This nation is collapsing under the weight of a flawed, fraudulent and criminal economic and political system. The epicenter is indeed Wall Street, that den of sin and inequity where the wealth and wages of an entire nation are sucked in and concentrated then swirled around before it all goes disappearing down some drain and flushed into a world unknown.

We don’t know where the money goes or why because the traders and the bankers and the hedge fund managers and executives consistently used a portion of their ill-earned gains to pay off the elected and appointed “leaders” and convince them either not to inquire where the money was going or to accept absurd and/or complex explanations that defy our understanding.  Geithner, Paulson, Bernake, Johnson, Bush, Bush, Clinton and every elected member of Congress and every elected official who sits in any seat in this country.  They are all responsible.  At some point in time perhaps some of them understood where this was going and what they were doing.  Hank Paulson spent his entire career at Goldman Sachs and Geithner was born, bred and baptized by the banks…no surprise that their worldview is entirely focused on supporting these institutions.

And what’s going on closer to home, down where all this trouble manifests itself in our daily lives?  More unemployment, extraordinary inflation, a further collapsing economy and all of this laid on top of a seething anger and discontent that is bubbling all across this country.  It is beyond dispute now that extraordinary abuses of our financial, economic and legal system were occurring all across this state….we see some people taking to the streets in New York.  But Florida?  It’s been years now since the public first learned of all the investigations.  And what has come of those investigations?  Nothing.  They all still walk free….it’s time to wake up.

A former colleague, friend and top manager of fallen foreclosure titan David J. Stern complains in a new deposition that she was laid off via email, lied to about her position in the law firm and ignored when she voiced concerns about the feverish pace at which foreclosures were processed.

Cheryl Samons, the former second-in-command of Stern’s Plantation-based firm, was deposed in April in relation to a class-action lawsuit filed by former Stern employees. The suit alleges workers were terminated last fall without the 60 days notice required by federal law .

A Miami federal judge approved class-action status for the case Monday.

The deposition, which was posted on a foreclosure defense attorney’s blog Thursday, offers some insight into how the firm grew to become the largest so-called “foreclosure mill” in the state before falling apart amid allegations of robo-signing and the announcement of the Florida attorney general’s investigation. Palm Beach Post

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris pulled out of settlement negotiations with the nation’s biggest banks over alleged foreclosure abuses, calling the proposed deal “inadequate for California homeowners.”

The decision by Ms. Harris delivers a serious blow to efforts by the Obama administration and 50 state attorneys general to forge a $25 billion settlement with the nation’s largest banks over “robo-signing” and other questionable foreclosure practices.

Her actions follow the withdrawal of New York from the talks. Without the participation of California and New York in the negotiations, banks will be far less likely to agree to the multibillion dollar settlement that federal and state officials have spent months pursuing.

California remained a critical constituent for any deal because it has more borrowers who are underwater, or owe more than their homes are worth, than any other state. California also has more borrowers that are behind on their mortgages or in foreclosure than any other state but Florida. Wall Street Journal

Hot off the presses, from the Tampa Tribune, is a new article that is just a signal of what is to come. Stay tuned and make sure you have a good title attorney.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride so hold on and hold your attorney tight.

Tampa Tribune

Everyone in the world, get to know David J. Stern and David J. Stern Enterprises….read the New York Times Article Here.

His tyranny cannot last.  We cannot allow it to continue.  Too many people have already been hurt.  It must stop.

The St. Petersburg Times Really Gets It.

Click Here For The Full Article

Congratulations to Ice Legal for really being on the front lines of the fight to ensure basic rights and the rules of the courts are respected and thanks to Mike Dillon for the early morning heads up on the story.

Now the national media is picking up on what all of us have known for far too long…..the rich foreclosure barons are shoveling in millions of dollars and abusing courts and homeowners in the process.

One of my questions is how courts can continue to sanction the conduct reported in this article?  How can our federally-backed lenders and servicers continue to sanction such conduct?  It’s a terrifying commentary on what our country has become when the conduct reported in this article has become so institutionalized that it’s widely accepted.  We should all be reminded that this fight we’re in is a fight for the very heart and soul of this country and our courts.  There are judges that “get it”.  (Note that one of Pinellas County’s great judges Hon. Anthony Rondolino is quoted prominently in the article.)  There is a small but growing band of activists that are sounding the alarm bells.

Let’s just hope this evil fire gets extinguished before we reach a point of catastrophic no return….if we have not already.

Read on.  Visit the Mother Jones website for the full story.

— Illustration: Lou Beach

How the federal housing agencies—and some of the biggest bailed-out banks—are helping shady lawyers make millions by pushing families out of their homes.

Advertise on MotherJones.com

A Florida notary’s stamp is valid for four years, and its expiration date is visible on the imprint. But here in front of Ice were dozens of assignments notarized with stamps that hadn’t even existed until months—in some cases nearly a year—after the foreclosures were filed. Which meant Stern’s people were foreclosing first and doing their legal paperwork later. In effect, it also meant they were lying to the court—an act that could get a lawyer disbarred or even prosecuted. “There’s no question that it’s pervasive,” says Tom Ice of the backdated documents—nearly two dozen of which were verified by Mother Jones. “We’ve found tons of them.”

This all might seem like a legal technicality, but it’s not. The faster a foreclosure moves, the more difficult it is for a homeowner to fight it—even if the case was filed in error. In March, upon discovering that Stern’s firm had fudged an assignment of mortgage in another case, a judge in central Florida’s Pasco County dismissed the case with prejudice—an unusually harsh ruling that means it can never again be refiled. “The execution date and notarial date,” she wrote in a blunt ruling, “were fraudulently backdated, in a purposeful, intentional effort to mislead the defendant and this court.”

