TAMPA – First, the Florida Attorney General’s Office launched an investigation into four of the state’s largest foreclosure firms, alleging made-up paperwork and forged signatures.
Then, some of the nation’s largest lenders halted home foreclosures after discovering employees had signed hundreds of thousands of documents without reading them.
Now, in a foreclosure industry bloated by the lingering effects of the housing crisis, a former employee in one of the firms under investigation describes in detail a secret system designed for speed at any cost.
Attorneys and staff members forged signatures and changed dates, casually passed around notary stamps, and notarized stacks of blank documents to be filled in later, said the employee, Tammie Lou Kapusta, in an interview with attorney general’s staff.
At the Law Offices of David J. Stern in Broward County, where Kapusta worked, long “signing tables” were set up across eight floors and employees would process 250 documents per floor each day, she said during the interview.
In 1989, Brian Hershkowitz developed the “Whole Loan Book Entry” concept while serving as a director for the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). In 1990, he first introduced this concept to seven different industry groups; Document Custodian, Originators, Servicers, Title Insurers, County Recorders, Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s) and Warehouse/Interim Lenders. The reception was very positive and it was viewed as a very useful recording system to be used for how equity and debt securities could be identified and managed.
In 1991, Mr. Hershkowtiz published Farming It Out in Mortgage Banking Magazine. His main discussion in this article is primarily about getting the opinion of the experts in the technology outsourcing service industry. In 1992, Mr. Hershkowitz published another article called Cutting Edge Solutions in Mortgage Banking Magazine. In this particular article he mentions the actual meeting that took place at the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA) headquarters with many key players that are known today as some of MERSCORP’s shareholders, such as, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In this meeting they discussed a “System” that will bring changes in mortgage records.
Mr. Hershkowitz went on to become President and COO of LandSafe Credit, a leading settlement service provider that was a subsidiary of Countrywide. Mr. Hershkowitz also spent several years serving Countrywide in the areas of strategic planning and executive management.
In 2001, Mr. Hershkowitz became Executive Vice President at Fidelity National Information Services (FNIS) and President of its mortgage and information services division. His responsibilities included management of the Company’s data offerings, including public records information, credit reporting information, flood hazard compliance data, real estate tax information and collateral valuation services. He left FNIS in November of 2006 to become Chief Executive Officer of Maximum Value Group, a consulting firm focused on providing advice to private equity and other market participants in the area of banking and mortgages.
ENTER THE X-FILES
MERS has evolved into a totally different purpose today.
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of MERSCORP Inc., located at 1595 Spring Hill Rd Ste 310 Vienna, VA 22182.
MERS was founded by the mortgage industry. MERS tracks “changes” in the ownership of the beneficial and servicing interests of mortgage loans as they are bought and sold among MERS members or others. Simultaneously, MERS acts as the “mortgagee” of record in a “nominee” capacity (a form of agency) for the beneficial owners of these loans.
To ensure widespread acceptance within the industry, MERS sought to have security instruments modified to contain MERS as the original mortgagee (MOM) language. MERS began to change decades of business practices after the two biggest mortgage funders in the U.S. the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the Ferderal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) modified their Uniform Security Instruments to include MOM language. Their approval opened the doors to incorporate MERS into loans at origination.
Soon after, U.S. government agencies like the Veterans Administration, Federal Housing administration and Government National Mortgage Association (Ginne Mae), and several state housing agencies followed both Fannie/Freddie to approve MERS.
More than 60 percent of all newly-originated mortgages are registered in MERS. Its mission is to register every mortgage loan in the United States on the MERS System. Since 1997, more than 65 million home mortgages have been assigned a Mortgage Identification Number (MIN) and have been registered on the MERS System.
The mortgage-backed security (MBS) sector tested the viability of MERS because a substantial number of mortgages are securitized in the secondary market. In February 1999, Lehman Brothers was the first company to include MERS registered loans in a MBS.
Moody’s Investor Service issued an independent Structured Finance special report on MERS and it’s impact of MBS transactions and found that where the securitzer used MERS, new assignments of mortgages to the trustee of MBS transactions were not necessary.
Since MERS is a privately owned data system and not public, all mortgages and assignments must be recorded in order to perfect a lien. Since they failed to record assignments when these loans often traded ownership several times before any assignment was created, the legal issue is apparent. MERS may have destroyed the public land records by breaking the chain of title to millions of homes.
IN MERS CEO’S OWN WORDS
In or around the summer of 1997, MERSCORP President and CEO R.K. Arnold wrote, “Yes, There is life on MERS” Mr. Arnold stated, “Some county recorders have expressed concerns that MERS will eliminate their offices nationwide or destroy the public land records by breaking the chain of title. As implemented, MERS will not create a break in the chain of title, and, because MERS is premised on an assignment recorded in the public land records, MERS cannot work without county recorders.”
In this same article Mr. Arnold also states “The sheer volume of transfers between servicing companies and the resulting need to record assignments caused a heavy drag on the secondary market. Loan servicing can trade several times before even the first assignment in a chain is recorded, leaving the public land records clogged with unnecessary assignments. Sometimes these assignments are recorded in the wrong sequence, clouding title to the property”. Mr. Arnold never mentions the fact that the mortgage notes have been securitized, thereby becoming “negotiable securities” under the Uniform Commercial Code.
In an interview for The New York Times, Mr. Arnold said, “that his company had benefited not only banks, but also millions of borrowers who could not have obtained loans without the money-saving efficiencies MERS brought to the mortgage trade.”
Mr. Arnold went on to say that, ” far from posing a hurdle for homeowners, MERS had helped reduce mortgage fraud and imposed order on a sprawling industry where, in the past, lenders might have gone out of business and left no contact information for borrowers seeking assistance.”
“We’re not this big bad animal,” Mr. Arnold said. “This crisis that we’ve had in the mortgage business would have been a lot worse without MERS.”
Unfortunately, even a simple search in the Florida Land Records proves the opposite to be the case. Researchers have easily found affidavits of lost assignments actually stating, “the said mortgage was assigned to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., from “XXXXXXX”, the original of the said assignment to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., was lost, misplaced or destroyed before same could be placed of record with the Florida Land Records County Clerk’s office; That, “XXXXXXX”, it’s successors and/or assignee is no longer in business/or do not respond to our request for a duplicate assignment, and therefore, a duplicate original of said assignment cannot be obtained.”
According to affidavits such as these, not only have the borrowers lost contact with the lenders, but the same is true that MERS did as well.
Yet again, researchers have easily located affidavits recorded in the Florida Land Records stating “That said Deed of Trust has not been assigned to any other party and that MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, Inc. is the current holder and owner of the Note and Deed of Trust in question.”
NO. THERE’S NO LIFE AT MERS
Aside from not recording assignments, Mr. Arnold failed to mention that the certifying officers given authority to execute sensitive loan documents would not be paid employees of MERS. This raises the critical legal question as to how one can act as a certified officer and execute any equitable interest on behalf of any security instruments without being an employee of MERS.
Q Do the assistant secretaries — first off, are
you a salaried employee of MERS?
A No.
Q Are you a salaried employee of MERS Corp,
Inc.?
A Yes.
Q Are any of the employees of MERS, Inc.
salaried employees?
A I don’t understand your question.
Q Does anyone get a paycheck, if they are an
employee of MERS, Inc., do they get a paycheck from
Mercer, Inc.?
A There is no MERS, Inc.
Q I thought, sir, there’s a company that was
formed January 1, 1999, Mortgage Electronic Registration
Systems, Inc. Does it have paid employees?
A No, it does not.
Q Does it have employees?
A No.
Q Does MERS have any employees?
A Did they ever have any? I couldn’t hear you.
Q Does MERS have any employees currently?
A No.
Q In the last five years has MERS had any
employees?
A No.
<SNIP>
Q How many assistant secretaries have you
appointed pursuant to the April 9, 1998 resolution; how
many assistant secretaries of MERS have you appointed?
A I don’t know that number.
Q Approximately?
A I wouldn’t even begin to be able to tell you
right now.
Q Is it in the thousands?
