"MIAMI — All she wanted was $50,000 from the equity in her house to help pay the bills while looking for a job in nursing. What Imogene Hall got was a brutal lesson in the sometimes shady ways of the mortgage industry.
It's a lesson learned by untold numbers of homeowners in Florida, epicenter of the foreclosure crisis gripping the nation.
'Everywhere I turn, someone else is scamming me,'' said Hall, a 49-year-old Jamaican immigrant who stands to lose her Miami Gardens home the Monday after Thanksgiving. 'All I do is work hard, and I get surrounded by thieves.''
A review of court records found evidence of misconduct at nearly every stage of Hall's experience. Consider:
_ Johnson Cuffy, a former mortgage broker now serving an 11-year prison sentence for grand theft, handled Hall's refinancing in early 2006, using a strategy a state investigator described as ``outright mortgage fraud.'' He faces up to 30 more years in prison if convicted of 16 other mortgage fraud charges he's facing."
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Think you've read the worst about foreclosures? Read this | McClatchy
Think you've read the worst about foreclosures? Read this | McClatchy:
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