Bernstein Liebhard LLP Announces Filing of a Class Action against MERS and Its Members
NEW YORK, Oct 13, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Bernstein Liebhard LLP, with David P. Joyce, Prosecuting Attorney for Geauga County, Ohio, announced today that a lawsuit has been filed in the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas by Plaintiff Geauga County, on behalf of itself and all other Ohio counties, (the “Class”) against MERSCORP, Inc., Mortgage Electronic Registration System, Inc. (“MERS”), and MERS’s members (collectively, “Defendants”).
In the class action complaint, Plaintiff Geauga County, on behalf of itself and all other Ohio counties, alleges violations of Ohio state law arising from Defendants’ failure to record intermediate mortgage assignments in, and pay the attendant county recording fees to, Ohio county recording offices. In failing to record, Defendants systematically broke chains of title throughout Ohio counties’ public land records by creating “gaps” due to missing mortgage assignments they failed to record, or by recording patently false and/or misleading mortgage assignments. Defendants’ purposeful failure to record has eviscerated the accuracy of Ohio counties’ public land records, rendering them unreliable and unverifiable — damage to public land records that may never be entirely remedied.
As a result, the Class seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as damages, to remedy Defendants’ persistent, and purposeful, failure to comply with Ohio’s legal requirement to record mortgage assignments in the proper county recording office. In doing so, Defendants avoided paying the attendant county recording fees as required by Ohio state law. Ohio’s recording laws have been in place for nearly 200 years.
The case is captioned State of Ohio, ex rel. David P. Joyce Prosecuting Attorney of Geauga County, Ohio v. MERSCORP, Inc., et al., No. 11-M-001087. For more information, please contact either Stanley D. Bernstein at (212) 779-1414, bernstein@bernlieb.com or Christian Siebott at (212) 779-1414, siebott@bernlieb.com.
Bernstein Liebhard LLP has pursued hundreds of complex litigations and has recovered almost $3 billion for its clients. It has been named to The National Law Journal’s “Plaintiffs’ Hot List” in each of the last nine years.
Bernstein Liebhard LLP 10 East 40th Street New York, New York 10016 (212) 779-1414 (877) 779-1414 www.bernlieb.com
SOURCE: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernstein-liebhard-llp-announces-filing-of-a-class-action-against-mers-and-its-members-2011-10-13
Full complaint below…
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4closureFraud.org
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i need help asap. i came home to an evicition by jan 30 2013, the thing is i never recieved notice for court and the company thats eviciting me hasnt been my mortgage company for 3 years!! i have two lenders claiming my loan, Bank of america and taylor bean and whitaker. I have found out mers has transfered my note 5 times to different companies. too many attorneys wont help because they say its too complex… this cant be legal someone please help, im a single mother with three children ive lived here for ten years!!!! This is devestating can anyone help!! all attorneys who have looked at my mounds of proof say i have a good case but wont help…because of the complexity with mers. please please help
For anyone who has MERS and FANNIE MAE, see the real man behind the curtain, below:
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF MERS 2011
Name Title Company Location
Kurt Pfotenhauer, Chairman Executive Vice President and Vice Chairman First American Title Insurance Company
Santa Ana, CA
Bill Beckmann
President and CEO MERSCORP, Inc.
Reston, VA
Albert Celini
Vice President, Single Family Operations and Technology Freddie Mac
McLean, VA
Diane Citron
Senior Vice President, Director of Strategy for Mortgage Operations Ally Financial, Inc.
New York, NY and Fort Washington, PA
Joe Jackson
Senior Vice President Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
Des Moines, IA
Brian McCrackin
Director of Finance CitiMortgage, Inc.
St. Louis, MO
Gwen Muse-Evans
Vice President and Chief Risk Officer for Credit Portfolio Management Fannie Mae
Washington, DC
Robert Reynolds
Executive Vice President SunTrust Banks, Inc.
Richmond, VA
Eric Schuppenhauer
Senior Vice President, Home Lending JPMorgan Chase
Columbus, OH
David H. Stevens
President and CEO Mortgage Bankers Association
Washington, DC
Lawrence P. Washington
Managing Director and Servicing Portfolio Strategy Executive Bank of America, N.A.
Jacksonville, FL
New Fannie Mae Board Members
E-mail This List
PR Newswire
December 26, 2008
The Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFA), acting as Conservator for Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM), appointed nine new directors to Fannie Mae’s board, bringing the total number of directors to ten. The appointments were made in consultation with Fannie Mae Non-Executive Chairman Philip A. Laskawy, who was appointed to his position in September, 2008.
The new appointments are:
Herb M. Allison, Jr., 65, has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Fannie Mae since September 2008. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Allison served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association — College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) from November 2002 to April 2008, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Alliance for Lifelong Learning, a nonprofit distance-education company, from 2000 to 2002. Prior to that, Mr. Allison held several positions during his employment from 1971 to 1999 at Merrill Lynch & Co., including President and Chief Operating Officer from 1997 to 1999. Mr. Allison is a Director of Time Warner Inc. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Yale School of Management, and the Advisory Council of Stanford Business School.
