by Twain Jr     (c) 2011

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Part I: http://twainsthoughts.com/2011/04/29/can-mers-legally-foreclose-anywhere-part-i/

Part II: http://twainsthoughts.com/2011/05/06/can-mers-legally-foreclose-anywhere-part-ii/

Part III: http://twainsthoughts.com/2011/05/11/can-mers-legally-foreclose-anywhere-part-iii/

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Issues of Robo Signing

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In this episode I describe the grotesque pernicious fraud committed by major lenders, servicers, and banks to fraudulently use a 21st alchemy that turns worthless Deeds of Title into cold hard cash.  Using foreclosure mills having armies of robo-signers willing to sign false affidavits on forged and fraudulent documents for less than 3 cents a signature they perfect their holdings on non-recourse debt into unblemished and unclouded title holdings. Combining their newly but fraudulently generated unclouded titles with fraudulent testimony of Lost Note Affidavits they use unwarranted powers to foreclose and flip worthless commercial paper into cold hard cash.  It’s especially effective in non-judicial state where their crimes may go entirely unnoticed.  The rich get richer.  The poor become poorer and fall into abject poverty left homeless, hungry, and filled with emptiness and despair.  Regulators either hide their heads in the sand or sell their souls for a few precious pieces of silver.

Issues of false affidavits were not widely recognized by courts in contested foreclosure proceedings. At least not until years later.  After years of people like Lynn Szymoniak trying to get people to listen on this fraud a single deposition suddenly caused the legal system to take note.  That was the deposition of Jeffrey Stephen / Ally Bank aka GMAC – available from a link in my sidebar.  There is a “video” deposition “of Stephen” floating on the web that IS FAKE (or perhaps intended as a satire).  The person in the video IS NOT Jeffrey Stephen, at the time 41 years of age.  However, facts presented in transcripts of the real Jeffrey Stephan’s deposition performed by Ice Legal are not.    At some point before his deposition a catchy, but apt phrase “Robo-Signer” caught on.

New Jersey State Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner entered an order To Show Cause “In The Matter of Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Pleadings and Document Irregularities” in Civil Action No. F-059553-10, Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division, General Equity Part, Mercer County on December 20, 2010. Six mortgage servicing companies and their bank-owners were ordered to show cause why the Court should not suspend their rights to foreclose.

First on the list was Ally Financial, formerly known as GMAC. Ally/GMAC is the employer of Jeffrey Stephan who was exposed as one of many “robo-signers” – a phrase indicating that an employee signed thousands of documents used in foreclosure cases with no idea of the truth of the matters asserted in the documents, and more often than not, without even having read what was signed.

Stephan signed thousands of Affidavits, but he signed tens of thousands of Mortgage Assignments – the documents used by mortgage-backed trusts to show that the trusts acquired the mortgages at issue and have the right to foreclose.

Stephan signed these Mortgage Assignments for many different mortgage-backed trusts. Over 50 RALI (Residential Accredit Loans, Inc.) Trusts relied almost exclusively on Mortgage Assignments signed by Stephan. Over 44 RAMP (Residential Asset Mortgage Products) Trusts also used Assignments churned out by Stephan. At least 20 RASC (Residential Asset Securities Corp.) Trusts used Stephan assignments almost exclusively in foreclosures. At least 40 other mortgage-backed trusts, including certain Aames Mortgage Investment Trusts, certain Bear Stearns Trusts and certain Harborview Trusts all relied on Ally/GMAC’s Stephan for proof of their right to foreclose.

These trusts needed the Stephan-made assignments because the trusts’ depositors, sponsors, trustees and document custodians failed to obtain the critical documents, including notes and assignments, at the inception of the trust – despite promises to investors and regulators that these documents had been obtained and were being safeguarded.

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In Florida, Stephan’s name appears on thousands of Mortgage Assignments, most often on documents prepared by the Law Offices of David Stern, who is under investigation by the Florida Attorney General. In almost every case, Stephans signed as a Vice President of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems.

According to the Stephan documents, the trusts almost always acquired these mortgages AFTER they were already in default, and often AFTER foreclosure proceedings had been initiated.

Many different banks, in their capacity as Trustees for mortgage-backed trusts, used Stephan Assignments, but Stephan documents were most often used by Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Bank of NY Mellon and U.S. Bank.

Assuming that each trust has mortgage loans with a face value of one billion dollars – and that over 200 trusts are involved, the amount in controversy is staggering.

Also disturbing is the number of Assignments on Stephan/Stern documents where the assignee trust is unidentified. The Stephan/Stern team repeatedly prepared and filed Assignments where only the Trustees – and not the trusts themselves – were identified as the new owners of the mortgages. “U.S. Bank as Trustee” and “Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas as Trustee” are the new owners of thousands of mortgages.

Stephan often wrongly stated his own job title, the date the assignment to the trusts took place, and the identity of the trusts. Stephan’s conduct – and the documents he produced – will not stand up to the most superficial examination. Chief Justice Rabner seems determined to dig much deeper.

The other five companies named by Chief Justice Rabner have the very same problems, having produced hundreds of thousands of flawed loan documents for mortgage-backed trusts, signed by individuals with very limited knowledge or authority. Their role was to sign their names without questioning or understanding what they signed.

According to Chief Justice Rabner, the next step may be the Appointment of a Special Master “to inquire into and report to the court on the extent of irregularities concerning affidavits, certifications, assignments and other documents from time to time filed with the court in residential mortgage foreclosure actions…” Past and present business practices would be examined and the Master could also consider whether sanctions should be imposed…and a suggested formula to determine an appropriate sanction.”

