Wall Street Greed and the Corrupt Global Banking Cartel: Too Big to Prosecute? Not for a California Jury

Wall Street Greed and the Corrupt Global Banking Cartel: Too Big to Prosecute? Not for a California Jury

Sixteen of the world’s largest banks have been caught colluding to rig global interest rates.  Why are we doing business with a corrupt global banking cartel?

United States Attorney General Eric Holder has declared that the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks are too big to prosecute.  But an outraged California jury might have different ideas. As noted in the California legal newspaper The Daily Journal:

California juries are not bashful – they have been known to render massive punitive damages awards that dwarf the award of compensatory (actual) damages. For example, in one securities fraud case jurors awarded $5.7 million in compensatory damages and $165 million in punitive damages. . . . And in a tobacco case with $5.5 million in compensatory damages, the jury awarded $3 billion in punitive damages . . . .

The question, then, is how to get Wall Street banks before a California jury. How about charging them with common law fraud and breach of contract?  That’s what the FDIC just did in its massive 24-count civil suit for damages for LIBOR manipulation, filed in March 2014 against sixteen of the world’s largest banks, including the three largest US banks – JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup.

Jury Convicts Former GMAC and Countrywide Loan Officer and Former New York Corrections Officer on Mortgage Fraud Charges

Jury Convicts Former GMAC and Countrywide Loan Officer and Former New York Corrections Officer on Mortgage Fraud Charges

NEW HAVEN, CT—A federal jury has convicted two men for their roles in an extensive mortgage fraud scheme arising from the fraudulent purchases of more than 40 properties in New Haven, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, District of New Jersey, announced today.

Andrew Constantinou, of Unionville, Connecticut, and Jacques Kelly, of Poughkeepsie, New York, were convicted on April 18, 2014, of all counts charged in the indictment following a three-week trial before Chief U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall. The jury found both men guilty of conspiracy to commit mail, wire, and bank fraud. The jury also found Kelly guilty of one count of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a financial institution.

According to documents filed in this case and the evidence at trial:

From 2006 to 2008, Constantinou, Kelly, and others, including Menachem Yosef Levitin, Ronald Hutchison, Charles Lesser, Jeffrey Weisman, Genevieve Salvatore, Bradford Rieger, Lawrence Dressler, and Kwame Nkrumah, conspired to defraud mortgage lenders of millions of dollars of mortgage proceeds by inflating the contract price that the sellers of the properties had actually agreed to accept. The scheme involved multi-family properties in New Haven.

Sky News: Letter claiming to represent scores of disgruntled Barclays employees about poor staff morale just hours of bank’s annual meeting

Sky News: Letter claiming to represent scores of disgruntled Barclays employees about poor staff morale just hours of bank’s annual meeting

A letter claiming to represent scores of disgruntled Barclays employees made potentially damaging claims on Wednesday about poor staff morale just hours before the bank’s board gathered for its annual meeting.

Addressed to Sir David Walker, Barclays’ chairman, the letter made allegations of an unjustified workload for ordinary workers and “arrogant” behaviour by senior colleagues demonstrating a “complete lack of empathy”.

The letter claimed to be from an organisation identifying itself as the Barclays 100+ Group, and said it was “written…by a total of 100+ colleagues … from retail, Barclays Wealth, Barclaycard and Barclays”.

It said copies had been sent to the entire Barclays board, shareholders including BlackRock and Capital Group, as well as news organisations such as Sky News.

The authenticity of the letter could not be ascertained on Wednesday and there was no independent verification that it had been sent by a current employee or employees of Barclays.

US Bank Unable To Escape NJ RMBS Case

US Bank Unable To Escape NJ RMBS Case

Law360, New York (April 23, 2014, 7:52 PM ET) — U.S. Bank NA was unable to escape claims in New Jersey federal court on Wednesday alleging negligence and failure to inform investors of defaults in its role managing two residential mortgage-backed securities trusts.

U.S. District Judge William J. Martini granted partial dismissal to U.S. Bank in a case brought by VNB Realty Inc., a subsidiary of Valley National Bank, alleging wrongdoing in its role as trustee of two RMBS trusts, but refused to dismiss two claims of negligence and violation of the Trust Indenture Act….

MOTA V WELLS FARGO – CLOSER LOOK AT A BANKRUPTCY CASE WITH REAL DOCUMENTS

A closer look at a BK case in the news (Mota v Wells). TRANSFER OF CLAIM OTHER THAN FOR SECURITY A CLAIM HAS BEEN FILED IN THIS CASE or deemed filed under 11 U.S.C. § 1111(a). Transferee hereby gives evidence and notice pursuant to Rule 3001(e)(2), Fed. R. Bankr. P., of the transfer, other than for security, of the claim referenced in this evidence and notice. In this case (Mota v Wells) Mota’s Complaint has excellent language for cases regarding real property matters. Transfer and Assignment: Also discovered in this case was an interesting discovery of an actual document that is/was required to be filed in bankruptcy cases officially describing ‘transfer’ (alleged) of real property – very few if any cases over the past 7 years has had this mandatory document (B 210-A) filed in BK cases – along with an ‘official’ Transfer and Assignment spelling out the actual parties, their titles and an actual corporate signatory – as opposed to the millions of phoney MERS assignments robo-signer docs, etc. . .

