This should be a sequel to: Meet FL AG Pam Bondi, Foreclosure Fraudsters’ BFF

Palm Beach Post-

The Legislature finally has passed a bill to ease Florida’s foreclosure crisis. The problem is, it’s a bad bill that Gov. Scott should veto.

Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, sponsor of House Bill 87, believes that giving banks the right to seek a quicker hearing would get the state’s 350,000 foreclosure cases resolved faster. Her approach might make sense if the banks weren’t causing the backlog by not acting on the cases they file.

Though some homeowners employ attorneys who are responsible for delays, the vast majority are at the mercy of lenders who set the timetable for how quickly cases move, or don’t move. It takes an average of two years to dispose of foreclosure lawsuits in Florida because too often lenders and servicers don’t want to assume the taxes, association dues and expenses to list a house for sale that they incur after taking possession. They also don’t want a glut of foreclosures depressing prices and furthering their losses. So they let cases languish. On Friday, the backlog prompted the Florida Supreme Court to order that trial courts hire magistrates, to move more cases.

HB 87 would let lenders seek a “show cause” hearing, forcing homeowners into court quickly to prove that they shouldn’t be foreclosed on. That would not light a fire under the banks.

[PALM BEACH POST]

Thanks to Foreclosure Hamlet for flagging this video to us.

Sorry I just had to put this out there…she should be embarrassed for even mentioning the word robo-signing. If you haven’t yet, this is a tell all MUST READ RELEASE: From Andrew Bennett Spark, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa Economic Crimes to read what goes on with her investigations.

Click image below for Pamela Jo’s video.

We ALL know what really went down and Bondi to even say she was part of the effort is completely misleading. Was there even a lawsuit against LPS in the state of Florida where their headquarters are located? A BIG FAT HELL NO!

Miami Herald-

While attorney general Pam Bondi was investigating Lender Processing Services for foreclosure abuses, the state of Florida was preparing a sweet tax break deal for the Jacksonville-based company.

Last week, Bondi announced a national settlement with LPS, and the company agreed to pay $120 million to settle allegations that it operated as a so-called foreclosure mill, making use of fraudulently signed court documents.

Money kicked in from Florida taxpayers could help pay that fine. LPS received a tax incentive award of at least $1.15 million, with some of the payments going out even as Bondi’s fraud inquiry was ongoing.

[MIAMI HERALD]

These _______ have failed you Floridians very badly and you should NEVER ever forget this.

Not once did they get it right….not one single thing.

Tampa Bay Times-

Florida is ranked No. 1 the nation for the number of homes in foreclosures and the number of people on the verge of losing their homes.

But the Sunshine state is last in the nation when it comes to using the millions of dollars in available housing aid from a national mortgage settlement, according to a report released Thursday by Enterprise Community Partners.

Six months after the nation’s largest banks signed a $25 billion mortgage settlement in the wake of the robo-signing scandal, Florida and Texas are the only states that have not outlined a plan for how to use more than $300 million in housing aid.

The funds are sitting in escrow, as attorney general Pam Bondi and the Florida Legislature haggle over who is legally entitled to spend the $300 million.

[TAMPA BAY TIMES]

Via: MyFloridaLegal–

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.– Attorney General Pam Bondi today announced that ProVest, LLC, one of Florida’s largest service processing firms, has agreed to pay $462,500 to the Florida Bar Foundation to continue the legal aid program that assists low-income individuals facing foreclosure. The settlement with ProVest resolves allegations regarding improper service of process in foreclosure cases filed in courts throughout Florida. Under this settlement, ProVest must follow certain business practices intended to ensure proper and lawful service of process in mortgage foreclosure cases filed in Florida.

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Many reasons why she should not be picked:

She has failed Florida Foreclosure Victims.

Other States have sued Lender Processing Services for Foreclosure Fraud.

She has never said one thing against Foreclosure Fraud. Never.

LPS headquarters is in Pam Bondi’s very own Florida. Why no lawsuit?

She fired two of her Asst. AG’s who were investigating the robo signing and foreclosure in Florida.

[…]

NO Actions speak louder than words.

TBO-

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is the latest name to emerge from the pool of rumored contenders for the Republican vice presidential slot, but experts consider her a long shot.

Bondi was in New England today campaigning for presumed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who is in the midst of an international tour.

