Erin Cullaro, a former assistant Florida attorney general who was fired last year after moonlighting for a “foreclosure mill,” continues to serve on a state committee that investigates other lawyers for ethical violations.
Some lawyers and consumer advocates question whether such a position of authority with the Florida Bar is appropriate.
“The bar’s self monitoring leaves much to be desired,” said Lisa Epstein, of Foreclosure Hamlet.org, which tracks cases of foreclosure fraud.
Cullaro, who worked for the attorney general’s economic crimes division in Tampa, was fired in April following a formal reprimand by Gov. Rick Scott’s office, which questioned variations of her signature on legal documents.
The attorney general’s office has fired Erin Cullaro, an assistant Florida attorney general reprimanded last year for moonlighting for a “foreclosure mill.”
The termination follows a second reprimand in March from Gov. Rick Scott’s office, which questioned variations of her signature on legal documents.
The signature that was used to notarize affidavits of “reasonable attorney fees” is not the same signature she was commissioned to use, according to a letter from Scott’s office.
Q. Okay. And who would do the title search?
2 MS. HILL: Are you asking who did the title
3 search in this case?
4 MR. IMMEL: Yes.
5 A.Generally for the firm, again, the title
6 company that — that we’ve engaged to do the title
7 search and exam is New House Title.
8 BY MR. IMMEL:
9 Q. Okay. And what relationship does New House
10 Title company have to Florida Default Law Group?
11 A. New House Title is a —
12 MS. HILL: Well, I’m going to object to the
13 form of the question.
14 MR. IMMEL: Okay.
15 MS. HILL: He just said that the firm engages
16 New House Title, so —
17 MR. IMMEL: Right.
18 MS. HILL: — it would appear they have a
19 relationship of vendor and vendee, but your
20 question was objectionable.
21 MR. IMMEL: Okay.
22 A. It’s the title company we engage to provide
23 the service. And I believe what we are getting to is
24 the fact that the law firm owns the title company.
25 BY MR. IMMEL:
Q. Okay. That is reflected on — commonly on
2 affidavits and things of that nature. Does Florida
3 Default Law Group solely utilize New House Title as
4 their — to review — do title searches?
<SNIP>
22 Q. Okay. Okay. Do you personally know Lisa or
23 Erin Cullaro?
24 A. I do.
25 Q. You do. Okay. And as I’m sure you’re aware,
1 we’ve sought to take the depositions of Lisa and Erin
2 Cullaro in numerous cases and those affidavits were
3 withdrawn. Are you familiar with that issue within this
4 case?
5 MS. HILL: I’m sorry. Are you asking this
6 witness as to what — what transpired in this
7 particular case, this foreclosure case?
8 MR. IMMEL: Yes. Based on his personal
9 involvement.
10 MS. HILL: Okay. Then objection. You’re
11 assuming facts that have not been established.
12 You’re mischaracterizing his testimony. As far as
13 I can tell, the only fact that you’ve established
14 regarding his personal involvement is the
15 Assignment of Mortgage that is Exhibit A. And
16 whether that’s a part of this file or not a part of
17 this file are two different issues. But you have
18 not established that Mr. Wolfe individually has
19 served as an attorney with respect to the
20 prosecution of this foreclosure action, and so
21 asking him questions as to what may or may not have
22 transpired as part of the prosecution of this
23 foreclosure action is improper.
24 MR. IMMEL: Okay.
25 BY MR. IMMEL:
<SNIP>
14 Q. Are you choosing not to answer that you have
15 any personal knowledge as to whether or not affidavits
16 have been withdrawn by Lisa and Erin Cullaro?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You have no personal knowledge that —
19 A. I’m refusing to answer.
20 Q. You’re refusing to answer. Okay. Did you
21 ever discuss having their depositions taken with either
22 Lisa or Erin Cullaro?
23 MS. HILL: Same objection. Same instruction.
24 BY MR. IMMEL:
25 Q. And are you choosing not to answer based on
1 your attorney’s instructions?
