OneWest “is not above the law,” said Helen Kelly, a 67-year-old former Minnesota state prosecutor that spoke out during a public hearing on a proposed merger with CIT Group and asserted she encountered difficulties with the lender when she wanted to modify the terms of her mortgage on her Pleasanton, Calif., house. She then compared bankers to an “Ebola virus” that had spread to contaminate homeowners.

Asian Journal writes:  “AT A public hearing on CIT Group’s $3.4 billion takeover of OneWest Bank, supporters said the merger would benefit minority groups and poor neighborhoods, while critics said such an occurrence would create a new “too big to fail” bank. “We have set forth aggressive goals for community investment and development activities in Southern California, including targeting $5 billion of community-related activities over the next four years,” said CIT Group Chairman and CEO John Thain.

The Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates national banks, held the hearing held Thursday, Feb. 26, at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in Los Angeles. If regulators approve CIT’s purchase, it would be the first merger since the financial crisis to create a bank with assets worth more than $50 billion, a threshold imposed by the US Dodd-Frank law that requires Federal Reserve supervision and more stringent capital rules.

Distressed homeowners and reverse mortgage holders at the hearing also cited personal experiences dealing with mortgage problems.

Teena Colebrook, a member on a panel against the merger, told the audience that notices to rescind her mortgage were ignored in 2011 and 2012 and that she has not yet received accounting of alleged debt she owes. “It should be jail time, not sale time,” she said.

OneWest Bank, created in 2009, came from the remains of IndyMac Bank, a mortgage lender that failed in 2008, costing the federal deposit insurance fund $13.1 billion.

Rebecca Isaac, a panel speaker who started the website IndyMac Complaints, said the bank has not resolved wrongs from years ago and allegedly still owes her money because of alleged violations.” Read more in the Asian Journal HERE.