From the Palm Beach Post Christine Stapleton [link]

At Lender Processing Services workers who signed tens of thousands of sworn foreclosure affidavits with someone else’ name were called “surrogate signers”, according to Cheryl Denise Thomas, a former LPS worker who admitted to notarizing as many as 1,000 sworn affidavits daily – often without witnessing the signature.

Thomas said despite “raised eyebrows”  her supervisors never used the word “forge” and repeatedly told workers the practice of signing someone else’ name on a sworn affidavit was legal. Thomas detailed the company’s foreclosure document processing practices during a deposition in an Orange county foreclosure case on March 23.

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[image credit: I-Robot]

via: NakedCapitalism

Excerpts:

Beginning Pg. 33

that’s when they — well, upon us leaving
anyway, they took up our notary stamps and
everything and destroyed them. But I was
relieved of my duties once moved to
Gwinnett County.

Q. Who — who — I’m sorry, did I miss
that? Who destroyed those documents?

A. I can’t say exactly who destroyed
them. All I know is that Jeffrey
the supervisor in the signing room at that
times, he picked up everyone’s stamp, the
notaries’ stamps.

Q. He took your stamps?

A. He took our stamps. And — and
they were destroying them.

Q. How were they destroying them?

A. I don’t know how. He just said
they were picking up all the stamps, all
of the notary stamps. And they were going
to destroy them, because the company was
closing. And they were only suppose to be
used for that company.

Continue below…

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Special Thanks to: RICHARD WILNER NYPOST

Fla. judge reverses GMAC loan

By RICHARD WILNER

Last Updated: 4:23 AM, April 25, 2010

Posted: 12:14 AM, April 25, 2010

GMAC Mortgage got slammed by a Florida judge this month — and that may be good news for some of the 1,234 New York homeowners hit with a foreclosure action by GMAC since the beginning of 2008.

In that case, Judge Anthony Rondolino voided a GMAC foreclosure win after he found out legal papers filed by the company with the court to steamroll its way over homeowner Debbie Visicaro were faulty. They were filed by an employee of GMAC’s law firm who had no personal knowledge of the faulty mortgage’s position.

In short, they were based entirely on hearsay.

Lawyers familiar with foreclosure actions filed by law firm mills, as was done in this case, say such instances aren’t rare.

Visicaro, like most of the New York homeowners, at first decided to fight the foreclosure action without a lawyer. She didn’t know that the law firm employee was guessing in his court papers. But Visicaro finally hired a lawyer, Michael Alex Wasylik, who pointed out the flimsy evidence to the judge who then admitted he made a mistake when he first awarded GMAC a quickie legal win.

When the GMAC lawyer couldn’t explain away the bad evidence — and could only manage a Ralph Kramden-like hamina-hamina-hamina — the judge barked: “You’re going to have to speak up. I know that when you’re getting pummeled, it’s hard to talk loudly.”

“You know what I’d really like to see?” Rondolino said. “I’d like to see in one of these cases where a defense lawyer cross-examines, takes a deposition of these people, and we can see whether they ought be charged with perjury for all these affidavits.”

The 720 homeowners still fighting active cases — of the 1,234 filed in New York over the last 28 months — should start asking questions about the affidavits submitted in their cases, lawyers said. Maybe the legal papers in their case are built on legal ground as firm as that in the Visicaro case.

THIS IS WORTH REPEATING OVER AND OVER!!!!

From: Neil Garfield Livinglies

RIGHT ON POINT ABOUT WHAT WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT IN HEARING YESTERDAY!!

I appeared as expert witness in a case yesterday where the Judge had trouble getting off the idea that it was an accepted fact that the note was in default and that ANY of the participants in the securitization chain should be considered collectively “creditors” or a creditor. Despite the fact that the only witness was a person who admitted she had no knowledge except what was on the documents given to her, the Judge let them in as evidence.

The witness was and is incompetent because she lacked personal knowledge and could not provide any foundation for any records or document. This is the predominant error of Judges today in most cases. Thus the prima facie case is considered “assumed” and the burden to prove a negative falls unfairly on the homeowner.

The Judge, in a familiar refrain, had trouble with the idea of giving the homeowner a free house when the only issue before him was whether the motion to lift stay should be granted. Besides the fact that the effect of granting the motion to lift stay was the gift of a free house to ASC who admits in their promotional website that they have in interest nor involvement in the origination of the loans, and despite the obviously fabricated assignment a few days before the hearing which violated the terms of the securitization document cutoff date, the Judge seems to completely missed the point of the issue before him: whether there was a reason to believe that the movant lacked standing or that the foreclosure would prejudice the debtor or other creditors (since the house would become an important asset of the bankruptcy estate if it was unencumbered).

If you carry over the arguments here, the motion for lift stay is the equivalent motion for summary judgment.

This transcript, citing cases, shows that the prima facie burden of the Movant is even higher than beyond a reasonable doubt. It also shows that the way the movants are using business records violates all standards of hearsay evidence and due process. Read the transcript carefully. You might want to use it for a motion for rehearing or motion for reconsideration to get your arguments on record, clear up the issue of whether you objected on the basis of competence of the witness, and then take it up on appeal with a cleaned up record.

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RELATED ARTICLE:

Judge reversed his own ruling that had granted summary judgment to GMAC Mortgage (DAVID J. STERN)

My am news could never arrive too early from one of my favorite person. This judge unleashed a can of WHOOP ARSE!

I think you will find this transcript very interesting.  These highlights are from a Motion for Rehearing where the Court had granted summary judgment for the lender in a foreclosure case.  The judge is Honorable Anthony Rondolino from Pinellas County, Florida.  The hearing took place on April 7, 2010.  Counsel for the homeowner/defendant, Debbie Visicaro, was  Michael Alex Wasylik.

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