While the Big Banks continue to fabricate notes, robosign documents and create fake assignments in order to illegally foreclose, the Federal government continues to focus on the small fish.
A Georgia real estate investor pleaded guilty today for his role in a bid-rigging conspiracy and fraud scheme related to public real estate foreclosure auctions in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the Department of Justice announced today.
Clifford Wayne Hill pleaded guilty to bid rigging and fraud in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. On Feb. 3, 2016, a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia returned an indictment against the defendant.
According to the indictment, from December 2007 to March 2012, Hill and his co-conspirators agreed not to compete for the purchase of selected foreclosed homes so that they could win the auctions for those homes with artificially low bids. Hill made and received payoffs for the agreement not to bid; taking money that otherwise would have gone to mortgage holders and in some cases, to the owners of foreclosed homes.
Including Hill, twenty-three defendants have been charged in connection with the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into bid rigging and fraudulent schemes involving real estate foreclosure auctions in the Atlanta area. Twenty-two real estate investors have pleaded guilty.
Today’s guilty plea is a result of the ongoing investigation being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s Washington Criminal II Section, the FBI’s Atlanta Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Georgia. Anyone with information concerning bid rigging or fraud related to public real estate foreclosure auctions should contact the Washington Criminal II Section of the Antitrust Division at 202-598-4000, call the Antitrust Division’s Citizen Complaint Center at 888-647-3258, or visit http://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations.
Filed under: foreclosure |
Yes, after outbidding the other 70 or 80 people at the auction and then agreeing not to bid against his “co-conspirator” probably cost the bank hundreds of dollars and would certainly help banks like “Wells Fargo” recoup some of the $185 million they were just fined by the DOJ for setting up over 2 million fake bank accounts, in order to collect extra fees. I’m sure it made their day.
BTW: who got the 185 million – not their defrauded customers, I can assure you.
Reblogged this on Mario Kenny.
Npv- you had commented in depth about Mnuchin/one west/ holdco/ indymac way back when……. now that onewest was purchased by CIT group, how would you summarize Mnuchin’s role in retrospect?
Reformed Mnuchin, lol
Reblogged this on Deadly Clear and commented:
…And off in the distance as they escorted him away in handcuffs he mumbled, “Fannie made me do it” but no matter one cared, wrote the author of the new screenplay by the same name. [somewhat fiction, maybe]
I think that’s the guy that bought my house at auction back in 2010 in Cobb County, GA! I only owed $60k after 23 years of first and only “mortgage”…he bought it for $90k…sold it 3 months later for $160k…and the foreclosure law firm (McCalla-Raymer for Wells Fargo), is still holding onto $10k of the surplus proceeds! McCalla will give the remainder of our money back, but wants $5k of it for writing the Hold Harmless…that protects them and Wells Fargo, not us!
Yup….to both of the above comments.
Not to worry……………Mr, Trump has gotten rid of all of Mr. Obama’s US Attorneys who refused to go after the predatory bankers. He has even reformed some of them like hiring Mr. Munuchin. I think we can all rest easy now.
Getting rid of competition and making the public think they are doing something just like the drug business?