Monday The Dead Rabbi Was Wrongfully Foreclosed On, Tuesday The Dead Rabbi’s HOA Settles With US Bank

MFI Miami:

The cool thing about owning MFI-Miami is that I get to work with some really smart litigators who not only bring me high profile cases but they usually think outside the box like I do. If you are a regular reader to this site you know I love attacking banks with unorthodox strategies especially when these strategies have the potential of setting legal precedent.

 

Read more from MFI Miami.

Judge denies O.J. Simpson’s motion to dismiss foreclosure case

Acquitted murderer, convicted felon, former actor, former sportscaster and former All-Star football player O.J. Simpson is one step closer to losing his south Florida home to foreclosure.

Attorneys for the imprisoned Simpson appeared before Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Gisela Cardonne Ely last week on a contested motion to dismiss. In denying relief, the court ruled that JP Morgan Chase may proceed with plans to retake the home.

In September, a JP Morgan Chase process server attempted to serve foreclosure papers at the Miami home of Simpson, located at 9450 SW 112 Street, Miami, Fla. 33176. At that time, the process server advised the court that Simpson could not be located for personal service of process.

Having been convicted in 2008 of kidnapping and armed robbery, Simpson is currently serving a 33-year prison sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada. He is not eligible for parole until 2017.

First reported by Jose Lambiet at GossipExtra.com, JP Morgan Chase initiated the foreclosure process after Simpson accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgage debt on his former suburban Miami home.

Read more here

BofA tries turning distressed homeowners into renters in 4 states, available only on mortgages the bank owns

Unable to qualify for modifications on Bank of America mortgages, a few of California's most distressed homeowners are being offered one last chance to stay in their homes: Become renters instead.

Testing a mortgage-to-lease program in the Golden State, Bank of America Corp. sent 300 letters this week inviting borrowers without other options to apply. An additional 1,500 letters will go out in the next few weeks as BofA — which also is testing the program in three other states — evaluates whether a national rollout is feasible.

....

It's available only on mortgages the bank owns — just 15% of the home loans for which it collects payments. The other 85% are owned by investors in mortgage securities.

Read on.

Biloxi Buzz for Tuesday

Tony Blair Branded 'War Criminal'

Radioactive Tuna In U.S. Traced To Japan Nuclear Disaster

3 Children Killed In Qatar Mall Fire

German Girl Kept Like An Animal For 8 Years

DOJ Probing Sex Abuse Allegations At Alabama Prison

Facing Budget Shortfalls, The Tax Man Gets Tougher

YouTube video gone viral:Isaac and Amy, marriage proposal;

This YouTube video has gone viral. One of the best proposal thart I seen so far. The music is from singer Bruno Mars:

Arizona Homeowners File Suit Against State for Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Fund Raid

The response to the foreclosure fraud settlement fund raid in multiple states, now up close to a billion dollars, has been shockingly muted. No progressive group or housing-focused organization has done much more than grumble about the fact that money intended to go to homeowners is being diverted into state budgets all over the country.

But one state is trying to fight back. In Arizona, a group of homeowners have filed a lawsuit against state Attorney General Thomas Horne and State Treasurer Doug Ducey, arguing that the $50 million the state will skim off the settlement payout for the General Fund (out of a total of $97.7 million) violates the settlement agreement. Here’s the meat of the complaint:

4. On May 1, 2012, the Arizona Legislature passed a general appropriations bill, SB 1523. Governor Brewer signed SB 1523 on May 7, 2012. In SB 1523, the legislature directed the Attorney General to place $50 million of the Settlement Funds, more than half of the funds that are to be deposited into Court Ordered Trust Fund, into the state’s general fund.

5. If this transfer occurs, the Settlement Funds in the Court Ordered Trust Fund will not be used for the designated purposes and distressed Arizona homeowners will not receive the assistance they need to be able to stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure.

6. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin Defendants from taking any action to transfer the Settlement Funds from the Court Ordered Trust Fund into the state’s general fund and from using the Court Ordered Trust Fund for purposes not designated int he Consent Judgments.

Rest here…
Verified Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Where the Taxpayers’ Money Went

U.S. government intervention protected the numerous creditors – both domestic and foreign – who had purchased bonds and MBS issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Allowing the Enterprises to meet their debt and guarantee obligations enabled them to continue to support the secondary market. However, the cost of rescuing the Enterprises has been high, with total Treasury support for the Enterprises currently expected to range from a quarter to a third of a trillion dollars.

