News Update - Mortgage Fraud

A valentine from Chief United States Bankruptcy Judge Karen S. Jennemann on Feburary 14, 2012:

The Court cannot avoid suspecting that the second allonge indeed was created solely to rebut the trustee‘s assertions in this litigation and did not previously exist. If so, the Court suggests Deutsche and Ms. Faber individually consider the possible consequences of propounding potentially false evidence and perjured testimony to the Court.

Muselman v. Deutsche Bank, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division, Case No. 6:10-bk-07828-KSJ. Document 67, page 8.

As gratifying as this recognition of fraudulent documents may be, it does raise the question: just what are the consequences of propounding false evidence and perjured testimony to the Court. With the exception of a few judges and a few decisions, there have been no consequences whatsoever.

News Updates - Mortgage Fraud

Action Date: February 7, 2012
Location: Boone Country, MO

DocX, LLC, a mortgage document company and a subsidiary of Lender Processing Services (“LPS”) in Jacksonville, Florida, was indicted on February 6, 2012, by a grand jury in Boone County, Missouri. Lorraine O’Reilly Brown, a former Senior Vice President of Lender Processing Services, and the founder of DocX, was also indicted. This was the first case in which a senior officer of a mortgage document company was charged with crimes relating to mortgage document preparation.

Brown and DocX were each charged with 68 counts of forgery, a class C felony in Missouri and 67 counts of False Declaration, a Class B misdemeanor.

The felony charges can each carry a term of imprisonment not to exceed seven years and a fine not to exceed $5,000 or double the gain from the crime up to $20,000. The misdemeanor charges each carry a term not to exceed six months, and a fine of $500 or double the gain up to $20,000.

The case will be prosecuted by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster. “Today’s indictment reflects our firm conviction that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters,” Koster said. “Mass-producing fraudulent signatures on millions of real estate documents across America constitutes forgery. When you file those documents in our state, you are committing a crime under Missouri law.

The indictment focuses on Deeds of Release, documents issued by banks and mortgage companies when a homeowner/borrower successfully pays off their loan. In some states, these are also called Satisfaction of Mortgages. The documents examined by the grand jury and identified in the indictments were signed by many different people signing the name Linda Green. This practice was first exposed in a segment of 60 Minutes that aired in 2011.

Other employees of a subsidiary of Lender Processing Services were indicted in 2011 in Nevada by Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. These employees notarized mortgage documents that had been signed by LPS employees using false names and false job titles.

LPS has steadfastly defended these practices and even coined a term, calling the forgeries “surrogate signing.” Regarding the use of false job titles, LPS has defended this practice by saying such titles were authorized by corporate resolutions from many different banks and mortgage companies.

But while publicly defending these practices, lawyers working for LPS have been filing thousands of “corrective” mortgage assignments in county records throughout the country. In tens of thousands of cases, employees signed the name Linda Green to mortgage documents and identified Green as an officer of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (“MERS”) though the real Linda Green did not qualify to serve as a MERS certifying officer because she was not an officer of her actual employer.

Conferring of officer titles to non-employees via corporate resolutions was one of the many practices challenged in a civil lawsuit brought by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan against another mortgage document mill, Nationwide Title Clearing, on February 2, 2012.

Employees in the DocX office signed names to mortgage documents 4,000 times a day for several years. They most often signed false names and false officer titles to mortgage satisfactions and mortgage assignments. The assignments were very often used in foreclosure cases to prove that residential mortgage-backed trusts owned the mortgages and had the right to foreclose even though the trusts had never obtained the necessary documents during the securitization process.

These practices will be a significant part of the examination to be conducted by the mortgage securitization fraud task force, announced by President Obama during the State of the Union address. The taskforce will be co-chaired by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who filed a lawsuit against MERS and three major banks on February 3, 2012. The New York lawsuit was similar to the lawsuits filed by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden on October 27, 2011 and by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley in December, 2011.

According to the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Biden, “MERS engaged and continues to engage in a range of deceptive trade practices that sow confusion among consumers, investors, and other stakeholders in the mortgage finance system, damage the integrity of Delaware’s land records, and lead to unlawful foreclosure practices.”

The DocX mortgage documents permeate the records of almost every county recorder in the country. From July 1, 2008 through December 31, 2009, 1,742 DocX mortgage assignments were filed in Palm Beach County, transferring mortgages valued at $560,239,797. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company and American Home Mortgage Servicing were two of the most frequent users of the DocX documents, but over 30 banks and mortgage companies were clients of DocX.

