Are these going to be the docs they signed at DOCX, LPS, NTC and most using MERS…in other words anything that was signed by 20,000!

Is this even permitted by the PSA’s?

LinkedIn-

Rachel Maddow reports on one North Carolina town standing up to the big banks that destroyed the housing market and the lives of many local families with foreclosures that may turn out to be fraudulent.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE
SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION

COUNTY OF GUILFORD

GUILFORD COUNTY, ex rel. JEFF L.
THIGPEN, GUILFORD COUNTY
REGISTER OF DEEDS,
Plaintiff,

v.

LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC.;
DOCX, LLC; LPS DEFAULT SOLUTIONS,
INC.; MERSCORP HOLDINGS, INC.;
MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC
REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC.; WELLS
FARGO BANK, N.A.; WELLS FARGO
HOME MORTGAGE, INC.; BANK OF
AMERICA, N.A.; JPMORGAN CHASE
BANK, N.A.; CHASE HOME FINANCE
LLC; EMC MORTGAGE CORPORATION;
MIDFIRST BANK; SAND CANYON
CORPORATION; CITI RESIDENTIAL
LENDING, INC.; GREEN TREE
SERVICING, LLC; AMERIQUEST
MORTGAGE COMPANY; USAA
FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK; AMERICAN
HOME MORTGAGE SERVICING, INC.;
MOREQUITY, INC.; U.S. BANK
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION;
EQUICREDIT CORPORATION OF
AMERICA; NATIONSCREDIT
FINANCIAL SERVICES CORP.; ARGENT
MORTGAGE COMPANY, LLC; THE
BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON; THE
BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON TRUST
COMPANY, N.A.; CAPITAL ONE, N.A.;
FIRST FRANKLIN FINANCIAL CORP.;
NAVY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION; and
WEICHERT FINANCIAL SERVICES;
Defendants.

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For Immediate Release: March 13, 2012
Contact: Ginger Cavanaugh (704) 246-3896
ginger@talcottfranklin.com

Guilford County Sues To Clean Up Banks’ “Mess” at the Register of Deeds

Guilford County, ex rel. Jeff L. Thigpen, Guilford County Register of Deeds, filed suit today against LPS/DocX, MERSCORP, MERS, Inc., and numerous banks, loan servicers, and foreclosure specialists seeking to clean up the “mess” Defendants created in the County’s property records registry.

“Our office uncovered an abundance of falsified, forged, and fraudulently executed mortgage documents,” said Thigpen. “But our investigation only found the tip of the iceberg. We need the banks to clean up their mess.”

The suit cites as evidence, Thigpen’s identification of over 6,100 mortgage documents (4,519 of those by DocX) which were filed with the Register of Deeds and signed in the names of known robo-signer aliases: “Linda Green,” “Christie Baldwin,” “Pat Kingston,” “Korell Harp,” “Jessica Ohde,” “Rita Knowles,” “Linda Thoresen,” and “Brent Bagley.”

“How can we maintain accurate records of title with fraudulent documents? The banks are also maintaining their own private registry called ‘MERS’ that prevents the public from discovering who owns what loans. Because there is no accountability for MERS, its records are also a mess,” said Thigpen. “The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. We’re telling MERS and the banks: you broke it, you fix it.”

In an April 6, 2011 letter, Thigpen and Southern Essex (MA) District Registry of Deeds John O’Brien urged Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller to investigate MERS and its impact on Registers of Deeds as part of the national attorneys general robo-signing investigation. The suit cites numerous reasons why MERS fails to keep reliable chains of title, and notes that the recent attorneys general settlement did not address MERS’s and robo-signing’s impact on Registers of Deeds.

“When you combine the fraudulent documents with MERS, it is difficult if not impossible to trace title for property. Potential title defects hurt Guilford County homeowners and businesses by impacting property values,” said Thigpen. “We need to clean up chains of title to ensure certainty in the land records system.”

