Thigpen Failed to Meet with President, Economic Advisers on WH Visit

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE

Thigpen Failed to Meet with President, Economic Advisers on WH Visit
Today, June 21, 2011, 5 hours ago | David Dayen

(photo: Rev Dan Catt)

“It was a bust.”

That’s what Guilford County register of deeds Jeff Thigpen told me
about his visit to the White House last Friday. Many were intrigued by
the surprise announcement that Thigpen would be part of a reception
and policy briefing some of the nation’s brightest young legislators.
He has been at the forefront among registers of deeds of the
foreclosure fraud crisis, using the power of his office to document
forgeries and other abuses by banks seeking to upend the land title
recording system that has prevailed in America for centuries. There
was a hope that this White House meeting would offer a chance for
Thigpen to build on his success, and get the ear of top policymakers
about the extent of the fraud.

It didn’t pan out. “I got up there and they processed my stuff late,
and there were a bunch of young electeds attending the briefings,”
Thigpen said in a brief phone interview. “And I got bumped from the
briefings. So I went to the reception, but there was obviously no time
with the President at that.”

Thigpen is now backtracking to the people he would have met at the
briefing, and sending them letters about his work as a register of
deeds in combating foreclosure fraud. “I heard (Council of Economic
Advisers Austan) Goolsbee was giving one briefing, and oh man, I would
have loved to have been there,” said Thigpen. “I would have had the
first hand up with the question. My friend told me Goolsbee gave the
briefing, I was sitting there cussing.”  [cont’d.]

Both Thigpen and his fellow registers of deeds which have investigated
the fraud in their offices are ramping up for a weeklong convention of
registers in Atlantic City next week, from June 26-30. John O’Brien,
the register for Sussex County in Massachusetts, is giving a series of
briefings, and plans to present findings similar to what Thigpen
showed in North Carolina. O’Brien has some help from forensic
investigators in documenting those findings. “That’s going to be good
stuff,” Thigpen said.

O’Brien gained some notoriety two weeks ago when he announced he would
reject clearly fraudulent foreclosure documents from being recorded.
“I’m totally behind John on that,” Thigpen said. “If they are that
knuckleheaded to submit Linda Green robo-signers to be recorded…. to
do that to a recorder, that would be the equivalent of slapping me in
the face. We have to decide in the public recording community, are we
just going to be ministerial officers, accepting whatever they give
us, or are we going to look at what goes on, and be responsible. And
if we’re going to be responsible, we have to prepare ourselves to be
those kinds of institutions.”

Thigpen hopes that O’Brien can change some minds of registers at the
convention in Atlantic City. He has had talks of his own with some
registers across the country, and he said that most of them are
curious in his findings. “They just don’t know how to deal with it,”
he concluded.

Tags: bankruptcy, borrower, countrywide, disclosure, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, foreclosures, fraud, LOAN MODIFICATION, modification, quiet title, rescission, RESPA, securitization, TILA audit, trustee, WEISBAND
Posted in bubble, Corruption, Eviction, securities fraud |