Page 1: American Home Servicing Inc. says that over 30,000 assignments of mortgage in Texas and across America are fraudulent—“improperly executed, notarized and recorded”.
Page 2: American Home renames robosigners “Special Officers” to suggest the robosigners were legitimately signing the assignments of mortgages.
Wow, Jones Day just created a huge mess for its client and banks generally if anyone is alert enough to act on it.
The lawsuit in question is American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. v Lender Processing Services. It hasn’t gotten all that much attention (unless you are on the LPS deathwatch beat) because to most, it looks like yet another beauty contest between Cinderella’s two ugly sisters.
Rumor has it for a bit now that all things robo-signing would see an end shortly after “Labor Day”, so now what happens to those who were unlawfully foreclosed upon? How do you justify that AHMSI knew of this for over a year to come to an unsuccessful agreement to settle with LPS?
HousingWire-
Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS: 17.07 -2.29%) and its DocX affiliate caused American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. to lose millions from the robo-signing of mortgage documents, a lawsuit filed Tuesday contends.
Coppell, Texas-based AHMSI filed suit in a Dallas district court against Jacksonville, Fla.-based LPS alleging more than 30,000 residential mortgages across the country were affected by “improper execution, notarization and recording of assignments of mortgage.”
Mr. Carbiener will continue to serve as an employee of the Company in the role of Senior Advisor to Mr. Kennedy and the LPS Board of Directors until December 31, 2012. In his capacity as Senior Advisor, Mr. Carbiener will provide advice and counsel to Mr. Kennedy and the Board on an as needed basis. This will enable Mr. Kennedy and the Board to utilize Mr. Carbiener’s deep knowledge of the Company and the industry during this transition period and as they work toward resolving the outstanding legal and regulatory issues facing the Company. Accordingly, effective as of July 7, 2011, LPS entered into a new employment agreement with Mr. Carbiener.
If Mr. Carbiener had terminated his employment with the Company under the current circumstances rather than agreeing to remain with the Company in an advisory capacity, he would have been entitled to receive a lump sum payment equal to the unpaid portion of his current annual base salary of $880,000 through December 31, 2012, the expiration date of his prior employment agreement.
Mr. Carbiener’s new employment agreement terminates his prior employment agreement, and provides that Mr. Carbiener will continue to receive a base salary of $880,000 per year for the term of the agreement, which expires on December 31, 2012. He will not be eligible to participate in the Company’s annual cash bonus incentive plan for 2011 and 2012, and he will not be eligible to participate in future awards under the Company’s equity incentive plans. Under the new employment agreement, Mr. Carbiener is entitled to customary benefits, including medical and other insurance coverage for himself and his eligible dependents, and is subject to customary post-employment restrictive covenants.
Sounds like he’s making out pretty well considering he’s no longer participating in cash bonus, future award incentives.
Lender Processing Services, Inc. today announced that Jeffrey S. Carbiener is stepping down from his positions as chief executive officer, president and director of the company for significant health-related reasons, effective immediately.
LPS’ board of directors has established a committee to search for a replacement. In the interim, Lee A. Kennedy, the executive chairman of the board of LPS and the former chief executive officer of LPS’ prior parent company, Fidelity National Information Services, Inc., will serve in the additional roles of president and chief executive officer.
Signatures on documents used in foreclosure cases under review
The Sun News-
Anthony Wise has been selling real estate in the Myrtle Beach area for nearly three decades, but he had never heard of Linda Green until after his home went into foreclosure.
Now, just like hundreds of thousands of people nationwide, Wise is finding that the biggest investment he will ever make – his home – is closely tied to Green … or someone pretending to be her.
Green was a shipping clerk for an automobile parts company before taking a job in the signature room at a mortgage document company called DocX in Alpharetta, Ga., according to news reports.
[…]
Richard Lovelace, a Conway lawyer who specializes in real estate and banking law, said the banks who used DocX – or similar document mills – have put themselves at risk if homeowners can prove the paperwork is fraudulent.
That is true even if a home has already been lost to foreclosure.
