Action Date: December 10, 2011 Location: West Palm Beach, FL
In a very unusual move, the FL Supreme Court rejected the settlement in the PINO case last week and will issue a decision about fraudulent mortgage documents.
Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeals had certified a procedural foreclosure question to the Supreme Court, stating: “This is a question of great public importance” since “many, many mortgage foreclosures appear tainted with suspect documents.”
At the trial court level, PINO’s attorneys had asked the court to sanction BNY Mellon by denying it the equitable right to foreclose the mortgage at all. The district court observed that if this sanction were available after a voluntary dismissal, “it may dramatically affect the mortgage crisis in this state.”
The Fourth District Court of Appeals decision seemed to recognize that very frequently, bank lawyers used dismissals when homeowners raised a question regarding the legitimacy of the documents filed by the banks.
Advocates for homeowners were encouraged by the Supreme Court’s action denying the settlement as the final resolution.
So who exactly is NOT happy?
Perhaps the preparers and signers of the two mortgage assignments in the PINO case.
One of the Assignments was prepared by the Law Offices of David J. Stern, Esq. This is signed by Stern’s office manager, Cheryl Samons who signs as an Asst. Sect. of MERS.
This is dated September 19, 2008 – though not filed until February 18, 2009.
The Lis Pendens (beginning of the foreclosure in judicial states) was dated October 8, 2008.
This is an assignment of the Mortgage and the Note to:
The Bank of New York Mellon F/K/A The Bank of New York as Trustee for the Certificateholders CWALT, Inc. Alternative Loan Trust 2006-OC8.
For anyone unfamiliar with Cheryl Samons many acts in the Law Offices of David Stern (a law firm that spent a lot of $$ entertaining officials from FANNIE), the sworn statements from paralegals and notaries from the investigation of then Asst. A.G.s June Clarkson & Theresa Edwards (those overly aggressive FORMER prosecutors) are available for review at StopForeclosureFraud.com.
According to these sworn statements, Samons signed thousands of documents each week, allowed other people to sign her name, did not read what she signed, signed other names, etc. She did these things because her boss, David Stern, was very generous (see the articles by Andy Kroll in Mother Jones for more details on this).
The second assignment was notarized July 14, 2009 and filed July 29, 2009.
It seems they forgot all about the first assignment because once again it is an assignment from MERS to the same trust. This Assignment was also prepared by the Law Offices of David Stern. (If the first assignment was effective, of course, MERS had nothing to convey).
The signer this time was Melissa Viveros in Tarrant County, TX.
While she signs as a MERS officer, Viveros in many other reported cases appears as an officer of Countrywide Home Loans Servicing, N/K/A BAC Home Loans Servicing.
So, once again, Bank of America (then the parent of BAC Home Loans Servicing) and Bank of New York Mellon have the most to lose in the short run – and in the long run, investors in CWALT and CWABS trusts.
Two high-ranking financial whistleblowers say they tried to warn their superiors about defective and even fraudulent mortgages. So why haven’t the companies or their executives been prosecuted? Steve Kroft reports.
Two high-ranking financial whistleblowers say they tried to warn their superiors about defective and even fraudulent mortgages. So why haven’t the companies or their executives been prosecuted? Steve Kroft reports.
“It’s been three years since the financial crisis crippled the American economy,” Steve Kroft begins his 60 Minutes piece this week. “[Yet] there has not been a single prosecution of a high ranking Wall Street executive or major financial firm.”
60 Minutes producer James Jacoby wanted to find out why, and one of the first people he spoke with was Tom Borgers, a man who literally helped write the book on the financial meltdown.
Borgers was a senior fraud investigator for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), a bipartisan panel set up by the Obama administration to examine the causes of the crisis. In the end, the FCIC issued a 500-page report on its findings, required reading for James and associate producer Maria Gavrilovic.
I disagree with the judge’s motion words below and see video below as to why even attorney’s have a difficult time.
“I have a lot of problems with saying that all that’s going, with all this evidence of [c]ourt process for over a year, to just rely on trying to negotiate something with the bank was like sticking your head in the sand.
