S.E.C. Has a Message for Firms Not Used to Admitting Guilt

S.E.C. Has a Message for Firms Not Used to Admitting Guilt

By JAMES B. STEWART

By requiring an admission of guilt in some cases, the S.E.C.’s new chairwoman is pressing for more accountability at financial firms.

The days of cop-out settlements in big securities cases may be waning.

In a departure from long-established practice, the recently confirmed chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White, said this week that defendants would no longer be allowed to settle some cases while “neither admitting nor denying” wrongdoing.

“In the interest of public accountability, you need admissions” in some cases, Ms. White told me. “Defendants are going to have to own up to their conduct on the public record,” she said. “This will help with deterrence, and it’s a matter of strengthening our hand in terms of enforcement.”

In a memo to the S.E.C. enforcement staff announcing the new policy on Monday, the agency’s co-leaders of enforcement, Andrew Ceresney and George Canellos, said there might be cases that “justify requiring the defendant’s admission of allegations in our complaint or other acknowledgment of the alleged misconduct as part of any settlement.”

They added, “Should we determine that admissions or other acknowledgment of misconduct are critical, we would require such admissions or acknowledgment, or, if the defendants refuse, litigate the case.”

Ms. White said that most cases would still be settled under the prevailing “neither admit nor deny” standard, which, she said, has been effective at encouraging defendants to settle and speeding relief to victims.

The policy change follows years of criticism that the S.E.C. has been too lenient, especially with the large institutions that were at the center of the financial crisis. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase were among the defendants that settled charges related to the financial crisis while neither admitting nor denying guilt, although Goldman was required to admit that its marketing materials were incomplete.

That this approach became such a heated public issue is in large part because of the provocative efforts of Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court, who has twice threatened to derail settlements with large financial institutions that neither admitted nor denied the government’s allegations.

In late 2011, he ruled that he couldn’t assess the fairness of the agency’s settlement with Citigroup in a complex mortgage case without knowing what, if anything, Citigroup had actually done. In his ruling, he said that settling with defendants who neither admit nor deny the allegations is a policy “hallowed by history but not by reason.”

He described the settlement, which was for $285 million, as “pocket change” for a giant bank like Citigroup. Other judges have followed Judge Rakoff’s lead, and an appeal of his Citigroup ruling is pending before the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The new policy would seem to vindicate Judge Rakoff, at least in spirit, but Ms. White said the decision was rooted in her experience as United States attorney in New York, where defendants in criminal cases are almost always required either to enter a guilty plea or go to trial.

“Judge Rakoff and other judges put this issue more in the public eye, but it wasn’t his comments that precipitated the change,” she said. “I’ve lived with this issue for a very long time, and I decided it was something that we should review, and that could strengthen the S.E.C.’s enforcement hand.” (Judge Rakoff, who is presiding over a trial in Fresno, Calif., said he couldn’t comment, citing the appeal of his Citigroup ruling.)

Those concerned that Ms. White, who before her confirmation as chairwoman of the S.E.C. was head of the litigation department at the prominent corporate law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, might be too cozy with the big banks and corporations that were formerly her clients, can breathe easier. Even some of the S.E.C.’s harshest critics were at least somewhat mollified.

“It’s an important step in the right direction,” said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School and a vocal critic of S.E.C. settlements he deems too lenient. “There’s clearly a public hunger for accountability. Mary Jo White has shown she is sensitive to this.” 

 Ms. White agreed. “There’s no question I share the desire for more accountability in cases where that is warranted,” she said. “I do think there are situations where public accountability is particularly important, and that will be our focus. I don’t want to overstate this — no admit, no deny will still be the way most cases are resolved — but I think it’s an important change.” 

There’s little doubt that extracting admissions of wrongdoing gives the S.E.C. enormous new leverage, and not just because defendants want to avoid the damage to their reputation that comes with admitting misconduct. Any admission is likely to be seized upon by private litigants in civil lawsuits, including class actions, with potentially devastating financial consequences.

