Linette Lopez over at Business Insider did a great job documenting AG Schneiderman’s past and why he might stick to his commitment of seeking accountability after all.

Business Insider-

At Tuesday’s State of the Union Address, Obama announced that he would be creating a new task force within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureauto coordinate all investigations on the causes of the subprime mortgage crises.

The man he picked to co-chair that task force is New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. It’s not a surprising choice. Schneiderman been aggressive in investigating banks for mortgage fraud in New York, and  has taken a leadership role in mortgage fraud settlement negotiations between banks and state AGs around the country.

[BUSINESS INSIDER]

Already starting in the wrong foot, I’m not sure how this all will come together? There were 100 FBI agents investigating ENRON alone??

Huffington Post-

The investigators will consider a variety of cases, including false statements, mail and wire fraud, and failure to comply with the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, established in the wake of the savings and loan crisis. This law empowers investigators to examine wrongdoings going back a decade. Many other mortgage-related laws have statutes of limitations for less than half as long.

Already the new unit has 15 attorneys and 10 investigators, including FBI agents. Once fully staffed, it will employ roughly 55 people, in addition to the five co-chairs, and include a mix of new hires and existing personnel from participating agencies, including the Treasury Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Housing and Urban Development and Federal Housing Administration as well as the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A “significant portion” of the unit will be based in Washington, D.C., though officials anticipate expanding to “at least three or four U.S. attorney offices,” as the cases unfold, said a Justice Department official.

[HUFFINGTON POST]

Floridians know she’s inadequate for her position because she hasn’t even investigated foreclosure fraud.

Palm Beach Post-

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi stood by the 50-state attorneys general settlement with the nation’s biggest banks on Thursday as California and Delaware formally rejected the proposal she helped negotiate.

Bondi said Floridians can’t wait for foreclosure relief and that the draft proposal sent to states on Monday addresses California’s concerns.

“The settlement under discussion contains all the elements California purports to be looking for; transparency, substantial relief for distressed homeowners, and strict enforcement,” Bondi said Thursday. “Florida’s homeowners need relief now, and protracted and uncertain litigation would be contrary to their best interests.”

[PALM BEACH POST]

A former general counsel for a Teamsters union has been accused of collecting $211,000 by submitting false expense reports for bogus CLE classes, law books never purchased and shipping at a UPS store that doesn’t exist.

ABA Journal-

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced the indictment of Amherst, N.Y., lawyer Kevin Clor on Wednesday, report the Buffalo News, the Associated Press, the New York Post and Thomson Reuters News & Insight. Clor, 40, currently works at the mortgage law firm of Steven J. Baum, according to Thomson Reuters. The law firm is closing after it was barred from doing work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

[ABA JOURNAL]

© 2010-12 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.
www.StopForeclosureFraud.com

Bloomberg-

Bank of America Corp. is impeding an investigation of its loan modification practices by negotiating settlements with borrowers who must agree to keep them secret and not criticize the bank in exchange for cash payments and loan relief, Arizona officials say.

The Arizona Attorney General’s office is asking a court to block those aspects of the settlements and require the bank to turn over all the agreements. The bank denies any wrongdoing.

One 2011 accord involving a borrower facing foreclosure who defaulted on a $253,142 mortgage included a $5,000 payment, plus $7,500 for legal fees, and the defaulted payments were waived and the loan was modified to a 40-year term with a 2 percent interest rate, court documents show. The terms of the original loan and the borrower’s complaint about the lender weren’t described in the documents.

[BLOOMBERG]

Scribd

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF MARICOPA

STATE OF ARIZONA, ex rel. THOMAS C.
HORNE, Attorney General,
Plaintiff,

vs.

COUNTRYWIDE FINANCIAL
CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants.

Scribd

Lawyers for the IndyMac executives say the FDIC is required by law to retain all the records of a failed bank it takes over for six years.

WSJ-

A pair of former IndyMac executives being sued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are accusing the bank regulator of a “stunning display of incompetence” for failing to preserve some evidence when it took over receivership of the failed bank.

Lawyers for onetime midlevel IndyMac executives Kenneth Shellem and Richard Koon say the FDIC failed to collect and preserve documents and emails after taking receivership of IndyMac following the bank’s 2008 collapse, leaving the pair handicapped in mounting their defense.

[WALL STREET JOURNAL]

If the AG’s think they can settle the greatest theft in history, let them read this story…it’s not only people who are in default.

HuffPO-

In July 2009, Roy and Sheila Bowers refinanced the mortgage on their suburban ranch home in Topeka, Kansas. The couple wanted to take advantage of the low interest rates that were all the rage at the time.

Roy, a truck driver, and Sheila, a former hotel housekeeping supervisor, knew their new loan from Wells Fargo would enable them to save $198.86 a month – a nice chunk to help with gas and groceries.

But what the Bowers never imagined was that their old loan, the one Wells Fargo told them was paid off, would resurrect itself, trashing their credit report, scotching their son’s student loans and throwing the whole family into foreclosure. All, they say, even though they didn’t miss a single mortgage payment.

The Bowers aren’t alone…

[HUFFINGTONPOST]

I personally feel this is a game being played…and sure many of you think so too.

They are only trying to force place the settlement and give in. If I knew my company committed crimes, I would keep my mouth shut and not say a damn word!

REUTERS-

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said President Barack Obama’s decision to expand investigations into home lending and sales of mortgage securities could stop settlement talks with the states over foreclosure practices.

“It has a pretty good chance of derailing it,” Dimon said in a televised interview with CNBC from Davos, Switzerland on Thursday.

Obama, in his State of the Union address Tuesday, said he has asked his attorney general to create a special unit of prosecutors to expand investigations into home lending and packaging of mortgage-backed securities. It is not clear how the new unit will be different from earlier investigations.

[REUTERS]

They’re all connected to Wall Street and against us.

Go ahead and vote for this winner who was cashing in on you getting booted out your home!

ThinkProgress-

A ThinkProgress examination of Mitt Romney’s presidential personal financial disclosuresfrom May 2011 reveal that the former Massachusetts governor and his wife own or owned millions of dollars worth of a Goldman Sachs investment fund invested heavily in mortgage-backed obligations. And the current owners of those mortgage debts began foreclosure proceedings against thousands of Floridians.

Along with his investments in Bain Capital funds linked to offshore tax havens, the Romneys have large investments in the Goldman Sachs Strategic Income Fund (institutional class). The firm’s March 2011 annual report for the fund notes that about 8 percent of the fund is invested in banks and 24.5 percent is invested in mortgage-backed obligations. Romney’s form says he has invested between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 in the fund and his wife Ann has invested an additional $1 million-plus. Since the 2008 economic meltdown and the enactment of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund, this fund has done quite well, growing 7.88 percent between April 2010 and March 2011.

[THINKPROGRESS]