Foreclosure Fraud: How the Banks Broke the Housing Market and How We are Fighting Back
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Friday, Jun. 8 10:30 AM
Ends: Friday, Jun. 8 11:45 AM
Room: 551
Despite the fact that we’ve been in a foreclosure crisis for more than four years, precious little attention has been paid to how banks have used faked documents to steal homes from American borrowers. This panel will break down just how the banks have defrauded homeowners, local governments and the state judicial system, and why meager settlements or more promises for loan modifications are completely inadequate to hold the guilty parties responsible for the crime. This panel brings together foreclosure fraud experts, along with the people actually working on the front lines to stop illegal evictions and bring forward justice. We will also take a look at citizen-led efforts to protect people’s homes and hold banks accountable—and how you can join those efforts.
Moderator
David Dayen
David Dayen has been blogging about politics since 2004. He currently writes for the FDL News Desk at news.firedoglake.com; he’s also written for The Washington Monthly, The American Prospect, The Washington Independent, Democracy Journal and Capitol Weekly, as well as multiple well-trafficked progressive blogs and websites. His work has been cited by the LA Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and he has been a guest on MSNBC, Russia Today, Al Jazeera English, NPR, Pacifica Radio and Air America Radio. He lives in Los Angeles, where prior to writing about politics he had a 15-year career as a television producer and editor.
Panelists
Neil Barofsky
Neil M. Barofsky (’95) is a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Law, and is the author of Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Main Street, which will be released this summer.
Prior to joining NYU, Barofsky was the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“SIGTARP”) where he audited and investigated the $700 billion TARP program. At the time of his departure in March 2011, SIGTARP had won criminal convictions of 18 people, helped keep $555 million in taxpayer funds from being lost to fraud, and was continuing to work on 153 pending civil and criminal investigations. Prior to serving as SIGTARP, Barofsky was a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York where he prosecuted Wall Street executives for securities fraud and founded its mortgage fraud group.
Malcolm Chu
Malcolm Chu is a community organizer at Springfield No One Leaves/Nadie Se Mude. SNOL/NSM mobilizes tenants and former homeowners living in recently or about to be foreclosed homes (bank tenants) to stop evictions, protect Springfield’s housing and communities, and mobilize bank tenants to fight back against major lending institutions and banks that are tearing our communities apart. Springfield NOL/NSM has been at the leading edge of a growing national movement of tenants and homeowners demanding an end to post-foreclosure displacement, increased bank accountability and an economic system puts people, homes and communities before profit.
Malcolm was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY before he attended and graduated from University of Massachusetts Amherst with a Bachelors Degree with an Independent Concentration in Public Education & Youth Empowerment. In September 2010, Malcolm joined Springfield No One Leaves/Nadie Se Mude (SNOL/NSM) to organize the Post-Foreclosure Eviction Defense Campaign.
Lynn Szymoniak
Lynn Szymoniak is an attorney who researches, writes, testifies and lectures regarding mortgage document fraud. Her work exposing document forgeries by mortgage servicers was featured on 60 Minutes and other documentaries. She was recently awarded $18 million as a whistleblower in two federal court False Claims Act cases regarding mortgage document fraud.
