Hey Bernie, let's go boating!

Sure, why not? Doesn't Bernardo Barrera have a boat?  Surely you all remember that right before Mr. Bernardo Barrera claimed his identity was stolen by John Romney and crew for the Oak Avenue mortgage fraud scheme, he claimed his identity was stolen by another group to obtain a loan for the purchase of a boat.  What if anything does this have to do with the mortgage fraud story?  Let's start with the police report for this "boat deal"...

Bernardo Barrera Boat Identity Theft Police Report

Well, what do you know, Mr. Barrera tells the police that for reasons unbeknown to us or anyone else with a modicum of common sense, on February 8, 2008 he just decides out of the blue to check his credit report and finds a new loan that was opened up under his name without his knowledge.  Wow!  What are the chances?  That's the exact same way he found out about the fraudulent loan for the Oak Avenue home just a little over a month later!  We know Mr. Barrera has had trouble, according to him, receiving letters from different lending institutions at his primary residence, just a little while back we found at least 5 letters that Citi Mortgage sent to his primary residence in reference to the Oak Avenue home mortgage well before he claimed he found out about the fraud.  Do you guys think there's a chance that the bank that lent the money on this fraudulent boat deal could have possibly sent Mr. Barrera some correspondences regarding this loan to his primary residence before February 8 when he claimed he found out about the fraudulent activity on his credit report?  What are the chances?  Take a look for yourselves...

Bernardo Barrera Boat Loan Statement

What are the chances?  How much mail must have been going to Mr. Barrera's home that somehow never made it to Mr. Barrera?  Take a look at the pertinent dates on this loan statement, from what we can see it looks like the statement was mailed by GE Money bank on 1/25/08 from Atlanta, so how long could it have taken for the statement to reach Mr. Barrera's home?  Let's see, the 25th was a Friday, so lets say for the sake of argument that the mail takes 5 days to get to Mr. Barrera's home, that would put the statement in his mailbox no later than 1/31/08.  Now the reality is that mail from Atlanta to Miami takes no more than 3 days and is sometimes delivered in just 2 days, but for our purposes lets just assume that the statement was received on the 31st.  If that's the case then what did Mr. Barrera do with this statement during the seven days before he reported the identity theft?  Can anyone guess why Mr. Barrera waited till 2/8/08 to report this case?  We'll give you a hint, the answer is in the other documents that he supposedly didn't receive.

Does anything else about this loan statement for the fraudulent boat purchase strike you guys as strange?  Take a closer look at the statement, specifically the part that says "payment allocation"...

SEE THAT!  Someone made a payment on the loan!  WTF?!  Who the hell made the payment and how did they do it?  If you look back at the Maria Teresa Lopez and Irina Jackeline Ball mortgage fraud and identity theft case you'll see that there were payments made on that fraudulent loan as well.  In that case the police got copies of the money orders that were used to make the payments with, traced them back to where they were purchased and then were able to identify who actually purchased the money orders.  According to the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant in that case, the store owner who issued the money orders was able to positively identify one of the defendants as the person who purchased the money orders and that helped solve the PD's identity theft case.  Now, could you imagine if we were actually able to find out how the two payments on the fraudulent boat loan were made?  Check out what some good old fashioned investigating will get you...

Cashiers Check 1

And...

Cashiers Check 2

NICE!  You have to wonder though, does the PD have these money orders?  Surely if they did they would have traced where they were purchased from, gone over there and interviewed who ever issued the checks right?  PUHLEEZE!  Even worse, do you think Detective Baluja (while he was the lead on the mortgage fraud case) even checked into this case?  We'll discuss tomorrow, we've gone way over our daily quota of FAIL!

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.

Fraud? That's an understatement, more on the Maria Teresa Lopez story and introducing the "Mortgage Fraud Troll"...

We've spent the last couple of days discussing the case of Maria Teresa Lopez, a disbarred attorney that is in the middle of a whole mess of fraud.  We discussed a laundry list of frauds that the Florida Bar discovered on Tuesday, yet the fraud she finally got arrested for wasn't the fraud that the bar had discovered.  Let's take a look at the booking info for Ms. Lopez as provide by the Miami Dade County corrections department (as always click on the image to enlarge)...

NICE!  Check out the bail amount, $1,000,000!  We'll get into what she did in a bit, now let's take a look at her partner in crime, Irina Jackeline Ball...

Oh my, $800,000 bail?  Even worse, 5'7", 220 lbs, and that face...

Ready for it?

