Did GMAC Try to Bury Its Foreclosure Smoking Gun?

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:



Is GMAC Mortgage, the company under siege by numerous state attorneys general and members of Congress for its use of dubious foreclosure legal filings, trying to silence the lawyer who exposed the bank's practices? So says Thomas Cox, the Maine attorney whose case is at the center of GMAC's ongoing debacle.

It's been a rough few weeks for GMAC Mortgage, a subsidiary of the bank Ally Financial, which was bailed out by American taxpayers in 2008 to the tune of $16 billion. The first domino fell when Bloomberg reported on September 20 about a leaked internal memo directing mortgage brokers in 23 states to halt foreclosure evictions and sales, adding that the company may "need to take corrective action in connection with some foreclosures." In this case, "corrective action" meant cleaning up a trail of bogus legal paperwork stretching from Maine to Texas.

Since then, attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas have begun scrutinizing the use of dubious foreclosure filings by GMAC and other lenders, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Illinois AG Lisa Madigan has requested a meeting with GMAC officials, and several other states, including Connecticut and Massachusetts, have demanded a freeze on all foreclosures in their states. "The GMAC/Ally foreclosure steamroller should be stopped so the company can be held accountable," Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal said in a statement.

Cox is one of the primary reasons for GMAC's current headaches. In June, as part of ongoing foreclosure case, Cox flew down to Philadelphia to depose (pdf) 41-year-old Jeffrey Stephan, who oversaw more than a dozen employees on GMAC's "document execution" team. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/did-gmac-try-bury-its-foreclosure-smoking-gun

[librechik]

1. Blumenthal! Go Earl!

VOTE DEM