Here are the court documents:

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Mota_v_Wells_NY_BK_-_Mota_CMP_13-01553.pdf

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Mota-v-Wells-NY-BK-Wells-ANS.pdf

 

Meet the new wolf on Wall Street

New York State Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky makes a case about why Wall Street’s culture of impunity will never change.

Here is the MSNBC link:

http://on.msnbc.com/1mFx1P2

 

 

More than 80% of condos in Nevada and Florida are being purchased without a mortgage

More than 80% of condos in Nevada and Florida are being purchased without a mortgage

Nick Timiraos@NickTimiraos    Follow

More than 80% of condos in Nevada and Florida are being purchased without a mortgage corelogic.com/blog/authors/t… via@corelogicecon – 23 Apr

This article was tweeted to me….

On the Insights Blog we’ve highlighted the cash share data but what hasn’t been blogged about yet is the share for the condominiums* subgroup. The chart above hones in on the share of condos purchased using cash by the largest 25 states by total sales.

As of January 2014, Florida and Nevada have the highest cash share for condos across the country with shares of 81.2 percent and 80.5 percent respectively. These high rates could be because of several factors including investors buying up properties and the overall shrinking of the mortgage market. Following the leaders are New York (79.5 percent), Alabama (75.7 percent) and Arizona (65.7 percent). These five state account for just over half of all condo cash transactions across the country, with Florida representing 36.7 percent of the total alone. This is more than three times California, which accounts for 10.3 percent of the total condo cash transactions across the U.S.

On the low end, of the largest 25 states by total sales transactions Virginia had the lowest cash share of condos at 32.4 percent followed by Massachusetts (36.7 percent), Minnesota (38.2 percent), Wisconsin (38.7 percent) and Maryland (38.9 percent). These five states only account for 4.8 percent of all condo cash transactions across the country. 

The trend for the two highest share states of Nevada and Florida can be broken into three distinct categories over time from January 2000 to January 2014. The pre-recession period-when credit was readily available to purchase condos, the recession-when credit standards tightened and the market contracted making it more difficult to finance a condo and post-recession-where investors play an increasing role in propping up the shares, while the mortgage market continues to shrink.

Four insurers get subpoenas in NY Regulator Iran sanction probe

Four insurers get subpoenas in NY Regulator Iran sanction probe

Four U.S. insurance carriers have been subpoenaed by New York state’s top insurance regulator in an ongoing probe of potential sanctions violations involving Iran, according to sources quoted by national media.

The subpoenas were sent to Chubb Corp, CNA Financial, Liberty Mutual and Navigators Group from the Department of Financial Services’ head Benjamin Lawsky.

The subpoenas reportedly demanded information related to the companies’ dealings with Swiss-based commodities concern Glencore Xstrata and its Iranian metals trade. They were also allegedly asked to identify any instance in which they invoked governmental sanctions as a reason to refuse claim payouts.

New York’s Top Regulator Sues Subprime Auto Lender

New York’s Top Regulator Sues Subprime Auto Lender

New York’s top financial regulator is taking advantage of a rarely used provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that gives the state authorities power to enforce federal consumer protection law.

Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York State’s superintendent of financial services, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Condor Capital Corporation, a subprime auto lender that he accused of siphoning millions of dollars away from the accounts of unwitting borrowers.

The complaint, which also names Condor’s owner, Stephen Baron, contends that Condor deliberately avoided issuing refunds by deceiving customers about positive balances in their accounts. To do this, the company would shut down borrowers’ access to online accounts after a loan had been repaid, leaving them unable to see whether an insurance payoff, overpayment or other transaction had left excess money behind, according to the suit.

Audit: Michigan’s foreclosure prevention program failed to ensure all recipients were eligible

Audit: Michigan’s foreclosure prevention program failed to ensure all recipients were eligible

LANSING — The Michigan State Housing Development Authority didn’t make sure that all applicants for mortgage assistance were eligible before awarding dollars from the federal Hardest Hit Fund, according to an audit.

The report released Wednesday by Michigan’s Auditor General found several instances of homeowners who had received financial assistance even though MSHDA had not sufficiently verified that they met income and hardship requirements.

“As a result, MSHDA may have provided HHF Program assistance to homeowners who were not hit hardest by the economic and housing market downturn,” according to the report.