The nightmare is over for Steven Stoll and Dennis Guaracino...

.

Another twist in the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, just like that it's over for two of the remaining three defendants...

Government Dismisses Federal Mortgage Fraud Case Against Steven Stoll and Dennis Guaracino

From the Sun Sentinel...

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they are dropping all criminal charges against a Fort Lauderdale lawyer and a former police officer arrested last year in a mortgage fraud investigation.


The decision to dismiss the cases against attorney Steven Stoll and former Plantation Police Officer Dennis Guaracino comes a month after a Fort Lauderdale federal jury deadlocked on the charges against them.


The two men and Joseph Guaracino, who is Dennise Guaracino's brother, spent more than five months on trial defending themselves against allegations resulting from "Operation Copout" — an inquiry into a group of police officers involved in suspicious real estate transactions.


The U.S. Attorney's Office will continue pursuing its case against Joseph Guaracino, whose first trial also ended in a hung jury, federal prosecutors told U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn.

That's great news for attorney Steven Stoll and Dennis Guaracino but not so great news for his brother Joe who looks like he's going back to court to face a second trial which is set to start on December 5, 2011.

Missing the target...

Go back and read the comments sections of our last weeks worth of posts and you'll find long winded diatribes both for and against the defendants in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial.  Things like, Joe Guaracino is a crook, this guy drives a Corvette (the horror!), the other guy has a small penis, this one's innocent, the other guy's guilty, the jury did the right thing, the jurors are idiots, etc.  So much emotion, so much anger, yet everyone seems to be missing the point.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the defendants charged in this nearly five year long investigation that's come to be known as "operation copout", were guilty.  Say the government was right, they lied about their incomes, they fudged where the down payments for the homes in question came from, let's even assume there was some level of complicity from the attorneys charged as well, what's the net result?  Remember, all the loans in question were paid back with the exception of a few that were under Guaracino's personal name, so in a nutshell, assume these guys were guilty of all of those things but in the end the banks all got their money back plus profits.


Now, with that assumption made, look at what was learned during trial, the mortgage brokers who made all these alleged crimes possible walked with a slap on the wrist and a $500 fine.  Granted, they're going to do two or three years behind bars but anyone remember what they admitted to?  Both Matt Gulla and Rene Rodriguez admitted to committing fraud on every loan they had processed over the last decade!  While the government calculated the alleged Guaracino involved frauds to be somewhere in the +/- $16mm range, imagine the dollar figure for the frauds these mortgage brokers must have been involved with?  It's easily in the hundreds of millions if not in the billion dollar range!  We're talking a decade worth of loans, perhaps thousands of frauds.  With that in mind, does the governments strategy of going after the cops really make sense?  The brokers got immunity for all the other crimes they committed in exchange for their testimony against the cops that were charged as part of "operation copout", does that seem correct?  At least in my opinion it doesn't.  I thought that going after the mortgage brokers seemed like a more plausible scenario and therefore using the cops to testify against them, instead we got this wacky prosecution where in the end the real culprits, the real masterminds got away.  Does anyone believe for a moment that Guaracino and his group of cops were the only group that the brokers worked with?  Throughout the history of this case we've had plenty of people come forward and tell us that there were groups of teachers, firefighters and other cops that were all working with Gulla and Rodriguez on similar deals, why didn't anyone investigate those transactions?


The truth of the matter is that the guys who were the subject of the governments prosecution in this case were small potatoes.  The "big fish", "masterminds" or "ringleaders" weren't the cops or even the lawyers that were charged, they were the mortgage brokers who in retrospect got the best deal of all considering the magnitude of their crimes.  Whether the untold millions worth of fraudulent loans or destroying evidence, these guys should have gotten decades in federal prison, instead we're left with nearly 9 months of trials that seemed to never end and a two low level players whose convictions will probably be overturned on appeal.  That hardly sounds like justice to me.

The conclusion of the second phase of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial in the jury's own words...

As we all know by now, the second phase of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial ended in a mistrial with a hung jury 10-2 in favor of acquittal.  The second phase of this never ending case was the governments attempt to convict alleged ringleader Joseph Guaracino, his brother Dennis and the attorney who owned the title company that the alleged fraudulent transactions went through, Steven Stoll.  After nearly a week of deliberations, the jury let the judge know that they've voted several times and haven't been able to come to a unanimous decision, here's the actual note to the judge...