Dennis R. Beresford, 70, has served as Ernst & Young Executive Professor of Accounting at the J.M. Tull School of Accounting, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia since 1997. From 1987 to 1997, Mr. Beresford served as Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the designated organization in the private sector for establishing standards of financial accounting and reporting in the U.S. From 1961 to 1986, Mr. Beresford was with Ernst & Young LLP, including ten years as a Senior Partner and National Director of Accounting. In addition, Mr. Beresford served on the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting. Mr. Beresford is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Legg Mason, Inc. He is a certified public accountant. Mr. Beresford has been a Fannie Mae Director since May 2006.
William Thomas Forrester, 60, served as Chief Financial Officer of The Progressive Corporation from 1999 until his retirement in March 2007, and served in a variety of senior financial and operating positions with Progressive prior to that time. Mr. Forrester currently serves as a Director of The Navigators Group.
Brenda J. Gaines, 59, served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Diners Club North America, a subsidiary of Citigroup, from October 2002 until her retirement in April 2004. She served as President, Diners Club North America, from February 1999 to September 2002. From 1988 until her appointment as President, she held various positions within Diners Club North America, Citigroup and Citigroup’s predecessor corporations. She also served as Deputy Chief of Staff for the Mayor of the City of Chicago from 1985 to 1987 and as Chicago Commissioner of Housing from 1983 to 1985. In addition, Ms. Gaines serves as a Director of Office Depot, NICOR, Inc. and Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Ms. Gaines has been a Fannie Mae Director since September 2006.
Charlynn Goins, 66, served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation from June 2004 to October 2008. She also served on the Board of Trustees of The Mainstay Funds, New York Life Insurance Company’s retail family of funds, from June 2001 through July 2006 and on the Board of Directors of The Community’s Bank from February 2001 through June 2004. Ms. Goins serves as the Vice Chairman of the New York Community Trust, and as a trustee of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. She also serves as a Director of AXA Financial Inc. and its subsidiaries AXA Equitable and MONY Life.
Frederick B. “Bart” Harvey III, 59, retired in March 2008 from his role as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, a provider of development capital and technical expertise to create affordable housing and rebuild communities. He joined Enterprise in 1984, and a year later became Vice Chairman. Mr. Harvey was Enterprise’s Chief Executive Officer from 1993 to 2007. Before joining Enterprise, Mr. Harvey served in various domestic and international positions with Dean Witter Reynolds, leaving as Managing Director of Corporate Finance. Mr. Harvey has been a Fannie Mae Director since August 2008.
Egbert L. J. Perry, 53, is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Integral Group LLC. Founded in 1993 by Mr. Perry, Integral is a real estate advisory, investment management and development company based in Atlanta. Mr. Perry has over 29 years experience as a real estate professional, including work in urban development, developing and investing in mixed-income, mixed-use communities, affordable/work force housing, and commercial real estate projects in markets across the country. Mr. Perry has served since 2002 as a Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, where his term will expire on December 31, 2008. He also serves as a Director of Atlanta Life Financial Group and the Advisory Board of the Penn Institute for Urban Research and as a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
David H. Sidwell, 55, served as Chief Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley from March 2004 to October 2007 and as an Executive Vice President from March 2004 to May 2007. From 1984 to March 2004, Mr. Sidwell worked for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a variety of financial and operating positions, most recently as Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank from January 2000 to March 2004. Mr. Sidwell serves as a Trustee of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation. Mr. Sidwell also serves as a director of UBS AG.
Diana L. Taylor, 53, has been a Managing Director for Wolfensohn & Company, a strategic consulting and investment firm, since March 2007. She served as the Superintendent of Banks for the state of New York from 2003 to 2007. Ms. Taylor serves as a trustee of Dartmouth College and as a Director of Allianz Global Investors, Brookfield Properties and Sotheby’s.
Fannie Mae exists to expand affordable housing and bring global capital to local communities in order to serve the U.S. housing market. Fannie Mae has a federal charter and operates in America’s secondary mortgage market to enhance the liquidity of the mortgage market by providing funds to mortgage bankers and other lenders so that they may lend to home buyers.
Source: Fannie Mae
They have missed a few of the MERS cartel ~ there are actually 29 parties/stockholders and these all are mentioned on their website and in their chartered bi-laws
I will be so glad to see they crooks be forced to comply with lawful laws instead of ruling made-up from the bench but a bought & paid for judge
Has any State or County collected anything yet? Need to know who’s been successful and how, in order to help our State and County collect that sorely needed money in these trying times!
More evidence that our country’s very old, very efficient, very accurate system of land transfer and recordation may have been irremediably broken by the banksters:
“Defendants’ purposeful failure to record has eviscerated the accuracy of Ohio counties’ public land records, rendering them unreliable and unverifiable — damage to public land records that may never be entirely remedied.”