Is Government's Renewed Push On Mortgage Fraud Too Late?

[G_j]

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/22/214540986/is-governments-renewed-push-on-mortgage-fraud-too-late


Is Government's Renewed Push On Mortgage Fraud Too Late?

by JOHN YDSTIE
August 22, 2013 5:08 PM

"Remain aggressive." That's the message Attorney General Eric Holder says he has given to prosecutors around the country about pursuing wrongdoing by financial institutions — particularly, wrongdoing related to the financial crisis of 2008.

But as the five-year anniversary of the crisis approaches, the record of prosecutions against high-level Wall Street executives has been dismal.

University of Missouri Professor William Black was a federal regulator during the savings and loan crisis in the late 1980s and early '90s. Following that crisis, Black says, there were more than 1,000 felony convictions in cases described by the Justice Department as major. But not so this time around.

"As we speak, the situation remains that there have been zero convictions of anybody engaged in the frauds that's actually drove this crisis from the elite ranks of Wall Street," Black says.

<snip>

"If you go back five years from today, we're only a few weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. And that means that any of the conduct preceding the Lehman collapse is now largely beyond the reach of the SEC," he says.

..more..

[truebluegreen]

1. Yes. Deliberately so.

[tridim]

2. I got a huge check from my asshole TBTF bank because of the Admin's Mortgage Fraud law.

It's not surprising that NPRepublican neglected to mention that the admin has ALREADY acted on TBTF mortgage fraud in big ways.

As long as the statute of limitations hasn't passed, it's never too late. Holder is not weak regardless of what Neo-DU claims.

[G_j]

3. from the piece,

"And government officials seem to be responding. Both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Bank of America this month, alleging fraudulent mortgage origination and securitization practices in the lead up to the financial crisis. But both are civil suits that would involve no jail time for executives. Bank of America denies any wrongdoing. Also, JPMorgan Chase has revealed that the Justice Department is investigating its mortgage-backed securities practices."

[Wilms]

4. ^