Presumably the jury is told to go back and deliberate some more and think the case over during the weekend after 5 full days of deliberation in an effort to come back with a unanimous decision, again they tell the judge they can't...

And finally after listing to the intricacies of mortgage and real estate transactions for nearly four months, the jury finally throws in the towel...

An with that, this ordeal came to an end, at least for now.  The government has 70 days to refile the case against the three remaining defendants, you have to wonder though, will they?  Think for a moment what this epic mortgage fraud prosecution has cost the government, nearly five years of investigations, possibly hundreds of interviews and countless hours of scouring over tens of thousands of documents unintelligible to all but the most experienced mortgage and real estate professionals.  And how about the costs of actually trying this case and the one that preceded it?  The government has been at it since the beginning of 2011, first with the first group of defendants and now the second group.  After nearly nine months of slogging this mess through court, what do they have to show for it?  Two convictions out of 6 defendants in the first trial and now a mistrial for the remaining 3 defendants?  Can you imagine trying to justify those results in the private sector considering the millions that have been spent to achieve the two convictions?  Also keep in mind that the two guys convicted were low level members of the alleged conspiracy according to the government.  The government couldn't convict the alleged "big fish" or "mastermind" of this case, Joe Guaracino, let alone the attorney, Steven Stoll, that the government claimed facilitated the transactions in question.  Does this make any sense to anyone?

Now, assume that the government is going to go ahead and retry this case for a moment.  Remember, the prosecution fought tooth and nail to keep any evidence of "lender negligence" out of these two trials.  Defendant Stoll's attorneys even filed a motion to dismiss based on the governments new lawsuits against the banks that were at the center of our nation's economic meltdown.  Although the judge didn't allow the jury to hear about any evidence regarding the banks part in this mess, considering the new actions by the justice department against the lenders, do you think there's a chance in hell that they judge could keep this from the new jury if the case is retried?  The whole concept of retrying a case that ended in with a hung jury seems inherently unfair to me.  Isn't the mere fact that the jury ended in a 10-2 vote, meaning only two people bought the prosecutions case, enough "reasonable doubt"? 

Tomorrow the two defendants that were convicted in the first trial, John Velez and Joseph Derosa, are going to be sentenced in federal court.  I have a hard time understanding how they were convicted yet the other codefendants who were charged with doing the exact same thing they did were not.  Regardless, in light of the outcome of the second phase of the case on Monday, we can only hope that the judge shows some level of leniency towards these guys who have had their lives and careers destroyed by this mess.

BREAKING NEWS! Second phase of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial ends with a hung jury!

As the title states, our sources tell is that after six days of deliberation the trial ends with a hung jury!  From what we're told it was 10 to 2, which means 10 of the 12 jurors were going to acquit.  The question now is whether or not the government is going to retry the case or just walk away...

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Another gem from the folks over at M&M liquors, even the folks in Hialeah know what time it is...

Still waiting on a verdict on the second phase of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case, considering they're on their fourth day of deliberations, what do you guys think, good or bad?

As the jury continues to deliberate in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial, consider what the government doesn't want them to know about.

.

Here we are after the first full day of jury deliberations for the second phase of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial, I'm beginning to get a weird feeling.  See, last Friday the Sun Sentinel published a story regarding the some of the officers from the first phase of the trial, check the headline...

WTF with the timing of this story?  The story is about the cops from the first part of the case, two of them were found guilty and two were acquitted, the two that got acquitted got their jobs back and the back pay and benefits they were entitled to.  Really?  How's this news?  We covered this story almost a month ago!  Why is this news now?  My assumption is that this story was planted by the government over the weekend in order to in some way shape or form influence the jury that was about to render judgement against the remaining defendants.  Dirty trick?  No doubt as it's damn near impossible to get a juror to crawl under a rock and ignore what's in the media regarding a case their deliberating.  

Assuming the intent of this story was to in some way to influence the jurors, maybe we can do a bit of the same?  See the government fought tooth and nail to keep a ton of favorable information from the jurors that could have helped the defense.  Let's take a quick run down of just some of the facts the jurors didn't get to hear...


