COUNTER-ATTACK: FORECLOSURE DEFENSE LAWYER INDICTED FOR "FRAUD"

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: IF YOU READ BETWEEN THE LINES, the attorney involved merely used the same tactic that Wall Street used — only against them. The use of a straw buyer was the cornerstone of the securitization scam. Nobody was indicted from the securitizing crowd (pretender lenders) but this attorney was singled out for emulating the same behavior. I say to wall Street be careful what you wish for — if the use of straw-men is an indictable offense then virtually every one of the 80 million mortgage transactions that were “securitized” in the great scam of the last 10 years should result in in tens of thousands of indictments and convictions.

The use of inflated appraisals was the keys to the city in the securitization scam. If the property was not fraudulently appraised at more than the loan product fraudulently sold to homeowners, there would have been no borrowers, no investors and no transactions. The mortgage meltdown would never have occurred. TILA and national underwriting standards state that appraisals are a representation of the lender, not the borrower. An underwriting committee for the “lender” is required to verify income, appraised value and other attributes of viability of the loan. They didn’t do that, which means they were continuing the same bad practices that led to the mortgage meltdown. If inflated appraisals are cause for indictment, then tens of thousands of appraisers and pretender lenders should already be serving their term in prison.

But the real cause of all this can be seen from the battle between the attorney and Judge. The Judge always wins. Despite the unfortunate reference to Glenn Beck, you can see that Asbury revealed a pattern of rulings from a Judge that should have been recused from hearing any of the cases. When she posted his mutual fund holdings showing a patent conflict of interest stemming from bank holdings which largely were dependent upon the mortgages being enforced, the attorney was hit with these indictments. I don’t think there is any coincidence there.

Many Judges have bank holdings and those bank holdings derive their value from the validity and value of derivatives that have no value. The widespread attempt to preserve the apparent value of these mortgage bonds, which are devoid of any asset value because the mortgages were defective and never transferred properly arises from the fact that these investments permeate our entire economic system. It isn’t the fault of attorneys or borrowers that the assets are worthless. But it is easy to scape goat an attorney with limited resources in order to discredit the movement against fraudulent foreclosures.

That said, I don’t condone mimicking the deceptive behavior of mortgage originators, brokers and banks when the loans were funded without documentation. But it isn’t hard to see how anyone  could come to the conclusion that if the pretenders can do it, why can’t I?

Kim Miller at the Palm Beach Post posted an article yesterday about how foreclosure defense attorney Carol Asbury was indicted by the feds for her involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme in the Versailles area of the wealthy community of Wellington about 15 miles west of West Palm Beach.

Apparently, Asbury was involved in a scheme that would use people from the low income Miami suburb of Opa Locka as straw buyers to purchase homes in Versailles.  Carl Alexander who was indicted along with Asbury was in charge of recruiting the straw buyers who were paid between $700-$15,000 for purchasing the home.

Asbury who also owned a title company, Asbury & Associates aside from her foreclosure defense firm of Save My Home Law Group handled the closings of these transactions.

According to the indictment, the closing documents were prepared by real estate broker David Lam and Asbury. The documents concealed the fact that lenders were lending the straw buyers more money than the house was worth with Alexander, Asbury and Lam pocketing the difference.  In four transactions alone the three pocketed an estimated $1.8 million.

Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m surprised by this.  It’s not because I believe she’s a victim of government persecution but because of the way she conducts her business.

Asbury rose to prominence last May after she got upset that Judge Meenu Sasser in Palm Beach County was consistently ruling against her and other foreclosure defense attorneys in her circle.  Asbury through her website 4closurefraud.org did a Glenn Beck style stunt and posted the contents of Judge Sasser’s mutual fund on the site. The fund contained stock holdings in several major banks.  She and her web master, Michael Redman tried to assert Judge Sasser unfairly ruled against foreclosure defense attorneys because doing so would enhance the value of her mutual fund.   Soon after posting this, they followed it up with another article claiming every judge in Palm Beach County is corrupt because the county’s pension fund has funds tied to the major banks.

Contrary to popular belief, Carol Asbury doesn’t just sponsor 4closurefraud.org she owns it.   She uses it as a marketing tool for her law firm.  Redman claims Asbury is only a “sponsor” because the site does not conform to Florida Bar rules governing attorney websites which is why soon after Redman’s involvement the ICANN registry was switched to “Domains By Proxy”.   The site was listed on Carol Asbury’s business cards prior to Michael Redman’s involvement and is listed as her website with the Florida Bar. Carol Asbury, who is a protégé of Neil Garfield, met Michael Redman, an unemployed car salesman at one of Garfield’s seminars and offered him a job as a researcher.

Asbury and Redman  also ask for donations on site which is against Florida law if you are not a licensed non-profit with the state of Florida.

This indictment isn’t the first time Asbury has been in trouble. In April of 2008, she was publicly reprimanded by the Florida Bar for misconduct:

More:

http://www.mfi-miami.com/category/blog/

Tags: borrower, disclosure, Florida, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, fraud, Lender Liability, mortgage meltdown, predatory lending, rescission, securitization, trustee
Posted in bubble, Corruption, Eviction, securities fraud |