Compliance

Alex Gambini, the former owner of First Advantage Financial Services, Hamlin, Pa., will spend at least four years in prison for participating in a fraud scheme where he inflated property mortgages.

A U.S. District Court judge in Oregon issued a pair of rulings in favor of Merscorp subsidiary Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., but it remains unclear how those rulings will impact MERS' appeal of a third case where a second federal judge vacated an Oregon borrower's nonjudicial foreclosure.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is asking Ameritrust Mortgage Bankers Inc. to indemnify the Federal Housing Administration for possible future losses on 10 loans and reimburse the agency $183,327 for actual losses on at least one mortgage.

Accenture announced its acquisition of Dallas-based mortgage outsourcing provider Zenta Monday, in a move that puts the global consulting and outsourcing provider in the thick of the mortgage origination business and the massive loss mitigation efforts ongoing in the mortgage servicing industry.

A Jacksonville title agent who was the owner of Premier Title Group Inc. has pleaded guilty to bank fraud last Friday afternoon for serving as the closing agent during a mortgage fraud scheme.

California attorney general Kamala Harris and the state's Department of Justice have taken legal action against several attorneys and law firms who used a fraudulent scheme to steal millions of dollars from distressed homeowners.

As part of an undercover investigation called “Operation Madhouse” conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Inspector General and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, 13 individuals have been arrested in Chicago for participating in a mortgage fraud scheme carrying out three separate transactions involving four homes on the city's south side.

Talal Ashek of Holland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to submit false claims to a lending institution for his role in a mortgage fraud conspiracy. Sentencing will take place on Oct.17, before U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake.

The founder, president and CEO of Triton Financial LLC, Kurt Barton, faces a life sentence in prison after a federal jury convicted him of carrying out a Ponzi scheme that victimized more than 300 individuals that resulted in investor losses of over $50 million.

It seems more mortgage brokers are receiving notices from the FDIC that they may be sued for delivering bad loans to failed banks that were major wholesalers.

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could "potentially" share the results of its examinations of large banks with state attorneys general, according to K&L Gates attorneys.

Mortgage fraud continued at elevated levels in fiscal year 2010 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to "dedicate significant resources to the threat," the agency says in its FY 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report.

Bank of America told investors that its liabilities for mortgage repurchase requests from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be worse than expected. Bank of America now says its total potential GSE losses for the mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stand at $7.8 billion. (sfbustmes8611)

Ways in which the industry can prevent fraud are evolving along with the nature of fraud itself, and the answer to preventing one of the latest waves of fraud appears to lie in finding new and better ways to track participants and their information in distressed home sales as well as in mortgage transactions.

An indictment has been filed in Manhattan Federal Court charging 14 defendants for participating in a mortgage fraud scheme that involved over 100 home mortgage loans valued at more than $58 million.

National mortgage fraud risk is down 2.3% from a year ago and is 1% lower from the previous quarter, but is still at an elevated risk, Interthinx said in its latest Mortgage Fraud Risk Report.

National mortgage fraud risk is down 2.3% from a year ago and is 1% lower than the previous quarter, but is still at an elevated risk, Interthinx said in its latest Mortgage Fraud Risk Report.

State mortgage regulators should get ready for a swarm of consumer complaints against lenders this fall, a California lawyer who focuses on unfair lending practices and foreclosures warned.

Federal agents arrested four Florida men Tuesday on charges that they scammed thousands of homeowners who were seeking loan modifications, according to authorities.

Sand Canyon Corp., a subsidiary of H&R Block that holds the remnants of the Option One Mortgage business, will pay a $10 million settlement to Massachusetts and institute a loan modification program providing an estimated $115 million of additional relief to consumers.