Wasn't she one of the characters from that movie "Lord of the Rings"?  Because of that build, that face and the audacity of the mortgage frauds she committed, Ms. Ball has earned the title of "Mortgage Fraud Troll".  Now we're sure that you guys think that's a bit harsh, trust us, when you learn what she's done, you'll agree that the name is perfect for her.  Let's go to the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant that was filed by Detective Tamma Hartman of the Miami Dade Mortgage Fraud Task Force against Ms. Lopez and the Mortgage Fraud Troll...

Maria Teresa Lopez Irina Jackeline Ball Affidavit in Support of Arrest Warrant

The first thing that strikes us as strange is the following:

"Your co-affiant is Frank Gramlich a private investigator with the Xavier Group and a retired agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigations..."

What the hell is that about?  Someone that's not a cop can write up an arrest affidavit?  We know that Detective Hartman is green and that this is probably the first case she's ever been the lead on, but we didn't realize that she needed help from someone from outside the PD!  WTF?!  As you can see, this case is based on a condo located at 400 Alton Road AKA the Murano Grande, the story is rather complicated so let's try to make it a little easier and break it down into a clear time line...

• 11/30/07 Ball AKA the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" signs a purchase contract to purchase the unit for $850,000.
• 2/19/08 The "Mortgage Fraud Troll" gets a mortgage from Victor K. Rones for $510,000 on the property even though she hasn't closed on it yet.
• 2/22/08 Closing occurs yet the HUD-1 reflects that the sale is all cash with no mortgage (uh oh).
• 2/25/08 $838,283.50 is wired from the "Lopez" trust account to the seller yet it seems as if $154,323.50 comes from other clients of "Lopez" and not the "Mortgage Fraud Troll".
• 3/5/10 Lender Rones files a foreclosure suit against the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" and files a lis pendens against the subject property.
• 9/23/09 Lender Rones gets a final judgment against the "Mortgage Fraud Troll".
• 9/26/08 "Mortgage Fraud Troll" sells property to someone who has stolen the identity of Delores Porter for $521,250.  "Lopez" closes the transaction despite there being a lis pendens from the original lender whose mortgage she forgot to record.  Keep in mind the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" had just purchased the unit seven months earlier for over $300,000 MORE!  Once loan is funded, no one pays off the original mortgage (which "Lopez" had failed to record) for $510,000!!!

HOLY $HIT!  WTF?!  Let's take a break for a moment and take into account that Ms. Lopez was not allowed to write title insurance with Attorneys Title since November 2007 and was doing real estate closings through another attorney, one Darlene Fernandez Carus.  Ms. Carus makes the following representation according to the affidavit:

"Carus claims that this and other closings were executed by "LOPEZ" in Carus' name without her knowledge or supervision..."

WHAT?!

So we're to believe that Attorney Carus had no idea what Ms. Lopez and the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" were doing and that she had no knowledge of the hundreds of thousands of dollars going through her trust account?

Ms. Carus would have us to believe that the disbursement checks and wire transfers were made from her trust account without her knowledge?

Ms. Carus expects us to believe that Ms. Lopez had access to her trust account and was able to prepare all these documents with her name on it and still, she had no knowledge?  

Ms Carus saw the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" trolling around her office and didn't run for the nearest exit or jump out the nearest window?!  PUHLEEZE!  Getting back to our time line...

• 9/29/08 $519,858.18 gets wired into Attorney Carus' trust account (of which she has no knowledge of according to her statement to the police), the entire proceeds are then wire transferred out of Carus' trust account (again without her knowledge) and into "Lopez's" account at City National Bank.  We can only presume that Lopez was then going to pay off the mortgage that she had forgotten to record seven months earlier?!  LOL!
• 9/30/08 Ms. Lopez then wires $148,872.65 to the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" HUH?!  What about paying off the first mortgage?!
• 10/28/08 Ms. Lopez knowing that she's going to be suspended by the Florida Bar the next day takes the remaining money out of her trust account ($353,678.97) and wires it to her brothers account who also happens to be an attorney.  From this money, Lopez hauls ass with $228,123.98 and the brother distributes $125,554.99 to other clients without ever satisfying the original mortgage from 2/08!

HOLY CRAP!  How the hell did they think that they were going to pull this one off?  WTF?  Knowing what we know from the Bernardo Barrera case where the attorney whose office conducted the closing was arrested, why wasn't the attorney whose office conducted this closing arrested?  Are you telling us she got off because she said "she had no knowledge" of what was going on?  Pfft!  While we're at it, why wasn't Ms. Lopez's brother arrested?  Give me a fcuking break. 