Defendant Joseph Guaracino cooperated fully with the FBI and FDLE years before there was even an indictment including but not limited to handing over every single shred of documentation regarding all the properties that he ever bought and sold.  Does this seem like the actions of a guilty man?

The government continually insinuated that the defendants tax returns were bogus, yet throughout the trial they were never able to prove the allegations.
 
The nearly four months of trial were continually peppered with allegations of inflated appraisals for the homes in question, why wasn't this ever proven in court?  Why didn't a single "expert witness" come forward and prove that the appraisals were bogus?

The defendants voluntarily took polygraph tests and passed, why weren't the results allowed in for the jury to consider?

How about handwriting exemplars which proved the defendants on trial didn't forge anything but again the jury wasn't allowed to hear about it.

There were several recordings where the brokers at the center of this mess admitted to forging hundreds if not thousands of documents throughout there careers, yet again the jury wasn't allowed to hear about it.

Most importantly though, why wasn't the jury allowed to hear about the lender negligence, especially when the federal government went ahead and sued all the big lenders for their role in the real estate meltdown that subsequently brought our economy if not the worlds economy to it's knees?

I have no idea how this is going to pan out for the defendants on trial, I just can't seem to understand how the jury can render a verdict when they weren't allowed to hear evidence that in my opinion was crucial to the defense.  We'll have to wait and see, we could have a verdict as early as tomorrow... 

After four month trial, the Plantation Cops federal mortgage fraud trial finally goes to the jury and a quick word about suspended City of Miami Police Chief Miguel Exposito.

.

After a long arduous four months, the Plantation cops federal mortgage fraud trial finally went to the jury yesterday.  The jury has requested to take today and the remainder of the weekend off, so deliberations won't begin till Monday at the earliest.  

Let's take a quick look at some twists and turns of the governments case against former Plantation cop Joe Guaracino and his brother Dennis.  At first the government argued that the alleged mastermind of the frauds got nearly a million dollars back in total from the real estate transactions that are at the center of the federal indictment.  The governments position was that that Guaracino and company scammed the closings through questionable huds and purchase contracts but during the course of the trial the defense proved that every penny that Guaracino got from these closings plus nearly a million of his own money was put back into these homes through renovations in order to make them suitable for resale at a profit.  In closing, the government moves away from their original theory and instead personally attacks Guaracino for among other things being a gambler!  

What the prosecution couldn't get around though was the fact that the homes in question were sold and the banks who lent the money were paid back.  The governments theory was that the banks were the victims of this alleged mortgage fraud scheme, my question then is why weren't any of these alleged "victims" ever brought in to testify?  There wasn't a single lender that was allegedly exploited by Guaracino and his group ever brought before the jury to testify, not a single one, no one that had anything to do with reviewing and approving these loans was ever brought before the jury.  I wonder why?

So how could you put a case like this together?  How could you indict a bunch of cops and two attorneys that have no previous records of misconduct with such a flimsy case?  I'm going to guess there was some sort of motivation from the higher ups at the Plantation PD who had a vested interest in bringing these guys down.  I'm trying to figure it out myself, I should have some better answers by Monday.

Now, on to the mess in the City of Miami and suspended police chief Miguel Exposito.  Over the last couple of months all you hear about in the media and the blogosphere is how stupid the chief is, what a dimwit his second in command is, etc.  Let's think about that for a second, could Chief Exposito really be an idiot?  Remember, Mayor Regalado hand picked Expo to replace former city of Miami police chief John Timoney within hours of the mayor taking office.  All Expo had to do from that point forward was to chill out and be the Mayors yes man and his job would be safe.  Fire this guy, promote that guy, look the other way on this matter, make some files disappear on another matter etc.  Follow the mayors orders and as long as the mayors got his job, so do you.  Easy enough right?  Instead of falling in line and being a doormat like city manager Johnny Martinez, Expo and his gang decided to take on illegal gambling in the City of Miami.  Anyone who lives in Miami is intimately familiar with these illegal gambling machines aka "Makinitas", take a look at one of them in action courtesy of our friend Frank Alvarado over at the Miami New Times...

From the New Times article...

Machines like the ones German operates have been the lynchpin of Exposito's accusations against Regalado. The embattled police chief claims the mayor meddled into criminal investigations and raids involving illegal gambling at city cafeterias and bodegas. In October, Regalado championed an ordinance that would fine merchants $500 and allow them to keep the machines, instead of arrest them on state misdemeanor charges of illegal gambling.

