Make sure you read this carefully…This is a transcript of an employee of Residential Funding Company who is in charge of record keeping of original documents. Don’t miss the full deposition down below.
Follow the assets, don’t get lost in the trail…
17 Q. Now, when you said you’re the Director of
18 Records Management for the Minnesota office?
19 A. Uh-huh.
20 Q. Are there other offices of Residential
21 Funding that maintain records that you are
22 not responsible for?
23 A. There are records services sites in Iowa and
24 in Pennsylvania.Those deal mostly with the
25 GMAC mortgage assets.
<snip>
11 Q. And what, if anything, is your responsibility
12 with regard to those records?
13 A. To track the physical paper for those
14 assets — or that asset.
15 Q. Are you what you consider to be the keeper of
16 the records for those documents?
17 A. Sure, yep.
5 Q. Okay. And then when somebody wants to view
6 specific records from your system, is that
7 something that you’re responsible for
8 obtaining as part of your day-to-day
9 responsibilities?
10 A. The people that report to me, yes, or the
11 vendor that — that we have retained to do
12 those functions, yes. I don’t do that
13 myself.
14 Q. Who’s the vendor that you retain to do that?
15 A. A company called ACS.
16 Q. ACS?
17 A. Yep.
18 Q. And what does ACS do with regard to the
19 records?
20 A. They fulfill the request. So if somebody
21 needs a credit folder or a legal folder, they
22 research where those documents are, obtain
23 the documents and then provide that requestor
24 with either the paper documents or images.
<snip>
21 Q. There’s a file folder that shows it came from
22 the outside vendor?
23 A. Yes. Their sticker is affixed to the front
24 of the folder, so I know it came from them.
25 Q. Okay. And then is there anything on the
1 documents themselves that show where they
2 came from?
3 A. No.
4 Q. And by the outside vendor, do you mean ACS?
5 A. No. Actually, the vendor that stores the
6 actual folder is Iron Mountain.
7 Q. So there’s a sticker on that file that shows
8 it came from Iron Mountain?
9 A. Correct, yes.
10 Q. Does Iron Mountain maintain your system or do
11 they just maintain hard copies of documents?
12 A. They maintain the hard copies of the
13 documents.
14 Q. Not any records on your computer system,
15 correct?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Is that correct?
18 A. Correct.
<snip>
18 Q. What’s the relationship between Residential
19 Funding Company, LLC and U.S. Bank National
20 Association?
21 A. In — in this instance, U.S. Bank is the
22 trustee on the security that this loan is in.
23 And RFC was the issuer of the security that
24 was created.
25 Q. Who was the issuer of the security?
1 A. RFC was the issuer of the security.
2 Q. Oh, RFC is what you call Residential Funding
3 Company?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. So RFC issued the security?
6 A. Right.
7 Q. Can you explain to me what that means?
8 A. No, I can’t.
9 Q. Okay. How do you know RFC issued the
10 security?
11 A. It’s the normal course of business as to how
12 our — our business works. RFC is in the
13 business of acquiring assets and putting them
14 together into securities to sell in the — in
15 the market.
16 MR. SHAW: I would like to
17 register a general objection to this line of
18 questioning. There’s not been a foundation
19 laid for Judy Faber being competent to reach
20 some of these conclusions that are being
21 stated on the record.
22 BY MR. HOLLANDER:
23 Q. So in this particular instance, do you have
24 any personal knowledge of the relationship
25 between RFC and U.S. Bank National
1 Association as trustee?
2 A. No.
3 Q. For whom is U.S. Bank National Association
4 acting as the trustee?
5 A. I believe it would be for the investors of
6 the — that have bought the securities.
7 Q. I’m sorry. Something happened with the phone
8 and I didn’t hear your answer. I’m sorry.
9 A. I believe it would be for the different
10 investors who have bought pieces of that
11 security that was issued.
12 Q. Are there different investors that have
13 purchased the Peter Cook note?
14 A. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that.
15 You know, I can tell you from what my basic
16 understanding is from the process, but I’m
17 not an expert.