By his Order, Chief Justice Rabner gave hope to hundreds of thousands of victims of fraud by securities companies, banks, mortgage companies and mortgage servicing companies.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45722048/Mortgage-Fraud-in-New-Jersey-Alliy-Financial-and-Onewest-Bank

Robo-Signers sign hundreds, and sometimes thousands of documents every day attesting to facts they themselves never determined.  At one time I was of the opinion a “Robo Signer” might need to sign thousands of false affidavits to earn the term.  I have come to realize, it’s a poor definition.  Anyone working as a “signer” in a firm recognized as a foreclosure mill providing low level workers willing to sign forged documents as “V.P.”s and “Assistant Secretary’s”  is deserving of the term.  Does it make any difference if one employee, ‘Alice’ worked only for half a day and quit deciding it was an inappropriate activity after signing less than a thousand documents, while co-worker ‘John’ remained for four years signing hundreds of thousands of documents!  Although ‘Alice’ should be commended for taking a stand, it would still be fair to say the documents she signed – were signed by a Robo Signer.  My point is that, once a firm has been identified as employing an army of “robo signers”, anyone designated at the firm to “sign” false affidavits needs to be recognized as a bona-fide “robo-signer”.  ALL the documents at such firms need to be recognized of being suspect for  bearing purposes of fraudulent intent.

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James McGuire:

“With all the failure of compliance with law in the creation of the secondary market trusts, this writer is alarmed that the “Robo-Signing” and “Robo-Verification” will only serve the financial institutions with a diversionary method to conceal a greater fraud. The “Robo” actions and accounting for all previous failure to comply with laws of governance show proof the financial institution will commit any number of frauds to protect their Friday Paycheck and Crystal Tower Bonuses.

“It may be, just may be possible to prove up the Mortgage Note but you can “NEVER” prove up a lost “Perfection of Lien.” Regardless of the number of Affidavits files with the courts and regardless of the number of Assignment of Mortgage files of record, none of these actions will perfect a lien nce perfection has been lost. Proper procedure for default recovery of an unsecured note — suit for monies: “but you cannot foreclose.”

“THEY ARE SUING UNDER A CAUSE OF ACTION THAT IS NOT AVAILABLE,” if filing for foreclosure.”

http://www.scribd.com/doc/55259593/Amicus-Curiae-James-Mcguire

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Depositions of many robo signers can be found in the links of my sidebar.  For the record, depositions are difficult for attorneys to obtain. A proper numerization of their number is at least in the hundreds.

Robo-signers seldom appear in person at foreclosure related trials. They don’t need to!  That is the purpose of an affidavit.   It’s a sheet or a few sheets of paper stating facts the signer attested to certifying as correct by ACTUALLY CHECKING original notes, deeds, and loan files; or alternatively images of the documents.  However, actually verifying any of the facts on documents placed before them has not happened.  In one deposition a signer for Wells Fargo – Alden Berner, stated he did check fact, and that was his only role as a “Legal Process Specialist”.   … But then stated the only facts he checked were basically a couple of names to make sure the right parties were listed on the documents.  It is doubtful he has a law degree based on facts presented in his deposition.    The “Investor Matrix” he checked didn’t provide any additional information.  He could check another “MSP” system for additional loan information … but he never did.  ”It wasn’t a requirement at Wells Fargo”.  He  swore under oath that a system he could use for additional information was designed in-house.  Likely a lie – as by his description the software systems available  sounded VERY similar in nature to software designed by LPS: Lender Processing Services, NOT Wells Fargo.

The depositions of most robo signers indicate they sign thousands of documents a day, often huddled together in a room where large stacks of documents to sign are shoved before them.  Many of these “Vice Presidents” work for minimum wage.  They don’t work at ANY of the addresses they attest to working at on their affidavits.   It would be physically impossible for them to be at multiple addresses hundreds and thousands of miles away on documents they signed a few seconds or minutes apart!   The address they do work at may be listed on assignments … but only to show a “Return To” or “Prepared By” address.  ”Return To” addresses show for defunct lenders are not addresses ever used by the defunct lenders, but instead are addresses of the foreclosure mills forging the documents reflected in a c/o line.   NO designation is given to indicate the “V.P.” signers work for the firm named into the “Return To” or “Prepared By” blocks.  Instead one assignment shows Bryan Bly as a notary working for and at “Washington Mutual” in Florida.  The next shows he is an “Attorney-In-Fact”  for “The FDIC on behalf of IndyMac”, and his work address is in Kalamazoo MI!  I understand the inference of his having Power Of Attorney for the FDIC having an address in Kalamazoo MI.  The assignment shows that in a text well above his signature.  BUT what does the same address immediately below his signature infer?   The assignment is transferring ownership to “OneWest” bank – in Pasadena, CA.

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The next assignment bearing Bryan Bly’s signature as a “Vice President” is a bit hard to describe, since it makes little sense.   “Vice President” of what corporation??   Shouldn’t that be listed NEXT to his signature?  The assignment shows Mr. (or is it Ms.?) CITI Residential Lending as Attorney-In-Fact for DEFUNCT Argent Mortgage Co granting all conveyance and other rights to Deutsche Bank National Trust Company for Argent Securities Inc. Asset Backed Securities (ABS) Series 2005-W2 located in Santa Ana CA.  Nowhere in the assignment does Ms. “CITI Residential Lending”‘s signature appear (pardon my wry humor).    Well, I guess I failed to recognize, the next paragraph does show that Bryan Bly is a “REAL(?)” Vice President of  ”CITI Residential Lending”, while Ms. “CITI Residential Lending” is Attorney-In_Fact for Argent Mortgage Co. – personally notarized and affirmed to be wholly and absolutely true by Bobby J Stoldt.  Got it – all clear!