Full report below…

FHFA OIG

Memorial Day; Open thread

 This picture found online, but no information about it. It's one of the most powerful pictures I've seen.

Let us remember the soldiers that served and honor them or their sacrifice.

UCLA head and neck surgeon filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against university that failed to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in a hostile work environment

This is truly shocking to me as I am an UCLA alumni. This is not what UCLA is all about. I have emailed Chancellor Gene Block to stop the discrimination against Dr. Christian Head. I won't give a single dime to the university. Here is the Dr. Christian Head's story and yes there is a petition. From Daily Bruin:


A racial discrimination lawsuit filed by a UCLA head and neck surgeon against the UC Board of Regents last month has garnered widespread attention in recent weeks.

Dr. Christian Head filed the complaint in April, alleging that the university failed to prevent discrimination, harassment, retaliation and infliction of intentional emotional distress.

Head hopes to put an end to what he feels is ongoing retribution and a hostile work environment at the university, said Peter Brown, a spokesman from the Foley Lyman Law Group, which is representing Head. The complaint calls for a jury trial.

Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement Tuesday that the university investigated the claims but was unable to substantiate them. He added that Head was given the information necessary to turn to internal procedures or directly to the legal system.

“Such a choice (to go through the legal system) does not mean that UCLA administrators failed to act on this person’s behalf or that UCLA failed to respond,” Block said in the statement.

...........

In one part of the video, Head describes a slideshow at a 2006 event sponsored by the UCLA Medical Center.

“The final slide was a photo … of a gorilla on all fours, with my head Photoshopped onto the gorilla, with a smile on my face, and a Caucasian man – completely naked – sodomizing me from behind, and my boss’s head Photoshopped on the person, smiling,” Head said in the video.

He said in the video that he confronted his boss, Dr. Gerald Berke, and reported the event to UCLA officials. Officials then ignored his request for appropriate action, he said.

According to the complaint, no apology has been issued to Head regarding the gorilla slide. The university has failed to locate the gorilla slide or even confirm that it exists, Brown said.

Biloxi Buzz for Monday

JPMorgan Fiasco Highlights Need For Simpler Banking

U.S. Struggles To Curb Afghanistan's Opium Industry

Alan Simpson Lashes Out At GOP 'Madness'

Tropical Storm Beryl Makes Landfall In Northeastern Florida

You really have to wonder why a huge company like JPMorgan would want people like this sitting on their risk committee.

By the way, here is the definition of rish management: http://bit.ly/jZP6b

Here is a video from Bloombergtv. Are these the right people to sit on a risk committee for JP Morgan Chase?

Mary Glover is taking on Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo--but a court decision could leave her and thousands of other homeowners without a hope of justice

Mary Glover, a Pittsburgh-area homeowner living on Social Security disability income, is taking on Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo, charging that they've violated federal and state consumer protection laws and breached contracts.

Yet, because of a decision by one judge, she and thousands of homeowners like her could be priced out of their ability to fight back in court against shady dealings by the nation's biggest banks. And while the decision in this case may seem exceptional, as Dahlia Lithwick and others have pointed out, it's part of a disturbing pattern of the courts shutting their doors to everyday litigants and class-action suits—and in some cases, literally handing corporations a playbook on how to get away with screwing over the little guy.

As she and her attorneys attempt to get Wells Fargo and Goldman to hand over documents relevant to her case, the banks' repeated stalling caused the judge to appoint a “special master” over the case—and required Glover to split the fees for this outside attorney equally with the defendants, banks with billions to spare (and, of course, billions in bailouts from the federal government as well).

“It's a David and Goliath situation. When you escalate the costs, there's simply no way that a low-income litigant can keep up,” attorney Scott Michelman, with Public Citizen's Litigation Group, told AlterNet. Michelman and Public Citizen are representing Ms. Glover in a new federal lawsuit filed in the Third District Court of Appeals on May 24, charging that the appointment of the special master in this case will effectively stifle Ms. Glover's ability to go forward with her claims.

Read on.

Brand new details on the credit trader and cardplaying chessmaster who sandbagged JPMorgan's London Whale

More details about credit trader Boaz Weinstein:

He grew up in Manhattan's Upper West Side.

