Great question isn't it? If the man who the state claims is the victim of identity theft in one of our mortgage fraud stories isn't really a victim and is indeed involved in the commission of the fraud, what happens to the states case? The foundation of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud cases rests on one assumption, that Mr. Barrera was the victim of identity theft, without that, the entire case goes out the window.
Let's do a quick summary of what we've found out about Mr. Barrera, the upstanding citizen that the state has us believe is a victim of all kinds of wrongdoing by the defendants...
Purchases his primary residence which is identical to his next door neighbor who simultaneously purchased the home for $140,000 less than Mr. Barrera did.
So what does this all mean? If Mr. Barrera had knowledge of the fraud, then the states case falls apart. If indeed he had knowledge, then he's not a victim of identity theft now is he? If indeed he is involved then he's definately guilty of being involved in an "Organized Scheme to Defraud" and is certainly guilty of "Grand Theft" now isn't he?
The question that begs to be asked though, is how the hell did the state ignore all these obvious facts that undermine the credibility of their victim? We know Detective Baluja is too dumb to understand what was going on, but what about assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski? Why was the prosecutor ignoring the documents that were part of his own file? Why behave in such a negligent manner? These are questions only he can answer. Even now after Mr. Kostrzewski has been taken off the case and replaced with a new prosecutor, why does the state still continue to ignore these pertinent facts? Fortunately for us, the facts that we've uncovered only need to be heard by a Jury to prove what kind of idiots put this case together.
If Mr. Barrera isn't a victim, then who is? We'll discuss tomorrow.
Problems with the mail lately? People sending you things that you never receive? Happens to all of us now and again, just how often though? Maybe once or twice a year at best? Not for Bernardo Barrera, the man who is at the center of one of our mortgage fraud stories, based on what he's told the police and Citi Mortgage, he'd have us believe that he's got the worst mailman walking the face of the earth.
The entire case that Detective Baluja and assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski put together rests on Mr. Barerra's assertions that he had no knowledge that the fraud was occuring, let's take a look at the letter Mr. Barrera sent Citi Mortgage stating as much...
"This account was open without my knowledge using my personal information fraudulently. I have not engaged in the purchase of a House in the Miami-Dade county Florida."
Oh, very good, missed a few days in English class I see. So you had no knowledge of this fraud occurring correct? OK. We especially like this bit...
"I do not understand who will do something like this, but I do know that this needs to be resolve as soon as possible..."
You know what, Bernie? I have a pretty good idea of "who will do something like this (sic)", he's overweight, unemployed and has a knack for committing mortgage fraud. Sound like anyone you know Mr. Barrera? Now, Citi Mortgage answers that pathetic excuse for a letter with the following...
Superb! Now we've established correspondence from Citi Mortgage to Bernardo Barrera at his primary residence via the U.S. Postal Service. All good. Now that we've established clearly that Mr. Barrera is receiving mail from Citi Mortgage, let's take a look at some other mail that Citi Mortgage sent Mr. Barrera...
SWEET BERNIE! Congrats man, it looks like Citi Mortgage sent you a good faith estimate on January 25, 2008 for a new mortgage (loan #002005062091). Good deal! Now, lets look at another letter that Citi Mortgage sent Mr. Barrera at his primary residence...
NICE! A commitment letter for a mortgage for a home located at 3390 Oak Avenue (loan #002005062091) that was mailed on January 29, 2008 to Mr. Barrera at his CORRECT home address. Good deal, now another letter...
Even better, a second commitment letter mailed to Mr. Barrera's primary residence for the purchase of the Oak Avenue home on January 31, 2008. Moving along...
Oh boy, another commitment letter for the Oak avenue home mortgage mailed to Mr. Barrera at his primary residence dated February 18, 2008. Can it get worse? Yes!
BRILLIANT! A thank you letter sent to Mr. Barrera for his new mortgage for the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue mailed to his primary residence by Citi Mortgage dated February 19, 2008, the same day the fraudulent transaction occurred that Mr. Barrera claimed he had no knowledge of.
Keep in mind that Mr. Barrera clearly stated in the first letter we posted today dated March 28, 2008 to Citi Mortgage, that he had no knowledge of this transaction taking place. For us to buy into that story, we would have to believe that Mr. Barrera NEVER received any of these letters from Citi Mortgage. I know we've discussed these letters in the past, but I thought it would be worthwhile to post them in their entirety to show how preposterous it is for ANYONE to believe that Mr. Barrera had no knowledge that this transaction was occurring. Not a FCUKING chance Bernie.
By know, you all must be wondering where the hell we've gotten all these letters from? The two people that must be the most curious about where these letters came from are Detective Jorge Baluja and Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski. So where did these letters come from Jorge? How did we unearth these documents that destroy your headline case Bill? We got these documents from the state's own case file. That's right folks, both Detective Baluja and ASA Kostrzewski have had these documents from day one. Why were they ignored? Who knows. What I do know is this, Mr. Barrera better get real comfy down in Panama...