“If they admit culpability to the S.E.C., plaintiffs will cite that in their cases, and that could mean hundred of millions or billions in damages,” Professor Coffee said. “It’s not just the stigma they’re worried about.”

Those concerned that the S.E.C. already has too much power, including many corporate defense lawyers, were critical.

“I don’t like this at all,” said Brad Karp, a litigator and chairman of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison who represented Citigroup in its settlement talks with the S.E.C. “It gives them enormous leverage. A financial institution cannot fight a primary regulator and win. They have you. They have complete leverage over you. Even if you fight and win over a year, the damage will outweigh any litigation result.”

But Ms. White’s emphasis on public accountability suggests that she sees admissions of guilt as far more than a bargaining chip to extract bigger settlements. In the type of prominent cases cited by the enforcement staff, the S.E.C. may be unwilling to negotiate over an admission of wrongdoing and will force defendants to go to trial.

That could cut two ways. Some corporate defendants have settled cases, even when they believed they were innocent, to avoid the cloud of litigation, and treated any fines simply as a cost of doing business. Now, if the S.E.C. takes a case to trial, it will be forced to prove its case.

“If they take a hard line where admissions are an inevitable cost of resolving the case, it will force defendants to trial,” Mr. Karp said. Defendants will “try to find every way possible to avoid that outcome. If they can negotiate around it, there will be early settlements. But if not, they’ll go to trial.”

Citigroup has said that if Judge Rakoff’s ruling is upheld and its settlement is overturned, it will go to trial rather than admit wrongdoing.

Ms. White said that “our aim is to apply this policy in appropriate cases, and we’ll do this in the public interest.” She continued: “Will this lead to more cases going to trial? It’s hard to say going in, but it might. We have to be prepared to go to trial, and we have to make people believe we’re prepared.”

That may be a tall order. Defense lawyers and judges have raised questions about the S.E.C.’s trial competence in complex cases. The S.E.C. responded that of its last 11 cases that went to trial, it prevailed in eight.

An important test of that litigation capacity is likely to come next month, when Fabrice Tourre, a former Goldman Sachs trader who is accused of misleading clients in a complex mortgage deal, is scheduled to go on trial.

Exactly which cases, and how many, will result in admissions of wrongdoing remain to be seen.

“It will be very interesting to see how this plays out in six months or a year,” Mr. Karp said.

The S.E.C. memo cites three criteria: “misconduct that harmed large numbers of investors or placed investors or the market at risk of potentially serious harm”; “egregious intentional misconduct”; or “when the defendant engaged in unlawful obstruction of the commission’s investigative processes.”

Relatively few of the financial crisis cases, including the big mortgage fraud cases settled by Citigroup, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, would seem to meet those criteria, because the purported misconduct wasn’t that egregious, the evidence in some cases was ambiguous and the victims were limited to a few sophisticated financial institutions rather than large numbers of the investing public.

Ms. White declined to comment on any specific cases, but said: “No one case precipitated this. From this point forward, we’ll be looking for appropriate cases in which to apply the policy. Most will still be resolved on a no admit, no deny basis. But we’ll be scrutinizing this.”

Professor Coffee said the agency should go even further, by identifying and holding more individuals responsible.

Still, he said, “You have to give Mary Jo credit: She has shown she is less tone deaf” to public demands for accountability. “The S.E.C. may have to bring fewer cases and pursue them harder,” he added. “But that could be a good thing.”

Must See Video: Arizona Homeowners Losing their Homes to Foreclosure Through Forged Documents

The ABC15 Investigators sat down with Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne to find out.

ARE FORGED DOCUMENTS AN ACCEPTABLE SHORTCUT?

We were surprised to hear Horne characterize the use of forged documents as a “shortcut.”

“Maybe a document was signed, somebody signed someone else’s name as a shortcut, but in the underlying transaction, there was no injustice,” Horne said.

Referring to the homeowner facing foreclosure, Horne said, “That person didn’t pay.”

