August 27th, 2010 at 2:35pm
Mark Alan Abrams, 49, one of the central players in the Beverly Hills mortgage fraud conspiracy that consisted of real estate agents, appraisers, straw buyers, mortgage brokers and probably more, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, bank fraud and other loan fraud-related charges.
For the tens of millions that Abrams helped to steal, prosecutors are seeking a seven year (at most) sentence from U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson. Assuming Abrams behaves himself, he could end up serving about half that time. Taxpayers, on the other hand, will be paying back his thievery and that of his eight fellow-convicted conspirators, for years via TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program).
Lehman Brother Bank was misled by Abrams and his co-conspirators to fund over 80 loans in expensive Westside neighborhoods. As part of their sentences, the guilty have been ordered to pay their share of the $46 million restitution.
Read the full article in the Los Angeles Daily News. You can search the California Real Estate Fraud Report for earlier articles about the Beverly Hills mortgage fraud gang.
April 30th, 2010 at 1:05pm
Neil Barofsky is the head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP. His job is a tough one: to oversee and catch fraud and waste in the federal government’s $700 billion TARP program (Troubled Asset Relief Program), passed in 2008.
Although under the Treasury, SIGTARP has had plenty of criticism of its parent agency and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Read the full article in SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle.
February 9th, 2010 at 11:13pm
Here’s a YouTube video by a couple of real estate professionals in Fairfield, California, whose business is called ThinkBigWorkSmall.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program, aka TARP, has been the biggest piece of corporate pork ever bestowed by both Republicans and Democrats, Congress and presidents alike, on the never-too-rich obscenely wealthy.
After watching this video, you will have an understanding of what the new math is and why the concept of loan modifications is a pure con perpetuated on the taxpayer by the cooperation of Wall Street and our elected leaders.
Click here to watch the Indymac / OneWest rip-off.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:36am
Pitbull New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has done what the toothless Securities and Exchange Commission has refused to do: hunt down individuals he feels have committed white-collar crimes.
Under the Martin Act, a New York securities law that allows civil AND criminal penalties, AG Cuomo has sued both former Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis and former CFO Joe Price for defrauding investors and taxpayers (ok, the “government”) when B of A bough Merrill Lynch & Co. Bank of America settled its suit with U.S. regulators by agreeing to pay a $150 million fine, a sum which has yet to be approved by U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff.
Bank of America was criticized for allegedly keeping both the government and the public in the dark about the losses attributed to Merrill Lynch as well as the generous bonuses given to executives such as Ken Lewis and Joe Price. Bank of America received billions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, aka TARP, in order to help stabilize both Bank of America and facilitate the Merrill Lynch takeover.
Read articles about this story in Bloomberg, the Huffington Post and BusinessWeek.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:09am
United Commercial Bank, based in San Francisco, may be the first recipient of TARP funds to go belly up, at the cost of $300 million. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the architect of the TARP raping of U.S. taxpayers, let loose the sum, chirping it was only for “health” lending institutions, although UCBH had just posted a loss for the third quarter ending in September 2008.
United Commercial Bank is (or was) the son of United Bank, a thrift also based in San Francisco that failed in the mid-1980s from its practice of “reckless construction lending”, according to Richard Newsom, a retired bank and thrift regulator.
Besides winning first place as a spectacular failure, UCBH was the first U.S. bank to wholly purchase a bank in China, buying the Business Development Bank of Shanghai in March 2007. Considering the long downturn already in motion the world economy at the time, the decision was a fatal blunder.
Read the Full Article, very well-written, in the San Francisco Chronicle.
September 27th, 2009 at 3:33pm
United Commercial Bank, a lending institution based in San Francisco and with branches in Sacramento and Citrus Heights, is the focus of an examination by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after an internal investigation found that losses in its real estate loans were hidden from both outside auditors and United’s own finance Department. The bank, which received almost $300 million in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program ) from the federal government, is under a cease-and-desist order which forbids it from opening any new branches or extending more credit to its high-end customers without board approval.
The commotion has resulted in the resignations of Chairman and CEO Thomas S. Wu, David S. Ng (chairman of the board’s audit and finance committees) and Ebrahim Shabudin, (loan officer). Doreen Woo Ho is now the acting president and CEO and said the bank is reviewing options to rebuild its capital, including either a partial or total sale of the bank.
United Commercial Bank is the largest of the 65 California-based banks to receive TARP funds. If it is unable to repay the U.S. Treasury at the promised 5% dividend for 5 years, the loan (that’s what TARP is) by U.S. taxpayers could be in jeopardy.
Read the Full Article in the Sacramento Bee. This article is also reprinted in Examiner.com by the L.A. Fraud Examiner.
