We can only assume this is a defendant's brilliant answer to some sort of paternity suit...
Brilliant in it's simplicity and brevity, unfortunately in real life nothing is that simple.
I'm not going to blather on today about how screwed up our court system is, what I will say though is that I'm deeply saddened by what I've seen transpire recently in the second phase of the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case. We've seen several instances of the government objecting vehemently to the defendants introducing other instances of fraud committed by the governments cooperating witnesses, we've also seen several instances of the government objecting to the introduction of forged and or fake loan documents created by their cooperating witnesses Matt Gulla and Rene Rodriguez Jr, but that's not the worst of it. The defense has now come forward with allegations of witness tampering and even more grand jury misconduct by the government. From what we're told there have been several instances where people who were going to come forward and give favorable testimony for the defendants at the grand jury were told to leave if they were going to do so. We're also told that there's going to be evidence of FDLE and other government agents threatening to charge witnesses criminally if they didn't come clean with damaging testimony against the defendants. So far there hasn't been any evidence of these allegations provided to the court, according to what defense attorney Michael Dennis Walsh has told the court, the evidence of these nefarious deeds will be presented shortly.
Are any of these allegations by the defense plausible or are they simply a defense tactic designed to muddy the waters? Under any other circumstances I'd dismiss such allegations as being pure fantasy, but after watching how the criminal justice works over the last couple of years and seeing first hand the "win at any cost" attitude that seems to infect most law enforcement agents and prosecutors, I wouldn't be surprised if the allegations were in some part true. As outrageous as the claims of witness intimidation seem, they're no different in what we'd already seen in the Barrera mortgage fraud case where the cops basically intimidated their best witness into saying what they wanted under the threat of arrest.
Just when you think you've heard it all regarding the mortgage brokers what are at the center of the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, something else pops up that leaves you speechless. From the very beginning of the case we've been told time and time again that the mortgage brokers involved were a literal fake document factory, they faked and forged all kinds of documents from verification of employment letters, bogus loan applications, fake tenant leases, etc. Much to the governments chagrin, the various defense attorneys have exposed these guys to be the crooks they are, not only by having them admit to all the fake documents that they created but also having them admit that they also forged the borrowers signatures on most of the same documents which we later found out was common practice for thousands of loans that they originated over the last decade.
If all that wasn't bad enough, yesterday we learned that the mortgage brokers, Rene Rodriguez Jr and Matt Gulla, had also been submitting fake loan commitments to the lenders! For those of you that are unsure about what a Loan Commitment Letter is, lets be clear:
...it's the document an underwriter sends to the loan officer once a loan is approved. A commitment letter will detail every aspect of the mortgage. It will include the terms and interest rate. It will itemize the “Conditions” (the items that must be provided or explained for final approval). The commitment letter will be dated and it will have an expiration date. It may be signed by the underwriter. The Loan Commitment Letter is a formal, legally binding document.
In one instance, UBS sent the mortgage brokers a commitment letter that said the loan was going to be 80% loan to value meaning the buyer had to bring in a 20% down payment with no secondary financing. Pretty cut and dry right? The lender (UBS) was granting the loan based on the fact that the buyer was putting in some of his own money, since the buyer was going to have his own money in the deal he was less likely to default on the loan therefore making the loan a safer bet for the bank since the buyer was going to have some "skin in the game". In this instance the lender prohibited secondary financing, but that wasn't an issue for the brokers! Fraudsters Rodriguez and Gulla altered this loan commitment and removed the secondary financing prohibition then forwarded it to another lender who provided the remaining money to close the deal therefore making this loan a nearly 100% bank financed deal even though the original lender prohibited secondary financing. Not bad, huh? You think there's any chance that the poor guy who borrowed the money for this home knew anything about the degree of fraud and criminality that was involved in this deal? Is it conceivable that the mortgage brokers told the borrower that they were not only going to fake the loan applications and other associated documents necessary to obtain the loan, but that they were going to also fake the official loan documents that the primary lender issued in order to obtain financing from a secondary lender? Highly unlikely.