Under Thigpen, the Guilford County Register of Deeds strives to serve as a model register. The Register of Deeds implemented electronic filing, created an audit software program to improve indexing and correct filing errors, intensified staff training, redacted social security numbers from land records, and significantly upgraded technology.

In 2009, the Register of Deeds received a Local Government Federal Credit Union Productivity Award from the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners for technological innovations.

“It is unbelievably frustrating to expend County resources in an attempt to create an efficient, accurate registry and have these banks wreak havoc on our efforts through fraudulent documents and a secret registry. If we don’t fix this now, the future impact on land records and property values could be severe and incurable.”

“Registries of deeds pre-date the founding of this country and are essential functions of government,” said Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne. “The Guilford County

Register of Deeds has created an outstanding infrastructure, but no registry can work if it is filled with falsified documents.”

The lawsuit, filed by Payne and Deputy County Attorney Matthew Turcola, describes the process by which the Defendants made and sold loans, created and maintained MERS, filed robo-signed documents, and damaged the Register of Deeds and the people of Guilford County. Among other things, the suit seeks the appointment of a special master to oversee an audit of the mortgage documents on file at the Register of Deeds and make necessary corrections.

“While the suit goes into detail on a complex series of transactions, the message is pretty simple,” said Payne. “We’re saying to the banks: ‘You made the mess, you clean it up.’”

Guilford County is located in central North Carolina. Its population is approximately 500,000. Greensboro is the largest city within Guilford County. Guilford County was established in 1771, the same year it began its Registry of Deeds. To assist with the suit, Guilford County retained Talcott Franklin P.C., the nation’s preeminent securitization litigation law firm. Talcott Franklin P.C. has offices in Dallas, Texas and Davidson, North Carolina.
Links:

http://www.restorepublicrecords.com (For copies of the Complaint and associated materials).

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Our Midland-

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has issued a second criminal investigative subpoena against national mortgage servicing support provider DocX as his office continues to investigate questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices during the current foreclosure crisis.  

“We are moving forward with our investigative efforts to find answers on behalf of Michigan homeowners,” said Schuette.  

Schuette’s office has requested documents and information regarding DocX operations in relation to foreclosure and/or bankruptcy-related document processing. The subpoena was approved by the 54B District Court in Ingham County, and the information must be provided to the Attorney General’s Office on or before April 4.

This is the second criminal subpoena filed during the course of Schuette’s investigation. Schuette previously filed a criminal subpoena against DocX on June 12, 2011.

[OUR MIDLAND]

“It’s troubling to know that in each of our offices, are thousands — and I mean thousands — of fraudulent documents,” said Brown County Register of Deeds Cathy Williquette Lindsay

Madison-

Strike 1: Nevada Office of the Attorney General ANNOUNCES indictment in massive clark county robo-signing scheme, Employed by LPS

Strike 2: MO Attorney General Chris Koster announces 136-count criminal indictments related to robo-signing in mortgage industry

Who will make it Strike 3? To Be Announced

Chip Parker-

For some time, I have been exposing the fraud that is the Lender Processing Services (and mortgage servicers in general) business model.  I have discussed how it is so revered by the mortgage servicing community because it will do anything, legal or illegal, to help a mortgage servicer foreclose your home.

It’s one thing when a small-time litigator from Jacksonville, Florida makes accusations (that’s me), and then it is another thing when 60 Minutes does it.  It’s something even more when the federal regulators recognize LPS’s shenanigans, but when a federal judge confirms everything I (and many other lawyers) have been saying for years about LPS, you know LPS is in trouble.

Who is LPS?  LPS (formerly known as Fidelity National Default Solutions) is a default servicer for one out of every two mortgages in this country.  It lurks in the shadows of the mortgage industry like a hit-man for the mob, and when LPS whacks you, you never see it coming.