Think about it for a moment, if the Chief was such an idiot, why would he go against his benefactor, Mayor Regalado, who's rumored to be in bed with the organizations that are behind these machines?  Why would he risk a cushy six figure plus job?  My opinion?  Regardless of the perceived inadequacies of Expo and his crew, at the end of the day they saw theses machines and the people behind them for what they were, nothing more than an illegal racket that preyed on the poorest people of our beloved city and he decided to go after them.  Does that make him an idiot or was he simply doing what any law enforcement officer was supposed to do?  In my opinion, idiot or not, you can't fault the guy for doing his job. 

The fight against these machines and their owners may have cost the Chief his career, but trust me, if Expo gets fired today, he's not going to go away quietly, we can expect a hefty whistle blower lawsuit from the Chief in short order, then there's the matter of all those federal criminal investigations that the Chief initiated against the Mayor and his crew, it's just a matter of time before all that ugliness comes to the surface.  Let's not forget about those pesky wiretaps!  How is the Mayor going to explain all that away?

Missing receipts in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial and our friend and fellow blogger Al Crespo gets banned from a public building on his quest for public information!

Throughout the ongoing saga that is the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial, one of the governments contentions is that the alleged mastermind of the mortgage fraud scheme, Joe Guaracino, pocketed nearly $1.2 million dollars from escrow withholds and other credits at the closings for the properties that are the subject of the federal indictment.  As we mentioned last Friday, this week was going to be Mr. Guaracino's chance to explain everything while on the stand, from the hearing yesterday...

Q: Did Joseph Guaracino of Home Buyers Group get money back on these occasions?


A: Yes, on most occasions we did.


Q: What was the purpose of getting money back?


A: To do whatever was state, remodeling, upgrading, in some cases, buying furniture.


Q: What did you do with that money?


A: Exactly that.

Pretty simple, right?  There were credits given to the buyers from the sellers for various improvements to the homes and the money was disbursed to the buyers at the closing, these would be the same funds that the government alleged was misspent or misappropriated by Guaracino and/or his group.  Before the indictment, Guaracino was asked to produce evidence of the money from these transactions being used for their intended purpose, there's a small problem though, take a look for yourselves as defense attorney Michael Walsh and Guaracino go through and compare the receipts the government produced to the court versus the receipts that Guaracino produced to the government...

Q: Let's do this, let's take our time and go through the Government's evidence.  Do you see a receipt on the Government's for 8443?


A: I do not.


Q: Is there a real receipt in there for 8443?


A: Yes, sir, on the second page.


Q: Do you know why those two receipts are missing from the government's chart?


A: It goes to the quality of the investigator.

WHOOPS!  You get the idea, this search for receipts that are somehow missing from the governments evidence goes on and on and on.  Somehow the receipts for the home repairs were given to the investigators pursuant to a subpoena yet somehow they never made it into the case files.  As we discussed before, the difference between what the government came up with and what was really spent came up to roughly around $600,000.  That's a rather large discrepancy isn't it?  Why would the governments investigator play so fast and loose with these receipts?  I mean, this is a paperwork intensive case where one of the main allegations against the lead defendant is that he misused funds that were credited back at closing, receipts are provided pre-indictment that shows were nearly every penny went yet the investigator and the prosecutors conveniently leave out nearly $600,000 worth of receipts?  What gives here?  Is it just me or is this starting to sound like some sort of set up?

There's something else though regarding the recent court proceedings regarding the second phase of the Plantation cops trial that's rather interesting.  Out of the three men on trial, only Joseph Guaracino is putting up a defense, neither one of the other defendants, Dennis Guaracino or Steven Stoll, are putting up a defense.  Could the governments case be so weak that a proper defense isn't necessary?  Obviously the defense thinks so, it remains to be seen if the jury agrees.

Now, onto something even more disturbing, we caught this on the news last night...