The ABC15 Investigators pressed Horne on why the laws against forgery and fraud don’t seem to apply equally.

“If the homeowner is going to come in and fight their foreclosure and forge their own documents, they are going to jail,” we said. “So I don’t think they are going to be so sympathetic to your argument that the underlying premise is that they still didn’t pay. Because many of these people did pay and they were still foreclosed on with fraudulent documents.”

http://4closurefraud.org/2013/06/21/must-see-video-arizona-homeowners-losing-their-homes-to-foreclosure-through-forged-documents/ 

Notice the date June 21, 2013.. nope they didn't clean it up . Welcome top VT were living this as well, nobody cares especially our AG

Paid or not, homes are being stolen.. The goverment needs to pay attention to the Orion Financial Group and Iron Mountain

http://www.ironmountain.com/Solutions/Mortgage-Companies.aspx

http://www.orionfgi.com/

Be happy. at least your AG is helping

"Deed-In-Lieu" of Foreclosure and Other Things

"Deed-In-Lieu" of Foreclosure and Other Things
http://www.fxstreet.com/education/related-markets/lessons-from-the-pros-real-estate/2013/06/20/

This has come up many times in  questions and discussions regarding dealing with the Wall Street banks. It seems that the banks have borrowers thinking that in order to file a deed in lieu of foreclosure they need the permission of the bank. I know of no such provision in the law of any state preventing the owner of the property from deeding the property to anyone.  Several lawyers are seeing an opportunity, to wit: once the homeowner deeds the properties to the party pretending to foreclose on the property, the foreclosure action against the homeowner must be dismissed. That leaves the question of a deficiency judgment.

The advantages to the homeowner appears to be that any lawsuit seeking to recover a deficiency judgment would be strictly about money and would require the allegation of a monetary loss and proof of the monetary loss which would enable the homeowner, for the first time, to pursue discovery on the money trail because there is no other issue in dispute.

In the course of that litigation the discovery may reveal the fact that the party who filed the foreclosure and misrepresented their right to the collateral would be subject to various causes of action for damages as a counterclaim; but the counterclaim would not be filed until after discovery revealed the problem for the "lender." Therefore several lawyers are advising their clients to simply file the deed in favor of the party seeking foreclosure based upon the representation that they are in fact the right party to obtain a sale of the property.

The lawyers who are using this tactic obviously caution their clients against using it unless they are already out of the house or are planning to move. Homeowners who are looking to employ this tactic should check with a licensed attorney in the jurisdiction in which their property is located.

Wells Fargo Sells Woman’s House In Foreclosure After She Reinstates Loan for $141,441.81

Wells Fargo Sells Woman’s House In Foreclosure After She Reinstates Loan for $141,441.81
http://4closurefraud.org/2013/06/20/wells-fargo-sells-womans-house-in-foreclosure-after-she-reinstates-loan-for-141441-81/

Editor's Note: In all of these cases you need to start with the premise that the bank has a gargantuan liability in the event that it took insurance, credit default swap proceeds, federal bailouts, or the proceeds of sales of mortgage bonds to the Federal Reserve. Most experts in finance and economics agree that if the Federal Reserve stops making payments on the "purchase" of mortgage bonds the entire housing market will collapse. I don't agree.

It is the banks that will collapse in the housing market will finally recover bringing the economy back up with it. The problem for the Federal Reserve and the economy is that most likely they are buying worthless paper issued by a trust that was never funded and that therefore could never have purchased any loan. Thus the income and the collateral of the mortgage bond is nonexistent.

Many people in the financial world completely understand this and are terrified at the prospect of the largest banks being required to mark down their reserve capital;  if this happens, and it should, these banks will lack the capital to continue functioning as a mega-bank.

So why would a bank foreclose on house on which there was no mortgage and/or no default? The answer lies in the fact that they have accepted money from third parties on the premise that they lost money on these mortgages. If that turns out not to be true (which it isn't) then they most probably owe a lot of money back to those third parties.

