Imagine, if you will, that you were the plaintiff in one or more lawsuits. Imagine that you submitted evidence to a court knowing that it was fraudulent, or, upon learning it was fraudulent, failed to make the court aware of that fact.
Now imagine that just about everyone knew what you’d done or were doing, because the person who committed the fraud pleaded guilty to doing it.
What do you suppose would happen to you?
Well, if you were a normal human being, you would very likely go to jail, or at the very least, the tainted evidence would be tossed, your cases would likely be tossed out of court and you might incur some hefty sanctions.
But that’s because you’re not a bank. For this very scenario is now playing itself out.
On November 20th 2012 I told you about a guilty plea taken by Lorraine Brown, the founder of DOCX (later known at LPS), in federal court in Florida. The press release for that plea did not come out until after 5 PM on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving most of the reporters who usually occupy the front pages of our newspapers and network news were presumably traveling or preparing for their holiday. The story was barely reported.
Lorraine Brown also pled guilty earlier that same day in state court in Missouri. She is rumored to be in plea negotiations in other states.
Even though this is no longer breaking news, it still belongs on the front page of every paper in the country and should be the lead story on every newscast. I’ll tell you why:
Whatever the banks thought about the robo-signing being “sloppy” before, once Lorraine Brown admitted that virtually every document coming out of DOCX/LPS was a forgery and that ALL documents coming out of DOCX/LPS were suspect, the banks that had court cases pending using DOCX/LPS documents had an obligation to either withdraw the documents and/or withdraw the lawsuits and other foreclosure proceedings.
It is a crime (common law fraud) to knowingly use a false, perjured, forged, fraudulent document as “evidence” in court. The specific statute violated will vary from state to state, but it is impossible to conceive that there is a single state where this is legal. If I’m wrong about that, I’m sure someone from the fraud-allowing state will set me straight in the comments. This is certainly a violation of federal criminal law, for example 18 USC §§ 371, 1341, 1342, and 1343 and 39 USC§§ 1341 and 1342.
(via Firedoglake)
To a certain extent, the fact that the banks can get away with this is due to the fact that individual judges may be unaware of these facts. But this doesn’t explain why state AGs are not going after the banks. It truly is inexplicable, as I can’t imagine there’s an AG in any state, be it ever so red, that would become less popular by going after these banks. Maybe our own George Jepsen would like to lead the way.