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Fulton County’s clerk of court said homeowners from across the country have filed complaints questioning the credentials of notaries who signed their mortgage documents.
Cathelene “Tina” Robinson said she’s already revoked certifications from several of the notaries involved.
“As a notary, your job is to prevent fraud,” said Robinson, who commissions all of Fulton County’s notaries.
The Michigan attorney general’s office subpoenaed three mortgage processors including Lender Processing Services as part of a state probe of robo-signing.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said his office serviced Lender Processing, Fidelity National Financial Inc. (FNF) and CT Corporation System with investigative subpoenas as affiliates of DocX, a mortgage service support provider. The attorney general said he is seeking information about documents signed by DocX employees as “Linda Green.”
The subpoenas are part of a criminal investigation into questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices, Schuette’s said in a statement today. The subpoenas were approved by the state court in Lansing June 13 and require responses by June 30, Schuette said.
Schuette Issues Subpoenas in Criminal Probe of Mortgage Processors
Contact: John Sellek or Joy Yearout 517-373-8060
Agency: Attorney General
LANSING– Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced that he has issued criminal investigative subpoenas against national mortgage servicing support providers in an expansion of his office’s investigation into questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices during the current foreclosure crisis.
“Allegations of forged mortgage documents are very serious and require a thorough investigation,” said Schuette. “I will continue to work closely with federal and local authorities to find answers on behalf of Michigan homeowners.”
The Attorney General is empowered to pursue criminal investigative subpoenas under the Code of Criminal Procedure (MCL 767A.2(2)). Schuette’s office has filed criminal investigative subpoenas against DocX, which provides mortgage support services, including creating, processing or recording mortgage assignments or other mortgage documentation. In addition to DocX, the following companies affiliated with DocX were served with investigative subpoenas by Schuette’s office:
· Lender Processing Services, Inc.;
· Fidelity National Financial, Inc.; and
· CT Corporation System.
Schuette’s office has requested documents regarding the mortgage processing companies’ operations in relation to foreclosure and/or bankruptcy-related document processing. The subpoenas were approved by the 54B District Court in Ingham County on Monday, June 13, 2011, and the information must be provided to the Attorney General’s Office on or before June 30, 2011.
In April 2011, Schuette launched an investigation after county officials across the state reported that they suspected Assignment of Mortgage documents filed in their offices may have been forged. A recent “60 Minutes” news broadcast had shown that the name “Linda Green” was signed to thousands of mortgage-related documents nationwide, but with many different variations in handwriting. County officials in Michigan reviewed their files and found similar documents, thus raising questions about the authenticity of the documents filed.
Schuette is investigating whether certain mortgage processing companies permitted such robosigning of legal documents filed in connection with Michigan foreclosures. Apart from the question of whether falsified signatures were used, robosigning may also involve individuals signing affidavits to signify that mortgage documentation was properly prepared without ever conducting a proper review of the documents. Although Michigan is a non-judicial foreclosure state, Schuette is reviewing whether robosigned documents may have been filed with courts in limited cases.
Schuette urges any current or former employees of mortgage servicers or processing companies with knowledge of unlawful practices related to mortgage servicing or the execution of documents in Michigan to call the Attorney General’s Corporate Oversight Division at (517) 373-1160 (517) 373-1160 .
Schuette is also continuing to work with fellow attorneys general in a national workgroup examining mortgage lending practices, including the robosigning issue and consumer protection concerns affecting homeowners nationwide.
Schuette reminds Michigan homeowners that citizens do not need to pay to speak with their lender or servicer or to obtain outside assistance with foreclosure issues. Free local assistance with foreclosure issues can be found by calling the Michigan State Housing Development Authority at (866) 946-7432 (866) 946-7432.
GSF Mortgage Corporation was the original lender in this case. Wells Fargo Bank, as Trustee for Option One Mortgage Loan Trust 2006-3, and its servicer, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., sought to set aside the automatic bankruptcy stay in order to foreclose on the Veals. The note was not endorsed to Wells Fargo or to the trust. As part of their efforts to establish standing, and real-party-in-interest status, Wells Fargo and American Home Mortgage Servicing, the servicer for the Trust, filed a mortgage assignment.