That's City of Miami Assistant Manager Luis Cabrera banning or friend and fellow blogger Al Crespo from entering the Miami River Center, a City of Miami building that's open to the public!  What a crock of shit.  Here we have a blogger that's gotten a little too close to the real story and is finding the skeletons in peoples closets, unearthing the back room deals between incompetent boobs that make up our city government and what happens?  They do whatever they can to shut you down.  We're no stranger to this bullshit, as some of you already know, our work here has caused some of the people that we've written about to go to the MDPD, FBI, FDLE, etc to initiate investigations against us.  No worries though, despite their best efforts, we're still here.  Now that everyone's back from summer vacation, we'll have time to discuss some of the lengths that Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski and his boy Detective Baluja have gone through to get us shut down.


Stay tuned.

An update on the cops from the first phase of the Plantation Cop's mortgage fraud trial and on Monday, it's SHOWTIME!

I've been trying to find out what's happened to the four cops that were acquitted in the first phase of the Plantation Cop's mortgage fraud trial.  We know from the outset that FBI agent Robert Depriest was never suspended or removed from his job at the FBI, when he was indicted his own superiors at the agency came forward and said that they weren't going to suspend him since they thought that he had done nothing illegal to warrant a suspension.  The reluctance of the FBI to suspend their own agent who was just federally charged for allegedly being part of a massive mortgage fraud scheme is a pretty damning indictment of the governments case against the defendants!  

What about the other cops that were suspended without pay?  What's happened to Plantation cops Joseph Lagrasta, Casey Mittauer and Daryl Radziwon since their acquittal?  We're told that they've all been reinstated and have received their back pay for the period of time they were suspended.  While we don't have any concrete evidence of such, the source that we obtained the information from has been 100% on the money in the past.  We're told that although the cops have been reinstated that they aren't out on the road yet and that their is a pending internal affairs investigation within the Plantation PD regarding the officers involvement in the mortgage fraud case.  We're told that the Plantation PD has assigned a Captain to "contact" defense witnesses in the second phase of the federal mortgage fraud case.  Once again, we have no confirmation of this but let's assume for a moment that it could possibly be true.  What purpose would it serve for a member of the Plantation PD to contact defense witnesses in the second phase of the trial other than to intimidate or coerce them?  If indeed this trial is a "search for justice", why does it seem that the top brass at the Plantation PD is so heavily vested in making sure that the remaining defendants get convicted?  I can't answer that question with a reasonable degree of certainty right now but I can tell you that there is much more going on in the upper echelons of the Plantation PD than meets the eye, alleged drug abuse, cover ups of nefarious deeds by the top brass, links to nefarious convicted criminals, etc.  The truth is right around the corner, we'll have to wait and see...


Next week should be a duesy, from what what I can glean from the court proceedings it looks like the governments mastermind behind the Plantation Cop's mortgage fraud case, Joe Guaracino, is going to take the stand!  From our minimal understanding of the criminal justice system, this seems like a rather unorthodox move as it opens up the defendant to direct questioning by the prosecution.  It's going to be an interesting week for sure, if you got a few days to kill, I'd strongly suggest attending the trial and seeing the prosecutors go head to head with Mr. Guaracino!

An interesting perspective from one of our readers on the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case.

.

One of our readers took the time to put together an analysis of the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case as they knew it.  Here it is...

The Governments Misconduct goes far beyond the average case.  It appears the case was investigated by an FDLE agent who had no experience in Mortgage Fraud...

No kidding, a cop investigating a mortgage fraud case that has no experience with mortgage fraud?  NAH! 

...he came up with a theory decided to name it operation COPOUT and once named in 2008 there was no stopping the targets they originally thought were guilty.

No stopping the agent once he thought his targets were guilty?  Didn't we discuss this phenomenon a while back?

They made a deal with the two mortgage brokers.  Then they relied on just those two brokers.  They failed to properly investigate.  They ignored information the brokers were destroying evidence
 they had all the resources but never served a search warrant they just sent subpoenas and waited for the brokers and others to send documents gave them plenty of time to take out the real information that was sent to them and alter things.

Interesting point, why not just raid the mortgage brokers office, catch them off guard and take everything they got so they don't have a chance to filter out what they don't want law enforcement to see or worse, destroy evidence?  Considering that the targets of this investigation were fellow law enforcement agents whose lives would be permanently altered by an indictment of this nature, why wouldn't they take the time to properly investigate this case?