We're waiting for some other important information to come in, so today we're going to discuss the real estate phenomenon known as the "short sale". When the real estate market was booming, we had the real estate fraudsters ripping banks off by over inflating the prices of homes through fraudulent appraisals then cashing out money, now that things have cooled down, we have another scam for the fraudsters to profit off of known as the "short sale". Let's look at the definition from wikipedia:
A short sale is a sale of real estate in which the sale proceeds fall short of the balance owed on the property's loan.[1] It often occurs when a borrower cannot pay the mortgage loan on their property, but the lender decides that selling the property at a moderate loss is better than pressing the borrower. Both parties consent to the short sale process, because it allows them to avoid foreclosure, which involves hefty fees for the bank and poorer credit report outcomes for the borrowers. This agreement, however, does not necessarily release the borrower from the obligation to pay the remaining balance of the loan, known as the deficiency.
This is all well and good when there is actually a need for a short sale due to financial hardship, collapsing home prices, etc. The first step is putting the home on the market and showing the lender that you've actually made an effort to sell the home. Once it's on the market, you submit the offers to the bank and try to get them to accept a price that could be lower than what the loan balance is on the home. This makes for a fertile breeding ground for fraudsters. List up a home, tell the bank there's no offers, drastically reduce the price of the home and convince the bank to take a low ball offer, then remarket the house for a profit. Yesterday we discussed the sale of Bernardo Barrera's primary residence, let's take a look at the time line of that homes activity on the MLS system...
6/22/09 Listed for sale at $262,000
7/2/09 price lowered to $175,000
7/15/09 price lowered to $155,000
8/10/09 price lowered to $140,000
10/09/09 pending sale
12/30/09 transaction closed at $145,000
Nice huh? Incredible how the man that is at the center of one of our mortgage fraud stories, the man who claimed his identity was stolen by John Arther Romney and crew for a $400,000+ fraud now turns around and nails the same bank, Citi Mortgage, for close to $150,000? Superb. Remember, Mr. Barrera purchased his home back in 11/05 for $289,275 and borrowed $274,800 from Citi Mortgage. Take into account commissions and other fees associated with this short sale and I guarantee Citi netted less than $140,000.
We did stumble upon something far more alarming in researching today's story though. Consider that according to the state, Mr. Barrera is a fine upstanding member of society whose identity got stolen for the commission of this mortgage fraud. Fine, let's buy into that for now. Remember we mentioned way back when that Mr. Barrera had purchased his home in November 2005 just days after he had lost his job therefore committing mortgage fraud. Let's take a close look at this fine home Mr. Barrera purchased...
2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,270 sqft situated on 1,960 sqft of land all for $289,275.
That's great isn't it? Now let's take a look at the records for his next door neighbor at 16568 SW 48 terrace, who just happened to buy their house at the exact same time...
2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,270 sqft situated on 1,960 sqft of land
Oh, what do you know, the exact same unit? What should have struck our friends at the state attorneys office and the Mortgage fraud task force was the sales price of this identical unit that was purchased at the same time as Mr. Barrera's unit, take a look at the records from the property appraisers office for yourself...
Nice! Same exact house, sold at the same time for $138,285 less than what Mr. Barrera paid. Draw your own conclusions. Some victim the state has, huh?
Easters out of the way, the Straw Buyer spent the better part of Easter Sunday listening to music and going through property records, some life huh?
Could it be? Based on what we've seen and heard lately, it looks like the housing market may finally be making a rebound, it appears as if home sales are on the rise! For the purposes of our discussion, there are two homes in particular whose sales are important, the sale of the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue and the sale of Bernardo Barrera's primary residence located 16562 48th Terrace.
The home located at 3390 Oak Avenue is the property that's at the center of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, it's this home that what was over appraised at $600,000 by John Romney and crew to facilitate the mortgage fraud that netted them nearly $400,000. While the criminal case against the people involved in the fraud has been progressing, the civil foreclosure case has been as well, according to the docket for the foreclosure sale, it looks like the property finally sold at auction for $40,000. Incredible how just two years earlier this same property appraised for $600,000 and now it's only worth $40,000. At the very least, this chapter of the story has been closed and Citi Mortgage can finally quantify their losses as a result of this fraud.
The sale that we find most interesting though is the sale of Bernardo Barrera's primary residence, the same home that he purchased back in November 22, 2005 for $289,725 and financed through Citi Mortgage after losing his job. Back in 2005 when Mr. Barrera committed mortgage fraud for the purchase of the his primary residence, he financed $274,800 with Citi Mortgage, the same lender that lent the money on the Oak Avenue home. That's what makes this recent sale all the more interesting, take a look at what shows up at the property appraisers office for the home. Did anyone catch it? The sales price of the home from November 2009 was $145,000!!! That means there was $140,000 deficiency at the closing, does anyone think that Mr. Barrera came to closing with a check for $140,000? We doubt it. From what we can see it looks like Citi not only got screwed by Mr. Barrera on the Oak Avenue fruad, but they ended up taking it in the pants for $140,000 or more when he sold his primary residence. Nice going Citi Mortgage!
