State AGs settle with LPS for $113 million; Only Nobody Knew

In an investigative post, MSFraud.org exposed an unknown state Attorneys General settlement with Lender Processing Services (LPS) for $113 million dollars in an El Paso district court.

One would wonder how, for example, the State of Hawaii (who received a pittance compared to the damage to titles LPS has caused) could even begin to agree to a settlement when they have NEVER even bothered to audit its own Hawaii Bureau of Conveyances! Hawaii is a mortgage lien state where the homeowner holds the deed, unlike a Deed of Trust state where the deed is held by a (fishy) beneficiary.

Millions of homeowners never knew that LPS fabricated and falsified documents that could still cloud their titles for years to come – even if they received a modification. The point here is that many states, including Hawaii where land rights are a very precious subject, have turned a blind eye to fraudulent assignments of mortgage or the fact that the mortgage  loan collateral was abused and mishandled and never made it into the REMIC trusts creating clouded titles unbeknownst to homeowners all across the United States. Maybe if states like Hawaii would hire a professional to audit the fraudulent recordation, judges could begin to make more informed and better decisions. 

October 6, 2013 | Written for MSfraud.org

In February of this year, the state attorneys general settled with Lender Processing Services (LPS) for $113 million dollars in an El Paso district court.  This settlement, like the larger nationally-recognized settlement, also relates to robo-signing and fabricated documents used to process illegal foreclosures. This settlement amount is to be split between a number of other state AGs. (See chart)

El Paso, Texas seems to be ground zero for the filing of some of the national mortgage lawsuits, but somehow these cases manage to stay off the mortgage fraud radar and questions what the AG is really doing in the “public interest” during his election year.

Apparently nobody knew about this settlement, and it has one attorney asking: “Where is the money?”

Attorney Richard Roman (pronounced: “Row-Mawn”) discovered STATE OF TEXAS v. LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES, INC.; LPS DEFAULT SOLUTIONS, INC., and DOCX, LLC was filed on February 1, 2013 and ended five days later on February 6 with an Agreed Judgment and Injunction.

Mr. Roman is currently in the process of intervening in another case, STATE OF TEXAS v. AHMSI, to make sure his client is not forgotten as an “afterthought”.  It appears Roman’s filing struck a nerve over at the Asst. AG’s  Office, who he claims seems eager to make sure his voice is never heard and his client never sees the inside of a courtroom. 

For some reason, when mortgage fraud victims file complaints with various Texas Attorney General offices throughout Texas, every complaint we know of ends up in this office that is tucked away in the far west corner of the state – sometimes known as “North Juarez, Mexico”.  It is not that the El Paso office possesses an advanced skill-set for mortgage fraud crimes committed by the banks.

When the Asst. AG was told in early 2005 that there was “certified evidence” to confirm both fraud and corruption going on inside a Texas foreclosure court, Mr. Daross (El Paso Asst. AG) responded: “Whenever someone mentions corruption in our courts, I tend not to listen.”

Welcome to Texas

Many of the second-tier bad actors who created the nation’s foreclosure crisis (including  LPS), hitched a post in Texas.  NBC News reported: “As Texas governor, Rick Perry spent tens of millions in taxpayer money to lure some of the nation’s leading mortgage companies to expand their business in his state, calling it a national model for creating jobs. But the plan backfired.”

It may be for that reason that Texas, like many other states, is basically devoid of foreclosure rulings in favor of its thousands of foreclosure crime victims.  The judicial corruption, especially in the Dallas/Collin county corridor, has been confirmed by many lawyers, three judges, and most recently by a Texas law professor, who added that protection for the foreclosure-mills comes straight out of Washington. It seems the “Don’t Mess with Texas” slogan has long been retired.

The $113 Million LPS settlement provides for “Remediation to Homeowners”, but we have yet to hear from a homeowner who benefited from – or even knew about this settlement. 

In his letter to El Paso’s assistant AG, James Daross, Mr. Roman is demanding proof that LPS paid the amounts contained in this settlement:

Texas has known forged and false documents have been used to steal homes from its own residents dating back to the 1990s, but until lately, the state didn’t seem bothered by all these state jail felonies being committed throughout the state en masse.

In the 2007 (pre-crisis) certified Texas Supreme Court transcript of the “Meeting on Foreclosure Rules”, Michael Barrett (now deceased), of the Texas foreclosure-mill Barrett-Burke, Castle, Daffin & Frappier, admits that the mandated paperwork required to lawfully execute a foreclosure simply does not exist in 90% of the cases:

“So finding a document that says, “I am the owner and holder, and I thereby grant to the servicer the right to foreclose in my name” is an impossibility in 90 percent of the cases.” (transcript page 27, line 16)

The remedy for when, as Mr. Barrett confirmed “There really isn’t such a document” (Page 27, line 8), was revealed by Judge Bruce Priddy (See State of Texas v. Judge Priddy D-1-GV-08-002311) when he added:

“They just create one for the most part sometimes, and the servicer signs it themselves saying that it’s been transferred to whatever entity they name as applicant”. (page 28, line 10)

First American Title added:

“Well, the other problem — Judge, this is Tim Redding. The other problem that I see — and, Tommy, you and I talk about it regularly – that we have a bunch of servicers that are corporations or trusts attempting to foreclose on behalf of other trusts using a power of attorney, and I don’t think that’s really proper. I mean, we all kind of turn a blind eye to it, but I think that’s an issue that’s out there that somebody could use to potentially attack a foreclosure.”  (p. 33, line 5)

According to Mr. Barrett’s statements; that means 9 of every 10 foreclosure/eviction cases filed in Texas likely contain uttered documents, a/k/a state jail felonies.  That is absolutely stunning!  Many people might assume the Texas district attorneys, U.S. Attorneys, FBI, IRS, Texas Rangers, Secret Service, etc. would be investigating this multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise that has been operating in the state for close to twenty-years.  But it appears the El Paso AG office is the lone ranger against this massive land grab and transference of wealth, and they don’t seem to want anyone to know.  We applaud anyone who goes toe to toe with the banks, but where is the stipulated ‘remediation to homeowners’? 

The case against Countrywide

Another obscure case discovered this week was filed in El Paso in 2009 by the State of Texas against Countrywide.  The AG obtained an Agreed Final Judgment and Injunction on the same day the petition was filed.  Among other things, the injunction places Restrictions on Initiation or Advancement of Foreclosure Process for Eligible Borrowers.

Here is the Docket, Petition and Agreed Judgment in State of Texas v. Countrywide Financial, Countrywide Home Loans and Full Spectrum Lending.

Did the media not know about this case either?
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Well Jack, the banks run state legislators just like they do Congress – so it’s doubtful that they spread the word…and the big conglomerate media machines are so highly debt-leveraged with Wall Street that they don’t dare beat the drums of truth too often or too loud. Thank goodness for you, me and Matt Taibbi!