[TBO.COM]

Washington, Feb 22 – Today, U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch (FL-19), Corrine Brown (FL-3), Alcee L. Hastings (FL-13), Richard Nugent (FL-5), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20), and Frederica Wilson (FL-17) sent a letter to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to ensure that the funds awarded to Florida in the recent nationwide mortgage settlement are used for no purpose other than helping struggling homeowners and foreclosure victims. Congressman Deutch’s letter follows developments in other states where settlement money intended for foreclosure relief is being used for other purposes. In Missouri and Wisconsin, Attorneys General have diverted funds to Governors and state legislators to plug budget shortfalls, and most recently, a plan put forward in Ohio uses such funds to pay for the demolition of vacant homes.

“Given the ongoing State of Florida’s housing crisis, we strongly urge you to use these settlement funds for housing relief, and resist any efforts to divert the funds to close shortfalls in the state budget,” the Representatives write. “Data demonstrates that Florida has the third highest percentage in the country of homeowners – 44% of homeowners in the state – that are underwater.  The funds from the Federal Government and State Attorneys Generals settlement with mortgage servicers can provide and should be used to provide much needed assistance to struggling homeowners.”

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As if she didn’t know this…hmm

Miami Herald-

An appeals court has denied Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s request to allow the state Supreme Court to review a ruling she says limits her ability to fight foreclosure fraud. Because of this decision, seven pending cases are now threatened, Bondi said Thursday.

In December, the state’s 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that Bondi does not have the authority to investigate a law firm for alleged fraud under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act because attorneys’ work on behalf of lenders did not constitute trade or commerce. She asked the court to certify that its decision in the  Law Offices of David Stern, P.A. v. State of Florida case passes upon a question of great public importance so that she could appeal to the Supreme Court.

[MIAMI HERALD]

I’d like to add this tid bit: An attorney for Lender Processing, Martin Fiorentino, who lobbied on behalf of the company, is actively involved in both state and national politics. Fiorentino is a well-known political fundraising bundler, and has raised at least $102,9000 for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The Fiorentino Group has been paid at least $180,000 by Lender Processing Services since 2009.

Guess which Presidential candidate Bondi just endorsed?

Abigail C. Field-

Our national foreclosure crisis has epicenters; Florida is one. Florida’s Multiple Listing Service currently lists 15,755 foreclosure properties in Miami alone (Jan 8, 2012). Prices have fallen so far in some areas homes are selling for less than “a used Toyota.”

Foreclosure statistics, like all numbers, fail to convey the human misery involved. If “irresponsible borrowers” caused Florida’s crisis, well, no one would look to the Attorney General for action. What does law enforcement have to do with irresponsible borrowers? But that’s not what happened–banker fraud and gambling wrecked the housing market. And now the banks are resorting to document fraud to process the millions of foreclosures their earlier bad acts set in motion.

[REALITY CHECK]

“I will only have the very best, most skilled people on the job; those who embody the highest standards of ethics, responsibility, professionalism, and performance,” Bondi wrote. “These two staff attorneys clearly and repeatedly failed to measure up to these standards.”

With all the evidence, where is Florida’s lawsuit against LPS? Nevada had to take the bull by the horns since you couldn’t. Speaking of “ethics, responsibility, professionalism, and performance” … NEXT!

Sun Sentinel-

An independent report released Friday cleared Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s office of any wrongdoing in the May firings of two lawyers in her South Florida office who were nationally recognized for exposing foreclosure fraud and unsavory mortgage lending practices.

The long-awaited report from Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater‘s office said no laws or policies were violated in the dismissal of Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson, who had argued that their firings came down to politics, not performance.

“A review of the circumstances surrounding the termination of Edwards and Clarkson, along with the information gathered during this inquiry, did not warrant initiating a formal investigation into a potential violation of law, rule or policy,” the report says. “During the course of the inquiry there was no specific allegation of wrongdoing made by any person, and no discovery of evidence of wrongdoing on the part of anyone involved in the matter.”

[SUN SENTINEL]

image: i-tube.net

NOTE: Below in her request appears a reference to a link @ #4 Nevada v. LPS, but where is her lawsuit against LPS??

Attorney General Pam Bondi today filed a motion asking the Fourth District Court of Appeal to certify that its recent decision in Law Offices of David Stern, P.A. v. State of Florida passes upon a question of great public importance. In Stern, the Fourth DCA held that the Attorney General’s Office lacked authority under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (“FDUPTA”) to subpoena records of the Stern firm as part of an investigation into possible misconduct in the firm’s handling of foreclosure cases.