A Yes.
Q Have you been doing this all around the
country in every state in the country?
A Yes.
Q And all these officers I understand are unpaid
officers of MERS?
A Yes.
Q And there’s no live person who is an employee
of MERS that they report to, is that correct, who is an employee?
A There are no employees of MERS.
If so, how does anyone have any authority to sign security instruments encumbered by any loan documents, if these certifying officers are not paid employees and never attend corporate meetings in the capacity as Vice President, Assistant Secretary, etc. with Mortgage Electronic Registration System, Inc..
COURTS FIND ISSUES WITH MERS
Federal and state judges across America are realizing that the mortgage industry’s nominee is backfiring.
In Mr. Arnold’s own words, “For these servicing companies to perform their duties satisfactorily, the note and mortgage were bifurcated. The investor or its designee held the note and named the servicing company as mortgagee, a structure that became standard.” What has become a satisfactory standard structure for the mortgage industry has not been found by many courts to be legally sufficient to foreclose upon the property.
Again, MERS only acts as nominee for the mortgagee of record for any mortgage loan registered on the computer system MERS maintains, called the MERS System. MERS cannot negotiate a security instrument. Therefore, MERS certifying officers cannot have legal standing to assign what MERS does not own or hold.
The Supreme Court of New York Nassau County: Bank of New York Mellon V. Juan Mojica Index No: 26203/09
Justice Thomas A. Adams stated, “Not only has plaintiff failed to establish MERS’ right as a nominee for purposes of recording to assign the mortgage, more importantly, no effort has been made to establish the authority of MERS, a non-party to the note, to transfer its ownership.”
The Supreme Court of Maine: Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. v. Saunders, No. 09-640, 2010 WL 3168374, (Me. August 12, 2010) The Court explains that the only rights conveyed to MERS in either the Saunders’ mortgage or the corresponding promissory note are bare legal title to the property for the sole purpose of recording the mortgage and the corresponding right to record the mortgage with the Registry of Deeds. This comports with the limited role of a nominee. A nominee is a “person designated to act in place of another, usu[ally] in a very limited way,” or a “party who holds bare legal title for the benefit of others or who receives and distributes funds for the benefit of others.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1149 (9th ed. 2009).
In Hawkins, No. BK-S-07-13593-LBR, 2009 WL 901766
The Court found that the deed of trust “attempts to name MERS as both beneficiary and a nominee” but held that MERS was not the beneficiary, as it had “no rights whatsoever to any payments, to any servicing rights, or to any of the properties secured by the loans.”
In Re: Walker, Case No. 10-21656-E-11– Eastern District of CA Bankruptcy court rules MERS has NO actionable interest in title. “Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is void under California law.” “MERS could not, as a matter of law, have transferred the note to Citibank from the original lender, Bayrock Mortgage Corp.” The Court’s ruled that MERS and Citibank are not the real parties in interest.
In re Vargas, 396 B.R. at 517-19. Judge Bufford found that the witness called to testify as to debt and default was incompetent. All the witness could testify was that he had looked at the MERS computerized records. The witness was unable to satisfy the requirements of the Federal Rules of Evidence, particularly Rule 803, as applied to computerized records in the Ninth Circuit. See id. at 517-20. “The low level employee could really only testify that the MERS screen shot he reviewed reflected a default. That really is not much in the way of evidence, and not nearly enough to get around the hearsay rule.”
FRAUD ON THE COURT
In US Bank v. Harpster the Law Offices Of David J. Stern committed fraud on the court by the evidence based on the Assignment of Mortgage that was created and notarized on December 5, 2007. However, that purported creation/notarization date was facially impossible: the stamp on the notary was dated May 19, 2012. Since Notary commissions only last four years in Florida (see F .S. Section 117.01 (l)), the notary stamp used on this instrument did not even exist until approximately five months after the purported date on the Assignment.
The Court specifically finds that the purported Assignment did not exist at the time of filing of this action; that the purported Assignment was subsequently created and the execution date and notarial date were fraudulently backdated, in a purposeful, intentional effort to mislead the Defendant and this Court. The Court rejects the Assignment and finds that is not entitled to introduction in evidence for any purpose. The Court finds that the Plaintiff does not have standing to bring its action.
The Court dismissed this case with prejudice.
In Duval County, Florida another foreclosure case was dismissed with prejudice for fraud on the court. In JPMorgan V. Pocopanni, the Court found that Fishman & Shapiro representing JPMorgan had actual knowledge at all times that the Complaint, the Assignment, and the Motion for Substitution were all false. The Court found that by clear and convincing evidence WAMU, Chase and Shapiro & Fishman committed fraud on this court.
Both these cases involved Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. assignments.
On August 10, 2010 Florida attorney general Bill McCollum announced that he is investigating three foreclosure law firms for allegedly providing fraudulent assignments and affidavits relating in foreclosure cases.
In a deposition taken in December 2009, GMAC employee Jeffrey Stephan said he signed 10,000 affidavits or similar documents a month without personally verifying who the mortgage holder was. That means many foreclosures could have taken place based on false documentation and many homes may have been unlawfully foreclosed on.
On September 20, 2010, GMAC halted foreclosures in 23 different states. Two of the three firms being investigated by the Florida attorney general, the Law Office of Marshall C. Watson and the Law Offices of David J. Stern PA, have represented GMAC in foreclosure proceedings.
This is not limited to only GMAC Mortgage. There are many hundreds of thousands of these same documents that are being created by many foreclosure law firms across the nation.
University of Utah law professor Christopher L. Peterson has raised the issue that MERS should be regarded as a debt collector. He argues that some of MERS’ methods are just the sort of deceptive practices that ought to be regulated under The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U. S. C. §1692(a),(j).
CONCLUSION
Finally in May, 2009, Mr. Arnold said in Mortgage Technology Magazine, “Every system in the mortgage industry can switch MERS registry on or off at will,” referencing that both the Obama administration and Congressional leaders are aware of this.
President Obama and Congressional leaders it is time to permanently switch MERS lifeless device off!
Not until MERS became the primary focus for challenges to legal standing in foreclosure courts as reported by the alternative media, have the main stream media and the mortgage industry have begun to realize that property records cross the United States have become totally unreliable.
It has taken more than a decade for the courts to recognize that MERS has become a mortgage backfire system leaving clouded titles in over 65 million loans since 1997.
Courts across the nation must comply with the law. Any documents submitted to the courts regarding property ownership should be assumed to be nothing but smoke in a mirror.
Franklin and Toni Ly (Appellants) initiated foreclosure proceedings against a shopping center owned by Jimmy Carter Commons, LLC. Jimmy Carter Commons filed an action to enjoin foreclosure and cancel the security deed and various loan documents upon which the foreclosure proceedings were based. The trial court entered a temporary injunction, and subsequently granted summary judgment to Jimmy Carter Commons. This appeal followed.
1. On appeal from the grant of summary judgment, this Court conducts a de novo review of the evidence to determine whether there is “a genuine issue of material fact, and whether the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, warrant judgment as a matter of law. [Cit]” Northwest Carpets v. First Nat. Bank of Chatsworth, 280 Ga. 535, 538 (1) (630 SE2d 407) (2006). Viewed in favor of Appellants, the evidence shows that James Byun and Jin Choi were the managers of Jimmy Carter Commons, a limited liability company. Byun, purportedly acting on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons, obtained a $1 million loan from Appellants for a real estate development project. Before executing the loan documents, Appellants learned that the operating agreement for Jimmy Carter Commons requires the approval of both Byun and Choi for such a transaction. Appellants then prepared a document entitled “Jimmy Carter Commons, LLC Unanimous Written Consent of the Manager and Members,” which authorized Byun alone “to execute the Promissory Note and Deed to Secure Debt” in question. That document was signed by Byun and ostensibly signed by Choi. Appellants and Byun then executed the loan documents, showing that the loan was made to Jimmy Carter Commons, and the loan deed conveying to Appellants the shopping center to secure the debt. Over a year later, Byun and Appellants executed loan modification documents increasing the principal amount of the loan to $1.5 million. Those documents included a “Unanimous Consent of Members of Jimmy Carter Commons, LLC,” which states that the members of the company authorize and approve the guaranty of the loan, including execution of the deed to secure debt. That document also bears the signature of Byun and the purported signature of Choi.
