Last summer I met with an FBI agent to discuss a local realtor. I submitted 32 pages of conclusive evidence that implicated the realtor in committing 19 cases of short-sale fraud.
Though the agent said he would pursue it, I never heard from the FBI again.
Hat tip to daytrip for sending in this article from the nytimes.com:
Two excerpts:
“The I.G. report confirmed what’s been clear for quite a while — that the D.O.J. has never taken mortgage fraud seriously,” Professor Levitin said. “There is going to be no comeuppance for crimes committed during the financial crisis. This sets a really bad precedent for future crises because we’re seeing that there is going to be no deterrent effect of criminal law.”
“The report fits a pattern that is scary for a democracy, that there really are two levels of justice in this country, one for the people with power and money and one for everyone else. And that eats at the heart of what I think makes this country great.”
Jim,
The financial services people are sitting on the bailout money they got from the Fed and doing absolutely as little as possible to help people. And the federal, state & local governments are letting them get away with that.
Small, feeble government at work.
The big banks have basically bought most of the people in our govt. and are trying to get another bubble going with the free money they got from the Fed. Why should they care? When it crashes again, they’ll just cry for another bailout.
The last 10 to 12 years has become a criminal money game. Nothing more or less. Housing is the commodity used in this transaction. The financial people don’t care if they destroy communities as long as it’s not one of the places where they keep their 6 homes.
This is not ALL of real estate. But it’s the driving force behind much of it.
When this gangster financial behavior is left alone (not prosecuted), all the other players in real estate witness strange behavior: the bizarro “realtors” who have no business being in the business, the fake property appraisals, corrupt/corruption of public employees, the gross distortion of property values.
I think all of this is happening because financial services and real estate became such a HUGE part of the economy.
We exported most of the good paying manufacturing jobs overseas, so this is all that was left. It was never suppose to be this way.
People are suppose to live in a house, not use it as a ATM or a Las Vegas poker chip.
Communities are suppose to support places where you can live and work. Have services in those communities for people. When communities are reduced to casinos, they no longer support their reason for existing.
The Fed & big banks don’t seem to care about REAL communities anymore. They appear more focused on bonuses based on real or imagined (fake) numbers.
It’s a mess.
My advice for anyone looking to buy or sell a house today: find a great realtor like Jim to help you navigate the craziness that is still out here.
Have a good one.
Thanks jd, and I agree!
Society is so accustomed to real estate being a slick, slimy business full of hucksters that it is just an accepted part of life.
Sellers are the ones who really need an honest realtor – I’m here for you!
I hate seeing articles like this, because the people getting screwed the most are the ones with the least ability to defend themselves. Each time short sale fraud occurs. A young family or a first time home buyer is pushed out of the market.
Heh, can I sue FBI for violating my civil rights? I feel being discriminated based on my income.
“The last 10 to 12 years has become a criminal money game.”
While the current situation is unfair and undesirable, I disagree that it is new. Wasn’t the outcome pretty much the same in the S&L bubble and crash of the 1980s? All the way back to the railroad barons of the mid 19th century, rich and powerful industrialists have been able to escape the consequences of their illegal behavior.
The DOJ is much too busy with more important endeavors like auditing, harassing and doing everything humanly possible to any individual or business whom dissents with their left wing nutter policies.
Agree 1000% with the following:
My advice for anyone looking to buy or sell a house today: find a great realtor like Jim to help you navigate the craziness that is still out here.
Have a good one.
Jim,
If you want to understand why the FBI is not doing anything with your information and will most likely do nothing, you need to watch this TEDx talk by William Black, a former top-level litigator for the FHLBB and FSLIC during the clean up of the S&L crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JBYPcgtnGE
That guy helped the FBI to send more than a thousand bankers behind bars in the late 80s early 90s for major fraud cases, and nuked the career of four US senators (with AZ John McCain, escaping narrowly) by exposing the Keating Five scandal.
Not very strangely, the politicos made sure there would be no more guys like him working for regulatory agencies. Too dangerous for them.
S&L crisis : more than 30,000 criminal referrals by regulators against financial institutions.
2007 crisis : 0 (zero, none) criminal referral by regulators against financial institutions.
The regulators have been completely declawed and neutered and the cops supposedly on the beat don’t want to touch any cases that involve financial institutions, except when the cases are really easy to prosecute and only involve low level schmucks.