News Update - Mortgage Fraud

• Bank of America
• Citibank
• Countrywide
• Docx, LLC
• JP Morgan Chase
• Lender Processing Services
• MERS
• Nationwide Title Clearing
• Washington Mutual
• Wells Fargo

Action Date: January 18, 2012
Location: Salem, MA

Saying that the time has come for a full scale criminal investigation, Southern Essex District Register of Deeds John O’Brien, today has sent some 31,897 of what he says are fraudulent documents that have been recorded in the Salem Registry to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz. O’Brien said that he is asking these officials to impanel a Grand Jury to look into the evidence that he has presented. “I am confident that these documents will show a pattern of fraud, uttering and forgery. These documents are signed by known robo or surrogate signers, whose signatures were supposedly witnessed by notary publics. In addition, these documents may contain fraudulent information in the body of the documents. I believe that a criminal investigation is the next step to hold the perpetrators responsible.” O’Brien praised Attorney General Coakley for her aggressive pursuit of wrongdoing in her civil action but noted that other states such as California, Nevada, Illinois and Michigan have launched criminal investigations, and O’Brien is hopeful that Massachusetts will do the same. O’Brien strongly suggests that the Grand Jury should subpoena both the past and present Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of the Mortgage Electronic Recording Systems, Inc. (“MERS”), Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Countrywide, Washington Mutual among others. In addition, he is asking that the top officials of DOCX, Nationwide Title Clearing, Inc. and LPS also be subpoenaed. “These companies have been retained by MERS and its member-banks to produce the documents that I am alleging contain fraudulent information. It is one thing to go after these institutions with a civil action, but the only way to let them know that you are serious is to call them before a Grand Jury.” O’Brien said, “There is no question in my mind that the officers of these banks and loan processing servicers made a conscious decision to commit fraud and participate in a scheme to deprive the public from knowing the true holder of their mortgage while at the same time avoiding paying billions of dollars in recording fees. It is my opinion that they acted as a criminal enterprise, crossing state lines to commit their crimes and in most cases using the U.S. Postal Service to send these documents to registries of deeds, thereby committing mail fraud. We need to know what they knew and when they knew it. Until the CEOs who allowed these fraudulent activities to happen under their watch are sent to jail for what they did, these types of illegal behaviors will continue.” Just last week, O’Brien’s Registry received 3 documents from Bank of America, all signed by a known robo-signer, Linda Burton. O’Brien said, “If they are sending them to me, of all people, it is safe to assume that they are sending them to registries across the country.” O’Brien refuses to record any documents signed by a robo-signer on his list unless those documents are accompanied by an affidavit attesting to the signature. So far, he has not received one affidavit. “That clearly shows me that those documents were in fact fraudulent.” O’Brien said that if he or anyone else went into one of these major banks and forged a signature on a loan document they would be arrested and sent into jail. So it begs the question, why haven’t these CEO’S been held accountable? O’Brien cited the case of the individual who walked into a Walmart and tried to make a purchase using a fraudulent One Million Dollar bill. He was arrested and charged with attempting to obtain property by false pretence and uttering a forged instrument. O’Brien said, “As far as I am concerned, this is what these banks have been doing for years. Make no mistake, MERS and its member-banks are taking people’s homes using fraudulent documents and that is something we do not do in America.” In addition, O’Brien is zeroing in on the major foreclosure law firms that he believes have acted as a co-conspirator in flooding the registries of deeds with these fraudulent instruments. “These attorneys should know better. They have acted as co-conspirators in perpetrating this fraud. I am sending a letter to the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers asking that they conduct an independent investigation into the activities of these firms. Unlike our Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, I understand that there are other Attorneys General and other public officials across the country who would like nothing better than to sweep this matter under the rug and grant these lenders, loan servicing companies and their foreclosure-mill attorneys immunity for the damage that they have caused, not only to our economy but to people’s property rights. They would be willing to accept pennies on the dollar, a slap on the wrist, and a promise to never do it again. If that should happen, it would be the biggest sellout of the American People that I have ever seen. It would send the wrong message that the big boys can get away with anything. As I have been saying all along, they may think they are too big to fail, but as far as I am concerned, they are not to big to go to jail. The top officials at MERS, its member-banks, servicers and foreclosure-mill attorneys must be prosecuted and held accountable for their fraudulent schemes that brought profits to their institutions by cutting corners, circumventing land recordation systems through fraud, uttering and forgery.”