In granting summary judgment, the trial court found that it is undisputed that Byun did not have authority to act alone on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons because its operating agreement required the approval of Choi, that Choi had no dealings with Appellants and did not authorize the transaction in question, that Choi’s signatures on the unanimous consent documents were forged, and that those documents were ineffective to authorize Byun alone to bind the company. However, even if all of that is true, there is still a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Appellants had knowledge that the unanimous consent documents were ineffective and did not give Byun the authority to act alone on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons.
[T]he act of any manager [of a limited liability company] . . . binds the limited liability company, unless the manager so acting has, in fact, no authority to act for the limited liability company in the particular matter, and the person with whom he or she is dealing has knowledge of the fact that the manager has no such authority. (Emphasis supplied.)
OCGA § 14-11-301 (b) (2). Thus, “[n]o act of a manager . . . in contravention of a restriction on authority shall bind the limited liability company to persons having knowledge of the restriction.” OCGA § 14-11-301 (d).
Consequently, even if Byun acted beyond his authority as a manager of Jimmy Carter Commons, the limited liability company may still be bound by his actions if Appellants did not know that he lacked such authority. In its summary judgment order, the trial court did not cite, and Jimmy Carter Commons has not identified, undisputed evidence showing that Appellants knew that Choi’s signatures on the consent documents were forged. On the contrary, Franklin Ly testified that he had attorneys prepare the consent documents specifically to confirm Byun’s claim that he had authority to act alone on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons, that the documents were sent to Jimmy Carter Commons in order for Byun and Choi to sign them, that the consent documents were then brought to the closing of the transactions with both Byun’s signature and Choi’s apparent signature, that it was represented to Ly that Choi had signed the documents, and that he believed that Choi had in fact signed them. This testimony creates genuine issues of material fact as to whether Appellants knew that Choi’s signatures were forged, and whether they were justified in assuming that the consent documents authorized Byun’s unilateral action on behalf of Jimmy Carter Commons. See Turnipseed v. Jaje, 267 Ga. 320, 323 (2) (a) (477 SE2d 101) (1996) (must appear that person of ordinary prudence was justified in assuming that agent had authority to perform a particular act); Capital Color Printing v. Ahern, 291 Ga. App. 101, 112 (2) (661 SE2d 578) (2008) (where agent with apparent authority commits fraud against a third party who reasonably believed that he was entering into a bona fide transaction, principal may be charged with the fraud).
On summary judgment, a trial court is not authorized to resolve disputed issues of material fact. A trial court is authorized only to determine whether disputed issues of material fact remain. If, and only if, no disputed issue of material fact remains is the trial court authorized to grant summary judgment.
From Paper to Electronic: Exploring the Fraud Risks Stemming From the Use of Technology to Automate the Australian Torrens System
By Rouhshi Low
Interesting points:
In all electronic systems, land title instruments are prepared electronically. This may make it easier for fraudulent persons with access to the system to perpetrate fraudulent alterations, because unlike a physical alteration, an electronic alteration on an electronic document will not leave any physical evidence of the alteration.
In the paper system, the practice of the Land Titles Office manually checking instruments lodged for registration before updating the register may be said to act as a safeguard against this type of fraud, since any alteration of an instrument might leave some form of a physical mark which might then be noticed by the officer and appropriate action may then be taken. Of course the effectiveness of this safeguard depends on the vigilance of the examining officer.
It is observed that these considerations do not arise in the paper registration system. They are unique to an electronic system because of the use of technology to replace the handwritten signature. In the paper system, handwritten signatures can be forged, but there was never a requirement or a need for individuals to keep their signatures safe. It is simply not possible. Replacing handwritten signatures with digital signatures introduces a new element into the process. And because of the potential for fraud whether because the fraudulent person has managed to obtain an existing digital certificate/PSP or circumvented the registration process to obtain one, the use of digital signatures therefore imposes ‘new’ obligations on users as well as the entity responsible for the registration process that do not exist in the paper system. The user is now responsible for keeping the digital certificate/PSP safe. The entity issuing the digital certificate/PSP is responsible for developing and maintaining effective registration processes to minimize the risk of a fraudulent person impersonating an authorised user. In fact, attacking the registration process in this manner is an additional avenue for the fraudulent person to perpetrate identity fraud so that it could be said that in an electronic system, there might be two opportunities for identity fraud: (i) identity fraud of the owner of the land and (ii) identity fraud of an authorized user of the system.
So to perpetrate fraud in an electronic registration system, the solicitor would not even need to forge the victim’s signature, or mislead the client into signing documents, or create false powers of attorney, or fraudulently alter instruments, as is the case in the paper registration system.All that the solicitor would have to do would be to prepare the instrument, digitally sign it and submit it to the Land Titles Office for registration. As noted above, being able to fraudulently use a digital certificate/PSP to digitally sign instruments for lodgement and registration is a new opportunity for fraud in an electronic system. As seen in the discussion here, solicitors will have the greatest opportunity to perpetrate this new type of fraud.
In all the electronic systems, clients no longer sign land title instruments for registration. Rather an authorisation form is signed instead. This change in practice may see a shift in forgery cases – instead of forging the signature of the victim on the land title instrument, fraudulent persons will now have to forge the signature of the victim on the authorisation form.
The concern in abolishing the paper certificate of title in an electronic registration system is that it will result in more identity fraud. When the New Zealand system was introduced, Thomas argued that ‘[T]he absence of an outstanding duplicate certificate of title (or anything in substitution of the same) is argued to be a key flaw in the new system, making it more vulnerable to fraud’.63
But will this be the case? It is argued that identity fraud might be perpetrated in an electronic registration system in the same way as in the paper registration system – when the fraudulent person is able to successfully impersonate the victim of the fraud to convince the authorised user responsible for the transaction that he or she has a right to deal with the land. The difference is that in the paper registration system, since the certificate of title is the document used to evidence a right to deal with the land, identity fraud uses the certificate of title. In an electronic registration system, the manner in which identity fraud may be perpetrated would depend on the system and how identity and right to deal might be established.
AT NO TIME IN HISTORY was crime more rampant than it is today. White-collar crime accounts for more than $140 billion in losses annually. Nearly $20 billion worth of check fraud occurs annually. More than $2 million of worthless checks are passed daily. Telemarketing accounts for $48 billion in fraud, while according to the FBI, Internet fraud as of 2009 had topped $264 million in online losses. A crime wave of this proportion has put the services of competent investigators and certified forensic-document examiners in high demand.
This article is intended to educate and assist attorneys or investigators when they are speaking with attorneys, judges, or clients about cases that involve questioned documents. There are numerous types of cases where a document or handwriting evidence may be involved as a result of being found either at the crime scene or at the center of a civil suit.
A competent investigator is cognizant of all the clues at a crime scene. Items such as credit-card receipts, legal papers, canceled checks, personal notes, leases, and other types of documents and writing may hold the clues to the motive. The observant investigator will call attention to these documents. An investigator who does not think along those lines may miss the subtle clues that could be found on even the smallest scrap of paper, on a blank writing pad (that might reveal “invisible” indented writing), or among the personal belongings of a victim.
Crimes involving fraud, larceny, forged wills, death threats, identity theft, ransom notes, poison-pen letters, “other-hand” disguised writing, traced signatures, assisted deathbed signatures, altered medical records, fingerprint examination, ink and paper analysis, watermarks, contrived faxes, “cut-and-pasted” signatures on legal documents, anachronisms (chronological errors, such as paper or ink that did not exist simultaneously), disputed pre- and post-nuptial agreements, and auto-pen signatures are examples of the types of cases that are filed in our courts every day. An investigator should be aware of the fact that any documents or written material found at the crime scene may hold clues to solving the case, whether it is written on paper, walls, a car door, or a mirror. Questioned documents or writing can be typed, written in blood, lipstick, ink, pencil, or body fluids.
