LPS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. LORRAINE BROWN SENTENCING GUIDELINES – Linda Green, DOCX, LPS, Lender Processing Services “No actual loss, No victims”

Lorraine Brown is due to be sentenced on April 23, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. following her guilty plea to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. This pleading is filed to provide the Court with our positions regarding the application of the Sentencing Guidelines.

We submit there is no actual or intended loss here. “‘Actual loss’ means the reasonably foreseeable pecuniary harm that resulted from the offense.” USSG §2B1.1, comment. (n. 3(A)(i)). (Emphasis added.) “‘Intended loss’ . . . means the pecuniary harm that was intended to result from the offense.” USSG §2B1.1, comment. (n. 3(A)(ii)). (Emphasis added.) The reason there is no actual or intended loss is because it was not reasonably foreseeable to Ms. Brown that anyone would suffer pecuniary harm as a result of her offense conduct, and she did not intend pecuniary harm.

In order to illustrate our point, the following example is used to contrast Ms. Brown’s offense conduct with offense conduct where loss would be reasonably foreseeable and/or intended. Let’s say Defendant (D) and Victim (V) go out to a restaurant for lunch. V gets a phone call and steps outside the restaurant to take it, leaving her purse on the table. D reaches inside V’s purse, pulls out her checkbook, tears off a check, makes it out to himself in the amount of $100 and forges V’s signature on the check. After lunch D heads to the nearest bank, endorses the check, and cashes it. Clearly D has committed the crimes of forgery and uttering a forged instrument and just as clearly it was reasonably foreseeable to D that the actual loss would be $100. Alternatively, if the bank teller becomes suspicious and calls the police, and D gets arrested before the check is cashed, the intended loss would be $100. This is completely different from Ms. Brown’s offense conduct, where mortgage-related documents that needed to be signed and notarized were signed by someone not authorized to do so and notarized outside the presence of the signer. While Ms. Brown fully admits that what she did was wrong, the fact remains that it was not reasonably foreseeable to her that pecuniary harm would result.

Clearly Lorraine Brown is not a “con man.” She meant to perform and did perform the job she was hired to do. Her crime is that she allowed surrogate signers, rather than authorized signers, to sign the mortgage documents and to do so outside the presence of notaries.

If the Court adopts the Probation Office’s position that there is a loss but it reasonably cannot be determined, and that gain should be used as an alternative measure of loss, we submit that the gain figure should be substantially less than the $20,000,000 advocated by the PSR. This is because:

The $20,000,000 LPS forfeited to the government is an arbitrary figure that was negotiated by counsel for LPS and counsel for the United States. No doubt, both sides took into account the risks and costs of litigation when deciding to settle, and to settle for that amount. LPS had a tremendous incentive to agree to the forfeiture of the $20,000,000–as part of the settlement agreement, the government agreed not to prosecute LPS criminally. A felony conviction would have cost LPS millions, if not billions of dollars in lost business.

Respectfully submitted,
MARK ROSENBLUM
Professional Association
s/Mark Rosenblum
Mark Rosenblum
Florida Bar No. 289175
mark@markrosenblumlaw.com
Vanessa Zamora Newtson
Florida Bar No. 641723
vanessan@markrosenblumlaw.com
1300 Riverplace Blvd., Ste. 601
Jacksonville, Florida 32207
Telephone: 904-396-6100
Facsimile: 904-346-4481
Counsel for Defendant

Full copy of DEFENDANT’S SENTENCING GUIDELINES POSITIONS below…

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4closureFraud.org

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DEFENDANT’S SENTENCING GUIDELINES POSITIONS