News Update - False Statements

• Truth-In-Mortgage Documents

Action Date: January 11, 2012
Location: West Palm Beach, FL

Legislation needed in every state:

The Truth-In-Mortgage Documents Act

1. On every Mortgage Assignment, and every Missing or Lost Assignment Affidavit, filed in the Official Records of any county in this State, or filed in any Court in this State, each signer, including any witness or notary, must sign his or her own name, regardless of any authorization by any individual or entity to sign any other name.

2. On every Mortgage Assignment, and every Missing or Lost Assignment Affidavit, filed in the Official Records of any county in this State, or filed in any Court in this State, each signer, including any witness or notary, must set forth his or her actual job title, and the name of his or her actual employer, regardless of any authorization by any individual or entity to state any other job title or employer. Any individual signing as an officer of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (”MERS”) must state the name of the Nominee/Lender in addition to setting forth his or her actual job title, and the name of his or her actual employer.

3. On every Mortgage Assignment, and every Missing or Lost Assignment Affidavit filed in the Official Records of any county in this State, or filed in any Court in this State, each signer, including any witness, must set forth his or her actual work address at the time of the signing, regardless of any authorization by any individual or entity to state any other address.

4. On every Mortgage Assignment filed in the Official Records of any county in this State, or filed in any Court in this State, the effective date of the Assignment must be plainly and exactly set forth by day, month and year. Effective dates such as “On or before” are not permitted.

5. On every Mortgage Assignment, and every Missing or Lost Assignment Affidavit, filed in the Official Records of any county in this State, or filed in any Court in this State, each signer, including any witness or notary, must sign his or her own name, using a full signature stating first and last name, and may not use initials or abbreviations or marks, regardless of any authorization by any individual or entity to sign using initials, abbreviations or marks.

News Update - Mortgage Fraud

• Law Offices of David J. Stern
• ProVest
• PTA

Action Date: January 4, 2012
Location: FT. Lauderdale, FL

In the lawsuit filed by DJSP Enterprises against David J. Stern and the Law Offices of David J. Stern, there are also allegations involving ProVest, the process server used by Stern and most of the other major foreclosure mills hired by Lender Processing Services in over 20 states.

The allegations regarding ProVest are found in paragraphs 36-38:

36. Prior to the Transaction, the Seller Defendants also knowingly and systematically inflated their process of service costs to the Court. Specifically, Seller Defendants engineered a fraudulent scheme whereby they directed their process servicing work to a process servicing company called ProVest. The Seller Defendants caused each file to generate four or five separate fees for service of process regardless of whether service of process on multiple defendants was necessary or appropriate and regardless of whether service of process for multiple defendants could be achieved at the same address.

37. In exchange for receiving these inflated service of process fees, ProVest, in turn, routinely referred back to PTA servicing requests for “skip tracing” to locate defendants for whom ProVest purportedly did not have accurate street address information to effect service of process. ProVest “hired” and paid fees to PTA for “skip tracing” services despite the fact that ProVest had the ability and resources to perform “skip tracing” itself and routinely did so itself.

38. The Seller Defendants’ arrangement with ProVest amounted to a kickback scheme. DS Law padded and inflated its process servicing costs which were billed to its clients and added to the court costs assessed to foreclosure defendants. In exchange for feeding this work to ProVest, PTA earned manufactured “skip tracing” fees which inflated PTA’s revenues and profits and which represented another way in which the Seller Defendants artificially inflated the revenues of the Target Business prior to the Transaction.

News Update - Mortgage Fraud

• DJSP Enterprises
• Law Offices of David J. Stern

Action Date: January 4, 2012
Location: FT. Lauderdale, FL

DJSP Enterprises, the publicly-traded company that was supposed to make millions for investors from the foreclosure services it provided to The Law Offices of David Stern (”the Stern Firm”), sued David J. Stern and the Law Offices of David Stern.

Stern Law mortgage foreclosure caseload rose from 15,000 in 2006 to 70,400 in 2009.

In 2009, Stern Law handled 20% of all foreclosures in Florida.

Stern Law’s clients included all 10 of the top 10, and 17 of the top 20 mortgage servicers in the U.S. including Fannie, Freddie, Citibank, BOA, Goldman Sachs, GMAC and Wells Fargo.

