Investigators Use "Well-Tested Approach" In Criminal Probe Into Robosigner Scandal As They Put Squeeze On Low-Level Workers For Info To Bag Execs

The Washington Post reports:

• [A]mid reports of shoddy and possibly fraudulent paperwork, [Jacksonville, Florida foreclosure document Processor Lender Processing Services](1) as well as a handful of other document processors and law firms are coming under scrutiny for the criminal investigations into the foreclosure debacle.

• Law enforcement authorities on both state and federal levels are probing whether individuals at these foreclosure companies and at the banks that hired them committed an array of possible crimes - mail and wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and racketeering. No charges have been filed.

• These officials say they are taking a well-tested approach in their investigations: press low-level employees to implicate higher-up executives.(2) Already, investigators have obtained in sworn testimony detailed descriptions of what took place inside the foreclosure companies.

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• The Justice Department's U.S. attorney in central Florida has launched a criminal probe into whether LPS manufactured fake assignments of mortgage. [...] A challenge law enforcement officials face is that LPS and other foreclosure businesses are just one part of a chain of companies that handle different aspects of a single foreclosure.

For more, see U.S. probing foreclosure processing firms.

(1) Formerly a branch of Fidelity National Financial - the nation's largest title insurer - LPS was spun off in 2008, but the outfit and its 8,900 employees are still housed in the same complex as the title company, the story states.

(2) See United States v. Moody, 206 F.3d 609, 617 (6th Cir. 2000) (Wiseman, J., concurring) for one Federal judge's observation, made in the context of drug conspiracy cases, on the so-called "race to the courthouse/prosecutor's office" that frequently takes place during the early stages of these "multi-target" criminal investigations:

• In practical terms, drug conspiracy cases have become a race to the courthouse. When a conspiracy is exposed by an arrest or execution of search warrants, soon-to-be defendants know that the first one to "belly up" and tell what he knows receives the best deal. The pressure is to bargain and bargain early, even if an indictment has not been filed.

These lower-level employees may be well-advised to retain competent defense counsel and "belly up and tell what he or she knows" as the criminal investigation continues (and minimize the risk of being "thrown under the bus" by a colleague/competitor also finding himself in the same "race to the prosecutor's office." Like in any other race, the fruits to be snagged by rolling first usually goes to the swift).