A new character in the Maria Teresa Lopez and Irina Jackeline Ball mortgage fraud story, Guillermo Napoleon Lopez.

Last week we learned about the very unlawyerly behavior of attorney Maria Teresa Lopez which eventually led to her disbarment. Together with her partner in crime, Irina Jackeline Ball, both the Florida Bar and the MDPD has accused them both of not only running mortgage fraud scams, not paying off mortgages at closing and stealing peoples identities, but of not even recording the transactions and the mortgages! In a nutshell from the documentation we've been able to find, these two were simply getting the money from the lenders, laundering the money through different title companies and ultimately pocketing the funds!
 
So how does a disbarred attorney get away with such mayhem? At first we learned that Ms. Lopez was doing these transactions through attorney Darlene Fernandez Carus who claims that these transactions were going through her law office and the funds were being disbursed from her trust account without her knowledge, yeah, ok. What's really sad and what truly reflects what kind of people we're talking about here is where this evil duo sent the money from Darlene Fernandez Carus's trust account, Ms. Lopez used her younger brother's (who happened to be an attorney as well) trust account to distribute her ill gotten gains, ultimately causing her brother to lose his license to practice law as well. Let's take a look at Florida Bar's petition for Mr. Lopez' emergency suspension...

Guillermo Napoleon Lopez Petition for Emergency Suspension

From the bar's petition...

4- Respondent facilitated the misappropriation in excess of $200,000 of trust funds by his sister, Maria T. Lopez, an attorney that was emergency suspended on October 29, 2008  Said funds were provided by a lender for the purposes of the Irina Ball (seller) to Delores Porter (borrower) closing of property located at 400 Alton Road, #2309, Miami Beach, Fl.

That's nice, this would be the same transaction that we discussed on Friday that finally caused the Mortgage Fraud Task Force to go ahead and arrest Ms. Lopez and crew.  It gets better...

5- Additionally, Respondent was the settlement agent for real estate transactions where he failed to disburse monies in accordance with the HUD-1 settlement statements, including failure to pay off mortgages that were required to be satisfied at closing.  Additionally, in at least one instance, Respondent failed to record a deed and mortgage for a transaction where he was the settlement agent.

Oh boy.  It gets better and better...

17- On April 27, 2009, Respondent received $312,490.98 from Susan Friedman towards the purchase of property located at 5225 Collins Avenue, unit 106, Miami Beach, Fl 33139.  On same date, Respondent wired Irina Ball $250,000 per instructions from seller, Jose R. Gonzalez.  The disbursement instructions indicated that in lieu of satisfying Jose R. Gonzalez's mortgage at Washington Mutual of $272,890.00, monies were to be given to Irina Ball and upon the sale of Irina Ball's property at 6101 Aqua Avenue, unit #301, Miami Beach, Fl 33140, Respondent could then satisfy Mr. Gonzalez's mortgage with Washington Mutual.

Oh really? 

18- On May 13, 2009 Respondent was wired $674,648.36 from Pathman Lewis, LLP in regard to the sale of the property at 6101 Aqua Avenue, unit #301.  Respondent paid approximately $524,000 to Irina Ball, the seller instead of satisfying two Countrywide mortgages as indicated on the HUD-1.

Did Mr. Lopez miss the following closing instructions?

"The sellers will not receive any proceeds from this short sale transaction"

What the fcuk?  Here's the question that begs to be asked, using ASA Bill Kostrzewski's prosecution of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud as a template, why weren't the other attorneys, Darlene Fernandez Carus and Guillermo Napoleon Lopez arrested?  Why haven't charges been brought against the rest of the people involved in these frauds?  An even more pressing question is WHAT IN THE FCUK DID THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY WERE DOING?  This is some of the most egregious real estate fraud that we've ever seen, how did these idiots think they were going to get away with it?


Jeeze.  What's even sadder is that Ms. Lopez not only destroyed her own career but decided to take her brothers down the drain with her.  Incredible.