18 MR. SHAW: Once again, I’d like to
19 raise a continuing general objection that she
20 being — testifying with respect to what her
21 job is, and I believe you’re getting into
22 areas that is other than what her job is and
23 you’re asking for possibly even legal
24 conclusions here. So I would like to raise
25 that objection again.
Be sure to catch the Full Depo of Renee Hertzler below after AP Alan Zibel’s article
Bank of America delays foreclosures in 23 states
By ALAN ZIBEL, AP Real Estate Writer Alan Zibel, – Fri Oct 1, 7:46 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Bank of America is delaying foreclosures in 23 states as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents.
The move adds the nation’s largest bank to a growing list of mortgage companies whose employees signed documents in foreclosure cases without verifying the information in them.
Bank of America isn’t able to estimate how many homeowners’ cases will be affected, Dan Frahm, a spokesman for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, said Friday. He said the bank plans to resubmit corrected documents within several weeks.
Two other companies, Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit and JPMorgan Chase, have halted tens of thousands of foreclosure cases after similar problems became public.
The document problems could cause thousands of homeowners to contest foreclosures that are in the works or have been completed. If the problems turn up at other lenders, a foreclosure crisis that’s already likely to drag on for several more years could persist even longer. Analysts caution that most homeowners facing foreclosure are still likely to lose their homes.
State attorneys general, who enforce foreclosure laws, are stepping up pressure on the industry.
On Friday, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked a state court to freeze all home foreclosures for 60 days. Doing so “should stop a foreclosure steamroller based on defective documents,” he said.
And California Attorney General Jerry Brown called on JPMorgan to suspend foreclosures unless it could show it complied with a state consumer protection law. The law requires lenders to contact borrowers at risk of foreclosure to determine whether they qualify for mortgage assistance.
In Florida, the state attorney general is investigating four law firms, two with ties to GMAC, for allegedly providing fraudulent documents in foreclosure cases .The Ohio attorney general this week asked judges to review GMAC foreclosure cases.
Mark Paustenbach, a Treasury Department spokesman, said the Treasury has asked federal regulators “to look into these troubling developments.”
A document obtained Friday by the Associated Press showed a Bank of America official acknowledging in a legal proceeding that she signed up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and typically didn’t read them.
The official, Renee Hertzler, said in a February deposition that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month.
“I typically don’t read them because of the volume that we sign,” Hertzler said.
She also acknowledged identifying herself as a representative of a different bank, Bank of New York Mellon, that she didn’t work for. Bank of New York Mellon served as a trustee for the investors holding the homeowner’s loan.
Florida lawyer warns of deepening foreclosure mess
By Kevin Gray
ROYAL PALM BEACH, Florida | Wed Oct 6, 2010 2:58pm EDT
ROYAL PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – A Florida lawyer at the forefront of legal challenges against foreclosure practices by mortgage lenders says the U.S. housing morass will drag on due to difficulty in determining who owns home loans.
Questions over practices in foreclosure procedures across the United States have forced at least three banks to temporarily halt their proceedings and prompted a growing chorus of calls by lawmakers and regulators for an industry-wide moratorium until problems are resolved.
However, Tom Ice, whose law firm Ice Legal P.A. was among the first to get banking executives to acknowledge shoddy foreclosure practices, said it will be difficult for banks to fix all of the paperwork errors.
“This isn’t just a procedural technicality, it’s exposed the very problem at the heart of the securitization fiasco, which is no one knows who owns what,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
A record 1.2 million U.S. homes are expected to be taken over by banks this year, up from 1 million last year and 100,000 in 2005, real estate data company RealtyTrac Inc. says.
Faced with a rising tide of foreclosures, lenders employed so-called “robo-signers” — middle-ranking banking executives who signed thousands of affidavits a month claiming they were knowledgeable of the cases.
However, some lenders, prodded by legal challenges, now say officials were not aware of details in all of the cases and vow to resubmit them. It is unclear how many cases are involved but it is believed to be in the tens of thousands.
But Ice said a broader problem was damaging the process of resolving the foreclosures. He said many banks were initiating proceedings without knowing if they in fact own the loans and often failed to produce requested documents.