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Assigned from DEFUNCT Argent Mortgage??  How did DEFUNCT Argent Mortgage assign POA to “CITI Residential Lending” and direct “VICE PRESIDENT” Bryan Bly to transfer it’s “GOOD??” title to … whom?  Deutsche Bank National Trust Company is identified … well obviously as a trust company!  So it’s acting as a trust but not the assignee!  Who is the assignee??  It can’t Argent Mortgage .. although DEFUNCT they are identified as the assignor.  ”Citi Residential Lending” is identified as Attorney-In-Fact for DEFUNCT Argent Mortgage.  Assuming DEFUNCT Argent Mortgage had said capacity, then Citi Residential Lending is also the assignor conveying title on Argent’s behalf … TO WHOM???  Argent Mortgage ceased operations in August of 2005, and was under  cease and desist orders at the time.  The orders were very shortly afterwards made permanent.

http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/georgia_issues_cease_and_desist_as_to_argent_mortgage_company_llc/)

Argent could not conduct commerce of any kind in 2009.  Citi Residential Lending could not have Power of Attorney over Argent Mortgage business affairs.  Citi Residential Lending cannot assume Power-Of-Attorney by over any person or entity simply be declaring it to be so!

They cannot assign themselves POA over Argent Mortgage so,  any more than I can announce having Power-Of-Attorney over John Doe’s personal and/or business affairs without having written and signed instructions from Mr. Doe to be embodied with such powers! 

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Return to “American Home Servicing” on the second line?  Where are they named anywhere in the assignment as having any interest in the mortgage?  That wouldn’t happen to be the REAL workplace address of the signers, would it??  Well no, actually.  That’s on the next line of the assignment: c/o NTC in Palm Harbor, FL.   What interest did American Home Servicing have in the assigned mortgage?   Was there possibly a mix-up that resulted in a conveyance either to or from the wrong party?  Was the assignment supposed to indicate somewhere a conveyance TO “American Home Servicing”?  Well…… It does not!

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In the next assignment Bryan Bly is a “REAL” Vice President of Ameriquest in CA.  Ms. “CITI Residential Lending” is an Attorney-In-Fact conveying all rights to Deutsche Bank National Trust on behalf of ABS 2005-R1.  Return to “American Home Servicing”?  Again, what interest did American Home Servicing have in the assigned mortgage?

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Another assigns a mortgage FROM SunTrust of Richmond, VA to MERS!  .. Return to “SunTrust” …. c/o NTC at their Palm Harbor, FL address.

The next assigns a mortgage FROM “Financial Freedom Senior Funding Corp” of GA (a former Lehman Brothers subsidiary) to MERS.  .. Return to “Financial Freedom Senior Funding Corp”  … c/o NTC at their Palm Harbor, FL address.  What is particularly odd is the signature by “Vice President” Durhata Doko”.  What strikes me as odd is that most of her signatures are scribbley DDs.  This assignment spells out her signature in full .. and in a style completely different from her other scribbley markings.   Why would her “D”s be strikingly different?

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This assignment has Bryan Bly working for CitiMortgage in Frederick MD.  BOTH his and Crystal Moore’s signature are remarkably different from the forms found in other assignments.

A Satisfaction of Mortgage on behalf of Saxon / Meritech with ANOTHER variation of both their signatures.

MERS as nominee for GMAC is the OWNER and HOLDER of a certain mortgage deed…  How can that be?  Depositions of MERS top executives testified under oath that MERS does not, and never has held notes OR deeds!  (Available in my side bars).   If MERS didn’t have it, and GMAC didn’t have it at the time of the assignment – who did??

The relationship among various banks in the assignments is not clear, unless the affirmations made by the “pretender” V.P.s”, Attorneys-In-Fact, and notaries are respected to be true. Depositions have confirmed their “testaments” were in fact, fraudulent; they are only “pretender” V.P.”s that do not work at the addresses stated, do not have incomes high level executives might have, do not sit in any boardrooms, have any rights generally granted to high level company executives, or receive any direct income from the banks they claim to represent.

When judges examine records of assignment from prior recorded holders, shouldn’t they be considering if the value of consideration by the prior holders reflects a cloud in chain-of-title in and of itself?  Why would Argent Mortgage, Fieldstone, Aegis, Long Beach, WAMU, or Ameriquest convey THEIR $200,000 mortgage titles to One West, Wells Fargo, or JPM for a meager $10 UNLESS the title was already clouded and impossible to foreclose upon?  If the debt is SO HARD to collect that it is only worth $10 to the current holder – how can it be worth the effort in time and money of directing conveyance to another entity?

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Check an actual file showing signatures noted above in Nationwide Robo Signatures (PDF), permanently linked under Video Depositions on my sidebar.  The document is on a third party unaffiliated site. I suggest you download a hard copy while it’s available.