This wasn’t going to go away and they
didn’t get any assurance from the bank that
they were succeeding in their negotiation
efforts or that an answer to the complaint
was not required. I mean they just focused
on one path. And they ignored the
negotiation path and they ignored the
litigation side of things. You can’t do
that.
And I have to say that . . . Mrs. Guillaume was being so aggressive and so persistent in trying to negotiate and going to all these different places to get help,
but the one place she wasn’t going was a
member of the bar, a lawyer which is usually
what you do when you get [c]ourt papers.
Or if you absolutely can’t afford a
lawyer and that’s the case of many
foreclosures, a very heavy self-represented
area of the law to at least contact the
[c]ourt yourself and you send in some
rudimentary answer. And it doesn’t have to
be fancy. I mean you write a letter to the
foreclosure unit, they’ll stamp contested on
it.
Because I’ve seen so many of them long
hand. But nothing was done. And I don’t
regard that as excusable neglect. So that
prong is lacking.”
(emphasis added).
Simply wrong, one does NOT understand how frustrating it is to even try to get anyone from the “bank” on the phone, attempting a modification as we have read time and time again were nothing but DISASTROUS and GOING ABSOLUTELY NO PLACE!
[Please watch Michigan Atty Vanessa Fluker and you’ll understand why].
In the nearly five months since the state Supreme Court effectively allowed six of the country’s biggest banks to begin filing foreclosures again, attorneys and court officials have been expecting a flood of new filings to hit the courts.
Except it hasn’t happened. Foreclosure filings are down 83 percent as of October this year, compared with the same time period last year, according to court figures, and there are at least 100,000 cases either pending in the system or waiting to be submitted.
Attorneys involved in the work in New Jersey point to at least one reason for the significant delay: a court case that has reached the state Supreme Court, with oral arguments on Wednesday.
The case, US Bank National Association v. Guillaume, is important because the court …
My mother always said “Don’t have nothing good to say, Don’t say anything at all”
FOX BUSINESS-
The impasse over the nationwide mortgage foreclosure settlement continues, but could a meeting Tuesday provide the much needed breakthrough that brings the California Attorney General into the settlement and paves the way for a deal?
Some people close the negotiations say yes. That is because California Attorney General Kamala Harris will be attending a meeting with Iowa’s Attorney General, Tom Miller, who is leading the negotiations with the banks over faulty mortgage foreclosures and who is likely to press Harris to join the broader group.
Attorneys General for Delaware and New York secured permission from a U.S. District Judge to intervene in court proceedings discussing the Bank of New York Mellon (BK: 18.03 -0.33%) $8.5 billion settlement with Bank of America (BAC: 5.045 -3.90%) over toxic mortgage-backed securities.
The AGs are eager to get a presence in the proceedings, so they can represent the interests of the investing public in their respective states before a final deal is reached. Admission to the process gives the AGs a chance to hear where talks are going and an opportunity to object to provisions of the deal.
Absolutely no respect for the AG’s who are doing their jobs. Absolutely no consideration for the valid reasons why they simply will not settle to the greatest heist in American History.
WSJ-
Bank representatives and government officials are working on a broad settlement of most state and federal foreclosure-practices investigations that could move forward without the participation of California, long considered a key to any deal, people familiar with the negotiations said.
The terms of the deal remain fluid. Banks have proposed a deal excluding California that would carry a value of $18.5 billion, though the final outcome remains uncertain, people familiar with the discussion said.
Negotiators are continuing to make a push to persuade California to join a settlement valued at $25 billion among federal officials, state attorneys general and the …
Another home run from Michael Hudson this time deep inside several lenders
iWATCH-
Darcy Parmer ran into trouble soon after she started her job as a fraud analyst at Wells Fargo Bank. Her bosses, she later claimed, were upset that she was, well, finding fraud.
Company officials, she alleged in a lawsuit, berated her for reporting that sales staffers were pushing through mortgage deals based on made-up borrower incomes and other distortions, telling her that she didn’t “see the big picture” and that “it is not your job to fix Wells Fargo.” Management, she claimed, ordered her to stop contacting the company’s ethics hotline.
In the end, she said, Wells Fargo forced her out of her job.