2 A. Yes, I am choosing not to answer.
3 Q. Okay. Did you ever instruct Lisa Cullaro or
4 Erin Cullaro that Florida Default Law Group would
5 aggressively defend having their depositions taken in
6 this case or any other cases?
7 MS. HILL: Same objection. Same instruction.
8 BY MR. IMMEL:
9 Q. Are you choosing not to answer as to whether
10 or not you have any personal knowledge regarding the
11 Cullaro deposition, Lisa Cullaro or Erin Cullaro’s
12 deposition based on your attorney’s recommendation?
13 MS. HILL: That’s a different question. But
14 to that question, it’s the same objection and the
15 same answer.
16 A. I have —
17 MS. HILL: I mean, the same objection and the
18 same instruction.
19 A. Yes. I’m not going to answer. I have no idea
20 what — what deposition of Lisa Cullaro you’re
21 referencing.
22 BY MR. IMMEL:
23 Q. Do you — do you have any personal knowledge
24 that our office has sought the deposition of Lisa
25 Cullaro or Erin Cullaro?
By Lynn E. Szymoniak, Esq., Ed. Fraud Digest, May 6, 2010
CALIFORNIA – ORANGE COUNTY
Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC
Tom Croft and others
CALIFORNIA – SAN DIEGO COUNTY
Chase Home Finance
FLORIDA – BROWARD COUNTY
Patricia Arango, Caryn Graham and others
Law Offices of Marshal Watson
FLORIDA – BROWARD COUNTY
Cheryl Samons, Beth Cerni and others
Law Offices of David Stern
FLORIDA – DUVAL COUNTY
Lender Processing Services
Valerie Broom, Margaret Dalton, Michele Halyard, Michael Hunt, Joseph
Kaminsky, Kathy Smith, Coleman Stokes and others
FLORIDA- HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY
Florida Default Law Group or Law Offices of Daniel Consuegra
FLORIDA – PALM BEACH COUNTY
Ocwen Loan Servicing
Scott Anderson, Oscar Taveras, Doris Chapman, Jonathan Burgess, Laura
Buxton and others
FLORIDA – PINELLAS COUNTY
Nationwide Title Clearing
Bryan Bly, Vilma Castro, Dhurato Doko, Jessica Fretwell and others
GEORGIA – FULTON COUNTY
Lender Processing Services
Linda Green, Korell Harp, Jessice Ohde, Linda Thoresen, Tywanna Thomas,
Cheryl Thomas, Christie Baldwin and others
MINNESOTA -DAKOTA COUNTY
Lender Processing Services
Liquenda Allotey, Topeka Love, Christine Anderson, Christine Allen, Eric Tate
OHIO – FRANKLIN COUNTY
Chase Home Finance
Christina Trowbridge, Whitney Cook and others
PENNSYLVANIA – ALLEGHANY COUNTY
Home Loan Services, Inc.
PENNSYLVANIA – MONTGOMERY COUNTY
GMAC (and Homecomings Financial)
Jeffrey Stephan, John Kerr and others
SOUTH CAROLINA – YORK COUNTY
America’s Servicing Company
John Kennerty, China Brown and others
TEXAS – COLLIN COUNTY
BAC Home Loan Servicing, f/k/a Countrywide Home Loans Servicing, LP
TEXAS – DALLAS COUNTY (COPPELL, TX)
American Home Mortgage Servicing
TEXAS – HARRIS COUNTY
Litton Loan Servicing, LP
Marti Noriega, Denise Bailey, Diane Dixon and others
TEXAS – TARRANT COUNTY
Saxon Mortgage Services
TEXAS – TRAVIS COUNTY
IndyMac Bank Home Loan Servicing
Brian Burnett, Kristen Kemp, Suchan Murray, Chamagne Williams and others
TEXAS – WILLIAMSON COUNTY
IndyMac Bank (years after IndyMac Bank, F.S.B. ceased to exist, many of the signers will sign as officers of IndyMac Bank, F.S.B. (the entity that should have made the assignment to the trust years ealier)
Erica A. Johnson-Seck, Dennis Kirkpatick, Eric Friedman and others
UTAH
SALT LAKE COUNTY
Select Portfolio Servicing
Luisa Alfonso, Bill Koch and others
Many mortgage-backed securitized trusts are missing critical documents needed to foreclose – i.e., the mortgage assignment. An excellent discussion of this is found in the decision of Massachusetts Land Court Judge Keith Long reaffirming a 2009 ruling (Ibanez) that invalidated foreclosures on two properties because the lenders did not hold clear title to the properties at the time of the foreclosure sale. Mortgage assignments were a key issue in Ibanez, a case that involved ineffective assignments to the Trust. Judge Long noted:
…the plaintiffs’ own securitization documents required mortgage assignments to be made to the plaintiffs in recordable form for each and every loan at the time the plaintiffs acquired them. Surely, compliance with this requirement would (and certainly should) have been a priority for an entity issuing securities dependent on recoveries from loans, such as these, known from the start to have a higher than normal risk of delinquency and default. U.S. BANK, N.A. v. Antonio Ibanez, et al., Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Land Court Dept., 08 MISC 384283 (KCL).