Let's talk about their theory

First it was straw buyers then they acknowledged real investments

Then it was they took money and ran then they found out most homes had extensive remodeling and  were sold

Then no repairs were done then close to 2 million in receipts cancelled checks and invoices and over a thousand pictures produced ( wouldn't a simple purchase and sale appraisal show the interior improvements done)

Then the indictment said the borrowers submitted false information

After the brokers plead they found out the brokers submitted all the false info

They also said there were forgeries all over the loans they ordered everyone to take handwriting exemplars accept that's right the brokers the exemplars said nope none of these guys did the fraud it doesn't match

Then through motions they found out the brokers committed over 1000 forgeries and every loan involved had a forged application and all disclosures sent to the lenders were forged by the brokers. So all the loans involved all the forgeries an fraud was committed by the brokers.

At this point, why not do the right thing, dismiss the charges against the cops and then nail the brokers to the cross?

Ok well we spent so much money and time an we already indicted all these people so let's just go with they knew or should have known. That documents they never seen or should have seen were forged and falsified because borrowers although there not involved in the loan process between a broker and a lender they should have thought to ask are you using my w2 and tax return?  Or are you putting us in subprime loans with higher rates then what we qualify for so the brokers could get paid 100s of thousands in what are now considered illegal Yield spread Premiums.

Ok so we know the brokers did all the fraud and the whole case rest on the other defendants had to have knowledge.

Oh but we found out in the last trial the brokers did the same fraud to 1000s of others for over 10 years.

Instead of clearing 1000s of victims the brokers pull off there last big con!  They make a deal then destroy other evidence and admitted on the stand oh yea we did all the fraud and to thousands.

Here's where I get lost, the government now has the mortgage brokers admitting that they've committed THOUSANDS of frauds over the last decade causing untold millions in losses to the banks yet the prosecution is still focusing on a handful of defendants whose worst crime is allegedly misstating their incomes on loan applications for loans that were ultimately paid off anyway?  Let's not forget that it's already been proven in the previous trial that the defendants didn't even know that the brokers were doctoring the loan applications and forging their signatures!

I'm lost.  Who exactly were the victims in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case?  The homes that are at the center of this indictment for the most part were purchased, improved then resold.  Where's the problem?  What am I missing?

Trying to understand the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud trial verdict.

 I was dumbfounded with the jury's verdict yesterday in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial.  John Burstein from the Sun Sentinel covers the verdict here.   I can't seem to understand how some of the defendants were found not guilty while others were found guilty since they all allegedly did the same thing.  I was of the belief that they were all going to be found not guilty or all guilty, I never imagined two of the six were going to be found guilty while the others walked.  Once again though, we find the government successfully prosecuting people that simply lied on their mortgage applications, as we've mentioned before, if that's the new standard for mortgage fraud prosecutions then the overwhelming majority of the people who purchased homes over the last decade could possibly run the risk of being convicted of mortgage fraud!


I'm still having trouble reconciling yesterdays verdict.  Could it have been simply a case of four of the six defense attorneys doing a better job then the other two?  Was the evidence against the two convicted officers that much worse than the rest?  Perhaps after nearly two months of sitting in jury box and going over thousands of pages of evidence, hundreds of hours of testimony and endless scores of expert witnesses, maybe the jury was lost?  Take a look at this question the jury sent to the judge just before they came back with the verdict and draw your own conclusions...

Question From the Plantation Cops Mortgage Fraud Trial Jury

The jury asks:

Can a defendant be not guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and/or wire fraud and yet be guilty of mail fraud & wire fraud?

Does that make any sense to any of you?  Considering the nature of the crimes in question, the question makes no sense, yet it's a perfect example of the jury's state of mind, at least in my opinion.


Regardless, moving on to a comment left by one of our esteemed readers this morning...

Anonymous said...
what fine words of wisdom do you have now jerky

Thanks for that.  I'll leave off with congratulating the fine defense attorneys who did an excellent job exonerating their clients, Deric Zacca, Roger Cabrera, Steven Potolsky, Michael Dutko, Marc Fagelson, Jayne Weintraub and Anthony Livoti.  Well done, brilliant work.  Best of luck to officers Joseph Lagrasta, Casey Mittauer, Daryl Radziwon and FBI agent Robert Depriest and their families.  I hope they're able to get their lives and careers back together and put this whole ugly ordeal behind them.  

