FBI investigating possible mortgage fraud in Ingham County

Fake signatures prompt investigations

Curtis Hertel Jr., Register of Deeds for Ingham County, says that a discovery he made involving alleged fraudulent mortgage documents is now being investigated by both the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.

“Yes, this is, in my opinion, fraud,” Hertel said. “This is a situation where people were forging someone else’s name to a legal document to take another person’s property. That is fraud.”

As Register of Deeds, Hertel is responsible for overseeing all the documentation of property sales in the county, including mortgage assignments. Mortgage assignments are documents that transfer ownership of a mortgage from one lending company to another.

Hertel says he was tipped off to the alleged fraud when he saw a report on CBS’ 60 Minutes. That story helped unwind the Byzantine labyrinth of paper work and investments under which the mortgages were sold as investments. But now that the banks are facing down homeowners who can’t afford the payments of their mortgage agreements, they are finding that in the rush to bundle the mortgages, there were corners cut. The original paperwork is missing.

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