Let's look at the deed that Mr. Barrera signed for the sale of his home and see if we find anything that may be of interest to us...
First, we get another nice clean copy of Mr. Barrera's signature...
Go back and compare this signature to the ones we discussed last week. Nice huh? Now, did anyone notice where this deed was notarized? Take a look...
PANAMA!
Nice huh? What's Mr. Barrera doing in Panama? Could he have left the U.S. and hauled ass to Panama or maybe he's just on vacation? Who knows, but considering the difficulty of extraditing Mr. Barrera from Panama, it would be a great place to hide from possible pending criminal charges now wouldn't it?
We find ourselves at the end of another week here in the jungle, we've uncovered some disturbing evidence that the prosecutor in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case had buried for nearly two years that changes the landscape of the criminal case and now we've introduced at least one new character into our tale of mortgage fraud, the mortgage broker. According to the documents that we posted yesterday, this mortgage broker signed an agreement with someone who appears to be the real Bernardo Barrera and someone posing as Bernardo Barrera, yet there's no evidence of the state taking any action let alone interviewing this mortgage broker.
Throughout this particular mortgage fraud story, we've seen several instances where key figures in the case weren't questioned, indispensable members of the "organized scheme to defraud" weren't arrested and yet after all the evidence that we've compiled proving complicity on the part of the state's "victim", no one has taken any action, investigatory or otherwise against this "victim". Our assertion has been from the beginning that the state knows full well that their "victim" was complicit in the execution of this fraud, yet they refuse to do anything about it for fear of jeopardizing their ongoing criminal case. So much for "we who labor here seek only the truth" huh? We found another quotefrom prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski that sums up his handling of this case perfectly, take a look...
"NO VICTIM-NO POLICE REPORT-NO COURT CASE-NO EXTRA WORK REQUIRED"
This quote comes from Mr. Kostrzewski tireless crusade against illegal signs in Miami Dade county, although it doesn't address our story directly, it does reflect his frame of mind. Why complicate the Barrera mortgage fraud case by entertaining the idea that you got it all wrong Bill? Imagine all the "POLICE REPORTS" and "WORK" that would have to be done if Mr. Barrera was indeed involved in the fraud? Maybe this way of thinking is what stopped ASA Kostrzewski from filing charges on the woman that stole our $100,000?
We'll discuss Mr. Kostrzewski's sign fetish later. For now, we'll leave you with a photograph of Mr. Kostrzewski (courtesy of the Miami Herald, sort of) that perfectly illustrates who this man is.
Yesterday we discussed two distinct "Florida Mortgage Broker Contracts" that we found in the amended discovery that the state filed on 3/16/2010 for the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case. These documents outlined the agreement between the mortgage broker and the borrower regarding the brokers fees for obtaining the mortgage, standard stuff and no big deal if there wasn't two distinct signatures from the borrower.
Here we clearly see a signature for Mr. Barrera that strongly resembles the signature samples of his actual signature that we collected earlier. After comparing this instance of Mr. Barrera's signature with his real signature, we could say with almost absolute certainty that this is indeed Mr. Barrera's actual signature which he executed on 1/16/2008. Now, let's take a look at the signature that the was obtained from the "Florida Mortgage Broker Contract" that the state submitted as part of their amended discovery...
Now clearly this instance of Mr. Barrera's signature is a forgery, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. There was always a doubt as to whether or not Mr. Barrera's signatures were authentic or not, could the fraudsters have also been master forgers capable of duplicating an intricate, difficult to execute signature? With this second mortgage broker contract that the state has been hiding, we see the result of the "fraudsters" forging Mr. Barrera's signature, it's not even close, leaving us to believe that the other instances of Mr. Barrera's signature that we've seen were indeed authentic.
There are two major issues that arise from the production of these new documents, first, why has the state been sitting on these documents for nearly two years? Second, at the bottom right hand corner of these documents you'll see the signature of someone that we can only assume was the mortgage broker, Daniel Moreno. If we're reading these documents right, he's signed a contract with someone that we are fairly certain is the real Barrera and then he's signed a contract with someone who has forged Mr. Barrera's signature. Isn't this a problem? Wouldn't this alone bring this new member of our story into the "Organized Scheme to Defraud"? Worse yet, there is no evidence whatsoever in the case file that this guy had ever been questioned by the state. How can this be explained? Poor police work by Detective Baluja? A major oversight by the man who ran this investigation, prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski? Could you imagine if this is the first time either Baluja or Kostrzewski are seeing these discrepancies?
As usual, we're left with more questions than answers. One thing is for certain, someone really fcuked up.
I read a story in the Miami Herald on October 7, 2008 regarding a mortgage fraud case that didn't make any sense to me, I did a little digging and what I found left me stunned. A tale of a task force head whose political ambitions have run amuck, a detective without a modicum of common sense, a reporter that prints anything that's put in front of him, the railroading of an attorney by this machine to further the ambitions of its head and the lengths that those involved will go to in order to salvage a case that should have never been. Please take the time to start from the oldest post first and enjoy...
