TAMPA (2011-7-21) -
Attorney General Pam Bondi is fighting back against allegations two of her foreclosure fraud investigators were forced to resign because of political pressure.
The two lawyers helped expose robo-signing and helped shut down so-called “foreclosure mills.”
They were forced to resign in May or be fired. A statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi issued Thursday says they were forced out because of poor performance, while the two women suggest political pressure did them in.
Theresa Edwards worked for three and a half years in the consumer crime section of the attorney general’s office — a lot of that time with her friend and colleague, June Clarkson.
When the foreclosure crisis hit Florida, Edwards says they started getting complaints about robo-signing.
People were signing documents with fake names. They didn’t have the required witnesses. And they weren’t reading the documents they were signing.
“They were just basically shoving paperwork through. They weren’t reviewing it properly,” Edwards said.
They were recognized for helping to bring robo-signing to national attention. The scandal forced banks to delay thousands of foreclosures as they re-evaluated how things were done.
In January, Bondi took over as attorney general. That’s when Edwards says things changed.
“Rather than sending out subpoenas, as you would expect investigators to do, they wanted us to send out letters inviting people in to discuss the problem with us,” Edwards said.
“Well, it certainly gives the target the heads up that we’re coming and we’re looking. And if there’s anything going on that’s not the way it should be, it gives the opportunity to cover up or hide whatever’s there,” she said.
Check out the rest here…
More on Bondi from attorney Matt Weidner's blog:Theresa Edwards and June Clark were not fired from the AG’s office, they were allowed to resign because they’re previously stellar performance suddenly became not so true. (Damn them, I knew these two dedicated public servants who racked up such impressive results were somehow bad, bad, bad.) I’m also certain now that all those accolades that were heaping upon them were wrong, wrong, wrong. But now look at this report, just issued today:
If you look at campaign contributions to Bondi, a certain address comes up a lot: 601 Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville. It’s the home of Lender Processing Services, its subsidiaries, and the company it recently spun off from, Fidelity National Financial.
Altogether, those companies gave $6,500 to Bondi’s campaign directly. They also gave $78,000 to the Republican Party of Florida – which was itself a major funder of Bondi’s campaign.
Finally, Lender Processing Services recently hired a new senior vice president for government affairs – Joe Jacquot, who until recently was an assistant attorney general for Bondi.
Lender Processing Services did not respond to a request for an interview. Jacquot told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that he has “no particular insight” into the investigation against Lender Processing Services.
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