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The many signatures of Deborah Brignac.  The first two very quite a bit.  Page 6:  Why all the bank names?  If a mortgage was ALREADY properly conveyed from Long Beach to Washington Mutual and from Washington Mutual to JP Morgan Chase, then shouldn’t the assignment only show the mortgage already registered in JP Morgan’s name to Deutsche bank?  If the conveyances were not made … then presumably JPM does not own any rights to the mortgage!  The assignment shows JP Morgan Chase as Successor to Washington Mutual as successor to Long Beach.  Next we have Deborah Brignac as Vice President of JPMorgan, as Vice President of Washington Mutual, and as Vice President of Long Beach .. on the same conveyance of assignment?

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Not quoted verbatim:  (Wells Fargo: Action by Written Consent)

“To reduce delays in foreclosures” … Wells Fargo hereby deputizes … list of signers… “as Vice President Loan Documentation” in a strictly limited capacity.  It is a very short list that named eight firms, and 14 signers.   SO …few of the actual signers in fact had a POA bestowed upon them NOT having been included in Wells Fargo’s own ’Action by Written Consent‘ list!!     Attorney Steven J Baum had signing authority “in a strictly limited capacity”, but none of his lawfirm workers were listed.   (In 2005) Attorney Lawrence T. Phelan and Michele Bradford could sign documents at Federman and Phelan, in a strictly limited capacity; but none of the other workers at their law firm.

“RESOLVED, that the election of the above individuals to serve as officers is undertaken for the exclusive purposes set forth herein and shall not entitle any such individual to status as an employee or officer of the Bank, including, without limitation, any participation in employee benefit plans, indemnification policy or insurance protection otherwise available to officers or employees of the Bank.”

… Not being “real” executives at any of the banks they sign for is a serious problem, in my opinion.  If judges knew the signers were only “Pretender V.P.s” with only Power of Attorney capacity they would be highly unlikely to bless their conveyances! But, in this case the document failed to bestow any of their ACTUAL signers with proper POA, other than the select few real attorneys!

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Oddly, the scribley signature of the corporate executive’s name on Wells Fargo’s Action of Written Consent seems eerily similar to the form taken by many robo signers, admitted by the real  Linda Green of DOCX in 60 Minutes to be intentionally crafted to make them easy to forge.  Did you catch how much one of the “Linda Green” surrogate signers was paid for signing her name to affidavits?  He was being paid 3 cents for each signature.

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The DOCX Price Sheet / Alice’s Restaurant Menu

A Price Sheet once distributed by former LPS subsidiary DOCX in Alpharetta Georgia shows just how callous, pernicious, and purposeful foreclosure fraud was.  The subsidiary may be gone, but their practices were adopted by foreclosure firms in multiple states, and was not confined to LPS.   For little more than $95 and a few additional charges they would “Recreate an entire collateral file” – perpetrators could use to claim false title to deeds!  Read closely – they will access a national network of runners to get information needed from County Recorded offices.   Curtis Hertel surely must have noticed them constantly rushing in and out of his county office to fetch and file information.   They gave VOLUME DISCOUNTS!  Recreate LOST NOTE AFFIDAVITS.  No problem!  Create Allonges?  Done!  Cure Defective Assignments?  You bet!

“Evidence is mounting that for cost reasons, starting in the 2004-2005 time frame, originators like Countrywide simply quit conveying the note. We are told this practice was widespread, probably endemic. The notes are apparently are still in originator warehouses. That means the trust does not have them (the legalese is it is not the real party of interest), therefore it is not in a position to foreclose on behalf of the RMBS investors. So various ruses have been used to finesse this rather large problem.

The foreclosing party often obtains the note from the originator at the time of foreclosure, but that isn’t kosher under the rules governing the mortgage backed security. First, it’s too late to assign the mortgage to the trust. Second. IRS rules forbid a REMIC (real estate mortgage investment trust) from accepting a non-performing asset, meaning a dud loan. And it’s also problematic to assign a note from the originator if it’s bankrupt (the bankruptcy trustee must approve, and from what we can discern, the note are being conveyed without approval, plus there is no employee of the bankrupt entity authorized to endorse the note properly, another wee problem).

Not only are there prices up for creating, which means fabricating documents out of whole cloth, and look at the extent of the offerings. The collateral file is ALL the documents the trustee (or the custodian as an agent of the trustee) needs to have pursuant to its obligations under the pooling and servicing agreement on behalf of the mortgage backed security holder. This means most importantly the original of the note (the borrower IOU), copies of the mortgage (the lien on the property), the securitization agreement, and title insurance.

Also notice that there is a price for creating allonges. We discussed earlier that phony allonges have become the preferred fix for the failure to convey notes properly:

The cure for the mortgage documents puts the loan out of eligibility for the trust. In order to cure, on a current basis, they have to argue that the loan goes retroactively back into the trust. This is the cure that the banks have been unwilling to do, because it is a big problem for the MBS. So instead they forge and fabricate documents.

The letter in particular mentions an allonge. An allonge is a separate sheet of paper which is attached to a note to allow for more signatures, in this case, endorsements, to be added. Allonges have had a way of magically appearing in collateral files while trails are in progress (I’ve seen it happen in cases I was tracking; it’s gotten so common that some attorneys warn judges to be on the alert for “ta dah” moments).

The wee problem with an allonge miraculously being discovered is that the allonges that show up are inherently in violation of UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) provisions (UCC has been adopted by all states, a few states have minor quirks, but the broad provisions are very similar).

