1. Robo-Signing KILLS…
First the facts of the matter, as reported: Tracy Lawrence was only 43 years old when it appears she took her own life after blowing the whistle on a foreclosure scheme involving “robo-signing,” which was implemented by a company used by most banks when repossessing homes, Lender Processing Services (“LPS”), based in Jacksonville, Florida. According to KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, Lawrence admitted that she had fraudulently notarized about 25,000 documents as part of the fraudulent foreclosure scheme.
Lawrence blew the whistle on the LPS operation in which title officers Gary Trafford, 49, of Irvine, Calif., and Geraldine Sheppard, 62, of Santa Ana, Calif. allegedly told employees to forge their names and notarize the signatures on tens of thousands of default notices from 2005 to 2008, which were used to initiate foreclosures, according to the Nevada AG.
Two weeks ago the State of Nevada charged Trafford and Sheppard with 606 counts of offering false instruments for recording, false certification on certain instruments and notarization of the signature of a person not in the presence of a notary public. You can read the indictment here: Nevada Robosigning Indicment 11-16-11
The Nevada AG’s office sent investigators to Lawrence’s home after she didn’t show up for her sentencing on Monday morning. And here’s the fact that caused me to pause… she would have faced up to a year in jail and a possible fine up to $2,000.
Now, my views on this story: Am I being asked to believe that Tracy Lawrence took her own life because she might have been sentenced to up to a year in jail and a perhaps fined two grand? Because if that’s what I’m supposed to believe… well, I don’t. And yet the fact remains that she’s dead, and it certainly appears to be suicide. I also don’t believe that she was overcome with guilt at having done what she did and that’s what caused her to take her own life. Nope, I’m not buying either of those explanations.
The other thing I don’t like about the way the story has been reported is that LPS is mentioned sort of secondarily, as if Trafford and Sheppard were committing their crimes independently… like rogue employees… and that LPS had nothing to do with it. And that is simply pure, unadulterated crap. Robo-signing, as these crimes are euphemistically called, went on all over the country… all the major banks were involved, as were LPS and other vendors used in the foreclosure process. It’s obviously anything but an isolated incident… plainly, as practices go, it is ubiquitous. (And you know what they say about ubiquity… it’s everywhere.)
Did LPS know about the rampant robo-signing? Of course they did. Someone had to produce the documents for her to sign them, right? Did the banks know it was going on? Of course they did. Did the CEOs of the banks know what was going on? Of course they did.
Look, I spent twenty years working as a consultant for large corporations at the C-Suite and senior management levels, including several of the TBTF banks, and I’m very familiar with their corporate cultures and operations. No mid-level manager at JPMorgan, for example, made a call to start committing fraud and forgery. Why? Because there’s be no reason to do so, that’s why. Faced with the problems that robo-signing addresses, any mid-level manager at a Fortune 500 company could and would simply kick it upstairs for a decision. There just wouldn’t be any upside to trying to handle it alone.
A First Vice President at Bank of America once told me the following story about the path to advancement at the bank. He said that when you take over a department, as long as you don’t change anything, you’ll move up regardless of how your department performs. But, if you so much as changed the brand of pencils ordered by that department, and then the department performs poorly… you’re fired. Now, I understand that the story is an exaggeration, but it’s an exaggeration to make a point.
The people that work in giant organizations like JPMorgan are not entrepreneurs, if they were they’d be starting their own businesses. Consequently, they are not the type to go around attempting to solve problems not of their own making, and for which they would receive no reward, especially when you realize how easily the issue can be kicked upstairs.
Lastly, robo-signing is not a solution that exists on a list that contains other solutions. In other words, if you’re a giant financial institution, and you chose robo-signing as your solution, it’s because you didn’t have anywhere else to go. For example, you didn’t say to the others at the conference table, “Well, we could solve the problem by doing XYZ. But, no… lets go with the fraud and forgery idea instead.”
Now, as to why robo-signing only seems to be a serious prosecutable crime in the State of Nevada? Why, that’s a darn fine question with which few in positions of power seem to be concerned. Of course, the question of MERS assignments, or even the question of proper legal standing seem to be the same sort of thing… in some states it matters, while in others it doesn’t.
Frankly, I’d be fine with it either way. If many of our current laws governing the transfer of property don’t matter and aren’t going to be enforced then let’s get rid of them. Just change the existing statutes to reflect our new definition of acceptable practices as related to foreclosure. You don’t need standing, anyone can sign off on any required document as long as their boss say it’s okay, and nothing needs to be recorded. If you receive a foreclosure notice from your bank, the only thing to do is pack your stuff. You see? Problem solved.
