1
1
Duplicitous Mortgage Settlement Deal
Obama betrays cheated mortgage borrowers by a sweetheart deal for banks that cheated them.
by Stephen Lendman
What major media scoundrels call relief is, in fact, business as usual coverup and fraud. Ellen Brown 's important writing explained.
Obama pushed hard to get state attorneys general to settle for a fraction of stolen wealth, but it's worse than that. More on the announced deal below.
At issue is securitized mortgage-backed securities fraud compounded by "robo-signing." it involves "employees signing names not their own, under titles they did not really have, attesting to the veracity of documents they had not really reviewed."
It wasn't occasional. It's systemic grand theft since the 1990s. As a result, settling with crooks lets Wall Street shysters "off the hook for crimes that would land the rest of us in jail - fraud, forgery, securities violations and tax evasion."
State Attorneys General Perpetuate Fraud and Coverup
Forty-nine of the 50 States AGs agreed to let five major banks off the hook - JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC). Oklahoma opted out, not from altruism. AG Scott Pruitt wants no banker penalties. Stealing is OK with him.
In exchange for robo-signing fraud, illegal fees, failure to honor previous settlements, and other servicer abuses, rogue bankers settled for $25 billion. It amounts to pennies on the dollar at most.
Homeowners may sue on their own. States get a fixed amount for legal aid services. All securitization claims, tax and insurance fraud ones, and others may still be investigated and prosecuted by individual AGs and the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group (RMBS).
Set up by Obama's Financial Fraud Task Force, New York AG Eric Schneiderman is one of five co-chairs. Delaware, Missouri, Nevada and Arizona filed lawsuits. California AG Kamala Harris retained the right of state to sue under the state's False Claims Act. Massachusetts also has a foreclosure fraud suit pending.
Funds are apportioned as follows:
- $17 billion for troubled borrowers in the form of principal reduction credits;
- $3 billion toward underwater borrowers' refinancing; and
- $5 billion for cash payments to states to use for legal aid services, foreclosure mitigation programs, and fraud investigations;