An allonge is NOT to be used unless all the space on the original note, including the margins and the back side of pages, has been used up. This is never the case. Second, an allonge has to be so firmly attached to the original document as to be inseparable. Thus an allonge suddenly being discovered is an impossibility (well impossible if it were legit), yet it seems to happen all the time.

This revelation touches every major servicer and RMBS trustee in the US. DocX is a part of of Lender Processing Services. Lender Processing Services has three lines of business, the biggest of which is “default services”, representing close to half its revenues of this over $2 billion in revenues company. DocX is its technology platform it uses to manage its national network of foreclosure mills.

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How Much Did Claimed Holders of Robo-Signed Assignments Pay for The Debt They Foreclose Upon?

How much banks, servicers, and lenders paid for their “Asset Backed (?) Securities” depends on when they acquired it, how they acquired it, from whom they acquired it, how much their source wanted for it, and often specific terms requiring purchasers prove they can properly “handle” securities.  In some instances, for example TALF, terms were purposely complex and obtuse to obfuscate the true market value of the securities sold to their purchasers.

From time-to-time I have been posting ab article of a Dylan Ratigan Video where Dylan and Eliot Spitzer ask: What’s In The Bag?

http://twainsthoughts.com/2011/04/30/whats-in-the-bag/

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My full set of answers to the questions I posed are intended for another article.  Suffice it to say the assets in the back are of JUNK status, and virtually worthless.  ”Worthless” unless a dash of alchemic fraud is used to turn trash into cash.

Listen closely to Eliot.  “We had all this collateral that was values at 100x.  We woke up top find it was only worth x.”  What does he mean, it was worth 100x?  Make sure you are neither imbibing a liquid or devouring food as you read on.

Put simply it means a lender of $100,000 on a home to borrower who defaulted could be sold on the market for about … $100,000 — 100 cents on the dollar.   We woke up to find it was worth x.  After some period of time passed his $100,000 collateral ‘Deed’ could only be sold on the open market for $50,000 — or 50 cents on the dollar, when sold in “big lots”.  More time passed,and the collateral could only be sold for $20,000 — 20 cents on the dollar.  Then $10,000 — 10 cents on the dollar.  And NOW?  $1,000 or less  – 1 cent on the dollar! That is x!  The value of the ‘DEED’ on the open market went from 100x to x! Shocking?  You read right!  When bought in large quantities many TOXIC assets can now be bought for less than one cent on the dollar.   If you’re already among the wealthy you can even get PAID to take the debt off the FED’s hands through a program called TALF!  I’ll explain how  that works in a different article.

That can’t be you say!  You just saw a neighbor buy a house for $125,000 that previously sold for $200,000!  A bargain, and a steep discount; but it’s not a penny on the dollar!  In fact that’s more than 50 cents on the dollar.

Let me explain.  You are confusing a purchase of homes with a purchase of Deeds of Title (DOTs).  TOXIC, CLOUDED Deeds of Title — Loans — I.O.Us.  Your neighbor didn’t buy a thousand homes when he purchased his house for $125,000!  He just – wasn’t into buying in big lots.  In contrast the TALF buyer may have purchased 10,000 DOTs, or I.O.U.s if you prefer. The TALF and open market buyers didn’t purchase 10,000 homes!  That would consume a bit too much space, and too heavy to fit inside his or her satchel.  They are buying, instead worthless commercial paper that is no longer backed by assets.  All the debt holders can do, without resorting to outright, purposeful, and pernicious fraud, is badger borrowers of the debt to either make good or file bankruptcy.  They neither hold rights to foreclose or garnishee.  Alternatively they can flip their debt to another buyer for more, or possibly less, than they paid for it – for a profit or loss.

(* In the case of debt purchased through TALF the debt flippers can always profit since TALF PAID them to buy the debt by giving the debt buyers 20 to one leverage with no recourse on their own loans used to buy the debt!  How TALF participants game the TALF program to their own benefit is fodder for another article.)

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Some Notable Quotes

In many cases, the Assignments appeared after the Ben-Ezra firm had already alleged that the original documents were lost. In such cases, no explanation was ever offered by the Ben-Ezra Firm regarding the newly-found documents.

The Fannie Mae action is similar to an action taken earlier against The Law Offices of David Stern. While Stern also used Docx and Lender Processing Services, most of its Assignments came from its own law firm office manager, Cheryl Samons, who signed tens of thousands of Mortgage Assignments as an officer of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.

Many courts have now recognized that documents produced by mortgage servicing companies are unreliable when such documents are signed en masse by robo-signers, clerical employees who sign without any actual knowledge, expertise, training and often without having even reading the documents they sign. These mass-produced documents have caused courts in Florida, Maryland, New Jersey and New York to implement rules to safeguard the Courts and litigants from unreliable documents submitted in foreclosures. On January 19, 2011, Sheila Bair, the head of the FDIC, called for the establishment of a foreclosure claims commission “to provide remedies for borrowers harmed by past practices.”

http://www.frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=4695

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On January 25, 2011, Fraud Digest disclosed that FANNIE MAE has relied on Mortgage Assignments prepared by its own lawyers, using titles of MERS officers, to prove ownership of mortgages. 

FANNIE took these actions to avoid filing foreclosures in its own name to reduce bad press, counterclaims and complaints that it frequently failed to work with homeowners to provide any meaningful modification alternatives to foreclosure. 

Most often, these cases involved FANNIE-owned defaulted loans originated by Countrywide. 

FANNIE directed BAC Home Loans Servicing to initiate the foreclosures in BAC’s name. 