As far as the other two defendants that were found guilty, John Velez and Joseph Derosa, in light of the crimes they were convicted of, we can only hope the court is lenient with their sentences.

Jury in the Plantation cops federal mortgage fraud trial still out. UPDATED! VERDICT IN.

As the title states, they're still out. We'll update as soon as there's news. In the mean time, what do you guys think the verdict will be?

UPDATED AT 10:50.

We're being told that the jury just came back (unconfirmed). Stay tuned.


Jury Has Reached a Verdict in the Plantation Cops Mortgage Fraud Trial



VERDICT IN. Take a look for yourselves...

Plantation Cops Mortgage Fraud Trial Verdict

Velez and Derosa found guilty while Radziwon, Depriest, Mittauer and Lagrasta acquitted.

The jury in the Plantation Cops federal mortgage fraud trial has begun deliberating...

Our sources tell us that the case was handed over to the jury yesterday at 1:40 PM, so much for our theory that the jury was going to come back with a verdict in under an hour!  We were also told that the prosecution accidentally handed over documents to the jury with post it notes with information that the jury wasn't supposed to see all over them.  


While we wait for the jury to come back, I have to wonder, what impact will this verdict have on the next trial?  For those of you who don't remember, the case was split into two trials, one for the cops and another for the lawyers, Steven Stoll, Stephan Orchard and the Guaracino brothers, Joeseph and Dennis.  If the first case comes back with an acquittal, what's going to happen with the second case?  Remember, the cops defense in the first case is that they had no idea what they were doing was wrong and had relied on the attorneys and brokers who told them everything was on the up and up.  


I know our readers are on the edge of their seats waiting for the verdict, check back often today (assuming the jury comes back today), I'll have an update as soon as there's a verdict.  In the mean time, it's gonna be a nail biter!

The Defense rests in the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud trail.

.

From what we’re told the defense rested yesterday in the Plantation Cops federal mortgage fraud trial, closing arguments are expected this morning and the case is expected to get to the jury this afternoon.  It’s been nearly two months since the start of this trial, I have to wonder how much information the jury has been able to retain?  Our courtroom observers have told us that most of the jury had a hard time keeping awake during the six weeks of the prosecution’s case and that across the board they looked bored off their asses.  On the other hand, it looks like the defense took only two weeks to present their case, I’m not exactly sure why it took six weeks for the prosecution.

So what do you guys think?  At least one of the jurors has said that there’s nothing that’s going to change her mind about the defendants innocence, isn’t that one juror enough to screw up the case for the prosecution?  In my opinion there’s no way the jury is going to find any of these guys guilty.  Why?  It’s simple, these guys aren’t accused of stealing millions or defrauding the banks and leaving them with a laundry list of busted out houses that are in foreclosure.  The crux of the government’s case against these guys is that they lied on mortgage applications in order to obtain the loans that are at the center of the indictment.  The reason that they will not be found guilty is because there isn’t a single member of that jury or one of their family members that hasn’t done the same.  In fact, I’d be willing to bet that some of the very jury members that now sit in judgment of these cops has been involved with some sort of real estate investment/flip scheme over the last ten years therefore making a guilty verdict the ultimate expression of hypocrisy.  We’ll know the outcome soon enough, I’ll update as soon as there’s anything new.

Why is the government trying to exclude a key defense witness from testifying?

Last week we discussed what we called the "unindicted co-conspirators" in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case, in essence our theory is that the banks that lent the money for what the government alleges were fraudulent real estate transactions were in on the deal.  In other words, the lenders knew about the inflated incomes and the bogus supporting documents on the loan applications, as a matter of fact it seems based on the documents that we've found in the court dockets that the defense has an expert witness that is willing to testify to the lenders complicity in these transactions!  While cruising the court docket I came across this motion...

daryl radziwon motion for expert witness

From the looks of it, it appears that a defense witness named Dr. Gary E. Lacefield, an expert in the area of mortgage fraud, is prepared to testify that the banks involved in these transactions were well aware of what was going on in order to obtain these loans and in fact may have helped encouraged some of the fraudulent behavior that led up to obtaining these loans!  Considering the potential magnitude of Dr Lacefield's testimony, why would the government look to exclude him from the trial?  If indeed Dr. Lacefield could prove that there was lender complicity in all of these deals, isn't the defense entitled to use him?  Check out Dr. Lacefields background here, considering his background, can you guys see any reason why he shouldn't be allowed to testify? 

