Read the Full Article in the Imperial Valley News.

Read the Full Article in KGET 17.

Search the California Real Estate Fraud Report for more details on the Crisp and Cole firm and real estate fraud.

The investment pool, which represents public agencies that invested in Lehman, lost more than $150 million when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. They are suing the executives and the firm’s auditor, Ernst & Young, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation and violations of California law and the federal Securities Act.

According to Supervisor Mark Church:

“The theory here is the top management fraudulently represented that the company was financially strong at a time when they were about to declare bankruptcy. What makes this case so outrageous is all the while, they were siphoning off millions of dollars for their personal benefit, leaving good-faith investors holding the bag. It hurts our schoolchildren, our transit projects, and other essential services that we provide.”

Lehman Brothers was also in the news as the source of tens of millions of dollars lent to the Beverly Hills real estate fraud, appraisal fraud and mortgage fraud ring, whose accused members include Mark Alan Abrams, Charles Elliott Fitzgerald, Joseph Babajian and Kyle Grasso. Read earlier articles in the California Real Estate Fraud Report and another in Mortgage Law Central.

Read the Full Article in the San Jose Mercury News.

Real estate lawsuits filed by the investors accused Pacific Wealth and its affiliates and companies of committing loan fraud by falsifying loan applications. Appraisal fraud was an integral part of the conspiracy by making the properties to be purchased look to be worth more than they were.

As with many other real estate fraud schemes reported in the California Real Estate Fraud Report, Washington Mutual, aka WaMu, was the willing lender. WaMu is itself under investigation by several attorneys general for pressuring appraisers at eAppraiseIT, to inflate appraisals of properties with subprime loans in order to increase profits.

Read the Full Article in the Press Enterprise.

Karen Guth and her son Joshua Yaguda were arrested on October 16 at their Pasolivo ranch. They are both in San Luis Obispo County jail on $5 million bail each. EFI’s escrow officer, Shauna Bishop, is also accused of slandering one of the investors who is organizing other investors unhappy with EFI, which made hard money loans.

This is a fascinating story, one well-worth reading the full expose in CalCoast News.

In California, one of the most well-publicized stories of real estate fraud and mortgage fraud is taking a turn, as the state regulatory agency responsible for overseeing appraisers wants to revoke or suspend the license of a Bakersfield real estate appraiser who appraised more than a hundred homes for the former Crisp and Cole company. The appraisal fraud part of this real estate fraud investigation is being managed by the FBI.

Read the Full Article on the 32-page accusation complaint filed against Kirk “Mark” Newton by the Office of Real Estate Appraisers (OREA).

Fact: as home prices kept rising and banks and other lenders had lent to everyone who was credit-worthy, the quest began to write loans to anybody with a verifiable pulse. Centuries of underwriting standards were thrown out in the race to write loans. Hence the birth of the NINJA loan: No Income No Jobs or Assets.

Fact: borrower stupidity (and investor greed) aside, it was and still is the lending institution that decides whether the loan should be written or not. These decisions directly led to, and are therefore responsible for, the massive real estate fraud, mortgage fraud, appraisal fraud and other real estate crime such as foreclosure fraud that occurred and are which now occurring in new forms to take advantage of both real estate market chaos and the lack of sufficient law enforcement capabilities to respond.

Fact: Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan lied when he stated that he had no idea that large-scale defaults and price re-setting to numbers roughly equivalent to the days leading up to the lending splurge. So did Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson of Goldman Sachs. They both knew this was a great opportunity to make a lot of money for their industry, they knew the inevitable fall-out, and they knew that Congress - which had eagerly accepted industry largess for their own campaign coffers - would ride to the rescue with the taxpayer skewered at the end of its lance.

Fact: Congress willingly put no conditions on the bail-out: not on golden parachutes, not on year-end bonuses - some amounting to $600,000 EACH to managers and executives in “failed” lending institutions receiving bail-out money, not on corporate pork. Both political parties are as guilty as Greenspan and the Fed, Paulson and his Treasury (it’s apparently not yours and mine) and the lenders, who have not let up a bit on rewarding themselves for a combination of incompetence and fraud. See the many articles below on WaMu / Washington Mutual in the California Real Estate Fraud Report.

Fact: did you - or Congress - ever ask how Henry Paulson came up with the $700 billion figure for the bail-out? As opposed to $600 billion or $800 billion? This is just the start - there will be more bail-out money demanded by continuing to manipulate public fear and the markets.

Fact: this further leap into enormous deficit spending by the federal government is inevitably leading to the bankruptcy and selling off of the United States. Treasury bills and bonds are being sold to foreign interests because America has not lived within its means and there are few American takers for those financial instruments. Bulk sales of banks’ REOs are also finding primarily foreign purchasers as investors’ confidence in the dollar’s value continues to erode. Don’t be surprised if the next “tsunami” is uncontrolled inflation.

This is the biggest con of the 21st century.

For an excellent write-up on the man-made mortgage crisis, read this article by real estate broker Madeline Zook.

Many of the group’s fliers — printed on goldenrod paper in yellow envelopes — are still circulating.

Read the Full Article in the Los Angeles Times.

Washington Mutual loan officer John Ngo, ringleader Iftikhar Ahmad, mortgage broker William Bridge,  Bridge’s brother Paul and Manpreet Singh have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. The sole hold-out in the mortgage fraud ring, Joel Blanford, did not cooperate with prosecutors and awaits trial.

Read the Full Article on ABC News10.

Manivong is licensed with Pacific A.R.C. Real Estate, based in Turlock.

Read the Full Article in the Modesto Bee.