The non-legal, back room servicers related to foreclosures included REO services: property inspection, valuation, eviction, broker assignment - these were performed by DJSP Enterprises - the sole client was Stern Law.

Here are Paragraphs 29 -35:

29. The Seller Defendants fraudulently induced Plaintiffs DAL and DJSP into entering into the Transaction by fraudulently and artificially inflating the Target Business’ actual revenues, by intentionally failing to disclose that the Target Business and DS Law were not, in fact, operating in accordance with all applicable laws, and by concealing that DS Law was in jeopardy of losing its largest clients due to DS Law’s unlawful conduct. Indeed, before entering into the Transaction, the Seller Defendants knew that DS Law and the Target Business had been systematically falsifying and/or back-dating pertinent legal documents, submitting such documents to the courts, routinely misplacing and losing original key documents, filing foreclosures with inaccurate and/or incomplete documents, prosecuting foreclosure cases without obtaining proper service of process, and were in jeopardy of losing the Seller Defendants’ largest foreclosure clients due to such conduct.

30. By cutting corners in the foreclosure process without following the rule of law, the Defendants artificially reduced the expenses of the Target Business which falsely inflated the profitability of the Target Business.

31. To summarize, the Seller Defendants failed to disclose to DJSP and DAL that DS Law and the Target Business were systematically operating in an unlawful manner. In addition, the Seller Defendants failed to disclose to DJSP and DAL that the Target Business’ reported revenues were not accurate, inflated, and improperly calculated and that the expenses of the business were also distorted due to the systematic practices designed to “shorten” the legal process. The Seller Defendants falsely led DAL and DJSP to believe that they were acquiring a long-term profitable business that operated in accordance with all applicable laws to induce DAL and DJSP to enter into the Transaction.

33. Prior to the Transaction, the Seller Defendants were at all times well aware that DS Law and the Target Business were intentionally perpetuating a fraud on the courts by, inter alia, systematically filing forged documents, forging signatures on such documents, fraudulently backdating documents, improperly notarizing and witnessing documents, fabricating documents, signing affidavits without reviewing or verifying the information contained therein, prosecuting foreclosure cases without obtaining proper service of process, and filing foreclosures with inaccurate and/or incomplete documents.

34. Indeed, the Seller Defendants directed employees of DS Law and the Target Business to purposefully overlook glaring inaccuracies in foreclosure pleadings and to essentially rubber stamp computer generated documents without reviewing or verifying the accuracy of the documents. New attorneys at DS Law were not only encouraged, but were even ordered to sign legal filings and pleadings without reading them. As a result, false and inaccurate documents were routinely executed and filed with the courts in an effort to hasten foreclosure proceedings and illegally obtain final judgments of foreclosure for the Seller Defendants’ clients.

35. The Seller Defendants even incentivized these unscrupulous and unlawful practices by giving their employees bonuses and extravagant gifts for churning out the highest number of foreclosure cases in the least amount of time. The Seller Defendants encouraged contests between DS Law attorneys to see who could jam a foreclosure case through the courts the fastest.

News Update - Bank Fraud

• America’s Servicing Company
• Anita Antonelli
• SASCO Trust 2005-RF4
• U.S. Bank, N.A.
• Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

Action Date: January 3, 2012
Location: Delaware, OH

The Closing Date for SASCO Trust 2005-RF4 is August 31, 2005.

All of the mortgages in the SASCO 2005-RF4 Trust were required to have been deposited in that trust by August 31, 2005.

This is particularly significant right now because SASCO 2005-RF4 is the trust that is claiming to own the Bayless Family Mortgage in Delaware, Ohio, and trying to remove the Bayless family from their home this week.

SASCO is trust shorthand for Structured Asset Securities Corporation.

In almost every case, SASCO trusts CANNOT PRODUCE THE MORTGAGE ASSIGNMENTS required by the trust documents.

In almost every foreclosure case filed by U.S. Bank as Trustee for a SASCO trust, the mortgage assignment is dated several YEARS after the trust was supposed to have acquired the mortgage.

What mortgage document mill consistently supplies these “years late” Assignments? Consistently, that is America’s Servicing Company (ASC) in Ft. Mill, SC, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo Bank.