The unindicted co-conspirators in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case...

.

 

That term "unindicted co-conspirator" has a pretty nice ring to it doesn't it?  By definition the term refers to a person or entity that is alleged in an indictment to have engaged in conspiracy, but who is not charged in the same indictment.  So who could we be referring to?  Who are these co-conspirators that are suspiciously absent from these prosecutions?  After spending nearly a year going through the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud indictment backwards and forwards it seems that the government had indicted almost everyone that had ever had anything to do with the case including but not limited to buyers, mortgage brokers, title agents, closing agents, etc.  So who could have been left out?


Throughout the last few weeks of testimony from the Plantation cops federal mortgage fraud trail we've learned that there was another group of conspirators in the alleged fraud that knew everything that was going on, conspirators that knew about the exorbitant seller contributions, the excessive escrow amounts, earnest monies coming from third parties, borrowers closing on two "primary residences" withing the same months (in some cases the same day), borrowers whose credit reports showed multiple inquiries from mortgage brokers and lenders within days of the transaction they were about to close, etc...  So who were these "unindicted co-conspirators" involved in the Plantation cops case and just about every other case we've written about?  Here's a small listing of this usual suspects...

These lenders were at the center of each and every mortgage fraud case I've written about, none of the frauds we've discussed could have been possible without these guys.  They all knew what was going on, the paperwork proves it.  Even worse, the entire real estate bubble happened because of their lax lending standards and the fact that they looked the other way while their pockets were getting full as a result of them bundling the garbage loans that they wrote into worthless triple A rated mortgage backed securities.  

Haven't we had enough of street level mortgage fraudsters getting racked over the coals during these nonsensical mortgage fraud trials?  When is a prosecutor going to have enough balls to go after the real criminals that got us to where we are today?

Another government witness in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial admits to having lied...

"Never talk when you can nod,

and never nod when you can wink,

and never write an e-mail because it's death.

You're giving prosecutors all the evidence we need."

Elliott Spitzer, interview with ABC news, circa 2006 as Attorney General of New York.

Yesterday defendant turned cooperating government witness Jacqueline Elek Trumbore took the stand in the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud trail.  From what we understand Mrs. Trumbore worked for Turn Key Title which was owned by attorney Steven Stoll, the title company that handled most if not all of the transactions which are the subject of the federal indictment.  As with the other cooperating witnesses, Mrs. Trumbore cut a deal early on with the government, here's her plea agreement as it appears in the court file...

jacqueline trumbore factual proffer

The problem is though that Mrs. Trumbore claims that she was pressured by her attorneys into taking this plea, the court learned this through a series of emails that were revealed during yesterdays hearings from Mrs. Trumbore to her friends and family.  Here's one of the emails...

Now, lets take a look at that "stipulated proffer letter" that she refers to in her email...

jacqueline trumbore stipulated factual proffer

If Mrs. Trumbore is telling the truth and was indeed innocent of the charges that she plead out to then how's this going to look to the jury?  If you accept the premise that Mrs. Trumbore did not commit the crimes that she plead out to, you have to ask yourself, what kind of criminal defense attorney would tell their client to accept a plea for crimes that they did not commit?


On another note, one of our readers who has left several comments over the last few weeks of posts repeatedly asserts at the end of each comment that every one charged in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud indictment had some level of guilt.  I don't think anyone is going to argue that considering the number of transactions that are in question (60+) and the way the transactions were conducted that everyone involved knew there was something that wasn't above board about their dealings.  My problem with this case is that it seems like the governments efforts are wasted considering there are crimes that are far more severe that go unpunished.  I also understand that the government want's to get their pound of flesh against these fraudsters to show the citizens that they're going after the people that theoretically helped bring the nations economy to its knees.  That's fine, but why not go after the people that were behind deals like the ones we discussed in Coconut Grove nearly two years ago?  Or how about hanging the guys involved in the fraud that occurred at 911 Columbus Blvd by their balls?  These frauds cost banks millions of dollars and were run by a sophisticated ring of criminals yet to this day no one has been punished.  Why not go after these guys rather than trying to persecute these cops who lied on their loan applications and ultimately either paid off the mortgages or are still living in the homes that are in question?