Applicable court rules require certification from the Fourth DCA before this office may appeal the Stern decision to the Florida Supreme Court. The Attorney General’s motion asks the Fourth DCA to certify that its decision in Stern passes upon the following question of great public importance: whether the creation of invalid assignments of mortgages by a law firm and subsequent use of such documents by the firm in foreclosure litigation on behalf of the purported assignee is an unfair and deceptive trade practice which may be the subject of an investigation by the Office of the Attorney General.

.
source:  http://www.myfloridalegal.com

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Lax is a major understatement given the Atomic Bomb Nevada AG just dropped… on an Organization Bondi claims is investigating, with headquarters in Florida!

Orlando Sentinel-

As attorneys general in other foreclosure-battered states step up their investigations into fraudulent mortgage practices by large U.S. banks, some Florida groups are accusing state Attorney General Pam Bondi of being soft on the giant lenders.

Florida’s Democratic state senators recently released a video that targets Bondi, a Republican elected to a nonpartisan office. Titled “Ignoring the Florida Foreclosure Crisis,” the video contrasts new fraud investigations launched by California Attorney General Kamala Harris with controversial forced resignations of two key mortgage-fraud investigators in Bondi’s Fort Lauderdale office.

[ORLANDO SENTINEL]

You should know by now that no one and I mean no one is coming to the borrowers rescue, even after all the fraud, after all the robo-signing… No one has tried to put a stop to this fraud.

A simple halt to investigate and an examination of the documents would easily demonstrate the massive fraud happening to titles to real estate. Each day that goes by, families continue to get evicted.

But NO.

PERIOD.

END OF STORY.

Palm Beach Post-

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s effort to play catch-up and clear her name following the revelation that her office fired two highly praised foreclosure fraud attorneys suggests that she is more concerned with her image than her job.

In July, The Post’s Kim Miller broke the story of the firings, which happened in May. On Tuesday, Ms. Miller reported on emails related to the firings. In one, Ms. Bondi responds to a statement detailing that June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards were fired because of “shoddy legal work” by saying, “I can finally go to sleep now and quit worrying about how these women will attempt to destroy me.”

In another email, Ms. Bondi wrote that she learned about the firings during a “two-minute phone call” and that she “did not even know the details, nor should I have needed to know.”

Therein lies the problem.

[PALM BEACH POST]

“If she thinks that timeshare fraud is where they should be directing their attention, that reflects poorly on the people of Florida”

– Barry Ritholtz

Miami Herald-

TALLAHASSEE — Despite Florida’s struggles with Medicare fraud, foreclosure “robo-signing” and prescription drug “pill mills,” the attorney general’s top legislative priority is to clean up timeshare resale fraud.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says timeshare resale fraud is by far the top consumer complaint her office has received in the past two years. With more than 19,000 complaints since 2009, timeshare resales fraud outnumbers the next four categories combined. To tackle the growing problem, Bondi teamed up this month with two Republican lawmakers to sponsor the Timeshare Resale Accountability Act.

ALL-in-ONE, Excellent report by HuffPo’s William Alden on the facts of what went down, when those who work for the people get fired, pushed out for getting a bit too close to exposing the AG’s office.

Is she waiting for the statue of limitations to run it’s course? When there is much more left to expose.

HuffPO-

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Last December, when she was still investigating foreclosure fraud as a top lawyer in the Florida attorney general’s office, June Clarkson gave a PowerPoint presentation to a legal association.

Her presentation amounted to an indictment of Lender Processing Services, or LPS, a company near the center of ongoing state investigations into claims that foreclosures have been rushed en masse through the legal machinery, without proper documentation. She flashed images of paperwork on a screen under the heading “forgeries,” asserting that LPS’ former subsidiary, Docx, had produced phony documents to justify unlawful foreclosures.

The legal association later sent Clarkson a thank-you note, calling her tutorial “invaluable.” Word of her presentation reached New York, where a state Supreme Court judge cited it in a harshly-worded ruling that a bank lacked the right to foreclose on a Brooklyn home.

But the Jacksonville-based LPS was furious …

[HUFFINGTON POST]

Orlando Sentinel-

TALLAHASSEE — Two Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday they planned to file a reform proposal inspired by Attorney General Pam Bondi to place stronger revolving-door prohibitions into state law.