This Ibanez decision and many others deal with the issue of mortgage assignments prepared years after the closing date of the trust, usually when the Trustee or mortgage servicer has realized that the Trust does not have the assignment needed to foreclose or has a defective assignment – such as one issued in blank, unsigned and undated.
Many trusts and servicers try to replace the missing assignments, often with assignments executed within a few months of the foreclosure – and in many cases even after the foreclosure is filed or the home is sold (in non-judicial foreclosure states). The date and place of the Assignment often reveals whether the Assignment is actually a “replacement” – issued years after the Trust closed, and even years after the original lender supposedly making the Assignment disappeared into bankruptcy.
The servicer rarely identifies itself and discloses that this is an attempt to replace a missing assignment. It is, therefore, very useful to know that Mortgage Assignments notarized in the counties above are more often than not replacement Assignments prepared by or on behalf of the Trusts – by the servicers for the Trust or document preparation companies working for the servicers, or even law firm employees working for the Trust.
Please send corrections/additions to szymoniak@mac.com.
Posted by Harriet Brackey on April 30, 2010 10:46 AM SunSentinel
If you want to speak to Florida’s Attorney General about foreclosure or loan modifications or mortgage fraud, here’s your chance.
Saturday, May 8, in Miami, Attorney General Bill McCollum will be on hand for a Mortgage Fraud Community Forum. He’s hosting the event with Florida’s Interagency Mortgage Task Force.
The session is on “The Housing Crisis, Who to Trust and Where to Turn.”
It’s open to the public and free, but reservations are required. Call 877-385-1621.
It will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, Chapman Conference Center, 300 N.E. Second Ave.
The AG’s office says you can get help on how to face foreclosure, housing scams, mortgage fraud, loan modifications and finding legal assistance.
Certified housing counselors, volunteer lawyers, as well as representatives of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo/Wachovia and SunTrust will be on hand.
Also attending will be representatives of:
Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Office of Financial Regulation, Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Florida Bar, Dade County Bar Legal Aid Society, Cuban American Bar and the Collins Center Foreclosure Mediation Program.
TAMPA – The Florida Attorney General’s Office is investigating a Tampa-based foreclosure law firm that has become one of the state’s largest foreclosure mills.
On the agency’s Web site, the attorney general showed it has an “active public consumer-related investigation” into Florida Default Law Group. The agency notes that it is a civil investigation, rather than a criminal one, and the fact that is has an investigation isn’t proof of any violation of law.
Without going into much detail, the attorney general’s Web site says Florida Default Law Group, “Appears to be fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases.
“These documents have been presented in court before judges as actual assignments of mortgages and have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient. Presenting faulty bank paperwork due to the mortgage crisis and thousands of foreclosures per month.”
Attempts to reach the Attorney General’s Office and Michael Echevarria, the head of Florida Default Law Group, were unsuccessful Thursday.