Most documents are written with non-violent, white-collar criminal intent. Others are written with darker purposes in mind: murder, stalking, kidnapping, and suicide. In questioned-document investigations—as in any investigation—it is the duty of the document examiner to remove the shadow of doubt. The examiner, if possible, will determine—without prejudice—if the document is authentic or forged, original or altered. The document examiner is an advocate of the courts. Examiners do not have clients; they represent the justice system. As a result, the examiner cannot become emotionally involved or empathetic. Upon initial contact, the examiner must disclose a non-fiduciary relationship to the person who retains the examiner’s services.
A well-trained document examiner knows to examine all the physical features of a questioned document, not just the questioned signature. There are dozens of components to consider when examining a signature or a document. Characteristics to consider include the writing medium used and the surface it is written upon, the age of the paper or ink, and watermarks.
There are deletions, alterations, inclusions, and other aspects that must be considered, as well. The evaluation of letter formations, pen strokes, pen pressure, spacing, letter height, relation to the baseline, and slant are all part of the evaluation process.
When a document is typewritten, there are other problems to consider. Was a page added after the fact? Is the page a copy? Did someone possibly apply “white out” on the original, type over it, and then make a copy so that it looks like an original? Was another typewriter used to make the forgery or the added page? And what about a computer-generated document? Are the pages all from the same ream of paper? With technology such as infrared and ultraviolet light sources, these questions can be answered.
On a daily basis, document examiners are faced with a multitude of questioned-document problems. The most common cases, for example, involve forged checks, forged wills, graffiti, credit-card fraud, leases, deeds, contracts to purchase items—including homes, cars, and businesses—mortgage fraud, disguised writing, and poison-pen letters (hate letters). With the improved technology of printers and copiers, forging and counterfeiting is rampant through the use of “cut and paste” and “lifting signatures”.
It is well known that the field of digital science is constantly evolving. As new technology becomes available, the document examiner must stay on top of the latest state-of-the-art and work to anticipate the ways criminals may use new technology to their advantage. The certified forensic document examiner must utilize all the latest techniques and technology that science has to offer when examining questioned documents. When investigating digital crimes—crimes such as forged passports, driver’s licenses, computer-generated documents, and digital images inserted into other items—document examiners are referred to as digital-crime investigators.
Comparative Ink Analysis
The newest technology today is found in comparative ink analysis equipment. One very useful forensic tool in pen-formula differentiation is ink analysis that involves the determination of chemicals specific to certain types of compounds. One method used to identify a certain kind of ballpoint-pen ink is called thin-layer chromatography. The process involves using an ultraviolet-visible photodiode array detector that allows for the dye components to be rapidly separated.
A standard is a known authentic sample from which comparisons are made. The United States Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) jointly maintain the International Ink Library. This collection includes more than 9,500 inks, dating from the 1920s. New inks are chemically tested and added to this database on a regular basis. This reference serves as a great resource for the detection of fraudulent signatures and documents.
In the comparison of inks, chemical analysis can be useful in a number of cases, such as medical charts, tax evasion, insurance fraud, altered checks, counterfeiting, and other types of forgeries or frauds. A 2004 article from the Associated Press referenced ink-comparison evidence as one piece of evidence that assisted in the high-profile conviction of Martha Stewart. Examination of the ink on a document showed that an entry was made at a different time, possibly as an attempt to cover up insider-trading violations.
Aging Papers and Inks
The age of paper and ink can provide important clues when attempting to verify and authenticate a document. A key example was the Hitler Diaries case from the 1980s—one that involved purported diaries written by Adolf Hitler. The document examiner in the case unknowingly compared forged writing to the writing of the diaries. Taking the authentication and investigation one step further, the diaries were sent to a laboratory where the paper and ink was analyzed. It was proven conclusively that the document could not have been written by Hitler, since there were chemical compounds discovered in the paper of the book’s cover that were not available when Hitler was alive. The age of paper can be determined according to the additives and chemicals or by watermarks. The Hitler Diaries, as well as many other questioned historical papers, have been debunked, while others have been authenticated.
Two new methods of determining the relative age of ballpoint inks has recently come to the forefront in forensic-document examination. Studies have shown that different inks have different drying times. The new method for analyzing the drying time of ink is done by chemical analysis. Unfortunately, this is a destructive process.
These new developments are extremely important when examining ledger or medical-record entries. It has been established that the longer ink has been on a sheet of paper, the slower it will dissolve in the various solvents used to analyze them. It is now possible to identify the age of ink to within a six-month period. This new process of dating the age of inks has had dramatic impact on the examination and detection of backdated documents. Many malpractice cases have been won due to the analysis of ink on questioned medical records.
Infrared Comparisons
Infrared-imaging equipment and infra-red photography have given the document examiner an exciting new world of technology for investigating cases. Although this is not a new concept, the technology has been refined and taken to mind-boggling new heights.
The mechanics behind infrared are quite simple. The human eye perceives the reflected portion of the light spectrum. But there is much more of the spectrum that the human eye cannot see. For instance, when we see a rainbow, we are not seeing all the colors that exist. We see only red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The colors on each side of the rainbow that we cannot see with the naked eye are the ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) areas. The instruments we need to convert UV and IR wavelengths of the light spectrum into visible images for the human eye are called video spectral comparators and forensic imaging spectrometers. This equipment is used for non-destructive analysis of questioned documents in the presence of seemingly equal but physically different features of writing. With IR and UV, we can see “through” writing that has been blacked out or obscured by “white out”, as well as scribbled-out writing.
With split-screen and overlay software, direct visual comparison can be made of several individual images. Erased elements or chemically altered characters can be easily detected with IR and UV technology. The exceptional sensitivity and broad spectral range can detect even the slightest differences in similar inks, not seen by the unaided eye. This equipment is at the highest level of authentication technology available today.
Obliterated, faded, or altered writing can also be detected with IR and UV analysis. In a recent case handled by the IRS, the IRS claimed the defendant could not prove an expense he had written off for office equipment because the receipt had faded. The paper was old and the writing was “invisible”. Under an IR filter, the “blank” receipt luminesced, showing writing that was outside the wavelength of visible light to the naked eye.
Electrostatic Detection Apparatus
Another valuable piece of equipment to the document examiner is an electrostatic detection apparatus (ESDA). With an ESDA and specialized infra-red side-lighting photographic techniques, the characteristic indentations found in writing may prove that the writing was traced. In addition, when the top page of a pad that has been written on is removed, the “blank” writing underneath can be processed with an ESDA to show the writing by the indentations on the pages below. Research performed by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City indicates that an ESDA can recover indented impressions from documents that were written up to 60 years earlier.
The technology behind the ESDA is fairly simple: To develop the indentations on paper, the indented paper is placed in a high-humidity device and transferred onto a bronze vacuum plate. The page is then carefully covered with a Mylar (transparent, non-conducting) film. The page is then electrically charged so that toner will adhere to the impressions when applied to the Mylar covering. The final step is to pour the toner on the Mylar. This process develops the page containing the various indentations.
An example of the use of an ESDA in a recent case involved a bust on a PCP drug lab. Although there was no paper evidence at the scene of the raid, the telephone book at the scene was analyzed and, in the end, it held the incriminating evidence—only visible by use of the ESDA. An astute investigator noticed a telephone book on the counter where the drugs were being processed. On the cover of the phone book were slight indentations that appeared to be writing. The indentations were restored by ESDA and the writing was compared to that of the known chief chemist of the PCP lab. The writing the ESDA retrieved was the chemical formulas, written by the chief chemist. Busted!
As an investigator, you need to think outside the parameters of visible evidence. Evidence to solve your case may be right in front of you and may easily go unnoticed. In this case of the PCP lab, the real incriminating evidence was truly invisible. If not for the trained eye of the investigator, the case may have been dismissed for lack of solid evidence that could link the suspect with the actual manufacturer of the drugs.
As an advocate of the court, the document examiner is relied upon to dispel any doubts about a questioned document. Sometimes, the examiner simply will not be able to render an opinion on certain documents. In those instances, the document examiner’s letter of opinion will state an explicit explanation.
