Reputations ruined, lives destroyed, careers in shambles...

We've learned over the last several months that people in law enforcement and the state attorneys office have the ability to destroy peoples lives, some innocent and some not.  Check this comment from yesterdays post...

"Forced out of your job? Check.
Humiliated in front of peers? Check.
Career destroyed? Check.
Disgraced in front of friends and family? Check.
Dreams and ambitions annihilated? Check.

This is what this lot did to me, isn't karma a bitch?"

We can only imagine what the story was behind that comment.  You have to wonder, does the cop building a case against you take into consideration the consequences of his actions when they make an arrest, especially on a weak case?  Could they fathom the irreparable damage that they're going to inflict on their subject?  Let's take a look at this comment emailed to us a few weeks back to get a better understanding of the consequences. we've broken up the email with a little commentary...

"Hey I just discovered your blog the other day and love it."

Why, thank you.

"My name is _____________ and I was arrested for Mortgage Fraud and the crazy part is I never committed fraud. But they still "had enough to arrest me"."

We've removed the commenters name to maintain his anonimity.

"Long story short they took me in thinking I was going to be questioned in regards to a case where the lender I use to work for blew the whistle on fraud. Instead they started asking me questions in regards to a loan I denied and referred out because my lender was only doing Full Doc loans. I referred it to a broker that use to rent in our building and he actually gave me a little "finders fee of $500"."

Ok, nothing wrong with that.

"Turns out the seller of the house is the one that actually committed fraud because they gave money back to the buyer without letting anyone know and apparently the seller helped the buyer shop around for a mortgage so they can sell their house to a family member and get some cash out of it."

Wait a minute!  Is he saying the person who claimed to be the victim was actually involved in the fraud!?  Where have we heard this before?!

"I can keep going and going in regards to this so called Mortgage Fraud Task Force where they have no clue what they are doing."

No kidding?  Sound familiar people?  Do we know anyone that was on the task force that has no clue about mortgages or real estate transactions?

"My lender handed this task force a case where we as a lender did our due diligence and had depositions with the borrower, title company all the players involved admitting to fraud in a civil case and then we later turned it in to criminally prosecute the players. These dumb asses came to our office and had no clue what the hell they were doing but yet they supposedly have enough evidence to arrest you and detain you."

No kidding?  Anyone remember way back when we laid out several mortgage fraud cases in the Grove for the task force yet no one did anything?  

"In My case I was arrested and treated like a criminal I was given the whole there's no room for parole and you are going to jail unless you start giving up the players in the transaction in question. I never answered their questions other than I denied the loan and I was actually paid a $500 referral fee off the books. At the end of the day this Baluja guy that I never even met signed the arrest affidavit and decided to take me in."

WHAT?  Did we hear right?!  This BALUJA GUY?!  Could that be right?!

"Guess what charges were dropped within 2 weeks. They never returned any of my attorney's phone calls or any interrogatories she had."

Oh really?  The cops were ducking your attorney?  I see a familiar pattern of behavior...

"After all that bullshit talk and threatening me and scaring me these assholes have made my life a living hell. I stayed with my company after the arrest because they knew that these cops were complete morons and clowns. We would blow the whistle on fraud cases they said they would do their investigation and they will always come back saying they can't find any evidence or the would start questioning the owners of the company as if they committed a crime."

Been there done that buddy.

"They decided to put my face in the news, newspaper and it is still on their website. I lost business because of that, my clients that didn't know me too well would send their business somewhere else. I had a baby girl since then and it has been tough getting a job. If you think it is tough out there to get a job try getting one with a mortgage fraud, grand theft, and intent to defraud charge on your record and terrible credit because I lost alot of business. I have never been in trouble with the law in my life. I have my 215 (health, life and annuities license) and I was just given the ok to take my real estate exam all I have to do is pass. I obviously had to disclose my arrest record along with original copies of the arrest report and they all looked at it and laughed."

Damn shame, it really sucks when your name is out in the media, isn't it BALUJA GUY?

"I agree with you 100% these guys have no clue what they are doing and I have always wondered how the hell can they make up all this stuff on my arrest report so they can get enough to get a warrant and arrest me."

Cops making stuff up?  Not this BALUJA GUY?!

"Just wanted to share with you my experience I'm not looking for notoriety and prove how screwed up this mortgage fraud task force is. If you need anything in my case or have any questions I will be glad to answer them. I just want the general public to know that these detectives are looking for notoriety to flex their fake ass muscles."

No kidding?  Looking for notoriety?  Not these guys?

"Anything you need let me know remember I'm not looking for any public recognition, I am still job hunting and just want this to all go away. Keep up the good work on the blog. I wrote this pretty quick so my grammar may not be the greatest but you get the point."

No worries.  Good luck with the job hunting.

The question we have to ask is while the task force board is running around posing for photos, giving interviews and hyping their creation, who's watching whats going on on the street?  Why are the detectives in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force so poorly trained?  In the case of our commenter's  story, he was able to bring resolution to his case because there was a competent and impartial assistant state attorney who reviewed the Detectives work and found that there was no basis for the arrest.  That wasn't the case with the ASA involved in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, but at least now our readers can see how an impartial and competent ASA is supposed to behave.  

Now that this poor mans life is ruined because of another instance of sloppy police work, how can things be made right again?  Who's going to put the genie back in the bottle?  Why is telling these stories left to some mediocre blog on the last page of the internet?  How can this level of police incompetence be allowed to destroy peoples lives?  We're off to the courthouse to pull up the file on this case, we'll discuss tomorrow.