Because court rules required that the foreclosure lawsuits be filed in the name of the entity that actually owned the mortgages, FANNIE paid to have two mortgage assignments prepared. 

First, an assignment was made from MERS, as Nominee for Countrywide Home Loans to the servicing company. Second, after the servicing company successfully foreclosed, the mortgage would be assigned to FANNIE by the servicer. 

This way, FANNIE got the same result as if it had sued in its own name but without much of the bad press and lawsuits. The legal fees could be described as “mortgage servicing fees.” 

In this scheme, both Assignments were usually signed by employees of the law firm hired by FANNIE to pursue the foreclosure. On the first assignments, the law firm employees signed as officers of MERS, never disclosing to the Courts or homeowners-in-foreclosure that they were actually working for FANNIE. 

Many of these “MERS-Officer/law firm employees” are now under investigation by the state Attorney Generals investigating foreclosure fraud. 

http://frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=4694

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On January 12, 2011, a class action securities lawsuit was filed in the Middle District of Florida against Lender Processing Services seeking to recover damages caused by defendants’ alleged violations of the federal securities laws. The lawsuit identified Lender Processing Services as one of the mortgage servicing companies that used robo-signers to falsify mortgage ownership documents. 

As an indicator of the magnitude of the problem, Fraud Digest determined the following: 

Lender Processing Services’ subsidiary Docx filed 383 Mortgage Assignments* in Palm Beach County, in the last quarter of 2009. 

In 314 of these cases, these Docx Mortgage Assignments were used to prove that a mortgage-backed securitized trust had acquired the mortgage. 

The total amount of the loans securing these Palm Beach County mortgages claimed by these trusts using Docx documents was $ 92,819,516. 

By most estimates, Docx prepared over 1.5 million Assignments to securitized trusts from 10-1-2008 to 12-31-2010. 

As some indicator of the magnitude of the problem, 1.5 million divided by 314 (4,777) multiplied by $92,819,516 = $443,398,827,932, (or approximately $443.4 Billion). 

Other mortgage servicing companies engaged in similar practices include America’s Servicing Company (owned by Wells Fargo), BAC Home Loans Servicing (owned by Bank of America), Chase Home Financial (owned by JP Morgan Chase), Litton Loan Servicing (owned by Goldman Sachs) and 15 smaller mortgage servicing companies that together produced an estimated 5 million suspect mortgage assignments from 2008-2010. 

http://www.frauddigest.com/fraud.php?ident=4693

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http://www.scribd.com/doc/47274681/Robo-signers-MERS-Slandered-Titles-and-the-Terror-Lurking

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Comment / Opinion

$443 Billion as alleged above is ONLY the tip of the iceberg in fraudulent mortgage assignments used to foreclose.  (Since MOST assignments are executed AFTER and NOT before trustee sales have occurred they are technically used to fraudulently make a retroactive claim “validating” foreclosures that have already occurred using back-dated assignments!).  (See citation of COURT findings regarding deposition of Jeffrey Stephan at top of this article.) The REAL fraud extends into trillions of dollars.

Please explain the lack of outrage against  state AGs attempt of a whitewash settlement with banks  for at most $20 billion – and any consideration of a counter offer by banks for $5 billion!  A settlement rumored to include terms that would forgive major banks, lenders, and servicers of admission to any wrongdoing!

BANKS KNOWN to have made trillions of dollars in fraudulent transactions; authorized 3rd party or in-house fraud factories to forge documents; and commit perjury to produce “LOST NOTE AFFIDAVITS”  used to magically transform CLOUDED, TOXIC, and WORTHLESS paper into unclouded, sound and highly valued deeds.

Allowing regulators and law enforcers at this high a level to wave a magic wand that indemnifies perpetrators who used 21st century alchemy to execute the largest fraud in history and keep their ill-gotten gains while the brothers and sisters; sons and daughters of those left destitute by foreclosure and found stealing dresses from a retail store or shoes from a shoe store are charged with criminal offenses by those same AGs is completely, utterly, and totally unacceptable.

There cannot be one law for the politically connected and powerful rich; and another for the poor and destitute.  Policies to commit intentional fraud are not created by faceless corporations.  The policies to commit intentional fraud are discussed in high level boardrooms; with person-to-person verbal contacts; and inter-office emails by executives at the highest levels of the largest corporations in America.  It requires personal commitments by executives who, recognizing they have mountains of worthless paper; can use the alchemy of ‘foreclosure mills’ to turn trash selling in open markets for pennies on the dollar into gold.

Where are the indictments for executives of the banks and lenders that commited the felonious acts?  The acts of purchasing “junk” debt in large volumes was not performed without executive level instructions.  The act of contracting third party vendors to use forged signatures and false notarizations to launder broken chains of title into unclouded titles was not effectuated without the highest levels of executive direction.  It appears to be particularly pernicious at OneWest Bank who purchased the bad debt of IndyMac and forming OneWest when the FDIC could not find any existing banks willing to take on their bad debt.  OneWest may be the most suitably apt bank fitting William K Black’s book title: The Best Way to Rob a Bank is To Own a Bank?

Why are there not multiple grand jury investigations already convened to look-into fraudulent robo-signed mortgage assignments and illicit foreclosures? — Twain Jr

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How bad is the “junk” graded commercial paper purchased by Onewest, similar TALF purchasers, and open market buyers ?  Follow some suitable quotes:  The quotes are from Jan 2010!