The securitization of home loans meant many have been sold off to other investors. Banks still own some, but frequently serve as loan servicers on behalf of the actual owner, whether it is another bank or an investor pool.
Some mortgages can be tracked in an electronic system known as MERS, or the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, that traces transfers among member banks. But the mechanism is not fully reliable, Ice said.
A recent sample among some 400 foreclosure cases Ice’s law firm is handling revealed 71 percent with possible discrepancies in detailing the owners of clients’ loans.
“Few of these processes followed the rules, shortcuts were used at every step,” he said. “The industry itself doesn’t know who owns what.”
BANKS WARY OF BAD LOAN STIGMA
Some banks may be reluctant to step forward, worried about how it might reflect the amount of bad loans on their balance sheets, Ice added.
Lenders, including JPMorgan Chase and Co., Bank of America Corp and Ally Financial Inc, are now scrambling to defend and improve their foreclosure procedures.
In addition to renewing it’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff has also filed a Motion for Entry of Protective Order pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 26 (c). This motion is likewise denied.
Rule 26(c) provides that “for good cause shown” a court may enter a protective order “which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense….” M.R.Civ. P. 26(c). Plaintiff seeks a protective order prohibiting the dissemination of discovery materials obtained in this case.” Plaintiff’s Motion for Entry of Protective Order at 7. As grounds for it’s motion, Plaintiff points to the embarrassment GMAC and it’s employees have suffered, and will continue to suffer, from the posting of excerpts from Stephan’s deposition transcript on an Internet blog. The court is not persuaded that the Plaintiff has shown the requisite “ good cause” to justify entry of a protective order in this case. See e.g. Public Citizen v. Liggett Group, Inc., 858 F.2d 775, 789 (1st Cir. 1988) (agreeing with Second Circuit in noting that “the party seeking a protective order has burden of showing that good cause is not shown, the discovery materials in question should not receive judicial protection and therefore would be open to the public for inspection”) (citation omitted).
Stephan’s deposition was taken in advance a legitimate purpose, and the testimony elicited has directed probative value to dispute. Attorney Cox did not himself take action other that to share the deposition transcript with an attorney in Florida. That the testimony reveals corporate practices that GMAC finds embarrassing in not enough to justify issuance of a protective order. Further, Plaintiff has failed to establish that GMAC has been harmed specifically as a result of the dissemination of the June 7, 2010 deposition transcript, given that similarly embarrassing deposition from December 10, 2009 Florida deposition also appears on the Internet, and will remain even were this Court to grant Plaintiff’s motion. Accordingly, because Plaintiff has failed to satisfy it’s burden of persuasion under Rule 26(c), it’s Motion for Entry of Protective Order is denied.
LOXAHATCHEE, Fla.—Israel Machado’s foreclosure started out as a routine affair. In the summer of 2008, as the economy began to soften, Mr. Machado’s pool-cleaning business suffered and like millions of other Americans, he fell behind on his $400,000 mortgage.
But Mr. Machado’s response was unlike most other Americans’. Instead of handing his home over to the lender, IndyMac Bank FSB, he hired Ice Legal LP in nearby Royal Palm Beach to fight the foreclosure. The law firm researched the history of Mr. Machado’s loan and found two interesting facts.
First, the affidavits IndyMac used to file the foreclosure were signed by a so-called robo-signer named Erica A. Johnson-Seck, who routinely signed 6,000 documents a week related to foreclosures and bankruptcy. That volume, the court decided, meant Ms. Johnson-Seck couldn’t possibly have thoroughly reviewed the facts of Mr. Machado’s case, as required by law.
Secondly, IndyMac (now called OneWest Bank) no longer owned the loan—a group of investors in a securitized trust managed by Deutsche Bank did. Determining that IndyMac didn’t really have standing to foreclose, a judge threw out the case and ordered IndyMac to pay Mr. Machado’s $30,000 legal bill.
Mr. Machado and his lawyer, Tom Ice, say they now want to convince the owners of the mortgage to cut Mr. Machado’s loan balance to between $150,000 and $200,000—the current selling price for comparable homes in his community near West Palm Beach. “The whole intent was to get them to come to the negotiating table, to get me in a fixed-rate mortgage that worked,” Mr. Machado said.