What makes all this even worse is that Rodriguez and Gulla, the mortgage brokers that are at the center of this shitstorm that we refer to as the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud trial aren't even on trial! These guys set themselves up with sweetheart deals from the get go, even before anyone was indicted. It seems to me that these guys should be the ones that get the book thrown at them, not the poor cops who got the loans then paid them off only to later get indicted and have their careers and lives destroyed based on the testimony of two lowlife criminals who would sell their mothers out in order to lessen their stints in federal prison. Oh well.
That's none other than the federally indicted City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur! Not only has Veldora been sitting at home since she was Federally indicted for mortgage fraud on paid administrative leave while pulling down over $300k+ in pay and benefits and traveling all over the country over the past few months since her indictment, to add insult to injury she's also got a car that's paid for by the City of Miami taxpayers! Sweet, where can I sign up for a deal like this? Like everyone's been saying lately, ONLY IN MIAMI!
We've been experiencing difficulties with our internet connection lately, we'll be back up to speed this evening. In the meantime we've learned that the government has rested it's case in phase two of the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud trial, we'll have a full update tomorrow.
I'm in a bit of a rush today so I'll leave you to ponder this question over the weekend; does special agent Roadruck of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have X Ray vision or is he just a poor investigator?
We'll discuss on Monday. Now, here we are nearing summers end and what do you know, federally indicted City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur wants to travel again! Take a look at the motion...
THE FUCK YOU SAY! Let's not forget that Ms. Arthur had just taken off to the Bahamas from April 21 through April 24th then to the Carolinas from May 26 through May 31, now Ms. Arthur is off on another trip August 7 through August 21st!!!!!! WHAT IN THE FUCK!!!???? That's 25 vacation days just in the past five months alone. If that isn't bad enough, our sources tell us that Ms. Arthur has been on paid leave from her position in the City since her indictment early this year!
I have a really hard time with this whole Veldora Arthur thing, this woman is a black eye on the City's fire department. Think about it for a minute, the City of Miami Firefighters want to initiate a recall against Mayor Tomas Regalado for trying to balance the city's budget by cutting their salaries and benefits, how does it look when you have people like Veldora making over $300k per year, sitting at home on administrative leave then taking 25 days of vacation over the course of five months?! Not to mention that she's been federally indicted for crimes that would have gotten anyone else fired from their jobs!
As the title states, we've come across another instance where the defendants in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case have a witness who's favorable to their case and as we've seen before, the prosecutors don't want the jury to hear about it. In this instance the witness that's come forward isn't a paid expert or someone that's been offered immunity or any other kind of deal by the government. The witness that the prosecutors don't want the jury to hear about came forward on her own to testify about the fraud that mortgage brokers (and cooperating government witnesses) Matt Gulla and Rene Rodriguez Jr. had committed when doing her home mortgage.
From the very onset of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case, the defendants had maintained that they loan applications they submitted were truthful and accurate and that the mortgage brokers then doctored the applications and ultimately forged the borrowers signatures on the documents that were then forwarded to the banks that funded the mortgages. Now, I'm sure some of you would say that this sounds like a bogus "I knew nothing about what was going on" defense, that's where this new witness comes in. Apparently the new witness that the prosecutors don't want the jury to hear from had the very same problem, she submitted accurate 1003 loan applications to the mortgage brokers only to find out later that they had doctored the applications and forged her signature on the new fraudulent applications. Interesting, huh? Consider that this new witness has no motivation or incentive to come forward with this damning testimony against the brokers, she's simply coming forward to set the record straight about how these criminals operated and how they did the very same things to her as the defendants in this case allege were done to them.
So what's the problem? Aren't the defendants entitled to have this witness testify before the court and jury and set the record straight about the crooked ways of former mortgage brokers Matt Gulla and Rene Rodriguez? Why are the prosecutors fighting so hard to have this testimony excluded from the trial, after all isn't this trial about a "search for truth" rather than just achieving a conviction by any means necessary? At this point the prosecutors arguments are moot as the judge has allowed the witness to testify before the jury. I was rather surprised considering how the judge has ruled in other similar circumstances throughout this case. We'll have to wait till tomorrow to hear what the witness has to say...