Commercial paper represented as falling from “AAA” grade to “JUNK” grade exponentially in 70% or larger blocks by the start of 2010  have almost certainly fallen at or close to 100% junk grade today. The debt is no longer asset backed, being last assigned to long dead corporations.   Without resorting to felonious acts current holders of the debt can only badger impoverished borrowers for further payments at a possibly high expense to themselves using rooms filled with phone callers.  … But .. using a bit of 21st century alchemy, TOTALLY FALSE “Lost Note Affidavits” and “Robo-Signers ‘R US” willing to validate retroactively back-dated assignments from the dead and defunct corporations to themselves.  Launder bad debt assigned to dead defunct corporations into unclouded titles assigned to active corporations with notes “held in trust” by Deutsche Bank .   Laundered assignments from VERY defunct corporations, no longer operating in any mode – seldom not operating even under a bankruptcy protection !  LONG GONE dead and defunct corporations asphyxiated by past but copious misdeeds of gluttony.

Bear Stearns leveraged its reputation and dominance in mortgage finance to entice companies such as Ambac to insure loans plagued by rampant fraud … Bear Stearns promised that its mortgage loans originated through proper means andd idn’t result from fraud, misrepresentation or gross negligence. Yet … Ambac discovered widespread breaches of representations in almost 80 percent of thedocuments supporting 695 defaulted loans it studied.  

The Illinois Attorney General initiated a lawsuit against Countrywide and Angelo Mozilo, Chairman of the Board and Chief  Executive Officer through July 1, 2008, contending that the company and its executives sold borrowers costly and defective loans that quickly went into foreclosure. See The People of the State of Illinois v. Countrywide Financial Corporation,et al., No. 08CH22994 (Cook County Ch. Ct.), (the “Illinois AG Complaint”). Additionally, the Illinois AG Complaint alleges Countrywide employees were incentivized to increase the number of loan originations without concern for whether the borrower was able to repay the loan. Countrywide employees did not properly ascertain whether a potential borrower could afford the offered loan, and many of Countrywide’s stated income loans were based on inflated estimates of borrowers’ income. 

As early as March 2008, federal prosecutors had already convicted one American Home sales executive, Kourash Partow, of mortgage fraud. According to a March 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal article, after conviction, Partow, who worked for Countrywide before joining American Home, sought a lighter sentence on the grounds that his former employers (Countrywide and American Home) not only had knowledge of the loan document inaccuracies but in fact encouraged manipulation by intentionally misrepresenting the performance of loans and the adequacy of how the loans were underwritten. Partow’s attorney argued that Countrywide and American Home had competitive cultures that encouraged a blindeye mentality.  

According to a May 5, 2008 article in The Globe and News, prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York were investigating American Home for criminal activityincluding reporting misrepresentations in securities filings about the company’s financial position and quality of its mortgage loans, failing to disclose a rising number of loan defaults and engaging in questionable accounting to hide losses.  American Home’s systematic disregard for its underwriting guidelines led to dramatic downgrades of the Certificates where American Home acted as a principal originator. Currently, 76.67% ($687.04 billion) of the Certificates that were initially rated AAA have been downgraded to speculative “junk” status or below. Current delinquency and default rates on the American Home originated collateral have risen exponentially since issuance of the Certificates– from 0.0% as of the cut-off dates to 75.1% as of January 1, 2010.  

Ameriquest, T&C and Argent are, at times, collectively referred to herein as the “Ameriquest Loan Sellers.” The Ameriquest Loan Sellers were principal originators for the BSABS Series2006-AQ1, 2007-AQ1 and 2006-HE5 Offerings. The total value of the three (3) Offerings forwhich the Ameriquest Loan Sellers were principal originators was $1.32 billion, of which 80.4%,or $1.06 billion, was initially rated AAA/maximum safety.

In one lawsuit against Ameriquest, plaintiff Mary Overton alleges that loan officers at a Brooklyn (NY) branch of Ameriquest coerced Overton into signing a loan. Unbeknownst to Ms. Overton, Ameriquest created fake tax returns, employment records, and a401(k) to make it appear that the loan was affordable. According to other court filings, at least 40 other borrowers allege Ameriquest doctored loan documents or increased borrowers’ income.

According to a December 7, 2008, article in the Miami Herald, employees of Argent, including a vice president named Orson Benn, actively assisted mortgage brokers in falsifying borrowers’ financial information by “tutoring . . . mortgage brokers in the art of fraud.” Employees “taught [brokers] how to doctor credit reports, coached them to inflate [borrower] income on loan applications, and helped them invent phantom jobs for borrowers” so that loans could be approved. According to Mr. Benn himself, “the accuracy of loan applications was not a priority.” The Miami Herald examined the applications for 129 loans funded by Argent and found at least 103 that contained “false and misleading information” and “red flags:non-existent employers, grossly inflated salaries and sudden, drastic increases in the borrower’s net worth.” As the article noted, “the simplest way for a bank to confirm someone’s income is to call the employer. But in at least two dozen cases, the applications show bogus telephone numbers for work references . . . .” Argent’s lack of verification was so poor that a “borrower[who] claimed to work a job that didn’t exist . . . got enough money to buy four houses.

According to a May 11, 2008 Cleveland Plain Dealer article, Jacqulyn Fishwick, who worked for more than two years at an Argent loan processing center near Chicago as an underwriter and account manager, noted that “some Argent employees played fast and loose with the rules” and stated “I personally saw some stuff I didn’t agree with.” Ms. Fishwick “saw [Argent] account managers remove documents from files and create documents by cutting and pasting them.”