My estimate is that in the average case they owe anywhere from 7 to 40 times the amount of the mortgage loan.  It is simply cheaper to settle with the aggrieved homeowner even if they pay damages for emotional distress (which is permitted in California and perhaps some other states); it is even cheaper and far more effective for the bank to give the house back without any encumbrance to the homeowner. Without the foreclosure becoming final or worse yet, as the recent revelations from Bank of America clearly show, if the loan is modified and becomes a performing loan all of that money is due back to all of those third parties.

I say shit is gonna hit the fan, this time Wells fargo

The Bank Of International Settlements Warns The Monetary Kool-Aid Party Is Over

When a month ago the Central Banks' Central Bank, aka the Bank of International Settlements (or BIS) in Basel where the MIT central-planning braintrust meets every few months to decide the fate of the world, warned that the Fed-induced collateral shortage is distorting the markets, few paid attention. That the implication behind said warning was that QE can not continue at the current pace, was just as lost. A few short weeks later following the biggest plunge in markets since 2011 in the aftermath of Bernanke's taper tantrum, some are finally willing to listen.
However, they will certainly not like what the BIS just released as a follow up, both in the form of the BIS' 83rd Annual Report, and the speech by Jaime Caruana to commemorate said annual meeting. For the simple reason that it reads like a run of the mill Sunday morning Zero Hedge sermon, which says, almost verbatim, that the days of kicking the can via flawed monetary policy are now over, and that the time for central banks to end the monetary morphine drip has finally come.
The BIS message, as summarized by the FT, is that "central banks must head for the exit and stop trying to spur a global economic recovery... cheap and plentiful central bank money had merely bought time, warning that more bond buying would retard the global economy’s return to health by delaying adjustments to governments’ and households’ balance sheets."
Here is a better summary of the BIS' unprecedented U-Turn on its 5 year long monetary strategy, in its own selected words:

Can central banks now really do “whatever it takes”? As each day goes by, it seems less and less likely... Six years have passed since the eruption of the global financial crisis, yet robust, self-sustaining, well balanced growth still eludes the global economy. If there were an easy path to that goal, we would have found it by now.

Monetary stimulus alone cannot provide the answer because the roots of the problem are not monetary. Hence, central banks must manage a return to their stabilisation role, allowing others to do the hard but essential work of adjustment.  

Many large corporations are using cheap bond funding to lengthen the duration of their liabilities instead of investing in new production capacity.  

Continued low interest rates and unconventional policies have made it easy for the private sector to postpone deleveraging, easy for the government to finance deficits, and easy for the authorities to delay needed reforms in the real economy and in the financial system.

Overindebtedness is one of the major barriers on the path to growth after a financial crisis. Borrowing more year after year is not the cure...in some places it may be difficult to avoid an overall reduction in accommodation because some policies have clearly hit their limits.

Of course, it would have been more useful for the BIS to reach this commonsensical conclusion some four years ago (or roughly when we started preaching to the choir, which now includes the BIS itself), instead of allowing the global private bank controlled syndicate known as "central banks" to inject $15 trillion into global capital markets in the past 4 years, and nearly $25 trillion (a #Ref! % increase!) since 2000.

Some of the "shocking" and painfully late observations on the chart above:

Since the beginning of the financial crisis almost six years ago, central banks and fiscal authorities have supported the global economy with unprecedented measures. Policy rates have been kept near zero in the largest advanced economies. Central bank balance sheets have doubled from $10 trillion to more than $20 trillion. And fiscal authorities almost everywhere have been piling up debt, which has risen by $23 trillion since 2007. In emerging market economies, public debt has grown more slowly than GDP; but in advanced economies, it has grown much faster, so that it now exceeds one year’s GDP.