From murder scenes where notes are left behind, to kidnappings, to white-collar crimes such as forged checks, document examiners, investigators, and the technology they utilize prove to be a formidable team.
Questioned documents are a global issue. As investigators, you must be cognizant of the technologically advanced level of the criminals we face today. We must use all of the intelligence, the technology, and the resources available to educate ourselves on the topic of continually evolving criminal minds.
About the Author
E’lyn Bryan is a court-qualified and certified document examiner through the National Questioned Document Association. She offers presentations and training sessions for businesses and law-enforcement agencies on questioned-document examination. She is the current president of the South Florida Investigators Association and a member of the World Association of Detectives. She can be reached by phone at: 561-361-0007or by e-mail at: bocaforensic@aol.com
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Forensic Document Examiners Inc.
div. of Forensic Bureau of Investigations Inc. www.FloridaDocumentExaminer.com President of South Florida Investigators Association
Instructor of Forensic Document Examination to Law Enforcement
National Association of Document Examiners
World Association of Detectives
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Florida Association of Private Investigators
Member of South County Bar Association
Forensic Expert Witness Association 561.361.0007
The county’s Office of the Inspector General said Kenneth Arthur Ferguson, a former employee of the Miami-Dade County Finance Department, Tax Collector’s Office was arrested July 13. He was charged with one count of organized scheme to defraud, a second-degree felony; 11 counts of forgery; and 11 counts of uttering a forged instrument, third-degree felony charges.
The OIG investigation found that Ferguson, a tax records specialist II whose duties included collecting and processing tax payments from the public, forged his supervisor’s signature on employment verification forms and altered payroll statements in order to qualify for low-income housing.
Ferguson’s scheme was first discovered when an income verification form with the forged supervisor’s signature was inadvertently intercepted by an employee at the fax machine and placed on the supervisor’s desk. Upon seeing the document, Ferguson’s supervisor immediately realized her signature had been forged. The OIG was called to investigate the alleged misconduct.
The OIG found that Ferguson not only forged his supervisor’s signature on verification of employment forms, but also fraudulently altered payroll statements, which are official public records, to demonstrate a lower income. Ferguson’s actual income was higher than the qualifying limit for the reduced rent. From 2005 through 2009, the fraud garnered Ferguson $37,944 in rental housing benefits he was not qualified to receive.
“Forging documents to qualify for special poverty programs feels much like a crime against the poor,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. ” In reality, it is a sad crime against every person living in Miami-Dade County.”
Monday, May 17, 2010, 1:50pm EDT | Modified: Monday, May 17, 2010, 1:51pm
Jacksonville Business Journal – by Christian Conte Staff Writer
The Florida Attorney General’s Office has launched a civil investigation similar to one launched by a Florida U.S. Attorney’s Office against Fidelity National Financial Inc. and Lender Processing Services Inc., along with an LPS subsidiary, relating to possible forged documents in foreclosure cases.
According to the Attorney General’s website, DOCX LLC, based in Alpharetta, Ga., “seems to be creating and manufacturing ‘bogus assignments’ of mortgage in order that foreclosures may go through more quickly and efficiently. These documents appear to be forged, incorrectly and illegally executed, false and misleading. These documents are used in court cases as ‘real’ documents of assignment and presented to the court as so, when it actually appears that they are fabricated in order to meet the documentation to foreclosure according to law.”
The Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division in Fort Lauderdale is handling the case.
Fidelity National Financial (NYSE: FNF), based in Jacksonville, provides title insurance, specialty insurance, claims management services and information services. Lender Processing Services (NYSE: LPS), also based in Jacksonville, provides mortgage processing services, settlement services, mortgage performance analytics and default solutions.
Fidelity National acquired DOCX, which processes and files lien releases and mortgage assignments for lenders, in 2005.
The U.S. Attorney’s office launched its investigation of DOCX in February.
LPS stated in its 2009 annual report that there was a “business process that caused an error in the notarization” of mortgage documents, some in the foreclosure proceedings in “various jurisdictions around the country,” according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
While the company said it fixed the problem, the annual report stated it spurred an inquiry by the Clerk of Superior Court in Fulton County, Ga., and most recently, LPS was notified by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, based in Tampa, that it is also investigating the “business processes” of DOCX.
An estimated 1.4 million borrowers have failed to pay their mortgages in more than a year, but continue to live in the properties, according to Lender Processing Services, which tracks mortgages on 40 million homes.
Under the new government regulations, it takes banks 14 months to evict nonpaying borrowers – longer in some states. “Many of these people are gaming the system,” said Ted Jadlos, a managing director at Lender Processing.
Also, banks aren’t in a hurry because once they take possession of a property they must write down its value to reflect market price. Plus, unoccupied homes are more likely to fall into disrepair or be vandalized.
Some analysts predict that this shadow inventory will cause prices to slide further, but so far it’s not happening.
Reprinted from REALTOR® Magazine Online with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright
Lender Processing Inc. is the TIP of The Pyramid; please click the link to see their admission to this whole scheme of fraud in question. As it turns out Big Brother has been watching! Anyone want shares NOW?? Goldman had met with LPS on 2/23 in a GS’s Tecnology and Internet Confrence Presentation. In turn of events following the Wall Street Journal story and amongst many other media articles displaying LPS’s on-going investigations, Brian Chip’s article on SmarTrend identified a Downtrend for Lender Processing Services (NYSE: LPS) on March 31, 2010 at $38.26 stating “In approximately 2 weeks, Lender Processing Services has returned 3.3% as of today’s recent price of $36.99. Lender Processing Services is currently below its 50-day moving average of $38.94 and below its 200-day moving average of $37.98. Look for these moving averages to decline to confirm the company’s downward momentum”. Then two days later LPS (NYSE: LPS) climbed 1.16% to $37.42 after Goldman Sachs upgraded the company’s share from Neutral to Buy with an one year price target of $48. How lucky right? So I guess GS has every right to upgrade LPS since their last meeting with them on possible involvement. But the world is now well aware of GS’s shenanigans thanks to LOUISE STORY and GRETCHEN MORGENSON’s article in the New York Times U.S. Accuses Goldman Sachs of Fraud: THE NEW YORK TIMES, According to the complaint, Goldman created Abacus 2007-AC1 in February 2007, at the request of John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst. Should we put any vailidity into their ratings or upgrades? NOT!
The good thing that came along the 10’s of thousands of visits within the last month, this blog has been used in several court houses.
The Law Offices of David J. Stern has only about 15 attorneys, according to legal directories.
However, it’s the biggest filer of mortgage foreclosure suits in Florida, reports the Tampa Tribune. Aided by a back office that dwarfs the law firm, with a staff of nearly 1,000, the Miami area firm files some 5,800 foreclosure actions monthly.
The back-office operation, DJSP Enterprises, is publicly traded and hence must file financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It netted almost $45 million in 2009 on a little over $260 million in gross revenue that year. The mortgage meltdown of recent years apparently has been good to the company: In 2006, it earned a profit of $8.6 million on $40.4 million in revenue.
Stern, who is the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, could not be reached for comment, the newspaper says.
His law firm has been in the news lately, after one Florida judge dismissed a foreclosure case due to what he described as a “fraudulently backdated” mortgage document, and another said, in a hearing earlier this month concerning another of the Stern firm’s foreclosure cases, “I don’t have any confidence that any of the documents the court’s receiving on these mass foreclosures are valid.”
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Judge Dismisses Mortgage Foreclosure Over ‘Fraudulently Backdated’ Doc”
Dear Honorable Judges in Foreclosure and Bankruptcy Proceedings:
This letter concerns how a Jacksonville, Florida publicly-traded company, Lender Processing Services, Inc. solves Deutsche Bank National Trust Company missing documents in foreclosure cases. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company (“DBNTC”) is the plaintiff in the majority of foreclosure actions filed in thousands of counties in America since 2007. Deutsche Bank is sometimes referred to as “America Foreclosure King.” There is currently a Department of Justice investigation of LPS and its influence over law firms in foreclosure actions, according to an article in the Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review on April 16, 2010.