The Assignment was prepared by Docx, LLC in Alpharetta, GA, the document mill made famous by Fraud Digest, then by 60 Minutes, Reuters, The Washington Post, the New York Times, Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Naked Capitalism, Foreclosure Hamlet, 4closure Fraud, Stop Foreclosure Fraud, the Wall Street Journal, and many others. While Docx is now closed, its documents live on in courts and recorders offices across the country.
The Veal Assignment was signed by Tywanna Thomas and Cheryl Thomas who claimed to be officers of Sand Canyon Corporation formerly known as Option One Mortgage. From deposition testimony of Cheryl Thomas, it is known that both Cheryl and Tywanna Thomas were actually employees of Lender Processing Services, the company that owned Docx. There are many different versions of the Tywanna Thomas signature because, as we now know, the employees in Alpharetta forged each other’s names on witnessed and notarized documents.
The Assignment was signed (by someone) on November 10, 2009, but a line on the Assignment right underneath the legal description of the property states:
“Assignment Effective Date 10/13/2009.”
The closing date of the trust was October 27, 2006, almost three years prior to the Assignment effective date. Investors were told the trust would obtain actual Assignments to the Trust of the mortgages pooled in that trust by the closing date.
Dale Sugimoto, the president of Sand Canyon, said in a sworn affidavit on March 18, 2009, filed in the Ron Wilson bankruptcy case in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Case No. 10-51328, Document 52-3, that Sand Canyon does not own any residential mortgages and has no servicing rights.
To summarize:
1. Cheryl Thomas and Tywanna Thomas were not officers of Sand Canyon, as represented on the Assignment. Someone other than Tywanna Thomas and Cheryl Thomas often forged their names.
2. The Veal loan was not transferred to the Option One trust effective October 13, 2009, as represented on the Assignment.
3. Sand Canyon did not own the Veal mortgage and, therefore, had no authority to assign the mortgage to the Option One Trust. The Latin phrase – Nemo dat quod non habit – best covers this situation. Translation: one cannot give what one does not have.
Investors in this Option One trust, the Bankruptcy Judge in the Veal case, bankruptcy trustees with similar documents, homeowners and their lawyers, the SEC, and the Justice Department must all demand answers (and reparations) from the Trustee, the document custodian, the servicer and Lender Processing Servicing.
Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien and Forensic Mortgage Fraud Examiner Marie McDonnell find former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is victim of potential mortgage fraud; expert says chain of title to new Arizona home clouded by robo-signers.
In what is an ironic twist of fate today Register of Deeds John O’Brien and nationally renowned mortgage fraud examiner Marie McDonnell, President of McDonnell Property Analytics, Inc., announce that former Alaska Governor and Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin is an unwitting victim of mortgage fraud and has purchased a home in Arizona that contains flaws in the chain of title.
Register O’Brien said, “If fundamental property principles still matter in this country, Sarah Palin may have legal issues that could affect the ownership of her home. Through no fault of her own, Sarah Palin has become a victim like thousands of others across the country that have the same problem with their chain of title. I feel bad for Governor Palin and all the homeowners who have been victimized by this scheme, it just goes to show you that no one is immune from this type of fraud and irresponsible behavior that these banks participated in.”
Marie McDonnell added, “Sarah Palin’s chain of title has been swept up into the eye of the ‘perfect storm’ where robo-signer Linda Green’s fraudulent Deed of Release on behalf of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. is eclipsed by robo-signer Deborah Brignac’s fraudulent foreclosure documents. Brignac, a Vice President of California Reconveyance Company (a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase Bank), assigned the homeowner’s Deed of Trust to JPMorgan Chase Bank in her capacity as a Vice President of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (“MERS”); in the same breath, Brignac executed a document appointing California Reconveyance Company (her real employer) as Substitute Trustee in her alleged capacity as a Vice President of JPMorgan Chase.”