Current delinquency and default rates on the Ameriquest Loan Sellers originated collateral have risen exponentially since issuance of the Certificates – from 1.43% as of the cut-off dates to 82.0% as of January 1,2010.

Appraisals on properties originated by GreenPoint were inflated asappraisers knew if they appraised under certain levels they would not be hired again. Thus, the appraisals were inherently unreliable and there was little to support the value and adequacy of the mortgaged property.

As stated in Business Week Magazine in November 2008, GreenPoint’s employees and independent mortgage brokers, accordingly, targeted more and more borrowers who were less able to afford the loan payments they were required to make, and many had no realistic ability to pay off the loans. 

Many of GreenPoint’s Alt-A loans were actually subprime loans. The practice of quantity over quality continued until December 2008 when Capital One Financial Corp. (“Capital One”), which had purchased GreenPoint less than a year earlier, took an $850 million charge, and shut down the mortgage wholesaler’s operations,according to a Washington Business Journal dated August 21, 2007.

In U.S.Bank Nat’l Ass’n, et al., v. GreenPoint Mortgage Funding, Inc., No. 09-600352 (N.Y. Sup. Ct.),a consultant concluded that 93% of the loans that GreenPoint sold contained errors, omissions, misrepresentations and negligence related to origination and underwriting.

100% ($589.67 million) of the Certificates that were initially rated AAA have been downgraded to speculative “junk” status or below. Current delinquency and default rates on the GreenPoint originated collateral have risen exponentially since issuance of the Certificates – from .37% as of the cut-off dates to 61.8% as of January 1, 2010.

High-fee, high-risk mortgages fueled Aegis’ astronomic growth. As the need for these mortgages increased, loan underwriting standards were loosened to the point of near abandonment by 2006. A large portion of the loans Aegis originated during this time were repurchased from unlicensed mortgage brokers. Because investment banks like Bear Stearns purchased Aegis’ loans, underwriting standards were disregarded and quantity became more important than quality.  Aegis’ Divisional head of underwriting, Helen Spavile, bullied the understaffed East Coast underwriting department in Jacksonville, Florida, to approve whatever loans were sent there for approval, resulting in the guidelines being ignored.

On August 13, 2007, the company was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

Currently, 87.18%($996.89 billion) of the Certificates that were initially rated AAA have been downgraded to speculative “junk” status or below. Current delinquency and default rates on the Aegisoriginated collateral have risen exponentially since issuance of the Certificates – from 3.45% asof the cut-off dates to 70.0% as of January 1, 2010.

On March 17, 2006, according to PR Newswire, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition filed a civil rights complaint against Fieldstone and its parent, Fieldstone Investment Company, exposing Fieldstone’s underwriting practice of using minimum loan values to “redline low to moderate income communities and/or exclude row houses that are situated in African American or Latino communities.”

In November 2007, just four months after the C-BASS acquisition, Yahoo Business reported that Fieldstone was forced to seek bankruptcy protection due to mounting losses caused by delinquencies and foreclosures. At the same time, C-BASS  itself went through a $3.8 billion out-of-court restructuring as a result of what the Daily Deal described on November 27, 2007 as “unprecedented margin calls caused by the weakened mortgage industry.

On March 27, 2009, US Fed News reported that an undercover operation had resulted in fraud charges against 24 defendants, including brokers, business owners and appraisers who dealt regularly with Fieldstone. The indictment in United States v. Ruwaida Dabbouseh and Khalil Qandil, No. 09-CR-231 (N.D. Ill.), whereby an undercover agent posed as a prospective buyer, alleges that brokers, in March 2007, prepared and submitted loan applications containing false statements pertaining to the agent’s employment and identity to Fieldstone. A business owner working with the brokers then submitted verification of employment falsely representing that his company employed the agent. Based on these representations, Fieldstone loaned the agent $153,000.

Bear Stearns Litigation

http://www.scribd.com/doc/55647224/Bank-of-America-Robo-Signer-List

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Pause for thought:  Were any of the “Robo Signers” – employees paid 3 cents for each affidavit falsely attested to - actually listed on any of the written consent orders given by banks granting them limited “Vice Presidential” rights?  Or were they, themselves,  CONNED by the very companies they work for; while their LPS CEO, with a salary NOT including stock options of $11 million per year,  became excessively rich at the expense of their sweat and false affidavit churning? Sure, executives informed their workers everything they did was legal. But… Was it just a known and intentional lie to keep their fraud factories working at full-speed?  Did consent orders granting limited Power of Attorney  rights possibly only grant limited signing rights to real legal attorneys at the mills, and not the non-attorney and non-paralegal lowly paid robo signer employees?

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Multi-billionaires committing fraud?  For what possible reason?  They could live the rest of their lives in the lap of luxury.  Avarice, Malice, Greed, and Gluttony.

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Listen to ANY of Bill Black’s video interviews or presentations for insight into “control fraud”; or read episodes and notes from my tome.

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Deposition of Nationwide Title’s Erika Lance by Ice Legal.

(Read from Page 22. Essentially Mr. Bly in Nationwide is what they refer to as a “signer”.  He comes in, he sits at a desk, he signs and notarizes documents.  That is, pretty much, all he does all day.)

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In Part V  a summary of points made in  L Randall Wray’s expose: “Nightmare on WallStreet”.