“This action concerns far more than the financial interests of a few sophisticated investors,” Pauley wrote. “And the intervention of the State AGs in this action will protect the interests of absent investors.”
WSJ-
The federal judge presiding over the landmark $8.5 billion settlement between Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and major investors in mortgage-backed securities has allowed the state attorneys general of New York and Delaware to intervene in the case.
In a ruling dated Friday, Judge William H. Pauley agreed with the state lawmakers that the massive settlement carries implications for the nation’s financial markets, not just the investors who will be impacted by the pact.
“This action concerns far more than the financial interests of a few sophisticated investors,” Pauley wrote. “And the intervention of the State AGs in this action will protect the interests of absent investors.”
A recent editorial in the LA Times, “California Should Make that Mortgage Deal,” admonishes California Attorney General Kamala Harris for her insistence on ensuring that the big banks that caused the foreclosure crisis in our state pay their fair share to our homeowners. The editors urge Attorney General Harris to take the deal that’s currently on the table, even though she knows–and California’s homeowners know–that the deal isn’t good enough.
“MERS, something of a phantom entity and ReconTrust, subsidiary of BAC and not an independent entity, acting in BAC/BANA/Countrywide’s interests, now are trying to come in and clean up themess made by the fraudulent DOT and Note by BondCorp in a conspiracy with Countrywide, not because they are any real beneficiary and have or will experience any real loss, but rather to gain substantial fees from the SARM 2005-19XS Trust for foreclosing on Appellant’s property.
It is truly curious as to why the proper parties in this matter are not named and Appellant posits that other, unrelated legal actions are likely a reason. That said, Appellant has shown good cause why a trustee’s sale should not proceed so that the status quo is maintained while he presses his case in the District Court.”
No. 11-56421
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
________________________________________________________ MICHAEL M. CARNEY Plaintiff
v.
BANK OF AMERICA CORP., ET AL. Defendants-Appellees
EXCERPT:
III. Merits Of Case Are Compelling And Clear And Likely to Be Successful. It is clear that MERS and ReconTrust act to usurp Appellant’s property without lawful authority. MERS Cannot be and in fact is not the beneficiary of the DOT. There is no named beneficiary in the SOT and ANY and ALL beneficiaries must be named in the SOT. Therefore the SOT (and consequently the NTS) is seriously defective and void as an instrument to be implemented to supplant Appellant from his property.
Defendants act hurriedly and without authority not because they are uninformed or have made an excusable mistake, but rather because they wish to elude the central facts and claims against them, hold the wrongful trustee’s sale and gain title and possession of Appellant’s property to gain a superior position.
The facts are that BondCorp, who has yet to respond to any complaint or motion related to this case, was in fact named as “Grantee” when it never proffered any funds and was used by Countrywide to both gain secret, concealed fees and allow Countrywide to further gain based on intentional concealments, lies, misrepresentations and related actions.
As has been stated, the core of this matter is the claims against BondCorp acting at the behest of Countrywide. If BondCorp was found to have acted fraudulently, as asserted and supported by facts, every other claim and defense is affected accordingly.
What this court is presented with is a defendant in BondCorp who has chosen to remain silent in the face of substantial allegations and facts against it, and a foreclosing entity defendant (MERS) that is acting without authority and in clear violation of the law.
Meanwhile, Appellant has had to defend and counter all such actions and to drag out all the facts, all while in the face of losing his family home and efforts to understand what options would be available to him to avert such a catastrophic result.
Up until August/September of 2010, Appellant was resigned to the fact that his misfortune would likely lead to the loss of his family home. It wasn’t until he received and further researched the information regarding the assignment/transfer of his DOT and Note to US BANK (June 2010) that was entirely first time news to him, that he began to understand and realize the fraud, malfeasance and misfeasance enacted upon him and then which drove him to seek relief and damages for.