Who are the signers of these “years late” Assignments? Anita Antonelli, China Brown, Natasha Clark, Nikli Cureton and Herman John Kennerty - the five most prolific robo-signers at ASC -have signed hundreds of these Assignments.

If the trust is a SASCO trust - STRIKE ONE;

If the Assignment is dated years after the trust closing date - STRIKE TWO; and

If the Assignment is signed by Antonelli, Brown, Clark, Cureton or Kennerty and notarized in York County, SC - STRIKE THREE.

Throw the bank out - not the Bayless Family.

As for Anita Antonelli, who signed the Mortgage Assignment in the Bayless case:

Many times Anita Antonelli is the Vice President of Loan Documentation for Wells Fargo Bank.

But then she is also often the Default Documents Manager for Wells Fargo Bank.

At the same time, Antonelli is often an Assistant Secretary of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.

She is also an Assistant Secretary for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. acting as a Nominee for American Home Mortgage…

…and acting as a Nominee for Hilton Head Mortgage, LLC…

…and acting as a Nominee for DHI Mortgage Co., Ltd….

…and acting as a Nominee for Myers Park Mortgage, Inc…

…and acting as a Nominee for CTX Mortgage Co., LLC…

…and acting as a Nominee for Market Street Mortgage Corp…

…and acting as a Nominee for Loan City…

…and acting as a Nominee for Mortgage Network, Inc.

With this history, why would anyone trust the validity of a mortgage assignment signed by Anita Antonelli - and particularly, why would anyone rely on such a document when produced by a SASCO trust?

News Update - Bank Fraud

• American Home Mortgage Servicing
• Sand Canyon Corporation
• Kathy Smith
• Soundview Home Loan Trust, 2007-OPT2
• Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

Action Date: January 1, 2012
Location: Maui, HI

On January 2, 2012, Wells Fargo Bank and American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. (“AHMSI”) will attempt to force the Tehiva/Phillips family from their family home on 5305 Hana Highway in Maui, Hawaii. This has been the family home for over 100 years.

Wells Fargo is acting as the Trustee for an RMBS Trust, Soundview Home Loan Trust 2007-OPT2. AHMSI is acting as the servicer for the trust.

Wells Fargo and AHMSI have relied on a fraudulent Mortgage Assignment in this foreclosure eviction.

The Assignment is dated June 24, 2010 and was signed by Kathy Smith in Duval County, Florida. Smith purports to be a corporate officer (Assistant Secretary) of Sand Canyon Corporation.

Kathy Smith is not and has never been employed by Sand Canyon Corporation; she is actually employed by AHMSI in its Jacksonville, FL (Duval County) office.

On Hillsborough County, FL, document 2010350478, Kathy Smith swore she was an employee of AHMSI on October 1, 2010.

On Hillsborough County, FL document 20100057228, Kathy Smith swore she was Assistant Secretary of AHMSI on February 8, 2010.

In the Memorandum Decision of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona in the matter of the bankruptcy of Anthony Tarantola, Case No. 4:09-bk-09703-EWH, Kathy Smith is referred to on Page 5, lines 8-9, as the Assistant Secretary of AHMSI.

To aid in foreclosures, Kathy Smith has used all of the following different job titles:

• Assistant Secretary and Vice President, Ameriquest Mortgage Company (February 3, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary and Vice President, Citi Residential, Inc., Attorney-in-Fact for Ameriquest Mortgage Company (April 12, 2010);
• Attorney-in-Fact, Argent Mortgage Corporation (January 13, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Citibank, N.A., as Trustee for American Home Mortgage Asset Trust 2006-3 Mortgage-Backed Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2006-3; (January 13, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as Indenture Trustee for American Home Mortgage Investment Trust 2006-3, Mortgage-Backed Notes, Series 2006-3 (January 13, 2010);
• Attorney-in-Fact, New Century Mortgage Corporation (January 19, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Sand Canyon Corporation f/k/a Option One Mortgage Corporation (April 12, 2010)
• Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for American Brokers Conduit (February 25, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for American Home Mortgage (February 18, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for American Home Mortgage Acceptance (January 25, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for Beazer Mortgage Corporation (January 13, 2010);
• Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation (January 11, 2010); and
• Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corporation (May 7, 2010).