In these foreclosure actions, DBNTC is usually acting as the trustee for a mortgagebacked securitized trust. This means that a securities company made a commodity out of approximately 5,000 mortgages that were bundled together. The notes in the trust have a face value of approximately $1.5 billion in each trust. Investors buy shares of these trusts. Deutsche Bank is the most common name in the business of being a Trustee for Mortgage-Backed trusts. Other banks very active in this role of Trustee include Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Citibank, Bank of New York, JP Morgan Chase and HSBC.
When each of these trusts was made, the securities company responsible for the securitization (often Financial Assets Securities Corporation in Greenwich, Connecticut) was supposed to have obtained mortgage assignments showing that the trust had acquired each mortgage and note from the previous owner, which was most often the original lender. The trust documents specify that the mortgages, notes and assignments in recordable from will have been obtained by the trust. Most mortgage-backed trusts included the following or equivalent language regarding Assignments:
Assignments of the Mortgage Loans to the Trustee (or its nominee) will not be recorded in any jurisdiction, but will be delivered to the Trustee in recordable form, so that they can be recorded in the event recordation is necessary in connection with the servicing of a Mortgage Loan.
Trustees take very few actions relating to the individual properties in the trust. Typically, the bank acting as a trustee for a mortgage-backed trust hires a mortgage servicing company to deal with issues involving the individual mortgages in the trust. The mortgage servicing companies in turn hire a “default management company” to foreclose when a homeowner defaults on payments on a loan that is part of the trust. Lender Processing Services in Jacksonville, Florida, is the largest mortgage default management company. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company uses several mortgage servicing companies, but most often uses American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. in Irving, Texas as its mortgage servicing company.
In tens of thousands of foreclosure cases filed by Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as trustee for a mortgage-backed trust, Deutsche Bank has not produced the mortgage, note or Assignment and instead has filed pleadings claiming that the original mortgage and note were inexplicably lost. In these cases, Deutsche Bank uses specially prepared Mortgage Assignments to show that they have the right to foreclose. These documents were often prepared by clerical employees of Docx, LLC, a subsidiary company of Lender Processing Services, the default management company. Hundreds of thousands of other Mortgage Assignments came from the LPS office in Dakota County, Minnesota. More recently, these documents were produced from the LPS offices in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida. In thousands of other cases, LPS directs the law firms it hires to use the employees of the law firms to sign as officers of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems to create the documents necessary for foreclosure
a) Mortgage Electronic Registration Services (MERS) is identified as the grantor and American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. is identified as the grantee; within days (or minutes), a second Assignment is filed, identifying American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. as the grantor and Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as trustee for the trust as the grantee;
b) a mortgage company no longer in existence is identified as the grantor and American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. is identified as the grantee; within days (or minutes), a second Assignment is filed, identifying American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. as the grantor and Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as trustee for the trust as the grantee;
c) a mortgage company no longer in existence is identified as the grantor and Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as trustee is identified as the grantee;
d) American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., purporting to be the “successor-in-interest” to Option One Mortgage Company, is identified as the grantor and Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as trustee is identified as the grantee;
e) Sand Canyon Corporation, formerly known as Option One Mortgage Company, is identified as the grantor and Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as trustee is identified as the grantee, with no further explanation of how both American Home Mortgage Servicing and Sand Canyon have authority to act for Option One Mortgage.
On several hundred thousand Assignments, the individuals signing as officers of the grantor were actually clerical employees of Lender Processing Services, the mortgage default management company hired by American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., working for the grantee – Deutsche Bank National Trust Company. On several hundred thousand Assignments, the very same individuals signed as officers of both the grantor and grantee.
In all of these hundreds of thousands of cases, no Assignment actually took place on the date stated and no consideration was paid by the grantee to the grantor despite the representations in the Assignments. Most significantly, no disclosure was ever made to the Court in the foreclosure or bankruptcy case or to the homeowners in default that the original Assignments to the Trust were never made – or were lost – or were defective and that the recently-filed Assignments were specially made to facilitate foreclosures years after the property was transferred to the trust.
An examination of the signatures on these Assignments shows that many are forgeries, with several different people signing the names Linda Green, Tywanna Thomas, Korell Harp, Jennifer Ohde, Linda Thoresen and many of the other names used on several million mortgage assignments, as I have reported in my article “Compare These Signatures.” Many of these same individuals use at least a dozen different job titles as I have reported in my article, “An Officer of Too Many Banks.” These articles are available at www.frauddigest.com.
Please do not hesitate to contact me for additional information.
Yours truly,
Lynn E. Szymoniak, Esq.
This article could also have been titled:
HOW LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC. SOLVES U.S. BANK’S MISSING PAPERWORK PROBLEM IN FORECLOSURES
-or-
HOW LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC. SOLVES WELLS FARGO MISSING PAPERWORK PROBLEM IN FORECLOSURES
-or-
HOW LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC. SOLVES BANK OF NEW YORK MISSING PAPERWORK PROBLEM IN FORECLOSURES
-or-
HOW LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC. SOLVES CITIBANK’S MISSING PAPERWORK PROBLEM IN FORECLOSURES
-or-
HOW LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC. SOLVES HSBC’S MISSING PAPERWORK PROBLEM IN FORECLOSURES
For a copy of the Exhibits referenced below, please contact szymoniak@mac.com.
Copies of Assignments from MERS to American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. are attached hereto as Exhibit 1.
Copies of Assignments from American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. to Deutsche Bank as Trustee are attached as Exhibit 2.
Copies of Assignments from American Brokers Conduit, a mortgage company no longer in existence at the time the Assignments were made, to Deutsche Bank as trustee are attached as Exhibit 3.
Copies of other Assignments to Deutsche Bank as Trustee signed by employees of Lender Processing Services, working for the grantee Deutsche Bank, but signing on behalf of the grantor mortgage companies or banks, or MERS as nominee for the grantor mortgage companies or banks, are attached as Exhibit 4.
Copies of Assignments from American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. as the successorin-interest to Option One Mortgage as grantor and Deutsche Bank as Trustee as the grantee are attached as Exhibit 5.
Copies of Assignments from Sand Canyon, formerly known as Option One Mortgage as grantor and Deutsche Bank as Trustee as the grantee are attached as Exhibit 6.
Copies of Assignments signed by employees of law firms working for Lender Processing Services on behalf of American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. and ultimately for grantee Deutsche Bank, where such employees signed as officers of MERS as grantor are attached as Exhibit 7.
Copies of Assignments signed by employees of Lender Processing Services on behalf of grantors and notarized in Duval County, Florida for grantee Deutsche Bank, filed by law firms working for Deutsche Bank are attached as Exhibit 8.
Anytime you have the word “FRAUD” involved in an on-going investigation, It makes you wonder when corps go at it together even more…click the links below to see what I mean.
By Peg Brickley Of DOW JONES DAILY BANKRUPTCY REVIEW
The Department of Justice is conducting a nationwide probe of the company whose automated systems handle half the mortgages in the U.S., looking for evidence Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) has “improperly directed” the actions of lawyers in bankruptcy court.
The Jacksonville, Fla., company was spun out last year from Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS), a financial technology giant that is also under scrutiny for its role in court actions, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Philadelphia.
Although the companies say they are providers of electronic information services, the U.S. trustee believes LPS and Fidelity play a “much greater” role in court actions where thousands of homes are at risk of foreclosure, according to Bankruptcy Judge Diane Weiss Sigmund.
“The thoughtless mechanical employment of computer-driven models and communications to inexpensively traverse the path to foreclosure offends the integrity of our American bankruptcy system,” Sigmund wrote in a decision released Wednesday, April 15.
A spokeswoman for Fidelity did not respond to requests seeking comment on the investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trustee, an arm of the Department of Justice whose mission includes safeguarding the integrity of the bankruptcy courts.
Michelle Kersch, a spokeswoman for LPS, said the U.S. trustee has “advised outside counsel for LPS that it is seeking to better understand LPS’ role.” In an e-mail, Kersch pointed out that the judge held the lawyers, not LPS, responsible for the problems in the case before her.
