U.S. seeks $864 million from Bank of America after fraud verdict

(Reuters) – The U.S. government urged that Bank of America Corp pay $863.6 million in damages after a federal jury found it liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit.

In a filing late Friday in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the government also asked for penalties against Rebecca Mairone, a former midlevel executive at the bank’s Countrywide unit who the jury also found liable, “commensurate with her ability to pay.”

The government said the penalties were necessary to punish the bank and Mairone “and to send a clear and unambiguous message that mortgage fraud for profit will not be tolerated.”

Wall Street slumlords’ outrageous new scheme: New securities, backed by rental payments

You’d think that investors would run away from a new Wall Street innovation as fast as Congress runs away from a good idea. But instead, they’re flocking to the latest product peddled by large banking interests, even though they look almost exactly like the mortgage-backed securities that were a primary driver of the financial crisis. These new securities, backed by rental payments, also have real-world implications for millions of renters, who could end up turning in their monthly checks to Wall Street-based absentee slumlords.

Over the past couple of years, private equity firms and hedge funds have bought up over 200,000 single-family homes, mostly discounted foreclosed properties in communities wrecked by the housing crash, such as Phoenix, Atlanta, Tampa, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Riverside, Calif. They have spent billions to scoop up these vacant homes at fire-sale prices…

Shelley Erickson

Story by: Clinton Kirby (October 30, 2013)

It’s almost as if the banking industry has never heard the old saw that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”  The banks are finding this out the hard way, as Shelley Erickson is indeed channeling her fury against them into the kind of sustained resistance that will teach said banks (and indeed, has already taught them) not to scorn homeowners.

When Erickson is not running Shelley’s Total Body Works–her successful salon in Auburn, Washington—she’s blasting out emails to her fellow foreclosure fraud fighters regarding the latest legal strategies, case law, depositions, helpful blog posts, and the like.  To be honest, she does all this while she is running her salon, talking to her customers about their own problems with the banks, and just generally being a one-woman bastion of resistance against the corrupt financial system.  Indeed, if you’ve ever…

I have news for you, Dimon. Improper and illegal transfers of residential and commercial mortgage loans through securitization will never go away..