• He earned the title of chess master when he was 16. At a recent auction, he paid $10,500 to play chess with legend Garry Kasparov. He plays online games with Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
• He won a stock-picking competition as a student in New York's prestigious Stuyvesant High School.
• When he was 18, he failed to land a job at Goldman Sachs. But then he was able to get more interviews after playing chess with a senior partner, whom he ran into at a bathroom.
• He studied philosophy at the University of Michigan.
• As a credit trader at Deutsche Bank, Weinstein booked profits in 10 out of 11 years
• In his heyday, he booked around $40 million in profits each year.
• He earned the title of managing director at age 27. At the time, he was the youngest MD in Deutsche Bank history.
• During the height of the financial crisis, his team had lost around $2 billion.
• In 2005, he won a Maserarti at a poker tournament sponsored by a unit of Berkshire Hathaway. He still drives it.
• He's banned from Las Vegas' Bellagio casino for counting cards at blackjack.
• His hedge fund Saba Capital, has $5.5 billion under management and his offices are located on the 58th floor of New York City's Chrysler Building.
• His wife, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, is a lawyer with the Justice Department.
• In the hedge fund industry, Weinstein is known as a 'monster,' an unusually aggressive trader.
• He's currently in talks to buy a $24 million apartment on Fifth Avenue.

Read the whole story at NYTimes.com

JP Morgan Chase mess: Dimon wishes if he could turn back time

Written by Biloxi

With foreclosure mess, dysfunctional financial institution, increasing lawsuits, $2 billion dollar and counting trading loss, and a damaged image, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would want to wish that cocky and arrogant words that he said in the media has come back to bite him.

For example, Dimon said this on CNBC  last year about the struggling homeowners:

"Giving debt relief to people that really need it, that's what foreclosure is."

And:

"[Homeowners] are probably better off going somewhere else, because they get relieved almost 100% of the debt through foreclosure."

Ouch! And to add insult to injury, here is a former JP Morgan employee, who identified only as "Jared," explained his job to Mandelman Matters, which wrote:

Jared recalled what his boss had told him during his first week on the job: “We’re in the foreclosure business, not the modification business.”

“Foreclosures are a no lose proposition for servicers... The servicer gets paid more to service a delinquent loan, and they get to tack on extra charges. If the borrower reinstates, which is rare, then the borrower pays the extra fees. If the borrower loses the house, then the investor pays them. Either way, the servicer gets their money.”

“Their whole focus is to foreclose, not to modify. They make borrowers jump through every hoop so that when something fails to get done on time, they can deny it and foreclose. That’s what it seemed like to me, anyway."

Now Dimon would have thought that Volcker rule that he has criticized and lobbied against would be most talked need in this country under the Dodd-Frank bill thanks to Dimon's demise in the $2 billion dollar London Whale trading loss.  And did Dimon say about the $2 billion loss which now the losses are climbing and lawsuits are mounting: "flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed, and poorly monitored." Unfortunately, famous leaders in the past gave us far warning about the banks, their words are coming true:


"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." --Thomas Jefferson

Indeed the large banking insitutions have become more dangerous enough that they own the US Congress, US Senate, and the government.

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.” - President James A. Garfield, assassinated 1881

And currently, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo own 56% of the US economy.

“The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present which put nations and peoples under the control of the few. If the American people knew the corruption in our money system there would revolution before morning!” ? Henry Ford, Sr (1863-1947)

And the American people have awoken from the corruption in the money system. The question what will be the outcome of this country?

The Incredible Irony Of Morgan Stanley's Facebook Post-Mortem

Words can come back to bite you. From Zerohedge:

Just after the market close on what will probably go down as the worst day in history for every stock-broker-come-private-wealth-commission-taker's wealth-manager's future business (that would be the Facebook IPO - or as some call it "Blue-Friday"), the head of Morgan Stanley's 'Consulting Services Group' sent what is likely the worst timed, worded, and ironic self-congratulatory email of all time. James Walker, the MD of the group - which manages $385 billion of client assets and is the nation's largest managed accounts business - was not wrong in his summation that this IPO was "orderly, fair, and well-communicated" and "will have a long-lasting impact on our clients and the organization". We assume he didn't mean "finish it" as one can only imagine the breadth of these clients who ended up stuffed full of the worst large IPO of the decade.

and in case you didn't know who James Walker and his new role in Consulting Services...