State your full name and current position.
Provide us with your definition of a document custodian.
What is your exact job title?
What are your responsibilities?
Where are you employed?
Where does your company store original documents?
How are they stored?
If you outsource this storage, who is the outsource provider?
How do you confirm delivery to the outsource provider?
How do you retrieve original documents?
How long do you save original documents?
Do you have a written original document destruction policy?
Please explain it and produce a copy of the policy.
Do you retain images of original of all documents?
How are they retained?
Where are they retained?
How long are they retained?
What type of computer system is used for the image retention?
Do you have a Records Compliance or Management Department?
Explain how it works, who is employed there, and where it is located.
Describe all information that you store electronically.
Do you have an ESI manager?
Who, where does he or she work, what does he or she do?
What is your policy on the retention of electronically stored documents?
Do you have a written policy for ESI documents?
Do you have any automated archiving systems?
If yes, then explain how they work and how documents are achieved.
Where are the archived documents stored?
How do you save data to a file that has already been achieved?
State the name of the director or manager of your document archiving operation.
How do you store data acquired through mergers or acquisitions?
How do you retrieve historical data from the archives?
Explain the process in detail.
Do you have an organizational-wide data map or inventory of all electronically stored data?
Can you produce a copy of that map?
Do you have any litigation ready data files?
Where are they stored?
How are they created?
Who is in charge of creating these files?
Why are they created?
Is there such a file in this case?
Where is the data stored?
Do you have any electronic data stored on tapes?
Describe the data and the type of tapes?
Where are these tapes stored?
Do you maintain a disaster recovery location?
Where is it?
Do you store electronic data at this location?
How is it stored?
How long is it stored?
What types of servers are used to store the data at this location?
How long is the data stored?
Do you have a data destruction policy at the disaster location?
Please explain and produce all written protocols.
Explain how you retrieve data from the disaster location?
Explain the time and expenses involved in securing date from the disaster recovery location?
State if any data related to this case has been destroyed?
Describe the data in detail and when and under what circumstances it was destroyed.
Have you seen any notice in this case to preserve all of the ESI?
When, where and how did you see it?
Has any data related to this case been destroyed since you saw it?
Who is your Media Destruction Manager?
Where is this person located?
What are the responsibilities of this person?
Explain all of the steps your company has taken in this case to preserve ESI evidence?
Have you created a data file of ESI for this case?
When was it created?
Name all parties involved in the creation?
Where is that data filed now?
Explain all of the steps that were taken to create the ESI file for this case.
Are there any ESI that you could not find or include in the file?
If so, please explain.
If any of the data still exists, have you or anyone in your company investigated the restoration of any deleted or damaged data?
When, who did this and what did they do?
If not, then why not?
With respect to the ESI file that has been created for this case, have the documents been scrubbed for metadata?
If yes, then when, who ordered, and why?
Who was involved in the scrubbing?
Was a scrubbed metadata file created?
Who created the file and who has custody of the file?
Do you backup your data every day?
How and where is the backup data?
Who is in charge of your backup operations?
What data is backed up?
Do you back up programs and systems or just the data?
What is the difference between your backup data system and your archived data storage system?
How long is backup data retained?
What is the format for the media in the ESI file created for this case?
Did you ever stop backing up or archiving data in this case in anticipation of litigation?
If so, when, why, and who ordered such actions?
When was a litigation hold placed on the destruction of any of the ESI data related to this case?
Who issued the hold and how was it implemented?
Do you have any type of dormant document liability policy?
If so, then please explain in detail how it works?
Has any of the ESI data in this case been destroyed or deleted pursuant to a dormant document liability policy?
If so, can you identify who took such action, when it was taken, who ordered it taken, and why it was taken?
Name all parties who have access to any of the data related to this case.
Explain all security features employed by your company to prohibit the unauthorized access to any of your ESI data?
Do you keep any type of catalogue of information on tapes or other media related to historical ESI?
If so, please explain how this system works?
Where are the catalogues filed and how are they maintained?
State the names of all of the servers and the location of all such servers that contained any ESI data related to this case.