[BANKRUPTCY LAW NETWORK]

Action Date: February 7, 2012
Location: Boone Country, MO

DocX, LLC, a mortgage document company and a subsidiary of Lender Processing Services (“LPS”) in Jacksonville, Florida, was indicted on February 6, 2012, by a grand jury in Boone County, Missouri. Lorraine O’Reilly Brown, a former Senior Vice President of Lender Processing Services, and the founder of DocX, was also indicted. This was the first case in which a senior officer of a mortgage document company was charged with crimes relating to mortgage document preparation.

Brown and DocX were each charged with 68 counts of forgery, a class C felony in Missouri and 67 counts of False Declaration, a Class B misdemeanor.

The felony charges can each carry a term of imprisonment not to exceed seven years and a fine not to exceed $5,000 or double the gain from the crime up to $20,000. The misdemeanor charges each carry a term not to exceed six months, and a fine of $500 or double the gain up to $20,000.

The case will be prosecuted by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster. “Today’s indictment reflects our firm conviction that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters,” Koster said. “Mass-producing fraudulent signatures on millions of real estate documents across America constitutes forgery. When you file those documents in our state, you are committing a crime under Missouri law.

The indictment focuses on Deeds of Release, documents issued by banks and mortgage companies when a homeowner/borrower successfully pays off their loan. In some states, these are also called Satisfaction of Mortgages. The documents examined by the grand jury and identified in the indictments were signed by many different people signing the name Linda Green. This practice was first exposed in a segment of 60 Minutes that aired in 2011.

Other employees of a subsidiary of Lender Processing Services were indicted in 2011 in Nevada by Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. These employees notarized mortgage documents that had been signed by LPS employees using false names and false job titles.

LPS has steadfastly defended these practices and even coined a term, calling the forgeries “surrogate signing.” Regarding the use of false job titles, LPS has defended this practice by saying such titles were authorized by corporate resolutions from many different banks and mortgage companies.

But while publicly defending these practices, lawyers working for LPS have been filing thousands of “corrective” mortgage assignments in county records throughout the country. In tens of thousands of cases, employees signed the name Linda Green to mortgage documents and identified Green as an officer of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (“MERS”) though the real Linda Green did not qualify to serve as a MERS certifying officer because she was not an officer of her actual employer.

Conferring of officer titles to non-employees via corporate resolutions was one of the many practices challenged in a civil lawsuit brought by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan against another mortgage document mill, Nationwide Title Clearing, on February 2, 2012.

Employees in the DocX office signed names to mortgage documents 4,000 times a day for several years. They most often signed false names and false officer titles to mortgage satisfactions and mortgage assignments. The assignments were very often used in foreclosure cases to prove that residential mortgage-backed trusts owned the mortgages and had the right to foreclose even though the trusts had never obtained the necessary documents during the securitization process.

These practices will be a significant part of the examination to be conducted by the mortgage securitization fraud task force, announced by President Obama during the State of the Union address. The taskforce will be co-chaired by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who filed a lawsuit against MERS and three major banks on February 3, 2012. The New York lawsuit was similar to the lawsuits filed by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden on October 27, 2011 and by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in December, 2011.

According to the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Biden, “MERS engaged and continues to engage in a range of deceptive trade practices that sow confusion among consumers, investors, and other stakeholders in the mortgage finance system, damage the integrity of Delaware’s land records, and lead to unlawful foreclosure practices.”

The DocX mortgage documents permeate the records of almost every county recorder in the country. From July 1, 2008 through December 31, 2009, 1,742 DocX mortgage assignments were filed in Palm Beach County, transferring mortgages valued at $560,239,797. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company and American Home Mortgage Servicing were two of the most frequent users of the DocX documents, but over 30 banks and mortgage companies were clients of DocX.

Image: X-Files

–Boone County grand jury indicts Georgia corporation and its president for practices highlighted in 60 Minutes report –

NOTE: The following items are linked below:

New York Times story from this morning: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/business/docx-faces-foreclosure-fraud-charges-in-missouri.html?_r=1&ref=business

60 Minutes news story from August 7, 2011: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7375936n&tag=mncol;lst;1

Jefferson City, Mo. – Attorney General Chris Koster today announced that a Boone County grand jury has handed down 136-count indictments against DOCX, LLC and its founder and former president, Lorraine Brown, for forgery and making a false declaration related to mortgage documents processed by DOCX.

