Woman says foreclosure team cleaned out wrong home

DES MOINES, Iowa —

A Des Moines woman came home to find her belongings gone.

A police report shows that last Thursday a crew that cleans out foreclosed homes arrived at the house on University Avenue and broke the lock off the back door when the homeowner was not home.

The team entered the home and removed items.

The homeowner confronted the supervisor who said there had been a mistake.

The woman asked if she could get her items back from storage because they were supposed to be held for 30 days, but according to the police report she was told the items had been destroyed.

Read more: http://www.kcci.com/news/central-iowa/Woman-says-foreclosure-team-cleaned-out-wrong-home/-/9357080/16779946/-/13pyy59z/-/index.html#ixzz27nrMre4l

JPMorgan to pay $600,000 for cotton position violations

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase Bank NA agreed to pay $600,000 to settle charges it violated cotton futures position limits, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Thursday.

According to the CFTC, the bank’s positions in cotton futures traded on the IntercontinentalExchange U.S. exceeded limits on several days between September 16 and October 5, 2010.

Read on.

Did Senator Scott Brown Facilitate Predatory Loans? connection to Foreclosure Fraud

There’s no question that we at the Slips take a particular interest in the Massachusetts Senate race. But usually we don’t have much to say about it. Still, something Scott Brown said today struck me as rather significant–much more so than a lot of the things that have been covered in the media about the Senate race.

It turns out that Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is a real estate attorney among other things. (Beats modeling, I guess.) Brown apparently did real estate closings and title work.  His clients included local banks as well as some “mortgage companies,” including some that are no longer in business, as well as Fidelity National and First American, two large real estate services companies that provide a range of services, including relating to foreclosure.  Fidelity National, is also the former parent of LPS, which owned DocX, the document forgery firm featured on 60 Minutes and home of the Robosign. LPS is under a consent order with the Federal Reserve Board for its servicing activities, and DocX was criminally indicted by Missouri (and subsequently settled). Brown was doing work for Fidelity National when it still owned LPS.

Read on.

St. Louis County judge blocks new foreclosure ordinance, sides with banks

CLAYTON • A St. Louis County Circuit Court judge on Thursday blocked the county from implementing a new ordinance that requires banks to participate in formal mediation before foreclosing on county residents.

Associate Circuit Judge Brenda Stith Loftin granted a temporary restraining order at the request of the Missouri Bankers Association Inc. and Jonesburg State Bank.

“The Court finds plaintiffs will suffer immediate and irreparable financial and property damage if the Defendants are allowed to implement or enforce the Ordinance prior to a determination on the merits,” Loftin wrote in her ruling.

Read on.

FORMER IRS EXAMINER, DENNIS LERNER, CHARGED WITH LEAKING WHISTLEBLOWER’S NAME TO BIG BANK TARGET

A former Internal Revenue Service examiner was arrested today at his home in Edgewater, N.J. on charges that he illegally leaked the name of a confidential tax whistleblower to an executive of the same bank that was the whistleblower’s target—a bank that allegedly had $1 billion in unreported U.S. income.According to a four count criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York yesterday and unsealed today, Dennis Lerner, 59, also violated federal conflict of interest laws by seeking a job with that bank while he was examining it, and then improperly seeking to influence his former colleagues at theIRS in their dealings with the bank.

While the bank isn’t named, it appears from dates in the indictment and Lerner’s employment history on LinkedIn, that the bank in question is Commerzbank AG, Germany’s second largest bank. Holly Esteves, the corporate communications director of Commerzbank in New York, said the bank would have “no comment at this point” on the case or on Lerner’s employment status. In June, in a separate case, Commerzbank entered into an agreement with the New York Fed to fix what the government said were deficiencies in its anti-money laundering program.

Rest here…

REPORT | BANKING ON IMMIGRANT DETENTION – WELLS FARGO’S TIES TO THE PRIVATE PRISON INDUSTRY

Executive Summary

Private prison operators are profiting from the deepening immigration crisis in the United States. Companies like CCA and GEO Group have seen steady growth due to the countryʼs policy of locking up immigrants in privately-managed detention facilities. These companies have spent millions to shape this policy, win contracts, and ensure that the rules are fixed in their favor – all at the expense of some of the countryʼs most vulnerable people.