State your current policy on saving company email.
State your current archiving and backup programs with respect to email.
State all of your email format types, date ranges for retention of email, and the names of all custodians.
Please identify all types of files used by your company, the capacity of such files, the creation dates and how those dates are preserved, the modification dates and how they are recorded, and the maximum size of each file.
Does your company employ a de-duplication policy as to ESI data?
If so, please explain how it works?
Has any data in this case been subject to destruction pursuant to any such policy?
If so, identify all such ESI data.
Do any lawyers representing you in this case have access to any of your data files?
IF so, please explain the extent of such access, how it is tracked, and purpose of the same?
Have you migrated any ESI data in this case from older, disparate media sources into modern managed tools?
If so, explain in detail the older data systems, how the migration occurred, and explain the new storage media used?
Name all of the parties on the data migration team or group.
Do you have a Legal Records Management Team?
Name all of the Team members and the location?
Was the Team involved in this case?
If yes, then explain in detail the extent of their involvement.
Do you use a third-party IT vendor for ESI data capture, storage and archiving?
If so, who and how long have they been used?
Who is the on-site representative for your ESI vendor?
Does your backup vendor use DLT4, LT01 or 4MM tapes?
What type of backup software does the vendor use?
Do they use Backup Exec, NetBackup, Legato Net Worker, Trivoli Storage Manager, ArcServe, CommVault Galaxy or HP Omniback?
Describe all messaging systems used by your company.
Do you use Lotus Notes?
Do you use Novell GroupWise or any others?
How is the messaging data saved, backed up and archived?
Do you convert the messages media to any other type of media for storage?
If so, describe the media and how this is accomplished and by whom?
Explain all due diligence programs and procedures used to verify the integrity of your data?
Explain all due diligence programs and procedures used to secure and safeguard your data.
Do you maintain custody logs on the transfer of any ESI data?
What type of logs?
Who maintains and where are they located?
Do you have a “Best Practices” guide for of the operations described herein?
Can you produce it?
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – An outcry over questionable foreclosures by GMAC Mortgage and other lenders is likely to hit some states more than others because of major differences in real estate law across the nation.
But ramifications for federal taxpayers and investors will depend on the costs of clearing up the problem, the latest fallout from the bursting of the U.S. real estate bubble.
GMAC Mortgage announced last week that it had suspended evictions and post-foreclosure closings in 23 states due to concerns over paperwork. In order for a lender to foreclose on a property, it must prove that it actually checked the borrower’s loan agreements, and that the homeowner defaulted.
But the unit of Ally Financial, which is 56.3 percent owned by the U.S. government after a $17 billion bailout, said employees preparing foreclosures had submitted affidavits to judges containing information they did not personally verify.
“It’s a real mess,” said Justice Arthur Schack, a jurist on foreclosure issues who sits on the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.
GMAC’s announcement has raised doubts about whether some people lost their homes without good reason. Attorneys general in several states, including California, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio, are investigating.
“The law demands that lenders prove their case in foreclosure actions,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last week.
But Ally characterizes the problem as merely technical, arguing that the underlying facts in each foreclosure are accurate.
“We are confident that the processing errors did not result in any inappropriate foreclosures,” it said in a statement last week.
GMAC landed in its predicament after one of its employees testified in a December 2009 deposition that he signed off on tens of thousands of affidavits containing information he did not verify.
The company said it has “substantially increased” the number of employees to verify documents, provided additional training, and suspended evictions out of an “abundance of caution.”
Ally isn’t the only firm under the microscope.
JPMorgan Chase & Co is delaying its current foreclosure proceedings and has begun to systematically re-examine related documents after discovering that some employees may have signed affidavits in some cases without personally reviewing the files.
Lawyers in Florida are questioning JPMorgan’s practices after discovering one of its executives did not check the details of its claims against a homeowner.
The executive said she had been part of an eight-person team that signs 18,000 documents a
SECRETARY BRUNNER OUTLINES TWO LINES OF ATTACK IN FIGHTING HIGH OHIO FORECLOSURE RATES
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio’s chief elections officer and the state officer responsible for licensing notary publics, today issued a directive to boards of elections that foreclosures cannot be used without further investigation to disqualify voters and revealed that she has referred specific instances of notary abuse occurring at Chase Home Mortgage in Columbus and by the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) to a federal prosecutor for investigation.