Some of the other, just as "shocking" observations: a dramatic surge in artificially low bond yields will result in crippling, systemic losses, amounting to trillions of dollars for bond (and certainly stock) investors around the globe, to the tune of 8% of GDP losses in the US, and a mindblowing 35% of GDP in losses for Japanese investors:

Consider what would happen to holders of US Treasury securities (excluding the Federal Reserve) if yields were to rise by 3 percentage points across the maturity spectrum: they would lose more than $1 trillion, or almost 8% of US GDP (Graph I.3, right-hand panel). The losses for holders of debt issued by France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom would range from about 15 to 35% of GDP of the respective countries. Yields are not likely to jump by 300 basis points overnight; but the experience from 1994, when long-term bond yields in a number of advanced economies rose by around 200 basis points in the course of a year, shows that a big upward move can happen relatively fast.

And while sophisticated hedging strategies can protect individual investors, someone must ultimately hold the interest rate risk. Indeed, the potential loss in relation to GDP is at a record high in most advanced economies. As foreign and domestic banks would be among those experiencing the losses, interest rate increases pose risks to the stability of the financial system if not executed with great care.

All of which Japan's "sophisticated", yet joyously cartoonish, "leaders" recently found out when they almost lost all control of the bond (and stock) market.
What's the "wealth effect" solution: why buy stocks but don't sell bonds. Or if selling bonds, do so vewy, vewy quietly. Alas, not even the BIS is dumb enough to fall (or push) for this possibility any longer.
The BIS report goes on, doing all it can to distance itself from those central banks who merely implemented policy that the BIS supported (and encouraged) for the past 5 years, but which has suddenly turned a cold shoulder. It does so by dramatically and rhetorically blasting a litany of questions to which it fully-well knows the answers:

How can central banks encourage those responsible for structural adjustment to implement reforms? How can they avoid making the economy too dependent on monetary stimulus? When is the right time for them to pull back from their expansionary policies? And in pulling back, how can they avoid sparking a sharp rise in bond yields? It is time for monetary policy to begin answering these questions.

Regardless of the politics behind the shift in BIS sentiment, the days of Mario Draghi's "whatever it takes" shriek of desperation are over. Here are some more of the key soundbites from the BIS report:

Originally forged as a description of central bank actions to prevent financial collapse, the phrase “whatever it takes” has become a rallying cry for central banks to continue their extraordinary actions. But we are past the height of the crisis, and the goal of policy has changed – to return still-sluggish economies to strong and sustainable growth. Can central banks now really do “whatever it takes” to achieve that goal? As each day goes by, it seems less and less likely. Central banks cannot repair the balance sheets of households and financial institutions. Central banks cannot ensure the sustainability of fiscal finances. And, most of all, central banks cannot enact the structural economic and financial reforms needed to return economies to the real growth paths authorities and their publics both want and expect.

What central bank accommodation has done during the recovery is to borrow time – time for balance sheet repair, time for fiscal consolidation, and time for reforms to restore productivity growth. But the time has not been well used, as continued low interest rates and unconventional policies have made it easy for the private sector to postpone deleveraging, easy for the government to finance deficits, and easy for the authorities to delay needed reforms in the real economy and in the financial system. After all, cheap money makes it easier to borrow than to save, easier to spend than to tax, easier to remain the same than to change.

Yes, in some countries the household sector has made headway with the gruelling task of deleveraging. Some financial institutions are better capitalised. Some fiscal authorities have begun painful but essential consolidation. And yes, much of the difficult work of financial reform has been completed. But overall, progress has been slow, halting and uneven across countries. Households and firms continue to hope that if they wait, asset values and revenues will rise and their balance sheets improve. Governments hope that if they wait, the economy will grow, driving down the ratio of debt to GDP. And politicians hope that if they wait, incomes and profits will start to grow again, making the reform of labour and product markets less urgent. But waiting will not make things any easier, particularly as public support and patience erode.

Alas, central banks cannot do more without compounding the risks they have already created. Instead, they must re-emphasise their traditional focus – albeit expanded to include financial stability – and thereby encourage needed adjustments rather than retard them with near-zero interest rates and purchases of ever larger quantities of government securities. And they must urge authorities to speed up reforms in labour and product markets, reforms that will enhance productivity and encourage employment growth rather than provide the false comfort that it will be easier later.