More often than not in uncontested cases, missing or problematic documents simply go overlooked. In Florida, where foreclosure cases must go before a judge (some states handle them as a bureaucratic matter), dwindling budgets and soaring caseloads have overwhelmed local courts. Last year, the foreclosure dockets of Lee County in southwest Florida became so clogged that the court initiated rapid-fire hearings lasting less than 20 seconds per case—”the rocket docket,” attorneys called it. In Broward County, the epicenter of America’s housing bust, the courthouse recently began holding foreclosure hearings in a hallway, a scene that local attorneys call the “new Broward Zoo.” “The judges are so swamped with this stuff that they just don’t pay attention,” says Margery Golant, a veteran Florida foreclosure defense lawyer. “They just rubber-stamp them.”

But the Ices had uncovered what looked like a pattern, so Tom booked a deposition with Stern’s top deputy, Cheryl Samons, and confronted her with the backdated documents—including two from cases her firm had filed against Ice Legal’s clients. Samons, whose counsel was present, insisted that the filings were just a mistake. She refused to elaborate, so the Ices moved to depose the notaries and other Stern employees whose names were on the evidence. On the eve of those depositions, however, the firm dropped foreclosure proceedings against the Ices’ clients.

It was a bittersweet victory: The Ices had won their cases, but Stern’s practices remained under wraps. “This was done to cover up fraud,” Tom fumes. “It was done precisely so they could try to hit a reset button and keep us from getting the real goods.”

Backdated documents, according to a chorus of foreclosure experts, are typical of the sort of shenanigans practiced by a breed of law firms known as “foreclosure mills.” While far less scrutinized than subprime lenders or Wall Street banks, these firms undermine efforts by government and the mortgage industry to put struggling homeowners back on track at a time of record foreclosures. (There were 2.8 million foreclosures in 2009, and 3.8 million are projected for this year.) The mills think “they can just change things and make it up to get to the end result they want, because there’s no one holding them accountable,” says Prentiss Cox, a foreclosure expert at the University of Minnesota Law School. “We’ve got these people with incentives to go ahead with foreclosures and flood the real estate market.”

Stern’s is hardly the only outfit to attract criticism, but his story is a useful window into the multibillion-dollar “default services” industry, which includes both law firms like Stern’s and contract companies that handle paper-pushing tasks for other big foreclosure lawyers. Over the past decade and a half, Stern has built up one of the industry’s most powerful operations—a global machine with offices in Florida, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines—squeezing profits from every step in the foreclosure process. Among his loyal clients, who’ve sent him hundreds of thousands of cases, are some of the nation’s biggest (and, thanks to American taxpayers, most handsomely bailed out) banks—including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup. “A lot of these mills are doing the same kinds of things,” says Linda Fisher, a professor and mortgage-fraud expert at Seton Hall University’s law school. But, she added, “I’ve heard some pretty bad stories about Stern from people in Florida.”

While the mortgage fiasco has so far cost American homeowners an estimated $7 trillion in lost equity, it has made Stern (no relation to NBA commissioner David J. Stern) fabulously rich. His $15 million, 16,000-square-foot mansion occupies a corner lot in a private island community on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It is featured on a water-taxi tour of the area’s grandest estates, along with the abodes of Jay Leno and billionaire Blockbuster founder Wayne Huizenga, as well as the former residence of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. (Last year, Stern snapped up his next-door neighbor’s property for $8 million and tore down the house to make way for a tennis court.) Docked outside is Misunderstood, Stern’s 130-foot, jet-propelled Mangusta yacht—a $20 million-plus replacement for his previous 108-foot Mangusta. He also owns four Ferraris, four Porsches, two Mercedes-Benzes, and a Bugatti—a high-end Italian brand with models costing north of $1 million a pop.

Despite his immense wealth and ability to affect the lives of ordinary people, Stern operates out of the public eye. His law firm has no website, he is rarely mentioned in the mainstream business press, and neither he nor several of his top employees responded to repeated interview requests for this story. Stern’s personal attorney, Jeffrey Tew, also declined to comment. But scores of interviews and thousands of pages of legal and financial filings, internal emails, and other documents obtained by Mother Jones provided insight into his operation. So did eight of Stern’s former employees—attorneys, paralegals, and other staffers who agreed to talk on condition of anonymity. (Most still work in related fields and fear that speaking publicly about their ex-boss could harm their careers.)

For the rest of the article, click here.

St. Pete Times latest on David Stern:

“Foreclosures bring wealth, rebukes for Florida lawyer”

“David J. Stern, whose law firm helps banks foreclose on homeowners, owns three boats and lives in this $15 million, 16,500-square-foot Fort Lauderdale home with a tennis court.”

IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ THE STORY THEN LOG IN AND LEAVE COMMENTS TO THE STORY…WE NEED THE EDITORS AND DECISION MAKERS TO KNOW THAT THESE STORIES ARE IMPORTANT, THAT PEOPLE ARE READING THEM AND FEEL PASSIONATELY ABOUT THEM. PROPER PRESS COVERAGE IS A KEY ELEMENT IN THIS WAR AND EVERYONE CAN DO A PART BY COMMENTING ON THE STORY!

Click Below To Read More:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/foreclosures-bring-wealth-rebukes-for-florida-lawyer/1109664

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… CY: wait… I: wait… YCat: wait… C: wait…