Federal Law Violations at Countrywide Home Loans and Bank of America
I have one question: When will the prosecutions start? What prosecutions? Financial institutions across America are filled with high ranking officials who all participated in creating a culture and system of defrauding the American public and crashing the American economy with false and fraudulent loans! Now the evidence is becoming overwhelming. Instead of giving banks bail-out money, we should have asked the government to give them one-way tickets to jail. Not all banks are bad, and not all bad loans are fraud. But the huge amount of loans were issued on fraudulent signatures and false reports, and those fraudulent activities were caused and perpetrated by bank officials who have yet to be called to justice for their misdeeds.
Last month Eileen Foster appeared on a national news show to discuss the numerous federal law violations, which occurred at Countrywide Home Loans while she worked there. Her testimony is proof that the financial debacle that went on at Countrywide and later Bank of America (BOA) was directly related to the fraud created by bank managers and workers to push through home loans. The show was “60 Minutes,” and the link to that segment is below. “60 Minutes” is the most trustworthy news program ever produced in TV history. The fact that “60 Minutes” vetted Ms. Foster and found her to be credible and able to testify shows just how bad the corruption was at BOA and Countrywide Home Loans.
Factually, Foster worked at Countrywide starting in 2005 as a senior official. After being promoted a number of times she eventually landed in the position of Senior Fraud Risk Manager. This position put Foster as close to the epicenter of the financial collapse of the US Housing Market as anyone in history. That role allowed Foster access to data that literally detailed a mountain of evidence that corporate employees had forged signatures of clients and barrowers, and altered or simply created fake documents to prove up fake assets or income and push through poorly-placed loans for people who couldn’t afford them, on property what was never worth the amount of the loan. The amount of evidence was shocking; the degree of total fraud that was being done to manipulate the bank’s automated system of evaluating property value is scandalous as well.
After working in this role for a few months, Ms. Foster realized that the fraud was not local to her city but was being perpetrated across the United States. She found the same mind-blowing fraud in Miami, Las Vegas and Chicago. She then found it in San Diego, Los Angeles and Cincinnati. In other words, the fraud was being perpetrated across the entire business platform. It had become de-facto business as usual and was no longer even viewed as fraud – it was just business!
Ms. Foster figured out that the company was allowing the employee relations department (ER) and their lending managers to collude and not report fraud to the bank’s normal internal reporting authority. This was being done to keep the fraudulent activity under wraps and allowed the loan officers to meet inflated closing productivity numbers, which became the norm at the bank. To keep the fraud going as long as possible, the company would allow management to retaliate against any employee who dared to question or “Whistleblow” on the banks fraud!
Prior to Countrywide merging with BOA, Ms. Foster filed a whistleblower complaint with the ER Division at Countrywide. Countrywide never told BOA about Ms. Foster’s allegations. Instead they did just the opposite. Countrywide instructed their ER Department to investigate and bring a retaliatory action against Ms. Foster instead. Now that is turning justice on its head.
Once BOA took over, Ms. Foster hoped she was going to a more honest and better run company. BOA took foster in as a Senior Mortgage Fraud Investigator. She accepted that position. It was within that position that Ms. Foster finally learned that Countrywide was wrongfully investigating her. They were trying to use that investigation to cover her complaints and create a reason, outside of needing to get rid of a whistleblower, to terminate her employment with BOA. She found out that the company investigators were trying to bully Countrywide’s staff into giving negative testimony against Ms. Foster. When BOA took over Countrywide’s investigation of Foster, they decided to ignore the overwhelming evidence that the investigation was simple retaliation and instead they terminated her employment. They only did so after finding out that the US government regulators wanted to question her about Countrywide and BOA’s suspicious actions and reporting.
It wasn’t until Foster was terminated that she realized she needed to file a Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) whistleblower complaint with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). She did so and challenged the termination. After a relatively short investigation, OSHA ruled on her complaint in September 2011. They found that Foster was the victim of whistleblower retaliation. They also found the retaliation was a violation of the Sarbanes Oxley employee protection guarantees. The Department of Labor wrote in the Order that Foster must be reinstated in her position. Further, BOA must pay her all her damages, including lost wages from the date of termination. Bank of America did not like this ruling, so they are challenging the OSHA ruling and requesting a hearing. We shall see what happens in the future.
Watch the “60 minutes” broadcast here.
If you have questions regarding any Whistleblower or Qui Tam Action, whether it is regarding the Sarbanes Oxley Act, the IRS Whistleblower Provisions or any Procurement or Health Care Fraud Qui Tam cases, please contact Brian LaBovick, Esq. at brian@labovick.com.
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