Marc's Mortgage Matter's

Across the country, attorneys general have already begun indicting dozens of loan processors, mortgage brokers and bank officers. Last week alone, there were guilty pleas in Minnesota, Delaware, North Carolina and Connecticut and sentences in Florida and Vermont — all stemming from home loan scams.

With the Obama administration focused on stabilizing the banks and restoring confidence in the stock market, it has said little about civil or criminal charges at the federal level. But its proposed budget contains hints that it will add to this weight of litigation, including money for more F.B.I. agents to investigate mortgage fraud and white-collar crime, and a 13 percent raise for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Officials at the Justice Department have said little in public about their plans. But people who have met with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. say he is considering a range of strategies.

“It’s clear that he and other top-level members of the Obama administration want to seize the opportunity to send a message of zero tolerance for mortgage fraud,” said Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who attended a meeting with Mr. Holder and a number of state attorneys general last week in Washington. “The only question is when and how they will do it.”

One person who had discussed the matter with Mr. Holder, but declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak for the Justice Department, said that the attorney general was deciding whether to form a task force to centralize the effort or allow state attorneys general to develop cases on their own.

A Justice Department spokesman, Matthew A. Miller, would not comment, other than to write by e-mail, “It will be a top priority of the Justice Department to hold accountable executives who have engaged in fraudulent activities.” 

To that snippet I add my hope they convict 'em all, and throw away the keys!

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor (a unemployed mortgage broker) asked the Director, “How do you determine whether or not a patient should be institutionalized?”
“Well,” said the Director, “we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.”
“Oh, I understand,” said the broker. “A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.”
“No.” said the Director. “A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?”