Cheryl Samons David J. Stern Law Firm (138 pages)
This is a deposition taken May 20, 2009 by Thomas E. Ice, of Ice Legal, P.A.. The deponent was the Operations Manager for the Law Offices of David J. Stern, that worst-of-all foreclosure mills which has now collapsed "like an indoor bed." Samons worked for Stern for 14 years, and answered directly to David Stern. This is a very lengthy deposition, and despite the fact that she has been deposed a number of times already, she makes numerous damaging statements that helped illuminate some of the worst practices uncovered during the Robo-Signing Scandal.
This was one of the first depositions taken and released, and was used to convince the various governmental agencies to investigate this scandal. Congratulations to Ice Legal on the great job they did.
ABOUT THESE
FORECLOSURE RESOURCES
For the property owner who truly wishes to dig deep into the mortgage foreclosure scandal and the highly questionable practices of the mortgage industry and the too-big-to-fail banks, we offer this (partial) list of deposition transcripts and other materials which serve to illuminate this subject. We hope you find these items helpful. There is a LOT of reading here!
A note for the uninitiated: these documents are pretty heavy reading, and sometimes are largely meaningless to the laymen. At their heart, however, they contain admissions (with lots of detail) by the employees who were directly involved, in all of the most damaging,dishonest and sometimes downright fraudulent practices, which, unfortunately, are or have been widespread in the mortgage industry.
The robo signing scandal virtually shut down the nation's entire foreclosure machine in the fall of 2010. Officials in at least three states say the illegal practice continues.
HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH ROBO-SIGNING CAN WORK:
—An entry-level employee with little or no banking experience signs off on mortgage-related affidavits without verifying whether the bank owns the loan or whether the homeowner owes the debt.
—A notary stamps the document even though the notary wasn't present at the time the document was signed. The notary signature might also be different that the one on file with the agency that licensed the notary.
—A qualified bank employee signs his name using numerous titles on behalf of more than a dozen different financial institutions.
—In all of these cases, robo-signing involves people signing documents and swearing to their accuracy without verifying any of the information.
