A report released by the Florida inspector general has cleared state Attorney General Pam Bondi of any wrongdoing for the resignation of two foreclosure fraud attorneys who worked in her office.
June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, both assistant attorney generals who were Selected Exempt Service employees, meaning their positions could be terminated at any time without cause, decided to resign last August from their positions after being scrutinized for having poor performance issues.
Both attorneys, who have been responsible for finding more than $2 million in foreclosure fraud damages for the state, were investigating malpractices against mortgage process servicing companies, including Jacksonville, Fla.-based Lender Processing Services. Meanwhile, these foreclosure mill cases were targeting specific mortgage companies and state law firms even prior to Bondi taking office last January, resulting in the AG requesting for this report to be conducted after an outcry took place from the public when the resignations happened.
In a phone interview with Ned Luczynski, the inspector general for the Florida Department of Financial Services, neither Clarkson nor Edwards made any specific allegations indicating a violation of law, rule, or policy regarding their termination. However, Edwards suggested that their forced resignation might have been politically motivated.
But according to the 84-page report that reviewed the circumstances surrounding the termination of Clarkson and Edwards, there was no violation of Chapter 112, Florida Statues by the AGs office.
“The inspector general's report concludes that the termination of two staff employees was based on their ‘disorganization'; ‘non-responsiveness' to public records requests; ‘factual errors' in public presentations; 'sloppy' work; and 'incorrect legal theories' that hindered investigations into critical cases dealing with foreclosure fraud,” Bondi said in a press statement. “The report confirms the terminations had nothing to do with politics or outside influence. Rather, it was about doing the right thing, in defense of the people of Florida.”
The two employees claimed that their “forced resignation” started in February and lasted three months until they quit in May. “Theresa and I were called in and dressed down to the point of almost feeling humiliated,” Clarkson said in the report after a meeting with Richard Lawson, director of the division of economic crimes for the attorney general.
Lawson said that attorneys for “target” companies being investigated in these foreclosure mill cases were complaining about both employees having “a great number of factual and legal errors” in their work. Specifically, LPS was upset that Clarkson used private company documents in a PowerPoint presentation that she gave at a December 2010 annual meeting of the Clerks of Courts and Comptrollers that was delivered to her “under a subpoena marked confidential.”
Clarkson refuted this in the interview and claimed she had the documents for months, if not a year, as the public was sending them to her “by the dozens on a daily basis.”
Edwards said while she and Clarkson were working cases, Lawson was meeting with attorneys representing the companies and law firms being investigated. Edwards added that she and Clarkson felt “completely insignificant” because they opened the foreclosure mills investigations and made them happen.
Edwards stated when the new administration came into office, Lawson became more involved in their mortgage fraud cases, rather than becoming involved as the cases reached their conclusions. She said it made things difficult because “we basically had no control or power in dealing with the lawyers.”
Also, the disorganization of the case files hindered Clarkson and Edwards' progress on the foreclosure mill cases as well as the progress of the investigators and attorneys who did not receive all the filed documents when the cases were reassigned.
Therefore, Lawson decided to end Clarkson and Edwards' employment based upon a variety of reasons, with the strongest being their lack of independent investigation on almost all of the foreclosure mill cases.
“I will only have the very best, most skilled people on the job; those who embody the highest standards of ethics, responsibility, professionalism, and performance,” Bondi said.
