I was kind of hoping that the Obama Administration would take advantage of the moment and start doing its job on another front in the War on Terror. Now that Osama has been dispatched it is heartening to see we won't have to wait 10 years to punish the banksters who have driven the middle class to its knees with its fraudulant homeowner mortgage writing and servicing programs.
This morning's breaking news is clearly a shot across the bow of the other big banks.
Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s biggest bank, was sued for more than $1 billion by the U.S. government for allegedly selecting mortgages “recklessly” for inclusion in a government insurance program.
The Frankfurt-based bank and its MortgageIT unit violated the U.S. False Claims Act by presenting fraudulent data to obtain mortgage insurance from the Federal Housing Administration of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, according to the complaint filed today in Manhattan federal court.
“While Deutsche Bank and MortgageIT profited from the resale of these government-insured mortgages, thousands of American homeowners have faced default and eviction, and the government has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance claims, with hundreds of millions of dollars more expected to be paid in the future,” according to the complaint.
http://www.businessweek.com/...
The Wall Street Journal highlights some of the particulars in the suit, its eye-opening only to those who have refused to recognize the day to day operations of these fraudsters for the past decade:
Among the damaging charges in the government’s civil lawsuit against Deutsche Bank over its role in allegedly defrauding a government mortgage-insurance program, this charge is a standout.
According to the lawsuit, Deutsche Bank’s MortgageIT unit repeatedly lied to HUD about the quality of its mortgages. The government says that when an outside auditor showed MortgageIT its findings about serious problems in its mortgages, the auditor’s findings were literally shoved in a closet
http://blogs.wsj.com/...
If BOA and Jamie Dimon were loath to settle these issues before with the Government and the individual state AG's, they'll be making their way to the table soon.
I'm not sure that the billion dollars sought in today's lawsuit is even enough to cover the damages wrought.
Tip of the hat to Barack Obama. Now I'm in. Again.