The probe of the mortgage technology operation surfaced in a Philadelphia case after Sigmund started asking questions about the source of false court filings that came from HSBC Mortgage Corp. In pursuit of homeowners Niles and Angela Taylor, HSBC filed the wrong mortgage, gave incorrect payment amounts and claimed the Taylors had missed monthly payments. This “was simply not true,” Sigmund wrote in a 58-page decision.
All over the US there is mass title defects that have been created to our homes…we are being evicted and titles to our stolen homes are being fabricated by means of Forgery/FRAUD! If these homes have been stolen from us…we have the right to claim them back! Let the unsuspecting homeowner who buys your home that it was fraudulently taken from you! What happens when your car is stolen and reclaimed? It goes back to it’s owner!
Stop by, say hello to the new owner of your stolen home and welcome them to the bogus neighborhood! Oh make sure to show some hospitality and bring them a gift…Umm your Foreclosure Mill Docs!
A Florida state-court judge, in a rare ruling, said a major national bank perpetrated a “fraud” in a foreclosure lawsuit, raising questions about how banks are attempting to claim homes from borrowers in default.
The ruling, made last month in Pasco County, Fla., comes amid increased scrutiny of foreclosures by the prosecutors and judges in regions hurt by the recession. Judges have said in hearings they are increasingly concerned that banks are attempting to seize properties they don’t own.
The Florida case began in December 2007 when U.S. Bank N.A. sued a homeowner, Ernest E. Harpster, after he defaulted on a $190,000 loan he received in January of that year.
The Law Offices of David J. Stern, which represented the bank, prepared a document called an “assignment of mortgage” showing that the bank received ownership of the mortgage in December 2007. The document was dated December 2007.
But after investigating the matter, Circuit Court Judge Lynn Tepper ruled that the document couldn’t have been prepared until 2008. Thus, she ruled, the bank couldn’t prove it owned the mortgage at the time the suit was filed.
The document filed by the plaintiff, Judge Tepper wrote last month, “did not exist at the time of the filing of this action…was subsequently created and…fraudulently backdated, in a purposeful, intentional effort to mislead.” She dismissed the case.
Forrest McSurdy, a lawyer at the David Stern firm that handled the U.S. Bank case, said the mistake was due to “carelessness.” The mortgage document was initially prepared and signed in 2007 but wasn’t notarized until months later, he said. After discovering similar problems in other foreclosure cases, he said, the firm voluntarily withdrew the suits and later re-filed them using appropriate documents.
“Judges get in a whirl about technicalities because the courts are overwhelmed,” he said. “The merits of the cases are the same: people aren’t paying their mortgages.”
Steve Dale, a spokesman for U.S. Bank, said the company played a passive role in the matter because it represents investors who own a mortgage-securities trust that includes the Harpster loan. He said a division of Wells Fargo & Co., which collected payments from Mr. Harpster, initiated the foreclosure on behalf of the investors.
Wells Fargo said in a statement it “does not condone, accept, nor instruct counsel to take actions such as those taken in this case.” The company said it was “troubled” by the “conclusions the Court found as to the actions of this foreclosure attorney. We will review these circumstances closely and take appropriate action as necessary.”
Since the housing crisis began several years ago, judges across the U.S. have found that documents submitted by banks to support foreclosure claims were wrong. Mistakes by banks and their representatives have also led to an ongoing federal criminal probe in Florida.
Some of the problems stem from the difficulty banks face in proving they own the loans, thanks to the complexity of the mortgage market.
The Florida ruling against U.S. Bank was also a critique of law firms that handle foreclosure cases on behalf of banks, dubbed “foreclosure mills.”
Lawyers operating foreclosure mills often are paid based on the volume of cases they complete. Some receive $1,000 per case, court records show. Firms compete for business in part based on how quickly they can foreclose. The David Stern firm had about 900 employees as of last year, court records show.
“The pure volume of foreclosures has a tendency perhaps to encourage sloppiness, boilerplate paperwork or a lack of thoroughness” by attorneys for banks, said Judge Tepper of Florida, in an interview. The deluge of foreclosures makes the process “fraught with potential for fraud,” she said.
At an unrelated hearing in a separate matter last week, Anthony Rondolino, a state-court judge in St. Petersburg, Fla., said that an affidavit submitted by the David Stern law firm on behalf of GMAC Mortgage LLC in a foreclosure case wasn’t necessarily sufficient to establish that GMAC was the owner of the mortgage.
“I don’t have any confidence that any of the documents the Court’s receiving on these mass foreclosures are valid,” the judge said at the hearing.
A spokesman for GMAC declined to comment and a lawyer at the David Stern firm declined to comment.
Search this blog and you will see that for months now I’ve been arguing that the “evidence” submitted by Plaintiffs in foreclosure cases does not even come close to meeting the legal and evidentiary requirements for courts to grant summary judgment.
After performing extensive legal research to confirm this hunch, I have drafted and filed detailed memoranda, supported by all available case law, that stands for the proposition that the practices used by virtually every foreclosure mill in the state do not provide the evidentiary basis for a court to grant summary judgment.
So why are courts across this state continuing to grant summary judgment? There really is NO LEGAL BASIS TO SUPPORT THE GRANTING OF SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN THE VAST MAJORITY OF FORECLOSURE CASES CURRENTLY FILED IN COURTS ACROSS THIS STATE.
I attach here the most fantastic transcript of a hearing I’ve heard in a long time. This transcript shows a couple things:
First, the judges in the Sixth Circuit of Florida really, really get it.
Second, this particular judge goes far and above to do his job and deliver real, hard, honest legal work.
Third, as I mentioned above…the current processes and procedures used by the foreclosure mills do not provide courts the evidentiary or legal basis required to grant summary judgment.
But now the big question that comes to mind….now that this judge gets it…and now that my memos and others like my friend and fellow Foreclosure Fighter Mike Wasylik are starting to leak out there…
What happens to all the hundreds of thousands of homes that have been foreclose on by improper evidence?
Some excerpts from the begging of the transcript… Be sure to read it in its entirety. It is an absolute must read…
Gmac Mortgage LLC
v
Debbie Visicaro, et al.
April 7, 2010
THE COURT: Okay, we are here today in GMAC v Visicaro. This is a motion for rehearing the previously drafted motion for summary judgement…
MR. WASYLIK: I am here for Defendants… We have submitted a fairly detailed brief…
THE COURT: What’s the Plaintiff’s position regarding the motion…
MR FRAISER: I object… You’ve considered all the evidence before when you entered the summary judgment back in January 2010. The opposing party then could not support their position on any genuine material facts. Right now, Your Honor, there are no convincing exigent, you know, circumstances being offered up at the time.
THE COURT: Did you not read the motion? It sounds liker you’re making a very generalized argument, and this is an, as I viewed it, extremely targeted motion which basically elaborates on the assertions that were raised at the time of the motion for summary judgment.
As I recall that, counsel appeared on behalf of his clients, I think it was by phone and made arguments that the Court really gave short shrift to it, did not review the case…
Since that time, the Court delved further into it…
I’ve had several events which have occurred in cases which cause the Court to have great concern about the validity of fillings in our mortgage foreclosure cases, and that precipitated my reevaluation of the evidentiary considerations.
I’ll give you an example of that. I have one case that was called up for summary judgment hearing, and I thought it was going to be the typical granted situation, and then a lawyer showed up for the defendant homeowner.
I was beginning to recite to the lawyer what I had typically recited, that there was no affidavit in opposition. And the lawyer said, “Well, I thought you might want to see this,” and handed me some documents which were from another file in our circuit, and it turned out, it was the same note and mortgage that was in a separate and independent file.
There was a different plaintiff pursuing a foreclosure proceeding on the same note and mortgage as the one that was being proceeded on. Both of the cases contained allegations in the original complaints that the separate plaintiffs were owners and holders of the note. Both of them had gone so far to have affidavits filed in support of a summary judgment whereby an individual represented to the court in the affidavit that the separate plaintiffs had possessed the note and had lost the note while it was in their possession.
