotiations with AIG counterparties regarding the payments they would receive for credit default swap contracts they held.

Highlights of the GAO report include the following:

•        “The possibility of AIG’s failure drove Federal Reserve aid after private financing failed.”
•        “[Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s] Maiden Lane III design likely required greater borrowing, and accounts of attempts to gain concessions from AIG counterparties are inconsistent.”

•        “The Federal Reserve’s actions were generally consistent with existing laws and policies, but they raised a number of questions.”
•        “Initial Federal Reserve lending terms were designed to be more onerous than private sector financing.”
•        “The AIG crisis offers lessons that could improve ongoing regulation and responses to future crises.”

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