Sound confusing? McDonnell explained, “This is a shell game where Brignac purports to be Vice President of three (3) different entities so that she can manufacture the paperwork necessary for JPMorgan Chase Bank to hijack the mortgage and then foreclose on the property. This is an excellent example of how MERS is being used by its Members to perpetrate a fraud. I have laid out a timeline that illustrates the defects in Sara Palin’s chain of title which shows that it is seriously, if not fatally impaired.” McDonnell whose firm performed the extensive forensic analysis. (See McDonnell’s Mortgage Map)
O’Brien, who recently announced that he found 6047 fraudulent Linda Green documents recorded in the Essex Southern District Registry of Deeds which had 22 different variations of a Linda Green signature has been the National Leader in blowing the whistle on banks such as Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo for their business practices. O’Brien said “These banks have participated in a national epidemic of fraud that has clouded or damaged the chain of title of hundreds of thousands of American homeowners all across the country”. O’Brien further said “Sadly, Sarah Palin’s misfortune will however, hopefully shine the national spotlight on this issue. Given her position in the country, I am sure that she will use her influence to stand up for homeowners and their property rights”.
The Ingham County Board of Commissioners in Michigan approved up to $60,000 in Legal Aid funding to represent borrowers affected by allegedly improper foreclosures and possible documentation fraud.
The county’s Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr. uncovered potential fraudulent documents in his office calling into question hundreds of foreclosures. Hertel told HousingWire Wednesday he found 400 cases with possible fraudulent documentation involving Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems and another 100 involving DocX, a division of Lender Processing Services (LPS: 24.44 -1.89%).
Action Date: June 8, 2011
Location: Guilford County, NC
An Open Letter to Jeff Thigpen, Guilford County, NC Register of Deeds and John O’Brien, Southern Essex County, Massachusetts Register of Deeds
Dear Jeff and John,
I want to remind you exactly who you stood up for yesterday. I get emails – hundreds each week – from sick, unemployed, elderly people, young families and veterans who are frightened, too broke to afford a lawyer, and being foreclosed by banks that are using badly forged documents to claim their homes.
This week, judges across the country will grant foreclosures – based on mortgage assignments signed by Linda Green, Korell Harp, Tywanna Thomas and others like them who were following orders from the banks.
A Miami judge said to me “I know who you are – you’re that woman who thinks she can stop a foreclosure because the notary signed her name upside-down.”
The hostility in the courtrooms is really amazing. I expect I will get thrown in jail in Miami some day for contempt for even suggesting a bank committed fraud.
Most days, it is my ragtag, never-say-die colleagues in foreclosure (wonderful people) and some non-bank-owned journalists who are willing to speak the truth about the bank documents used to steal homes.
You two were the first two public officials in the country who were willing to do more than “investigate” – who actually took action.
You will never know how much your act gave me encouragement when I needed it most.
Thank you from me, and on behalf of thousands of people across the country who doubted any public official would ever stand up, speak the truth and take action.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS:
WHEN DID THE TRUST ACQUIRE THE NOTES AND MORTGAGES –
A STUDY OF 4,580 FLORIDA ASSIGNMENTS
BY LYNN E. SZYMONIAK, JUNE 5, 2011
In 2010, mortgage bankers involved with mortgage-backed securities adopted a mantra: “The mortgage follows the note.” Tom Deutsch, Executive Director of the American Securitization Forum (“ASF”), appeared before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and in speeches to mortgage bankers, to argue that $7 trillion dollars of securitized mortgage debt was transferred in a legally sound matter.
The mantra became necessary as revelations piled up that mortgages had not been assigned to mortgage-backed trusts in the manner described in the trusts documents. The most important trust document, the “Pooling and Servicing Agreement (“PSA”), spells out in the definitions section that “mortgage file” documents include the promissory note, the mortgage, a mortgage assignment and a title insurance policy. The trusts promised investors that they would obtain these documents for each loan in the pool of loans that make up the trusts.