The facts of the case as pertains to BondCorp are clear and undisputed. BondCorp was not the “lender”. It only acted as such to attain secret fees. BondCorp utilized illegal, fraudulent means to sell and convince Appellant that the loan BondCorp wished to engage him in was in his best interests, when it was not and that all the facts represented to him regarding the alleged loan were true, when they were not and the real facts were concealed from him and that he was defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
Countrywide was an active conspirator as it allowed BondCorp to utilize its
technological assets, its underwriting resources, account numbering system and
other aids and benefits to entrap Appellant into a loan that was damaging, stated
the wrong parties and took illegal and undisclosed fees.
MERS, something of a phantom entity and ReconTrust, subsidiary of BAC
and not an independent entity, acting in BAC/BANA/Countrywide’s interests, now
are trying to come in and clean up the mess made by the fraudulent DOT and Note
by BondCorp in a conspiracy with Countrywide, not because they are any real
beneficiary and have or will experience any real loss, but rather to gain substantial
fees from the SARM 2005-19XS Trust for foreclosing on Appellant’s property.
It is truly curious as to why the proper parties in this matter are not named
and Appellant posits that other, unrelated legal actions are likely a reason. That
said, Appellant has shown good cause why a trustee’s sale should not proceed so
that the status quo is maintained while he presses his case in the District Court
The Times editorial describes why Eric Schneiderman, Beau Biden and Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California, have refused to join the 47 other attorneys general who have agreed to the settlement. The Times editorial stated,
The proposed settlement reportedly would prevent the states from pursuing claims against banks relating to fraud or abuse in the origination of loans during the bubble. (In some states, the statute of limitations has expired for bringing challenges for faulty originations but not on all loans in all states.) It would also prevent states from pursuing claims for foreclosure abuses, like improper denial of loan modifications. And it would prevent them from pursuing banks’ misconduct in their dealings with the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems database, or MERS, a land registry system implicated in bubble-era violations of tax, trust and property law. The proposal would not preclude the states from pursuing the banks for wrongdoing in the repackaging and marketing of loans as mortgage-backed securities. But, as a practical matter, the ability to fully press such claims — and to achieve significant redress — could be impeded or blocked by the other constraints. Once one avenue of inquiry is closed off, it can be difficult to ascertain what happened along other points in the mortgage chain. In effect, the legal waivers being contemplated would let the banks pay up to sweep wrongdoing under the rug.
she shares them with President Obama, who endorsed her late in 2010 for the AG office. Her brother-in-law, Tony West, was key fundraiser for Obama in California, having helped raise $65 million for Obama in the state, and he is considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. He now works at the DOJ and has expanded the Civil Rights department to take on some elements of mortgage fraud. The DOJ has an internal directive to make mortgage fraud a top priority, but what mortgage fraud means to the DOJ are mortgage modification scams and penny ante borrowers ripping off fly-by-night lenders. West, while not the direct actor in the DOJ’s settlement talks, is in all likelihood involved in pressure on state AGs to sign on to a settlement. And it’s simply inconceivable he hasn’t dealt with his sister-in-law and political ally on the matter. Harris and West are part of a coherent political network, and much of the strength of that network has to do with reinforcing the traditional bank-friendly policies of the Democratic elite and then using that to create political support.
The first indication that as California AG Harris was more sympathetic to the Obama side of the ledger on banking is that one of her first decisions as AG was to let off Angelo Mozilo without admitting to wrong-doing or personally paying a fine (the small money that went to restitution came from Bank of America shareholders). I suspect the issue is actually more personal to her than legal, not because she particularly cares about finance or foreclosures, but because her friends and allies are very concerned about ensuring that the banks get a release. In their view, this will cause the housing market to clear, the economy to recover, and then help reelection chances.
The political problem for Harris is that she was elected by liberal votes, and she’s getting enormous public pressure to resist signing on to a settlement that is perceived as favorable to the banks. While she backed out of an immediate settlement a few weeks ago, she refused to join the joint investigation by Eric Schneiderman and Beau Biden of the foreclosure fraud crisis. She has sat on the sidelines, trying to figure out what to do.
Appeal-Democrat has a different view-
There is no three-strikes law for crooked bankers, not even a law for a fifth strike, as The New York Times reported in the case of Citigroup, cited last month in a $1 billion fraud case. Unlike the California third-striker I once wrote about whom a district attorney wanted banished forever to state prison for stealing a piece of pizza from the plate of a person dining outdoors, Citigroup executives get off with a fine and by offering a promise not to do it again, and again and again.