“The grand jury indictment alleges that mass-produced fraudulent signatures on notarized real estate documents constitutes forgery,” Koster said. “Today’s indictment reflects our firm conviction that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters,” Koster said.

The forgery and false declaration counts each allege that the person whose name appears on 68 notarized deeds of release on behalf of the lender is not the person who actually signed the paperwork. The documents were then submitted to the Boone County Recorder of Deeds as though they were genuine.

Koster’s office requested the indictment, and the Attorney General’s Office will prosecute the case.

The indictments are the result of months of investigation by the Attorney General’s Office into the robo-signing scandal that injected thousands of questionable mortgage documents into the market. When the practice began to come to light, several major lenders temporarily suspended foreclosures in 2010. DOCX’s role in the robo-signing process came to national attention when 60 Minutes reported that Linda Green, an employee of DOCX, purportedly signed thousands of mortgage-related documents on behalf of several different banks and in multiple handwritings. The 68 documents on which the indictments are based were purportedly signed by Linda Green, but were allegedly signed by someone else.

Forgery is a Class C felony and False Declaration is a Class B misdemeanor. If convicted on the most serious count, Brown could face up to seven years in prison for each count. DOCX could be fined up to $10,000 for each forgery conviction and $2,000 for each false declaration conviction.

The charges against DOCX and Lorraine Brown are merely accusations and, as in all criminal cases, the defendant is innocent until or unless proved guilty in a court of law.

The Attorney General’s investigation into this practice continues.

source: http://ago.mo.gov

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IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF BOONE COUNTY, MISSOURI

STATE OF MISSOURI
Plaintiff,

v.

DOCX, LLC,
a Georgia corporation
Registered Agent:
CT Corporation System
1201 Peachtree Street, NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30361
Defendant.

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Some tid-bits for you all from DOCX’s website in 1998:

DOCX was established in March of 1993 by its president, Lorraine O. Brown. It’s a privately held Colorado Limited Liability Company. DOCX set up headquarters in Springfield, Ohio. In October 1994, DOCX merged forces with Ontrak Services. Ontrak was a pioneer in the development of outsourcing services for assignment and satisfaction processing. With the acquisition of Ontrak, DOCX expanded its operations to Frederick Maryland. DOCX has recently established a marketing/sales office in Atlanta, Georgia. DOCX operations continue to run in both the Springfield, Ohio and Frederick, Maryland locations.

[...]

DOCX developed two software products; DOCX RID™ (Recorders Information Database) which keeps track of County Recorder fees, and the requirements for recording assignment and satisfaction documents, UCC’s, and to obtain certified true copies of recorded documents. DOCX’s latest software development, DOCX in a BOX™, takes the DOCX RID program significantly further by providing the software to produce the completed and legally-sufficient documents required to process

NYT-

One of the largest companies that provided home foreclosure services to lenders across the nation, DocX, has been indicted on forgery charges by a Missouri grand jury — one of the few criminal actions to follow reports of widespread improprieties against homeowners.

A grand jury in Boone County, Mo., handed up an indictment Friday accusing DocX of 136 counts of forgery in the preparation of documents used to evict financially strained borrowers from their homes. Lorraine O. Brown, the company’s founder and former president, was indicted on the same charges.

Employees of DocX, a unit of Lender Processing Services of Jacksonville, Fla., executed and notarized millions of mortgage documents for big banks and loan servicers over the years. Lender Processing closed the company in April 2010, after evidence emerged of apparent forgeries in these documents, a practice now called robo-signing.

[NEW YORK TIMES]

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Excerpts:

Q Do you have any knowledge of why American
Home Servicing, Inc. no longer does business with
DOCX?

A There were deficiencies in the documents
that they were producing.

Q What sort of deficiencies in general?