So what do we come away with this week?  We learned from the Florida Bar the villainous activities that lead up to the disbarring of Maria Teresa Lopez, we then learned that she was arrested by the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force on a completely unrelated fraud over a year later than the ones that the bar had found and today we're shown what kind of unconscionable mortgage fraud Ms. Lopez and the "Mortgage Fraud Troll" had committed all while the attorney whose office handled the closing had no idea or knowledge of what was going on (HAH!).  Most importantly from the text of the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant we learn that more than likely the inexperienced Detective from the mortgage fraud task force didn't put together the case or write the affidavit but that the case and the affidavit were probably put together by a retired FBI agent working for a private non government firm.  Sort of like training wheels for the Detective!  NICE!

We'll leave you this Friday with a cure for an ailment that men who take Viagra or Cialis may suffer from.  Surely you all have heard of priapism, the medical condition where the males genitals do not return to their flaccid state, despite the absence of both physical and psychological stimulation, within four hours.  Rest easy gents suffering from priapism, we here at the Straw Buyer have found the cure, if you're suffering from this most horrible ailment, just click here and you'll be cured.

Have a great weekend!

What do you get when you cross a crooked attorney and a washed up NFL player? MORTGAGE FRAUD, FOOL!

We learned about disbarred attorney Maria Teresa Lopez yesterday, what was most interesting though is that the MDPD nor the Miami Dade County Mortgage fraud task force did ANYTHING about the millions of dollars of fraud that she committed leading up to the Florida Bar disbarring her.  What gives?  Some of those frauds were from back in 2006 and the Mortgage Fraud Task Force didn't do anything about them?  What's worse is that the petitions for suspension by that bar could have been copied word for word into an arrest affidavit, they'd already done all the investigating and writing!  Cut and paste then VIOLA!  Instant arrest affidavit with all the documentation to back everything up, not to mention of far better quality than any arrest affidavit that we've seen to date.

So what did it take to finally bring the Mortgage Fraud Task Force to arrest Ms. Lopez?  Let's take a look at the article from the Sun Sentinel...

Former Dolphin Jamie Nails charged with fraud
Offensive lineman stole identity of ex-teammate’s grandmother, police say

Jamie Nails, a former Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills offensive lineman, is being charged with mortgage fraud after police say he stole the identity of the grandmother of a former teammate.

An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for Nails, 34, who was believed to be in his native Georgia.

Miami-Dade prosecutors say the alleged victim is the grandmother of Nails' former Bills teammate Daryl Porter.

Also charged: Irina J. Ball, president of Pan American Investment and Mortgage Corp., and Maria T. Lopez, a Coral Gables lawyer disbarred in January for improper handling of client matters.

All are charged with organized fraud, organized scheme to defraud, first-degree grand theft and fraudulent use of an identity.

According to an arrest warrant made public Wednesday, Nails and Ball stole the identity of Delores Porter, 74, to obtain a $510,000 mortgage for a South Beach condominium in her name. Lopez acted as the deal's closing agent, according to Miami-Dade's Mortgage Fraud Task Force.

Prosecutors allege that Ball paid $49,625 to Nails as part of the deal. Nails could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

This is Nails' second brush with the law since he left the NFL in 2003.

In November 2006, Fort Lauderdale police arrested Nails for grand theft after he failed to return a Chrysler 300 Touring to a rental car company. Records show he accepted a plea deal, agreeing to three years' probation plus restitution.

A 6-foot-6, 335-pound guard, Nails played college ball at Florida A&M and was drafted by Buffalo in 1997. He played four seasons there before signing with Miami.

But in December 2002, he tore his Achilles tendon and never again played up to his potential. He was released after the 2003 season and did not return to the NFL.

After his release, Nails coached for the Miami Fury woman's football team, and the short-lived indoor arena team the Miami Morays.

Wow.  The article is more about the football player than it is about the crooked attorney, that's in striking contrast to this article isn't it?  Looks like all the Task Force is concerned about is a scintillating headline, damn the real story!  There is something that doesn't seem right, from our research, the attorney was suspended from practicing back in 2008, the fraud that's described in the article above occurred either right when she was suspended or just afterwords, that's a problem as once an attorney is suspended, the Bar takes over their trust accounts and disburses any  monies that may be left over to makes sure there's no funny business going on, so who closed this crooked deal?  What did Ms. Lopez have to do with it and why wasn't the person who closed the deal arrested as well?  We'll take a look at that aspect of the story tomorrow, trust me what we're going to find is going to make your stomach turn.