The Florida Bar v. Darlene Fernandez Carus, more on the Maria Teresa Lopez mortgage fraud mess.

We briefly discussed the Maria Teresa Lopez mortgage fraud mess involving attorney Darlene Fernandez Carus last week and noted how though late, the Florida Bar finally took action against Ms. Carus for her involvement in the mortgage fraud that ended up getting Maria Teresa Lopez and her brother Guillermo Napoleon Lopez disbarred.  Oddly enough out of the three lawyers involved, Ms. Lopez was the only one that was arrested, both Mr. Lopez and Ms. Carus were not charged criminally.  The arrest affidavit doesn't really implicate Mr. Lopez, but it certainly paints Ms. Carus as a central figure in the "Organized Scheme to Defraud" yet somehow she was able to evade prosecution.


Regardless, the bar action tells her side of the story, take a good look and we'll discuss tomorrow...

Darlene Fernandez Carus Bar Suspension

The Straw Buyer's dirty attorney roundup!

Don't get carried away, there isn't enough room on this blog to round up all the dirty attorneys out there, what we're going to do today is just summarize all the dirty attorneys that we've talked about since the inception of our blog.  Here we go...

• Roger Besu- charged with stealing over two million dollars of his clients funds from his trust account.
• Sally Sawh- oddly enough she's also been charged with stealing over two million dollars of her clients funds from her trust account.
• David Rodriguez- charged several counts for setting up an illegal home purchase where the buyer was getting tens of thousands of dollars from the closing without the lenders knowledge as well as paying off the sellers mortgage weeks before the closing actually occurred according to the state.  He was the attorney that put the deal together with an undercover cop acting as the sellers accountant.
• Alfredo Xiques- he's the guy who notarized forged signatures on a mortgage for his cousin allowing the cousin to make off with tens of thousands of dollars, oddly enough he was never charged.
• Scott Rothstein- the high profile attorney that ran a $1.2 billion dollar ponzi scheme through his law firm.
• Maria Teresa Lopez- where do we start?  This was the suspended attorney who according to the states charging documents kept doing closings through another attorney who didn't pay off mortgages and ultimately made off with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars of lenders monies.
• Guillermo Napoleon Lopez- this would be Maria Teresa Lopez' brother who according to the state helped her launder the proceeds of the crooked mortgages.  Again, oddly enough he was never charged.
• Darlene Fernandez Carus- this is the attorney that Maria Teresa Lopez used to do her fraudulent deals through, the proceeds of these closings according to the state came through this attorneys trust account and again according to the state it was this attorneys office that was responsible for paying off the mortgages on the transactions that the Lopez group profited from.  Once again, despite the apparent involvement in these frauds, this attorney wasn't charged.

Last but not least, we have attorney Delaila Estefano who according the arrest affidavit prepared by Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski was charged with the following:

1. Grand Theft
2. Identity Theft
3. Organized Scheme to Defraud

Good enough.  We talked about the Grand Theft charge at length a while back and we get this gem of a quote from one of the motions filed with the court (top of page four)...

Furthermore, the State conceded that both Co-Defendant Romney and Martinez did not directly implicate Ms. Estefano has having knowledge about the underlying fraud in the case.

WTF?  Nearly two years into the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud case and the codefendants haven't been able to implicate the attorney?!  You have to wonder then, what did Attorney Estefano do that prompted Detective Baluja to arrest her?  Let's here it in his own words...

So there you have it folks, the state alleges that not following closing instructions is what got the attorney arrested.  Not stealing millions of dollars from trust accounts, not for failing to pay off peoples mortgages, not for fraudulently notarizing peoples signatures or for doing fraudulent deals with undercover cops but for allegedely failing to follow closing instructions.  Brilliant Jorge.

A common theme throughout the Lopez bar petitions.

Did anyone notice what the underlying theme was throughout the Maria Teresa Lopez and Guillermo Napoleon Lopez emergency bar petitions?  Detective Baluja and ASA Bill Kostrzewski should have, the reoccurring theme and phrase throughout both complaints is...

"Closing agent failed to follow closing instructions."

So in the case of the Lopez siblings, what exactly did that mean?  Let's take a quick rundown of how they failed to follow closing instructions for the properties whose closings they conducted:

• Failure to record deeds
• Failure to record mortgages
• Failure to issue title policies
• Failure to collect monies from buyers as outlined by the HUD-1's
• Failure to pay off existing mortgages for the sellers
• Inappropriate distribution of proceeds from the transactions

That's just a few examples of how the Lopez crew "failed to follow closing instructions."  Worst of all, the intention of the closing agents who did not follow the closing instructions was clearly fraud and theft for the Lopez siblings directly profited from their illegal acts, from what we can see, all told they made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars of ill gotten gains. 

What's strange about the transactions that we've discussed throughout the last week is that neither Maria Teresa Lopez or Irina Jackeline Ball were the closing agents on the fraudulent transactions, yet they were the only ones arrested (with the exception of Jamie Nails who allegedly procured the stolen identity for one of the transactions and is still at large).  The transactions we've outlined all occurred after Ms. Lopez lost her ability to underwrite closings with Attorneys Title and according to the police reports and the Florida Bar's own investigation, the transactions were actually conducted by two other attorneys, Darlene Fernandez Carus and Guillermo Napoleon Lopez.  In essence, Ms. Lopez wasn't even the closing agent on the fraudulent transactions which leads us to the question we raised yesterday, why weren't these attorneys, the ones that actually closed the fraudulent transactions arrested?  We know that at the very least Mr. Lopez was disciplined by the Bar, but we can't even find as much for the other attorney, are we to believe that both the police and the Bar bought her "I had no idea these transactions were occurring" explanation?  That's a tough pill to swallow as these transactions require access to her trust accounts, her offices paperwork to the lenders for the closing, etc.  Let's say for the sake of argument that the attorneys had no idea what was going on and were perhaps duped by their employees and/or shady people that were hanging around their offices, as we mentioned yesterday, using the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case as an example, why weren't the attorneys involved who ultimately signed the title policies and closing proceeds checks arrested?  What's the deal folks?  We're talking near seven figure transactions flowing through their trust accounts and they maintain they had no idea what was going on?  I think the best way to sum up that excuse is with my new vanity license plate...

Think about it Detective Baluja and especially you ASA Kostrzewski, it's your favorite phrase...

"Closing agent failed to follow closing instructions."

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.