These companies would not be positioned to profit from the countryʼs immigration crisis without the help of prominent Wall Street banks. The industry is capital-intensive and requires enormous amounts offinancing from banks that sit at the countryʼs financial and economic crossroads. One bank, in particular, has distinguished itself from the competition as an investor in and lender to the industry:Wells Fargo.

This report details the financial ties between Wells Fargo and the top private prison operators in the country: Corrections Corp of America (CCA), GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp (MTC). The information compiled in the report shows that as a lender and investor, Wells Fargo has provided critical support for the private prison industry.

In fact, Wells Fargo is unique among its peers in the financial industry in having strong financial connections to the countryʼs three largest private prison operators:

• CCA. Wells Fargo is a major lender to Corrections Corp of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country, acting as the syndication agent and issuing lender on CCAʼs $785 million line of credit.

• GEO. Wells Fargo is a major investor in GEO Group, with $95.5 million invested through itsmutual funds, and serves as trustee for $300 million of the companyʼs corporate debt.

• MTC. Wells Fargo is a lender to Management & Training Corp (MTC). MTC is a private company and so it is difficult to find data on its investors and lenders, but Wells Fargo is listed as a lender to MTC in a Utah UCC filing.

 

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BANK OF AMERICA REACHES $2.43 BILLION SETTLEMENT IN MERRILL LYNCH ACQUISITION-RELATED CLASS ACTION LITIGATION

Total Third-Quarter 2012 Litigation Expense Estimated to Be Approximately $1.6 Billion

Litigation Expense, Valuation Adjustments for Improvement in the Company’s Credit Spreads and U.K. Tax Charge Are Expected to Negatively Impact EPS by Approximately $0.28 in Third Quarter 2012

CHARLOTTE – Bank of America today announced it, and certain of its current and former officers and directors, have agreed, subject to court approval, to settle a class action lawsuit brought in 2009 on behalf of investors who purchased or held Bank of America securities at the time the company announced plans to acquire Merrill Lynch.

Under terms of the proposed settlement, Bank of America would pay a total of $2.43 billion and institute certain corporate governance policies. Plaintiffs had alleged, among other claims, that Bank of America and certain of its officers made false or misleading statements about the financial health of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. Bank of America denies the allegations and is entering into this settlement to eliminate the uncertainties, burden and expense of further protracted litigation.

“Resolving this litigation removes uncertainty and risk and is in the best interests of our shareholders,” said Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan. “As we work to put these long-standing issues behind us, our primary focus is on the future and serving our customers and clients.”

The proposed settlement will be reviewed by Judge Kevin Castel in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, where the class action is pending. Further information concerning the details of the settlement are available from the court’s docket, In Re Bank of America Securities Derivative & Employment Retirement Income Sec. Act (ERISA) Litigation, 09 MDL 2058 (PKC) or from plaintiffs’ lead counsel, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP; Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP; and Barroway Topaz Kessler Meltzer & Check, LLP.

Read on.

New York AG settles WaMu appraisal case

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a $7.8 million settlement with eAppraiseIT, and its then parent corporation, First American CoreLogic.

The company split into two entities in 2010 and eAppraiseIT went with CoreLogic as part of the valuation services.

Immediately after, First American Financial Corporation ($21.74-0.02%) provided title insurance and settlement services to the real estate and mortgage industries. CoreLogic ($26.64 -0.02%) provided consumer, financial and property information, analytics and services to business and government.

Since the split both companies expanded their services greatly outside these traditional roles. For his part, Schneiderman’s office is charged with investigating potential housing and mortgage grievances from the boom. This particular investigation, sources tell HousingWire, started long before he took his current position.

Read on.

When Will the SEC Finally Go After the Auditors?

Something very unusual happened at the Securities and Exchange Commission this week: The SEC accused three former bank executives of committing fraud by deliberately understating their company’s loan losses during the financial crisis. Such accusations have not been made often in recent years.

Unless you happen to live in Nebraska, you probably haven’t heard of Lincoln-based TierOne Corp., which had about $3 billion assets when it failed in 2010. Yet it’s an important story because of what it shows about the state of securities-law enforcement in the U.S.

…………

TierOne’s auditor was KPMG LLP, which also was the auditor for Countrywide. (The other Big Four firms are Ernst & Young LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Deloitte & Touche LLP.) Neither KPMG nor any of its personnel were named as defendants in the SEC’s complaint this week. One of the allegations against the former TierOne executives was that they lied to KPMG auditors. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002, lying to an auditor is a punishable offense.

Read on.

And the same people guarding the foreclosure review.