DIRECTIVE ON VOTERS FACING FORECLOSURES: Secretary Brunner, in Directive 2010-66, instructed Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections that they may not cancel an Ohioan’s voter registration based solely on the fact that the person is involved in the foreclosure process. The filing of a foreclosure action does not affect a voter’s right to vote until there is a final judgment entry, including the passage of at least 30 days from the date of the entry because of the right of appeal, and verification that the person no longer resides at the property. Ohio continues to experience high residential foreclosure rates.
Those who lose their homes because of foreclosure may wait until Election Day to update their address. Boards are instructed in the directive how to help voters displaced because of foreclosure, based on whether they move (1) within the same precinct, (2) within the same county but to a different precinct, or (3) to a different county in Ohio. Voters facing foreclosure may use their current location of residence as their residence for the purposes of voting.
REFERRAL OF CHASE HOME MORTGAGE AND MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC. TO FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Secretary Brunner, in two letters dated Aug. 11, 2010 and Sept. 1, 2010, referred matters of alleged notary abuse in thousands of home mortgage foreclosures by Chase Home Mortgage and the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. to U.S. District Attorney Steven Dettelbach in Cleveland. Citing two depositions, (one & two) of Chase employee Beth Cottrell, taken in Columbus in May of 2010, and a deposition of MERS Secretary and Treasurer, William Hultman taken in New Jersey in April of 2010. These depositions contain sworn testimony that at Chase Home Mortgage, 18,000 documents per month are executed and notarized per month by eight people, with admissions that:
it is the notary and not the document signer who gives an oath who fills in numbers in the affidavits used in court ordered foreclosures,
no oath is administered for the signing of each document,
notarized documents are not verified by the person signing and giving oath that they have personal knowledge of the contents of the documents, but rather, signers are relying on verification by others,
documents are signed in bulk and notarized in bulk separately,
notaries know this at the time they notarize documents in this process.
The MERS deposition of William Hultman demonstrates that after corporate status changes occurred for MERS, new designations of authority were not executed, leaving one or more individuals for the former MERS corporation continuing to delegate authority on behalf of the new corporation without authorization by the new corporation.
According to its website: “MERS was created by the mortgage banking industry to streamline the mortgage process by using electronic commerce to eliminate paper…MERS acts as nominee in the county land records for the lender and servicer. Any loan registered on the MERS® System is inoculated against future assignments because MERS remains the nominal mortgagee no matter how many times servicing is traded. MERS as original mortgagee (MOM) is approved by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, FHA and VA, California and Utah Housing Finance Agencies, as well as all of the major Wall Street rating agencies.”
MERS was created by the mortgage lending industry to:
eliminate frequent re-recording of liens,
avoid paying county recorder fees and other local taxes as mortgage loans are assigned as backing or securitization for derivatives trading by banks and other financial institutions,
monitor and facilitate the transfer of original mortgage notes in the trading of mortgage-backed securities,
foreclose on mortgage notes for unnamed note holders, even though it is not the real financial party in interest and does not hold the original note for the mortgage.
Currently, over half of all new residential mortgage loans in the U.S. are registered with MERS and recorded in county recording offices in MERS’ name, reducing transparency, leaving consumers unable to determine who actually holds the note on their homes.
Secretary Brunner made the following statement on the situation:
“Mortgage foreclosure documents must be notarized according to the law. Requiring this is not an afterthought or an exercise of form over substance—the law must be followed when taking away someone’s home, regardless of the circumstances.
For too long thousands of homes have been taken from consumers without proof that the foreclosing party actually has that right. Our courts must be cautious and require absolute adherence to the law. As the officer in Ohio who licenses notaries, I cannot stand idly by and watch financial institutions concoct a chain of title they never had by abusing the notary process.