* * *

As governments responded to the financial crisis with bank bailouts and fiscal stimulus, their indebtedness rose to new highs. And in countries that experienced a housing bubble in the run-up to the crisis, households had already accumulated large debts. In the half-decade since the peak of the crisis, the hope was that significant progress would be made in the necessary deleveraging process, thereby enabling a self-sustaining recovery.

However, that never happened.

Easy financial conditions can do only so much to revitalise long-term growth when balance sheets are impaired and resources are misallocated on a large scale. In many advanced economies, household debt remains very high, as does non-financial corporate debt. With households and firms focused on reducing their debt, a low price for new credit is not terribly relevant for spending. Indeed, many large corporations are using cheap bond funding to lengthen the duration of their liabilities instead of investing in new production capacity. It does not matter how attractive the authorities make it to lend and borrow – households and firms focused on balance sheet repair will not add to their debt, nor should they.
And, most of all, more stimulus cannot revive productivity growth or remove the impediments that block a worker from shifting into a promising sector. Debt-financed growth masked the downward trend in labour productivity and the large-scale distortion of resource allocation in many economies. Adding more debt will not strengthen the financial sector nor will it reallocate resources needed to return economies to the real growth that authorities and the public both want and expect.
* * *
Six years have passed since the eruption of the global financial crisis, yet robust, self-sustaining, well balanced growth still eludes the global economy. If there were an easy path to that goal, we would have found it by now. Monetary stimulus alone cannot provide the answer because the roots of the problem are not monetary. Hence, central banks must manage a return to their stabilisation role, allowing others to do the hard but essential work of adjustment.

Authorities need to hasten labour and product market reforms so that economic resources can shift more easily to high-productivity sectors. Households and firms have to complete the difficult job of repairing their balance sheets, and governments must intensify their efforts to ensure the sustainability of their finances. Regulators have to adapt the rules to a financial system that is becoming increasingly interconnected and complex and ensure that banks have sufficient capital and liquidity buffers to match the associated risks. Each country needs to tailor the reform agenda to maximise its chances of success without endangering the ongoing economic recovery. But, in the end, only a forceful programme of repair and reform will return economies to strong and sustainable real growth.

* * *

Ultimately, outsize public debt reduces sovereign creditworthiness and erodes confidence. By putting their fiscal house in order, governments can help restore the virtuous cycle between the financial system and the real economy. And, with low levels of debt, governments will again have the capacity to respond when the next financial or economic crisis inevitably hits. 

* * *

Continued low interest rates and unconventional policies have made it easy for the private sector to postpone deleveraging, easy for the government to finance deficits, and easy for the authorities to delay needed reforms in the real economy and in the financial system.

The BIS conclusion:

Is this a call for undifferentiated, simultaneous and comprehensive tightening of all policies? The short answer is no. Concrete measures need to be tailored to country-specific circumstances and needs. And the timing need not be simultaneous, although in some places it may be difficult to avoid an overall reduction in accommodation because some policies have clearly hit their limits.

Ours is a call for acting responsibly now to strengthen growth and avoid even costlier adjustment down the road. And it is a call for recognising that returning to stability and prosperity is a shared responsibility. Monetary policy has done its part. Recovery now calls for a different policy mix – with more emphasis on strengthening economic flexibility and dynamism and stabilising public finances.

Finally, today’s large flows of goods, services and capital across borders make economic and financial stability a shared international responsibility. Cross-border effects of domestic policy action are intrinsic to globalisation. Understanding spillovers and finding ways to avoid the unintended effects is central to the work of the BIS. And continued discussions among central banks and supervisors – discussions that the BIS facilitates and promotes – are essential for avoiding national biases in policymaking. Such national bias runs the risk of undermining globalisation and thus blocking the road to sustained growth for the global economy.