Interestedly, both affidavits, although they were different plaintiffs, purported the same facts and they were executed by the same individual in alleged capacity as a director of two separate corporations, one of which was ultimately found to me to be an assignee of the original note…
So that really increased my interest in this subject matter, because
I really honestly don’t have any confidence that any of the documents the Courts are receiving on these mass foreclosures are valid…
So I’ve said enough…
Honorable
Anthony Rondolino
Be sure to read the transcript in its entirety below…
“LPS’ characterization of itself as a stranger to this bankruptcy case is unsupported by the evidence. There is a very live case or controversy concerning the conduct of Fidelity in this bankruptcy case.”
“Lawyers must not allow the interests or dictates of a client to control their professional judgment.”
Imagine, if you will, a bank sets up a mortgage backed security. The security is backed by a trust that holds all the mortgages and notes. The trust document says that all of the mortgages that would be included in that particular security had to be transferred into the trust by a particular date. That date is long since passed.
You are now in foreclosure, and attached to the summons and complaint is a copy of an assignment of your mortgage, within the last few days before the date of the summons and complaint, transferring your mortgage into the trust. What does that all mean?
It could mean that the trustee did not actually own your mortgage and that all the money that you have paid on that mortgage that went to pay the holders of the security associated with that trust was paid to the wrong party.
Why? Because the mortgage was not transferred into the trust before your payments were directed to it. And the after the fact assignment doesn’t remedy it, because the trust was required to close the book on adding new mortgages into the trust, on a date long since passed. So, the trustee accepted payments from you even though your mortgage was not a part of that trust. You were paying the wrong party.
Then to add insult to injury, the trustee is trying to take your home away.
Oh, and the last minute assignment –may be a forgery. Ain’t that just the icing on the cake?
These are the cranium exploding allegations being made by white collar fraud expert Lynn Szymoniak, Esq.
In a letter to an Assistant United States Attorney, Ms. Szymoniak alleges
This letter concerns possible fabricated and forged mortgage-related documents that are being filed by banks in foreclosure actions in Massachusetts, Florida and throughout the country.
These documents were prepared by a company known as DOCX, LLC, a company that claims to “expedite” the mortgage foreclosure process for banks and mortgage lenders. DOCX is located in Alpharetta, Georgia, and is owned by a Jacksonville, Florida company, Fidelity National Financial, Inc.
In many cases, DOCX has provided Assignments so that banks that have purchased mortgages from the original lender may pursue foreclosure even when the proper documents have not been prepared, executed and filed. These documents very often appear in cases where the mortgage has been purchased, and combined with others to create to an asset-back security. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company is one of the banks that have frequently used mortgage-related documents prepared by DOCX.
Ms. Szymoniak goes on to reveal that clerks at DOCX are signing these documents pretending to be employees of varies banks and other financial institutions. For example:
… on mortgage documents prepared by DOCX, since January 1, 2006, Linda Green has signed as a Vice President of at least eight different banks and mortgage companies, including: Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank, Option One Mortgage Corporation, American Home Mortgage Servicing, American Home Mortgage Acceptance, Argent Mortgage Company, LLC, Sand Canyon Corporation, and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., acting solely as a nominee for HLB Mortgage.
Korell Harp’s purported signature appears on documents where he is identified as Vice President of MERS as nominee for Quick Loan Funding, Vice president and Assistant Secretary for Argent Mortgage Company, Authorized Signer for USAA Federal Savings Bank, Vice President of American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., as successor-in- interest to Option One Mortgage Corporation, Vice President of American Home Mortgage Acceptance, Inc., and Vice President of Sand Canyon Corporation.
Tywanna Thomas’s purported signature appears on documents where she is identified as Assistant Vice President of MERS, as nominee for Quick Loan Funding, Inc.; Assistant Secretary of MERS, as nominee for American Home Mortgage Acceptance, Inc.; Assistant Vice President of Sand Canyon Corporation, formerly known as Option One Mortgage; and Vice President & Assistant Secretary of Argent Mortgage Company.
Other names that appear on hundreds of DOCX assignments, as officers of many different banks, include Jessica Odhe, Brent Bagley, Christie Baldwin, Cheryl Thomas and Linda Thoresen. These documents have all been notarized in Fulton County, Georgia. An examination of the signatures also reveals that the signatures of the same person vary significantly.
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LPS Offers Clarification to Recent Article
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., April 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS), a leading provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage industry, today provided clarification to a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal.
As indicated in LPS’ most recent Form 10-K, filed in February 2010, LPS reported that during an internal review of the business processes used by its document solutions subsidiary, the Company identified a business process that caused an error in the notarization of certain documents, some of which were used in foreclosure proceedings in various jurisdictions around the country.
The services performed by this subsidiary were offered to a limited number of customers, were unrelated to the Company’s core default management services and were immaterial to the Company’s financial results. LPS immediately corrected the business process and has completed the remedial actions necessary to minimize the impact of the error.
LPS subsequently received an inquiry relating to this matter from the Clerk of Court of Fulton County, Georgia, which is the regulatory body responsible for licensing the notaries used by the Company’s document solutions subsidiary. In response, LPS met with the Clerk of Court, along with members of her staff, and reported on the Company’s identification of the error and the status of the corrective actions that were underway. LPS has since completed its remediation efforts with respect to all of the affected documents and believes the Clerk of the Court has completed its review and closed the matter.
As stated in the Company’s Form 10-K, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Middle District of Florida is reviewing the business processes of this subsidiary. LPS has expressed its willingness to fully cooperate with the U.S. Attorney. LPS continues to believe that it has taken necessary remedial action with respect to this matter.
About Lender Processing Services
LPS is a leading provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage industry. LPS offers solutions that span the mortgage continuum, including lead generation, origination, servicing, portfolio retention, risk management and default, augmented by the company’s award-winning customer support and professional services. Approximately 50 percent of all U.S. mortgages are serviced using LPS’ MSP. LPS also offers proprietary mortgage and real estate data and analytics for the mortgage and capital markets industries. For more information about LPS, please visit www.lpsvcs.com.
Action Date: April 4, 2010 Location: Jacksonville, FL
In the first 3 days of April, 2010, the Wall Street Journal and the Jacksonville Business Journal both reported that Lender Processing Services was the subject of a federal criminal investigation involving a subsidiary company, Docx, LLC in Alpharetta, Georgia. A representative of the company reportedly acknowledged the investigation. Foreclosure defense blogs, and this website, have reported some of the problems with mortgage assignments prepared by Docx including Assignments where the grantor or grantee was described as “Bogus Assignee for Intervening Asmts” or “A Bad Bene.” Docx also produced many assignments with an effective date of 9/9/9999. In other cases, the effective date was listed as 1950. Other Assignments listed the amount of the original mortgage as $.00 or $.01. Still other assignments were missing signatures. The Docx office has produced over one million mortgage assignments in the last few years and filed these assignments in recorders’ offices across the country. How many Assignments were defective? Did any foreclosures occur based on the defective documents? Were court clerks notified of the defective assignments? Were borrowers notified? Were mortgage companies and banks notified? The company disclosures to date raise even more questions regarding the role of document mills in the national foreclosure crisis. Courts and litigants everywhere will be waiting for more complete disclosures.
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A unit of Lender Processing Services Inc, a U.S. provider of paperwork used by banks in the foreclosure process, is being investigated by federal prosecutors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the newspaper said a government probe into the business practices of the LPS unit was “criminal in nature.” According to the report, the probe was disclosed in LPS’s annual report in February.
The subsidiary being investigated is Docx LLC, which processes and sometimes produces documents used by banks to prove they own mortgages, the report said.
According to the report, among Docx documents being reviewed was one that incorrectly claimed an entity called “Bogus Assignee” was the owner of the loan.
The report cited LPS spokeswoman Michelle Kersch as saying that the “bogus” phrase was used as a placeholder and that some documents had been “inadvertently recorded before the field was updated.”
Continue reading…TAMPA TRIBUNE
Continue reading…TAMPA TRIBUNE
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