Friday's Fraud Story

Fraud in San Ramon?
Say it isn't so!

This story has a connection to us here at Patagonia.
We have a friend who had a wonderful mortgage business called "Communnity Home Loans".
A good honest business, one to be proud of.

Then when this Seidenfeld guy started appearing in the news with his company, CHL Mortgage Group also in the same area.

People naturally thought the two companies were the same, or at least connected.
They were not, but the damage of having a bad guy with your same name was enough to cause a loss of business. Our friend Mark had to change his companies name, print all new business cards, letterhead, envelopes, dba filings, and on and on. The cost to him is unmeasurable, we know he spent thousands of dollars in printing, but how much businees was lost - he'll never know.

Kind of like growing up as Jeffrey Dahmer, and then all of a sudden this other "Jeffrey Dahmer" becomes big news and taints your good name.

Speaking of which, this site (ww2.howmanyofme.com) says there are 4 unlucky Jeffrey Dahmers in the US. I feel for them.

To the 57 "Mike Muellers" out there...
I'm keeping an eye on you!
You better keep our good name strong!

Be careful out there!





From the Mortage Fraud Blog :

Ringleader's Sentence Doesn't Solve Problems of Lenders when California Loans Sold Multiple Times

Laurence Seidenfeld, 63, San Ramon, California was sentenced to 79 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay restitution of $281,992. Seidenfeld was convicted of bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.

Seidenfeld, who owned CHL Mortgage Group in San Ramon, California allegedly obtained more than $20 million in fraudulent mortgage loans against properties by funding the loans without the consent of the owners by using forged signatures. The loans were then sold multiple times to various warehouse banks, lenders and investors. Of course the conviction and sentencing haven't solved any of the problems associated with the ownership and priority of the liens and the banks, lenders and investors continue to litigate in CHL Mortgage Group's bankruptcy over the priority of the liens and the right to foreclosure on properties that were committed multiple times.

Seidenfeld was previously convicted of bank fraud for altering information in mortgage documents and was sentenced to one day in federal prison followed by three years supervised release. He was charged by information on April 24, 2003 and pled guilty on June 17, 2003 - he was still on probation when he was charged in this scheme. The latest charges were a probation violation in the previous case and resulted in a sentenced of 12 months in federal prison, to run concurrently with the charges in the current case