It’s not fair to consumers or to the employees who by virtue of their jobs, are signing these documents. I urge the U.S. Department of Justice to take up this investigation with vigor and purpose to protect consumers and hold financial institutions to the standards of scrutiny and exactitude required by law, even if it means prosecuting some of our largest corporations. These apparent violations of state law point to schemes that merit federal investigation of large institution lending practices and use of the U.S. Postal Service.”
Last week, GMAC Mortgage announced it had suspended evictions and post-foreclosure closings in 23 states over concerns about employees preparing foreclosures with affidavits submitted to judges containing information they did not personally verify. Yesterday it was announced that JPMorgan Chase and Co hired external counsel to review its affidavit process based on the depositions of Beth Cottrell and is delaying approximately 56,000 current foreclosure proceedings.
The Florida Constitution and court rules did not give the Chief Justice authority to intercede in pending cases involving attorney misconduct, or to investigate allegations of fraud or misconduct in foreclosure cases. The fraud cases must first beadjudicated in trial courts.
Congressman Grayson has asked the Florida Bar to take action.
Florida Default Law Group has been added as the fourth law firm under investigation along the Law offices of David J. Stern, Shapiro & Fishman and Law Office of Marshall Watson.
Please welcome Ericka Johnson Seck to the ROBO-SIGNER Hall of Sham!
MERS & LPS once again the “Common Thread”
Here is a list of her many Corporate Hats:
Vice President of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. (MERS)
Vice President of Deutsch Bank National Trust
Vice President of Bank of New York
Attorney in Fact of IndyMac
Attorney in Fact of ONEWEST
Attorney in Fact of FDIC
I must confess, she was my first study because she signed two assignments for “one” of my properties using “two” different employers. 🙂 ‘<blush> I even created my very first youtube video in her honor (see below)!
Thanks to Judge Arthur Schack and Tom Ice from Ice Legal in Palm Beach County, we all became familiar with Erica for wearing too many corporate hats.
She is the “Robo-Signer” Judge Schack called out in three particular cases in NY and made her an instant foreclosure household name. I don’t think she ever emerged in NY soon after this. Also see the HSCB v. Yasmin case.
Excerpt of DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST v. HARRIS
The Court is perplexed as to why the assignment was not executed in Pasadena, California, at 46U Sierra Madre Villa, the alleged “principal place of business” for both the assignor and the assignee. In my January 3 1, 2008 decision (Deutsche Bank National Tr (1st Canpuny v Maraj, – Misc 3d – [A], 2008 NY Slip Op 50176 [U]), I noted that Erica Johnson-Seck, claimed that she was a Vice President of MERS in her July 3,2007 INDYMAC to DEUTSCHE BANK assignment, and then in her July 3 1,2007 affidavit claimed to be a DEUTSCHE BANK Vice President. Just as in Deutsche Bank National Trust Company v Maraj, at 2, the Court in the instant action, before granting itn application for an order of reference, requires an affidavit from Ms. Johnson-Seck, describing her employment history for the past three years.
Further, the Court requires an explanation from an officer of plaintiff DEUTSCHE BANK as to why, in the middle of our national subprime mortgage financial crisis, DEUTSCHE BANK would purchase a non-perferforming loan from INDYMAC, and why DEUTSCHE BANK, INDYMAC and MERS all share office space at 460 Sierra Madre Villa, Pasadena, CA 91 107.
24,000 Monthly Documents executed by her team
Now Lets move on to this below… according to this deposition her office signs 24,000 mortgage related documents out of the this figure she signed about “750” a week making it approximately 3000 mortgage documents used in foreclosure cases. Anything from Affidavits of Debt, Lost Note Affidavits, Assignment of Mortgages, Declarations pretty much anything having to deal with Bankruptcy and Foreclosures.
This is what she signs without any notary present.
Below is a sale that happened in DC all in 1 single day! It appears she also puts properties in her name with her co-employees Roger Stotts and Eric Friedman.
ROGER STOTTS signs these as well and according to the depo above Indymac/Onewest is “NOT” the custodian as defined below. Why do they commit fraud?
FIRST VIDEO MADE OF DAVID J. STERN, ERICA JOHNSON-SECK BACK IN FEBRUARY 2010
CONTINUE READING…..YAHOO
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