Simply amazing. As we discussed a while back we were expecting a key robo-signing case to be litigated before the Florida Supreme Court which would have determined whether or not banks could simply absolves themselves from liability in instances where they were caught using forged documents during foreclosure proceedings. We learned this morning that the case was settled out of court, from the Daily Business Review article...
The first robo-signing case scheduled to get to the Florida Supreme Court for oral arguments has been settled out of court by Bank of New York Mellon and the homeowner. The settlement comes as a disappointment to homeowners in foreclosure who have been trying to challenge the use of fraudulent documents used by banks to expedite foreclosure orders for Florida circuit courts. Enrique Nieves III of Ice Legal in Royal Palm Beach had been preparing for oral arguments in Roman Pino v. BNY Mellon after the 4th District Court of Appeal upheld the bank's right to voluntarily dismiss the case.
With the settlement, the 4th DCA ruling remains the law in every court in Florida. In Pino v. BNY Mellon, the homeowner requested an evidentiary hearing when the bank tried to re-initiate a foreclosure that had been stalled because of a questionable assignment of mortgage document. The bank was trying to go forward with a cured document and Nieves was arguing they couldn't proceed until the original fraud allegation was aired on its merits. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Meenu Sasser noted the bank had voluntarily dismissed the original foreclosure petition and that case could not be reopened. She treated the second foreclosure petition as an entirely separate matter, and Nieves appealed. The 4th DCA sided with Sasser in an en banc decision. But there was a dissent mainly on grounds that an attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the court was still actionable. The majority panel acknowledged the issue was of great public importance due to the rampant use of questionable documents; that certification helped Nieves put the case before the Supreme Court.
Incredible how banks can perpetrate a fraud on the court yet if the average guy would have done the same thing, his ass would have landed in jail. This is just another instance of our government not holding banks accountable for the mess they've helped create. What's worse about this whole ordeal is that the robo-signing epidemic is still running rampant, we've been given several examples of robo-signing that's occurring right now, even after all the national media exposure.
Moving on, yesterday veteran attorney David Donet Sr. of Miami was federally indicted for a wide range of nefarious schemes, take a look at the indictment...
Besides ripping off his clients monies that were deposited in his trust account, Mr. Donet offered his victims a unique investment opportunity, from the federal indictment...
After the defendant received funds in his attorney trust account on behalf of certain clients from the representation of those clients, the defendant encouraged those clients to leave their funds in his trust account, falsely stating that the funds would be invested, when in truth and in fact, and as the defendant then and there well knew, no investment of client funds would occur.
If alarm bells didn't go off when the clients were offered this investment scheme, then perhaps they deserved to get ripped off. Again, from the indictment...
The defendant falsely represented to certain clients that by keeping their funds in his attorney trust account: a) the funds would be insured and secure while the defendant invested the funds; b) the funds would provide 10% annual interest, to be paid in monthly installments; and c) clients could withdraw their principal at any time.
Sounds like a good ole fashion Ponzi scheme to me! Mr. Donet was eventually responsible for the theft of over a million dollars of his clients funds, it's a damn shame as those clients who entrusted their money with Mr. Donet will never get their money back. Oh well!
You have to wonder, what's behind the mortgage fraud prosecutions that we've talked about over the last couple of years? On the surface we're expected to believe that it's simply the governments desire to put away bad guys who misused the banking system to steal money but there's much more than that. We already know that the low level prosecutions that we've discussed are nothing more than a dog and pony show to distract attention from the real bad guys, the banks and Wall street firms that created this economic calamity that we're still in nearly four years after the real estate meltdown. What about at the law enforcement level? What's the motivation behind these cases for the cops and prosecutors that make them? Is it simply the need for the cops to do the right thing and get the bad guys? Or the desire of prosecutors to lock up criminals? BULLSHIT. Everyone we've written about during the course of our blog has had some sort of ulterior motive in building these mortgage fraud cases. Mortgage fraud just happened to be the hot topic of the day, each and everyone one of these guys planned to use these cases to elevate their status within their respective agencies. Let's look at some of the players we've discussed in the past...
