This is an Update to posts about Prayers for Florida's New Attorney General, Ms. Pamela Bondi, on May 26, 2011 and on June 19, 2011. This post also Updates previous posts concerning Mortgage Foreclosure Issues seemingly designed as a Business Model to Overwhelm the Court System, on June 6, 2011, on June 8, 2011 and on July 19, 2011.
Prayers issue daily that Florida's Attorney General since January, Ms. Pamela Bondi, will represent the People of Florida in negotiations between all of the 50 State Attorneys General, and Banks and Mortgage Servicers, over alleged Foreclosure misdeeds.
The previous Florida Attorney General -- before Ms. Bondi assumed office in January, 2011 -- started an investigation by the Economic Crimes Section. The 98-page Report which resulted is entitled, "Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases".
The Report was written by then-Assistant Attorneys General Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson. It is clearly important to the Attorney Generals' negotiations. As their Supervisor noted in evaluating job performance, their Report was used in what he believed to be the first settlement of charges against a Law Firm as a "foreclosure mill" engaged in tactics such as the signing and filing of Affidavits without the affiant necessarily being personally familiar with the contents, or even having read the Affidavits before signing them. See Brady Dennis, "Florida Foreclosure Investigators Say They Were Forced to Resign" (Washington Post Online, Thursday, July 14, 2011).
Ms. Edwards' and Ms. Clarkson's Supervisor wrote, in that same complimentary employee review, that the Report was "instrumental in triggering a nationwide review of such practices." See, e.g., Scott Maxwell, "Taking Names / Foreclosure-Fraud Watchdogs' Ouster Troubling" p. B1, col. 1 (Orlando Sentinel, Wednesday, July 20, 2011); Brady Dennis, "Florida Foreclosure Investigators Say They Were Forced to Resign" (Washington Post Online, Thursday, July 14, 2011).
Their Report is also "instrumental" in a Foreclosure lawsuit in New York State won by a Homeowner in which the New York Court dismissed the case with prejudice. The Judge "also demanded HSBC Bank officials appear in court to explain why they should not be sanctioned." Kimberly Miller, "Florida Fraud Report Key to New York Foreclosure Case" (Palm Beach Post Online, Saturday, July 16, 2011).
As a result of their Report, Assistant Attorneys General Edwards and Clarkson were given the bum's rush by Attorney General Bondi. They were reportedly not allowed to review their files before they were told to leave. They were not allowed to brief other attorneys who would be taking over their cases. In their own words, "[w]e were just locked out." They were given an option, however: Resign or be fired that day. They chose to resign.
The unconscionable and deceptive practices highlighted by Ms. Edwards and Ms. Clarkson in their Report, are still going on. See Michelle Conlin & Pallavi Gogoi, AP Business Writers, "Report: Mortgage 'Robo-signing Goes On'" (Associated Press Report, posted Online on Wisconsin Law Journal at http://wislawjournal.com, Tuesday, July 19, 2011). In the linked report, the authors point to evidence from County Officials and others about continuing practices -- and investigations by State Attorneys General -- in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and North Carolina as examples. Further, reportedly the Register of Deeds in Guilford County, North Carolina has stopped filing documents that appear to be signed by "robo-signers" without further Affidavits certifying the signatures and assuming responsibility if legal title was questioned in the future as a result of the original Affidavits. See id.
It is also worth noting that the Florida Attorney General's Office also reportedly issued a statement that despite asking the most "instrumental" investigators in the country to leave the investigation, the Office is aggressively pursuing an investigation, too.
The costs incurred by Mortgage Insurance Companies and by Title Insurance Companies, as a result of the unconscionable and deceptive practices documented by Ms. Edwards and Ms. Clarkson, have previously been posted here many times. That bystanders are incurring costs as a result of such practices is unconscionable.
Florida Governor Rick Scott's suggestion to simply eliminate the Judicial Foreclosure Process in Florida and replace it with nonjudicial foreclosure is examined from several angles with many links in a thought-provoking post by Adam Levitin, "Switching Foreclosure Rules in the Middle of the Game" (Credit Slips / A Discussion on Credit, Finance and Bankruptcy Blog, posted on June 25, 2011).
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