Based in a business park just off the Veteran’s Expressway, Florida Default Law Group files hundreds of foreclosure lawsuits alone in Hillsborough County on behalf of banks and mortgage servicing companies. The Tribune profiled Florida Default Law Group in January.
According to the Tribune’s review of 1,994 circuit court records, the firm filed initial legal documents for 323 foreclosure lawsuits in October. That was second only to the Law Offices of David J. Stern, a Broward County-based foreclosure firm that filed 352 foreclosure cases in October.
Florida Default Law Group operates in numerous counties in Florida, but it’s not clear how many lawsuits it files outside of Hillsborough County.
Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865.
These are precarious times for lawyers in the business of filing foreclosure cases for banks. This is particularly true in one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis, Florida.
As we’ve noted before, the feds in Jacksonville recently started a criminal investigation of a company that is a top provider of the documentation used by banks in the foreclosure process. And a state-court judge ruled that a bank submitted a “fraudulent” document in support of its foreclosure case. That document was prepared by a local law firm.
For more Law Blog background on the foreclosure mess in our nation’s courts, this post will help.
The news today: the Florida Attorney General’s office said it has launched a civil investigation of Florida Default Law Group, based in Tampa, which is one of the largest so-called foreclosure-mill law firms in the state.
According to the AG’s website, it’s looking at whether the firm is “fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases.” It added: “These documents have been presented in court before judges as actual assignments of mortgages and have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient.”
The issue: judges are increasingly running into situations in which banks are claiming ownership of properties they actually don’t own. Some of them end up chewing out the lawyers representing the banks.
The AG’s office said Florida Default Law Group appears to work closely with Lender Processing Services — the company we referenced earlier that is being investigated by the Justice Department.
LPS processes and sometimes produces documents needed by banks to prove they own the mortgages. LPS often works with local lawyers who litigate the foreclosure cases in court. Sometimes those same law firms produce documents that are required to prove ownership.
We’ve reached out to Florida Default Law Group and LPS and will let you know if we hear back.
The case file cited below relates to a civil — not a criminal — investigation. The existence of an investigation does not constitute proof of any violation of law.
Case Number:
L10-3-1095
Subject of investigation:
Florida Default Law Group, PL
Subject’s address:
9119 Corporate Lake Drive, Suite 300, Tampa, Florida 33634
Subject’s business:
Law Firm, Foreclosures
Allegation or issue being investigated:
Appears to be fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases. These documents have been presented in court before judges as actual assignments of mortgages and have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient. Presenting faulty bank paperwork due to the mortgage crisis and thousands of foreclosures per month. This firm is one of the largest foreclosure firms in the State. This firm appears to be one of Docx, LLC a/k/a Lender Processing Services’ clients, who this office is also investigating.
AG unit handling case:
Economic Crimes Division in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the attorneys at Ice Legal may be the most aggressive and hard charging Foreclosure Fraud Fighters in Florida. When this whole system comes crashing down and when judges and the Florida Supreme Court put an end to the systemic abuses of the court process being perpetrated by the foreclosure mills, the attorneys at Ice Legal will rightly take their fair share of the credit.
Attached here is a must read Motion along with a copy of a transcript from a hearing held in a Volusia County Courtroom. The Motion lays out a very disturbing set of allegations…
This is a foreclosure action filed by WELLS FARGO BANK, NA (the “BANK”). The BANK is represented by Florida Default Law Group, P.L. (“FDLG”). On behalf of the BANK in this case, and on behalf of other clients in other cases, FDLG filed affidavits to establish that the attorneys’ fees it was allegedly paid were reasonable. The affidavits purport to have been executed by Lisa Cullaro, the appointed expert on attorneys’ fees. The notary who allegedly administered the expert’s oath and vouched for her signature was Erin Cullaro, a former employee of FDLG and now an Assistant Attorney General in the Economic Crimes Division of the Office of the Attorney General.
Not only was Erin just a former employee, she was one of the lead counsel for Michael Echeverria, the owner of FDLG (Florida Default Law Group)
These are precarious times for lawyers in the business of filing foreclosure cases for banks. This is particularly true in one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis, Florida.
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