Reps. Darren Soto, D-Orlando, and Ron Saunders, D-Key West, said in a press release that the “Florida Investigation Integrity Act” they’re filing was inspired when “the Attorney General’s special counsel on foreclosure fraud “a special counsel in the Attorney General’s office esigned and then, reportedly, accepted employment with an organization he had been investigating. that has been under investigation for its foreclosure practices. Subsequently, two other attorneys in the office who were investigating the matter foreclosure fraud were terminated from their jobs.” (The updated statement was released late Wednesday afternoon.)

Background on the case, as well as Bondi, here.

[ORLANDO SENTINEL]

Tampabay-

Rep. Darren Soto, D-Orlando and state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywoold, have asked U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to intervene in the investigation of the forced resignations of two foreclosure attornesy by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

[TAMPABAY.COM]

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Tallahassee–

“I have 1,100 employees. I have trusted management in my office and the one common denominator with the people that I have hired, they’re tough former prosecutors,” Bondi said. “The only directive I’ve ever given to any employees of my office is to go after the bad guys with everything you’ve got.”

She said she trusted the judgment of three top staff aides who recommended forcing Clarkson and Edwards out. But Bondi said she was troubled by lack of documentation in personnel files and wanted an outside investigation to clear up any misgivings and make recommendations for avoiding such allegations in the future.

[TALLAHASSEE]

OS–

Earlier this year, the Florida Attorney General’s Office was in the midst of a pull-no-punches investigation into foreclosure fraud.

Investigators were exposing rampant abuses. They’d netted a $2 million settlement from one company. And they were gunning for more.

But then in May, two things happened:

First, the “special counsel” to Attorney General Pam Bondi left to take a high-level job with one of the very companies the office was investigating.

One week later, the investigators were forced out of their jobs, told late on a Friday afternoon that they had 90 minutes to decide whether to resign or be fired.

[ORLANDO SENTINEL]

Progress Florida–

Friends,

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi seems to think her first duty is to protect some of Gov. Scott’s biggest corporate pals – the banks – instead of hard working Floridians. Recently Bondi fired Florida’s two leading attorneys investigating the epidemic of foreclosure fraud ravaging our communities.

The attorneys investigating foreclosure fraud said they were forced out. Join me and sign this petition calling for an immediate investigation: http://www.progressflorida.org/bondi

June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards were tasked by then-Attorney General Bill McCollum last year to investigate allegations of widespread fraud taking place in foreclosures occurring around the state. They did their jobs well…perhaps too well for Pam Bondi.

The investigation by Clarkson and Edwards produced a blockbuster presentation entitled “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases. ” The presentation demonstrated numerous outrageous examples of blatant fraud and deception by banks and law firms initiating foreclosures known as “foreclosure mills.” Clarkson and Edward’s work was so effective it was used in other states in prosecuting foreclosure fraud . Then in May, despite a recent glowing performance evaluation, both attorneys were suddenly told by a supervisor to immediately step down or be fired.

Sign the petition calling for an investigation of Attorney General Bondi’s actions:

http://www.progressflorida.org/bondi

Thank you for your help.

July 27, 2011

Pam Bondi, Attorney General

Office of Attorney General
State of Florida
The Capitol PL-01
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050

Re – Public Records Request for Documents Related to Termination of Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson

Dear Madam General,

It has come to my attention that two assistant attorney generals, Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson, were recently terminated by your office for poor performance. However, public records indicate that these terminations occurred while they were in the midst of successful mortgage fraud litigation and in spite of prior successful reviews. As a member who represents an area ravaged by foreclosure fraud, these terminations present an overwhelming public concern.

REQUEST IS HEREBY MADE pursuant to Public Records Act, Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes that your office provides me with any and all records related to job performance of Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson within the past 3 years. Please also provide a list of all case numbers for all currently active cases managed by Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson for your office as well as the amounts of any settlements occurring within the past 3 years in any cases managed by Theresa Edwards or June Clarkson along with corresponding case number.

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my office. Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Darren M. Soto

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If you look at campaign contributions to Bondi, a certain address comes up a lot: 601 Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville. It’s the home of Lender Processing Services, its subsidiaries, and the company it recently spun off from, Fidelity National Financial.

WUSF-

Attorney General Pam Bondi is fighting back against allegations two of her foreclosure fraud investigators were forced to resign because of political pressure.

The two lawyers helped expose robo-signing and helped shut down so-called “foreclosure mills.”

They were forced to resign in May or be fired. A statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi issued Thursday says they were forced out because of poor performance, while the two women suggest political pressure did them in.

Continue reading [WUSF]