Detective Jorge Baluja. How can anyone forget the assclown dimwit rookie detective that put together the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, a detective that doesn't have the slightest clue about mortgage fraud or real estate, the same detective that couldn't even execute his own mortgage correctly. So what could have been his motivation for putting together a headline mortgage fraud case? It turns out that the good detective couldn't stand being on the mortgage fraud task force, from what several people have reported to us, Detective Baluja was very vocal about wanting to get out of the Mortgage Fraud Task force as soon as humanly possible. He told several witnesses in the Barrera mortgage fraud case that he needed to put this case together as fast as he could so he could get off the task force and get transferred to another unit, so he hastily slams together this bullshit case and before anyone realizes what a steaming pile of shit he created, his Major goes ahead and gives him a commendation after which he gets transferred out of the mortgage fraud unit. Nice job Detective, ruin peoples lives with a bullshit case, let the real bad guys get away, expose your department to all sorts of liability all so you can get yourself out of a unit that you couldn't stand working in.
Assistant State Attorney William "Bill" Kostrzewski, AKA "Special K", AKA "Crazy Bill". This would be the inept prosecutor that put together the Barrera mortgage fraud case, a prosecutor so blinded by the possibility of putting together a big case that he ignored the obvious truth behind his case, the fact that the man who claimed his identity was stolen for the commission of the crime was actually in on the crime. So what could have been "Special K's" motivation? It turns out the career prosecutor Kostrzewski was looking to get promoted out of the Miami State Attorneys office, from what we're told Mr. Kostrzewski was doing his best to become part of the then proposed Statewide Mortgage Fraud Task force that was to be led by then mortgage fraud avenger Glenn Theobald. Mr Kostrzewski openly bragged about this possible job and his connection to higher ups in Tallahassee, yet somehow despite all the Mortgage Fraud Task Force meetings he attended, despite all the ass sucking, Mr. Kostrzewski never made it to any task force, let alone a statewide task force. In fact, when the Miami State Attorneys Office put together it's own Mortgage Fraud Unit within it's economic crimes division, they never even offered "Special K" a job with the unit. We'd like to think we may have had something to do with that....
Last but not least we have Special Agent Dennis Roadruck from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Agent Roadruck is the man who put together the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, so what could have been his motivation for putting together this case? From what we're told this case saved Mr. Roadruck's career, our sources tell us that Mr. Roadruck's job was in jeopardy in part because of his serious domestic violence issues. What better way to put these nasty problems behind you than to put together a major mortgage fraud case where the targets were cops? Perhaps this explains why the agent ignored the hundreds if not thousands of other frauds the mortgage brokers who cooperated with him had committed? Regardless, this case sounds like a career saver to me, perhaps that will change once the case is concluded.
I wouldn't say that every single one of these cases were driven by the ulterior motives of the people who put them together, I'll concede that the overwhelming majority of these types of cases are put together by people who are simply doing their jobs and are doing so to get the "bad guys" and protect the citizens from these criminals and their nefarious activities. There is no doubt in my mind though that the people we've discussed in our post today had no regard for the truth or justice but were simply looking out for themselves in order to either save their asses or to get themselves promoted at the cost of destroying other peoples lives and reputations, which in my humble opinion is pathetic. Take my word, when the dust finally settles, when the proper complaints are filed and the civil suits against the offending agencies are initiated, the truth will come out.
On another note, it looks like we have the beginnings of a recall campaign against City of Miami Mayer Tomas Regalado! Our friend Al Crespo goes into detail on his site. I find it ironic though the people initiating the recall, the police and the fire unions which were the target of massive pay cuts, are doing so to protect their massive pay and benefit packages that are in part bringing the City to the verge of bankruptcy. Regardless, it's a step in the right direction, we'll have to see how things play out.
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...