Register O’Brien said, “Knowing what I now know, it would be a dereliction of my duties as the keeper of the records to record these documents and any other documents that contain questionable signatures. To do so, would make me a willing participant in a continuing scheme which has corrupted the chain of title of thousands of Essex County property owners. I have decided to put a stop to this reckless behavior and hold these lenders and their agents accountable for the authenticity of what they are attempting to record in my Registry. I do not believe this to be unreasonable.”
“Steele County reported receiving an assignment of mortgage for recording where the grantee was listed as “Bogus Assignee for Intervening ASMTS”. It was rejected.”
Professor Mary K. Ramirez*, Washburn University School of Law
*Professor Ramirez is a thirteen-year veteran of the Department of Justice, having worked as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas, and as a Trial Attorney for the DOJ Antitrust Division.
Abstract
Criminal Affirmance: Going Beyond the Deterrence Paradigm to Examine the Social Meaning Expressed by Exercising Discretion to Decline Prosecution of Elite Crime
Professor Mary Kreiner Ramirez
Article Abstract Recent financial scandals and the relative paucity of criminal prosecutions in response suggest a new reality in the criminal law system: some wrongful actors appear above the law and immune from criminal prosecution. As such, the criminal prosecutorial system affirms much of the wrongdoing giving rise to the crisis. This leaves the same elites undisturbed at the apex of the financial sector, and creates perverse incentives for any successors. Further, this undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law and encourages even more lawlessness among the entire population. These considerations transcend deterrence as well as retribution as a traditional basis for criminal punishment. Affirmance is far more costly and dangerous with respect to the crimes of powerful elites that control large organizations than can be accounted for under traditional nations of deterrence. Few limits are placed on a prosecutor’s discretionary decision about whom to prosecute, and many factors against prosecution are available, especially in resource-intensive white collar crime prosecutions. This article asserts that prosecutors should not exercise that discretion without considering its potential affirmance of crime.
Steven Soraya, who had a loan amounting to $980,500.00 with Wells Fargo, which was released on July 3, 2007 and which just so happens was signed by Robosigner extraordinaire, the one, the only, the infamous Linda Green. Ergo our question: did miss Palin just procure a property to which there is no legitimate title, and which, therefore, may not have been legitimately sold to her? Oh yes, MERS is of course involved too.
If you’ve ever bought or sold a home…you need to hear this. Hank found a signature buried deep in your mortgage documents could be a ticking time bomb for thousands of Massachusetts homeowners. For those in foreclosure: it could be a lifesaver. It’s a shocking, amazing, unbelievable story. Hank Investigates.
Mistakes happen, of course. And loan servicers like to contend that if errors occur, they are rare and honestly made. But after sifting through the data produced by this investigation, Mr. White disagreed that problems are rare. “In Senate testimony, an executive from Countrywide said its error rate was 1 percent,” Mr. White recalled. “The mortgage servicer industry error rate might be 10 times higher, based on the number of cases we are looking at.”
“There are continued flaws in the process, and they are not merely technical,” Mr. White continued. “Those flaws undermine the integrity of the bankruptcy system. Many homeowners have been harmed, including where the lender has come in and said ‘we want to lift the stay and go back into foreclosure proceedings,’ even though they lacked a sufficient basis to do it.”
The investigation conducted by the OCC and the Fed included a review of just 100 foreclosure files.
Housing Wire-
When mortgage servicers signed consent orders with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, these companies were required to hire outside firms to conduct “look back” evaluations of questionable foreclosure practices.
But these reviews will not be made public, according to an OCC spokesman.
The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is warning that flaws may have “infected millions of foreclosures” and questioned whether other regulators’ inquiries into problems at the nation’s mortgage-servicing companies have been thorough enough.
“We do not yet really know the full extent of the problem,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said Thursday in written remarks submitted to a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee. “Flawed mortgage-banking processes have potentially infected millions of foreclosures, and the damages to be assessed against these operations could be significant and take years to materialize.”
![[VIDEO] Essex County, MA Locates 6,000+ DOCx “Linda Green” Documents](https://stopforeclosurefraud.com/wp-content/themes/gazette/thumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2011/05/linda-green2.jpg&w=100&h=57&zc=1&q=90)
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