The President of Sand Canyon Corporation, Dale M. Sugimoto, submitted a sworn Declaration signed on March 18, 2009, stating that Sand Canyon Corporation did not own or service any residential real estate mortgages. Despite this sworn statement of the company president, the Assignment in the Tehiva/Phillips foreclosure has Kathy Smith, purporting to act as an officer of Sand Canyon, to transfer the Tehiva/Phillips mortgage to the Soundview Trust. The Sugimoto Declaration was submitted in bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, New Orleans Division, as document 52-3, in the case of Ron Wilson, Case No. 10-51328.

Kathy Smith is also not listed as an officer of Sand Canyon Corporation in the Florida corporate records, nor did Sand Canyon have offices in Florida, where the Assignment was notarized.

The closing date of the Soundview Trust 2007-OPT2 was July 10, 2007. The trust was not authorized to acquire mortgages after this date; and certainly was not authorized to ever acquire any non-performing mortgages.

For all of the reasons set forth above, Wells Fargo and AHMSI should immediately cease their attempts to seize the Tehiva/Phillips home. Wells Fargo should be required to produce Kathy Smith in court in Hawaii and to produce the records of the trust showing that the trust acquired the Tehiva/Phillips mortgage in 2010 as represented by Smith.

News Update - Mortgage Fraud

• Bear Stearns
• Lender Processing Services
• Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems

Action Date: December 11, 2011
Location: Jacksonville, FL

There is substantial evidence that mortgage servicing companies and their lawyers are continuing to file fraudulent mortgage assignments in county recorders offices throughout the country. In April, 2011, the widespread abuses, including massive forgeries, were exposed in a 60 Minutes segment that focused on employees of Docx, a subsidiary of Lender Processing Services, who forged the name “Linda Green” to mortgage assignments used in foreclosures.

Several weeks later, Guilford County, NC County Recorder Jeff Thigpen came forward with a comprehensive study of the “Linda Green” forgeries in his county’s records - finding over 2000 documents signed by Linda Green with 4 - 15 significant signature variations. County Recorder John O’Brien in Massachusetts and Curtis Hertel in Michigan conducted similar comprehensive studies with similar results.

In November, 2011, the Nevada Attorney General’s office filed the first criminal charges against employees of Lender Processing Services for falsifying mortgage documents.

An examination of recent filings by mortgage servicers shows that these companies are exacerbating the problem of fraudulent documents.

Mortgage assignments are now being filed with the following language:

“This Assignment is to supplement and ratify that certain Assignment of Mortgage recorded in Original Records Book 19467 at Page 1710 Original Records Book 19888 at Page 1466 of Hillsborough County, Florida.” (Instrument #2011294512, Hillsborough County, Florida, filed September 12, 2011.)

An examination of the “ratified” Assignment shows that it is one of the Linda Green forged documents. It is very similar to the Linda Green forged signature demonstrated by LPS employee Chris Pendley on the 60 Minutes segment.

Instead of admissions that the documents are forgeries, the mortgage servicers are filing “ratifications.” These ratifications are signed by other employees of mortgage servicing companies, using titles of MERS officers.

The information continues to be false. In the first “Linda Green” Assignment, the mortgage is reported to have been transferred on September 9, 2009. In the “ratified” version, the mortgage is reported to have been transferred on July 13, 2011.

Both Assignments purport to transfer a mortgage made by American Brokers Conduit to a Bear Stearns trust (Bear Stearns ABS, Series 2006-3) that closed in 2006. U.S. Bank is the trustee for this trust. American Home Mortgage Servicing is the servicer. The first assignment was filed on September 16, 2009 - just two weeks before the date on the Lis Pendens (initial foreclosure filing) prepared by the foreclosure mill, Shapiro & Fishman, LLP.

If the 2009 Assignment from MERS to the trust were valid, MERS would have had nothing to transfer in 2011. In Latin, this concept is stated: Nemo dat quod non habet. Translation: one cannot give what one does not have.

The signers on the 2011 Assignment claim to be corporate officers of MERS, though they are not listed as such in the records of the Florida Secretary of State. (The 2011 Assignment was notarized in Duval County, FL.)

These “ratification” filings are a good indication that the Consent Order entered by the FDIC and the OCC on April 13, 2011, are not being adequately monitored.

Why would any trust or mortgage servicer ratify conduct that has been described as criminal conduct by attorneys general?

These filings are a wreck on a wreck.

News Update - Mortgage Fraud

• Bank of America
• Bank of New York Mellon
• Countrywide Home Loans Servicing
• Law Offices of David Stern
• Cheryl Samons

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.