A They weren’t deficiencies. They weren’t
 prepared correctly

Q Can you give me any more detail about that?
I’m not asking about this specific case yet. Just in
general what sort of deficiencies?

A Some of the assignments weren’t properly
conveying the assignor/assignee appropriate parties.

Q As to the present mortgage that we’re here
on today, do you know whether American Home
Servicing, Inc. has ever had any ownership of the
beneficial interest in the payments due under the
note and secured by the mortgage?

A No, we’re strictly the servicer.

Q So at no time has American Home Servicing,
Inc. actually owned any interest in the mortgage; is
that correct?

MR. COOK: Object to the form.

THE WITNESS: No, we have not.

[...]

Q Now, do you know a person by the name of
Tywanna Thomas?

A No.

Q Have you ever heard that name?

A Yes.

Q In what context have you heard or become
familiar with that name?

A I’ve seen her name on assignments that they
prepared.

Q That DOCX prepared?

A Yes.

Q Has it ever come to your attention that
there are some irregularities with assignments
allegedly signed by Ms. Thomas and prepared by DOCX?

Mr. COOK: Object to the form.

THE WITNESS: Yes.

BY MR. TRENT:

Q What about Korell Harp, K-O-R-E-L-L,
H-A-R-P? Same question. Do you know Korell Harp?
that particular assignment came about?

MR. COOK: Object to the form.

THE WITNESS: How it came about?

BY MR. TRENT:

Q Yes. Isn’t it a fact, ma’am, that this is
a DOCX assignment? I’ll just hand you the exhibit.

MR. TRENT: It’s Exhibit –

THE WITNESS: Two.

MR. TRENT: — two.
(Thereupon, Defendants’ Exhibit Number 2
was marked for identification.)

BY MR. TRENT:

Q It has the Notice of Filing in the front,
but skip that.

MR. COOK: Do you want some time to
review the document?

THE WITNESS: I forgot the question.

BY MR. TRENT:

Q Isn’t it a fact, ma’am, that this document
was prepared by DOCX?

A Yes.

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In case you wish to read the transcripts from this story check it out: FULL DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT OF LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES “LPS” SCOTT A. WALTER PART 1 &

FULL DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT OF LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES SCOTT A. WALTER PART 2 “STEVEN J. BAUM, P.C.”, “O. MAX GARDNER”, “US TRUSTEE”

NY POST-

The stink is growing around the state’s largest foreclosure mill.

The Steven J. Baum law firm, which last month agreed to pay a $2 million fine to settle a federal probe into bogus foreclosure case filings, has now been barred by federal mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from getting any more referrals of home loan defaults owned by either company.

In addition, the 70-lawyer firm is linked to the first criminal case brought against alleged robo-signers.

The criminal case was brought by the Nevada attorney general against two title officers — Gary Trafford and Gerri Sheppard — charged with forging signatures on 606 foreclosure-related mortgage documents.

“‘Linda Green’ is on documents as vice president of Wells Fargo. She’s (on other documents as) vice president of (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc.). She is vice president of Optical Mortgage Co. as well, and all of the signatures are completely different,” McPherson said. “Another name to take notice of is ‘Pat Kingston.’ She or he has several different titles. Lately, (the lenders or document providers) haven’t been using ‘Linda Green’ as much. There’s a new set of fake names. ‘Brian Blaine’ is the vice president of Chase Mortgage Bank. He is vice president of Washington Mutual Bank. He is vice president of Nations Credit Financial Services Corp. He’s vice president and attorney in fact for IndyMac Federal Bank.”

RRSTAR-

In late 2010, the furor over “robo-signers” revealed the complicated — and occasionally sloppy, if not entirely negligent — mountains of paperwork that accompany mortgages and the process of foreclosure.

Attorneys representing homeowners in several states uncovered the fact that many banks, or the companies the banks used to process paperwork, were authorizing documents without checking their accuracy or even giving them more than a cursory glance. In some cases, these “robo-signers” fraudulently signed the names of bank officials, attorneys and notaries.

[RRSTAR]