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney Names James F. Walker Head of Consulting Services Group

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Morgan Stanley Smith Barney today announced the appointment of Managing Director James F. Walker to head the Consulting Services Group, the industry-leading provider of investment consulting and managed account services.

Mr. Walker, 47, succeeds James J. Tracy, who was named in July as Chief Operating Officer of Distribution and Development for Wealth Management in the U.S., Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Mr. Walker will continue to report to Paul Hatch, Head of the Investment Strategy and Solutions Group.

“Jim Walker’s extensive industry experience, deep knowledge of Consulting Services and close rapport with Financial Advisors and clients make a great leadership combination. I look forward to working with him as we drive investment excellence and build on the historic leadership of our Consulting Services Group,” said Mr. Hatch.

With over $385 billion in client assets, the Consulting Services Group is the U.S. wealth management industry’s managed accounts leader, with a market share of nearly 21%. It also leads in several of the fastest growing managed account categories, including rep as portfolio manager (35.3% market share) and unified managed accounts (33.8% market share). (Source: Cerulli Associates 2Q 2010 Summary, August, 2010).

Mr. Walker most recently served at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney as Chief Operating Officer of Investment Strategy and Solutions, with responsibility for strategy, coordination and overall business leadership. Prior to this position, he was Director of Finance, Risk and Strategy for Citi Global Wealth Management Investments, having joined Citi in 2006 as COO of Investment Advisory Services.

Earlier, Mr. Walker held a succession of leadership positions over 20 years with Merrill Lynch’s Global Wealth Management Group, including Chief Administrative Officer for the Global Private Client business, complex manager positions in Wellesley, MA and Norfolk, VA, and Midwest regional sales manager. He began his career in 1985 as a Financial Advisor in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia.

He received his B.A. in economics from Catholic University of America, and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Sloan Fellow, where he received a S.M. in management science and continues as a lecturer. He is a Certified Investment Management Analyst and member of the Investment Management Consultants Association.

JPMorgan Trading Loss: Did Regulators Miss the Risk?

Scores of federal regulators are stationed inside JPMorgan Chase’s Manhattan headquarters, but none of them were assigned to the powerful unit that recently disclosed a multibillion trading loss.

Roughly 40 examiners from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and 70 staff members from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are embedded in the nation’s largest bank.

They are typically assigned to the departments undertaking the greatest risks, like the structured products trading desk.

Even as the chief investment office swelled in size and made increasingly large bets, regulators did not put any examiners in the unit’s offices in London or New York, according to current and former regulators who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Senior JPMorgan executives assured the bank’s watchdogs after the financial crisis that the chief investment office, with hundreds of billions in investments, was not taking risks that would be a cause for concern, people briefed on the matter said.

Just weeks before the trading losses became public, bank officials also dismissed the worry of a senior New York Fed examiner about the mounting size of the bets, according to current Fed officials.

The lapses have raised questions about who, if anyone, was policing the chief investment office and whether regulators were sufficiently independent. Instead of putting the JPMorgan unit under regular watch, the comptroller’s office and the Fed chose to examine it periodically

Read on.

Biloxi Buzz for Sunday

THE BUTLER, WITH THE DOCUMENTS, IN THE VATICAN

HORROR: Dozens Of Children Slaughtered In Syria

Emergency Motion to Stay Pending Appeal to 9th Circuit Court of Appeals-GRANTED Davies vs. Deutsche Bank

Here is the complete filing for an Emergency Motion to Stay pending Appeal. The 9th Circuit GRANTED THE STAY.
The process is somewhat complicated.
1) Initial filing to the 9th circuit. Denied without prejudice. Asked to present first to the 9th Bankruptcy Appellate Court (“BAP”).
2) Presented to BAP and it was denied. Not unusual since they would need to determine a likely probability of success. This goes to Neil’s statement that you should appeal to the district courts vs. the BAP.
3) Renewed Motion to 9th Circuit.
4) Deutsche Bank’s oppostion.
5) Reply to Opposition with RJN of BK docket and 3rd belated filing of a Motion for Relief from Stay. 10 days before Opening Brief.
6) Order by 9th Circuit GRANTING STAY WITHOUT ANY BOND.

Emergency Motion to Stay Pending Appeal to 9th Circuit Court of Appeals-GRANTED