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.

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4closureFraud.org