So, why did Tracy Lawrence take her own life? Obviously, I couldn’t know for sure… but it also seems obvious that LPS is a very large and very powerful company with employees all over the country, and Tracy blew the whistle. I don’t believe she was so scared that she might be sentenced to under a year in jail and up to a $2,000 fine, especially because as the whistle blower, she may have been sentenced to neither. Nor do I believe that she was overcome by guilt at having fraudulently signed and notarized documents used to foreclose on people’s homes because it wasn’t her idea… she was told by her employer to do it.
But I do believe that she was scared of the repercussions for her having blown the whistle on LPS … in fact, I believe she was scared to death as to what the rest of her life would be like having turned on LPS and the largest financial institutions in the world. And I also believe the Nevada AG should indict LPS or do whatever is necessary to put them on the stand, answering questions under oath. Because there is no doubt in my mind that Tracy Lawrence’s death is on their collective hands.
You can check out the rest of Mandelman’s Monthly Museletter here…
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End Corporate Rule, a corporation is not a person , and yet they have constitutional rights .
Time to end corporate person hood .
http://movetoamend.org/
learn how it came about and how we undue it .
As I said before, Mafia style is more previlaint because it is Mafia to the core. Andrew Jackson saw it coming back in 1835 when he paid off the national debt and warned that if the ” American people extenduated the present bank or ever considered establishing another like it” which we did in 1913. See “The Creature from Jekyll Island” by Griffin and the McFadden report on the federal reserve… 1934 and how it all fits together with the IRS to enslave us all for the sake of the Mafia bankers.
The dirtball scumbags @ LPSshould all be jailed. We are NOT scared of these assholes and, I invite any of the scumbags to come fishing with me. I would be a DEEP adventure.
“Fight The Good Fight”
Every Minute, Every Day.
Why aren’t they investigating William P Foley CEO of Fidelity National Title,
former chair of LPS DOCX since he is the one giving marching orders
to Fidelity and all its entities.
Back in 2009 I wrote a simple letter to William P Foley “what went wrong that your New York Attorney Frank Malone finds himself fighting for a Forged Deed?”
Fidelitys answer to me was “…it is proper”
Right then I knew I was dealing with a bunch of crooks.
It was easy to see that when the Title Companies couldn’t win on the law they bribed Judge Alice Schlesinger of New York Supreme Court to get an opinion that crooks like them could stay in my two condos with their forged deeds.
Not only has Fidelity orchestrated the robo signing and forged documents, they have infiltrated the county land records of this whole country with their forgerys.
Sue that dirty bastard marilyn…I intend to sue Chicago Title & Trust for committing massive fraud in my name…I went to fraudclosure court the other day for my motion to dismiss and strike the second amended complaint… and the bank attorney told me in the hallway after I told him I want to see some discovery……there is no trust…they never delivered the loan to the trust….there are no assignments and there is no PSA agreement…no chain of title..no trustee….not to even bother asking for it!!! Say What? Stop the FRAUDCLOSURES!!!!! Throw all of these criminal dirty bastards in prison!!!
These insiders KNOW they are untouchable and immune. They have protection from within the lawyer racket/judicial system, from top to bottom. No honest lawyer will dare cross them, its a ‘career killer’. Until you experience this personally, you cannot believe it. Its like living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. How many people now suffer from PTSD or the like? HOW ABOUT A CLASS ACTION PERSONAL INJURY LAW SUIT!? For those damaged by the acts of someone while they were committing or covering up fraud?
A men! I have been dealing with the stress of this for almost five years now. I was so surprised by what I was learning, I thought I might be found “face down”. Thankfully I did not have enough money for an attorney (or I would not likely have my home still). In fact, throughout the first four years of fighting within the “Twilight Zone”, I had the support of only one person. As a single mom of four, former PhD student (dropped out/postponed my education to keep up with this battle) the support of one doesn’t nearly feel like enough…sign me up for the PI suit…the damage is felt EVERY SINGLE DAY! BTW – after four years the lenders filed a Motion to Dismiss Without Prejudice! I am praying that the Judge will agree to the Motion but WITH PREJUDICE and WITH DAMAGES…I deserve to be able to get back to school and to stop wondering whether my electricity will be on each month and whether I will have a vehicle to transport my children to school and whether I will finally be able afford a dentist and and and…I am sooo grateful to see the truth finally coming forth in a way that will hopefully be understandable to more than a handful of those in the Twilight Zone. Many Blessings ~