And yes, the central banks' central bank really did say all of the above. Unpossible the Keynesian Magic Money Tree growers will say: surely there is an error in the BIS excel model...
Those pressed for time, if unable to read the full 204 page annual report, should at least read the following stunning speech from Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the BIS, titled "Making the most of borrowed time." (only 9 pages - pdf here). Because, if nothing else, it validates everything Zero Hedge has said for the past 4 years.

The fraud is so deep now

It is only common sense. There are several things that are known with complete certainty in connection with the mortgage mess.

• We know that the banks found it necessary to forge, fabricate and alter legal documents illegally in order to create the illusion that foreclosure was proper.
• We know that the banks manipulated the published rates on which adjustable mortgages changed their payments.
• We know that the banks typically abandon any property that the bank has deemed to be undesirable (then why did they foreclose, when they had a perfectly good homeowner who was willing to pay something including the maintenance and insurance of the house?).
• And we can conclude that it is far more important to the banks that they be able to foreclose and have the deed issued then to actually take possession of the property for sale or rental.
• And so we know that the mortgage and foreclosure markets have been turned on their heads. Lynn, Massachusetts has adopted a series of regulations which appeared to be constitutional and which make it very difficult for the banks to turn neighborhoods that were thriving into blight.  The actions of this city and others who are taking similar actions will continue to reveal the true nature of the mortgage encumbrances (the lanes were never perfected because the loan was never made by the party that is claiming to be secured) and the true nature of foreclosures (the cover-up to a Ponzi scheme and an illegal securities scam that does not and never did fall within the exemptions of the 1998 law claimed by the banks).

Its also sad that Judges allowed these banks ( here in VT) to become part of the foreclosure when in fact they had no rights to it. Than they come up with documents they never had  by having Orion Financial Fraud Group make assignments and papers, or Chase after saying for a year we have your note, selling it to a private hedge fund and than claiming they never had it to begin with from Washington Mutual.  This fraud is so deep that their is no saving us now.  Not when Judges clearly give away your homes and your own Government, or AG  does nothing to stop it.

Seriously US BANK and our Judicial System?

Occupy Leader Bratton Held on $250,000 Bail by Neil Garfield

In my judgment, based upon the scant facts and documents supplied to me this far, there is no doubt that Bratton DID own the property and probably still does if the law is applied properly.

I know of cases where probable cause was found for Murder and the bail was set less than that. The calls and emails keep coming in and I can't say that I have a total picture of what was really going on here. But, based upon what I have the current story is this:

Bratton is one of the leaders in the Occupy movement. It may be true that the Occupy movement has been put on a watch list or even the terrorist list which might account for the high bail. I have not been able to confirm that. But it seems that some inference of that sort was used in getting bail set at a quarter of a million dollars. If so, the government is confusing (intentionally or otherwise) the Occupy movement which is a political movement within the system allowed and encouraged by the U.S. Government --- with the sovereign citizen movement for which I have taken a lot of heat.

The sovereign citizen concept is a contradiction in terms. If you are a citizen you are subject to the laws of the jurisdiction in which you are a citizen. If you are "sovereign" then you are announcing that you are outside the bounds of the rules, regulations and laws of government. It would seem to me that the use of the word "sovereign" might be tantamount to renouncing your citizenship and making you an alien, subject to the immigration and naturalization agencies of the Federal government, which is a Federal question, not a state question.

From what I understand, Bratton acted as a pro se fighter against an illegal taking of her property by U.S. Bank, who will probably disclaim knowledge of the event when the heat turns up on this news item. My experience is that where claims of securitization are involved and U.S. Bank is a key player, virtually everything is false, fabricated and illegal --- including the notices of default, notices of sale, the "auction," the "credit bid" and the deed issued upon "foreclosure" of the property based upon the alleged sale. Judges find this hard to believe but the facts are coming out as the tsunami of whistle-blowers has just started.