As the Times reported when Citigroup agreed to settle SEC charges last month: “Citigroup’s main brokerage subsidiary, its predecessors or its parent company agreed to not violate the very same antifraud statue in July 2010. And in May 2006. Also as far back as March 2005 and April 2000.”
The banks want California, and the Obama administration hopes they can get it.
NYT-
In September, the attorney general of California, Kamala Harris, withdrew from settlement talks between the banks and federal and state officials over mortgage abuses. Ms. Harris said California was being asked to excuse bank conduct that has not been adequately investigated and to grant the banks an unacceptably broad release from legal liability for the mortgage mess.
We undertook such an inquiry, building on the work of many others. And we know time is of the essence. Homeowners and investors are suffering every day, and patterns of abuse and misconduct are continuing. We’re working hard to complete the first — and most critical — phase of our investigation before the end of 2011.
POLITICO –
America’s free markets work only when there is one set of rules for everyone — and everyone plays by those rules.
It is now clear, however, that many in the mortgage finance industry ignored the rules over the past decade. This led to a breakdown in our housing market and in the market for mortgage-backed securities.
I think this is the case in every state and all will agree
North Jersey-
In a small Bergen County courtroom one recent Friday, a sheriff’s officer auctioned off two foreclosed properties in a matter of minutes, as a handful of investors kept their eyes open for bargains.
It was a far cry from the typical sheriff’s auction of mid-2010, when 15 or more properties were auctioned weekly and up to 100 investors crowded the courthouse’s large jury room.
[…]
The reason: an August appellate court decision, Bank of New York v. Laks, according to Kevin Wolfe, head of the state’s Office of Foreclosure. In that case, the court dismissed a foreclosure, finding the lender violated the state Fair Foreclosure Act because it didn’t properly identify itself in a notice sent to the troubled homeowners.
I clearly see this as one thing, FHFA’s Ed DeMarco is keeping CA AG Harris from moving forward on the Foreclosure Fraud Settlement. Hmm this is getting interesting.
HuffPO-
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has called on the head of the agency that houses Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “step aside” if he continues to refuse to reduce mortgage loans for underwater homeowners.
“It has become clear to me that the only way to keep distressed California homeowners in their homes is through meaningful principal reduction,” Harris said in a statement Thursday.
The lack of meaningful principal reduction is what drove Harris in late September to exit the multistate settlement talks with major banks that are led by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller with the support of the Obama administration. The attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, Minnesota, Delaware and Nevada have also bridled at the settlement efforts, finding the banks’ expected $25 billion write-down to be inadequate to protect their states’ homeowners from losing their property.
Imagine if ever state participated in setting new laws? C’est la vie to fraudulent documents!
Still shocking that there are settlement talks when an investigation NEVER took place. I’m also surprised that the AG’s going after the banks, are getting absolutely no respect from the other AG’s to follow…
Remember that it’s not just a bunch of AGs at the table here. It’s also the Obama Administration. And therein lies the problem…
Credit Slips-
The NY Times had some details today about the multi-state attorney general mortgage servicing settlement in the works. It looks every bit as awful as one might have feared. Here’s the criticial take-away: this is bupkis. It gives meaningless relief to a meaningless number of randomly or adversely selected homeowners. It doesn’t do justice, even by halves.
First, though, there’s a detail reported in Gretchen Morgenson’s otherwise insightful piece that I have on good source is incorrect. The piece states that the banks would be doing principal write-downs on loans they own or service. That’s gotta be incorrect. The banks can do principal write-downs only on loans that they own. They have no legal authority to pledge write-downs on loans that they service on behalf of investors. (Remember the Greenwich Financial suit against Countrywide for doing just that?)
There’s a critical implication here, then about the scope of the multi-state settlement: at best 20% of the population of underwater mortgagees will be helped by this settlement, say 2.2 million homeowners. The other 8.8 million (and probably 10 million by my reckoning) are SOL. How do you think they’re going to feel about their AGs? About their President? Too many times have American homeowners been promised help without receiving any. It’s getting old.
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