Another angle from the Maria Teresa Lopez case and how it applies to the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud case.

In reviewing the affidavit in support of the arrest warrant for Maria Teresa Lopez and Irina Jackeline Ball, we came across this bit of information that sparked our interest...

Although the WFHL loan application indicates it was taken in a face-to-face interview with WFHL loan officer Zoe Azpeitia. Porter stated she does not know and has never met Zoe Azpeitia.

Mrs. Porter is the woman whose identity Lopez and Ball allegedly stole in order to defraud the lender for Ms. Ball's unit at the Murano Grande.  One of the first steps in their mortgage fraud scheme is to fill out a loan application for the person who they were going to get a mortgage under, in this case, Mrs. Delores Porter.  One aspect of the loan application that's been overlooked in many of these identity theft cases is the part at the very end of the loan application where it says 

 "interviewer's name"

From what we've been told, this is where the mortgage broker who took the application has to sign attesting that he/she took the information from the borrower and that to the best of their ability have determined that the information is true and correct.  In the Porter Identity theft case the loan officer that conducted this "face to face" interview was a loan officer named Zoe Azpeitia, when Ms. Azpeitia was later deposed regarding the Porter matter, she tells the attorneys that... 

(Zoe Azpeitia was deposed by attorneys from Cohen Fox, PA on October 8''', 2009.) In that deposition, Azpeitia stated that she did not conduct a face-to face interview with Porter.

Oh, OK.  According to the police report, Mrs. Porter's identity was stolen and now according to Ms. Azpeitia, whose name appears on the loan application as the interviewer, her identity must have been stolen as well?  Ok, got it.  So what's the tie in to the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud Case?  Easy, there was a similar 1003 loan application for Barrera case as well, let's take a look...

Barrera Loan Application for Oak Avenue Home

Oh nice!  See that signature at the bottom where it says interviewer's name?  Whether the man who signed as the borrower was the real Barrera or an impostor, this man who conducted the interview or took the loan application met with him face to face according to this document.  Now, considering what we know about Mr. Barrera's signature, we can only conclude that the signature on this page is Mr. Barrera's real signature.  If you follow that line of reasoning, then we have someone now (the interviewer) that came face to face with Mr. Barrera and took a loan application for what we now know was a transaction designed to defraud Citi Mortgage.  

There is something else though, we learned through an email written by none other than Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski (we're saving that gem for later) that it's the mortgage brokers that are responsible for...

"verifying the accuracy of employment and assets listed by the potential borrowers."

That's fantastic Mr. Kostrzewski!  By the tone of your email, it looks like you're finally paying attention, albeit about two years too late.  So, who verified Mr. Barrera's employment status for the Oak Avenue Mortgage Fraud?  Let's take a look...

Bernardo Barrera Verification of Employment

Sweet!  The same guy that took Mr. Barrera's loan application also verified his employment!  What are the chances?  So now, we have two more people to add into the mix, the guy that took the loan application and verified Mr. Barrera's employment and now some guy named Rolando Rosa confirmed that Mr. Barrera was a sales manager at Miryil Enterprises.  The question that begs to be asked though is why was this aspect of the Bernardo Barrera case completely ignored by the police and the prosecutors?  This confirmation of employment as well as the mortgage brokers signature at the bottom of the loan application certainly does muddy the waters for the states case doesn't it?  Rather than complicate their case we guess they just decided to look past these pertinent facts.  Nice going guys.


Moving along, yesterday we get this message from one of our readers...

Why be anonymous? It seems to me you should take credit for the vast information you claim to know and have so generously provided. What are you afraid of? You should also remember that what goes around comes around......your thyroid cancer may just come back. 

OH NO!  THYROID CANCER?!  As far as I know there's never been anything wrong with my Thyroid, what's the deal?  FCUK!    Does this reader know something that we don't know?  Should we get our thyroid checked out?!  DAMN!

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.