My opinion is that the deed issued on foreclosure is VOID (not voidable) if there was no consideration. Check with a lawyer in your jurisdiction before you act on that. If the party submitting the "credit bid" has no proof that they paid for the origination and/or acquisition of the loan, then all their actions constitute the same value as a "wild deed" which is customarily ignored by title examiners and title agents. If in fact the situation goes to as far as establishing that no transaction occurred in which a purchase or funding of the loan occurred then fraud, utterance of a false instrument and the rest of the charges pending against Bratton now !?! It is the latter situation that in my opinion is the dominant permeating fact pattern throughout the financial industry in which they put CLAIMS of securitization ahead of proof that it ever occurred --- as a cover up for a racketeering scheme using a PONZI structure (new investments used to pay off old investors).

Based upon the facts and documents I have heard and seen Bratton went through the usual foreclosure fight where the Judge failed to apply the law properly and require proof of ownership the loan, mistakenly applying a presumption that is rebuttable, just as the Maryland Supreme Court did last week in a decision that will come back and haunt them. So needless to say she lost and the sale went forward with US bank submitting a credit bod on behalf of an asset pool that does not appear to exist in reality because it was never funded, and therefore was incapable of paying for the the funding of the origination of the loan nor the acquisition of the loan.

The usual fabricated papers were submitted and the usual untrue proffers by counsel apparently were present as well. So, like I have said on this blog, acting WITHIN THE SYSTEM, she went to the police showing them that she was alleging fraud, fabrication, forgery, and uttering an false instrument and recording it. The police refused to investigate saying it was a CIVIL MATTER.

So again, acting within the system, she went and filed a corrective deed in order to give legal notice to the world that the title was still in dispute. Meanwhile U.S. Bank allegedly sold the property to a third party who pay or may not have been a straw-man. The straw-man is attempting to get possession. Bratton is fighting it because the only basis for possession is not that she didn't pay her rent, but because title changed from her to this third party.

Despite their refusal to investigate her claims as falling within the category of a civil matter, the police then arrested Bratton for filing in the public records a corrective deed. POOF! What was a civil matter suddenly turned into a serious criminal matter, alleging, apparently nearly word for word, the allegations Bratton made against U.S. Bank, which if true would mean that any deed FROM U.S. Bank would also be a wild deed conveying no interest in the property whatsoever.

The kicker is the bail that has been set: $250,000. While I am familiar with this tactic being used around the country to scare off the leaders in the fight, this is the first time I have ever seen bail set at level that effectively puts Bratton behind bars without any hope of release based solely on what appears to be a completely unfounded accusation of criminal intent.

There are some rumors that the reason bail was set so high was because there were inferences that Bratton was affiliated with a terrorist group --- something I find hard to believe based upon the information I have received thus far. There is no evidence brought to my attention that could possibly be interpreted as coming within the scope of a definition of "terrorist." If her accusations against U.S. Bank are true, the term terrorist would more aptly apply to U.S. Bank than anything Bratton did.

My view is that the failure of the police to investigate her claims on the basis of their determination that this was a matter to be resolved in the civil courts completely undermines even the semblance of probable cause. If the police could say that they DID investigate the claims of Bratton and found them to be without merit, THEN the technical violation MIGHT apply assuming the document she filed was completely without merit --- i.e., that the content of the document was completely false.

My view is that without that investigation the best one could say about the police action in this case is that they were premature. The worst is that they were doing the bidding of the banks who have achieved a level of influence on law enforcement that is unprecedented in protecting themselves from prosecution for mass crimes against humanity AND bringing mortgage fraud and other criminal charges against those whom they are throwing under the bus or otherwise want to silence.

The police were wrong when they first told Bratton that this was a civil matter. The theft of millions of homes based upon false, fabricated, fraudulent documents corroborated by perjury and intentional misrepresentation to the court, is a big deal. It ripped open the fabric of our society and diminished respect for all three branches of government. Now that the police department has thrown its hat into the ring with this bogus criminal charge, it is time to force them politically to investigate the bank crimes (regardless of what assurances were given from the Bush and Obama administrations to the contrary).