Mortgage FlimFlam-
Do an internet search on mortgage fraud and try to find even a single case of a prosecutor going after a mortgage broker or lender for defrauding a borrower. I dare you. If you find a case please let me know. There are plenty of cases involving straw buyers and others who have defrauded the lenders but no prosecutions where the borrower was defrauded. There have been no significant prosecutions for mortgage origination fraud, yet that is the precise crime that precipitated the Great Recession and the near total collapse of the economy. The prosecutors who claim to be so tough on mortgage fraud will not touch mortgage origination fraud including predatory lending. The only explanation has to be that there were agreements orchestrated by federal prosecutors all across the country, with the concurrence of state and local prosecutors, not to prosecute mortgage origination fraud and predatory lending.
On May 20, 2009 at the signing into law of both the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act, President Obama said, “[a]nd that’s why this bill nearly doubles the FBI’s mortgage and financial fraud program, allowing it to better target fraud in hard-hit areas. That’s why it provides the resources necessary for other law enforcement and federal agencies, from the Department of Justice to the SEC to the Secret Service, to pursue these criminals, bring them to justice, and protect hardworking Americans affected most by these crimes. It’s also why it expands DOJ’s authority to prosecute fraud that takes place in many of the private institutions not covered under current federal bank fraud criminal statutes — institutions where more than half of all subprime mortgages came from as recently as four years ago.”