Loan Servicer: Return Of Home Title May Be In The Cards For Queens Widow Victimized By Scammers Using Forged Docs To Steal Home Out From Under Her

In Jamaica, Queens, the New York Post reports:

• An elderly Queens widow whose house was stolen by scam artists may have finally won her three-year David-and-Goliath struggle against the bank that tried to seize her home. Dorothy Thomas' nightmare began in November 2007, when she went to pay her annual property taxes on the Jamaica home she's lived in since 1979.
• She was stunned to learn that her home had been "sold" to a straw buyer by a man impersonating her husband, Eugene, who died in 1986 at age 55. The "buyer" was a mystery man who had pilfered the identity of another innocent woman -- an émigré from Togo who was living in Irvington, NJ. The man, posing as the New Jersey woman, hoodwinked Wells Fargo into giving him a $533,850 mortgage in her name -- and promptly skipped town.
• A probe by the Queens DA's Office found that Thomas was the victim of a scam, and eight people -- including two crooked lawyers and a CPA -- pleaded guilty in the case.
• But that still didn't help. Wells Fargo filed a foreclosure order on Thomas' home. So Thomas went to court. But in August, Queens Civil Court Judge Allan Weiss affirmed Wells Fargo's right to try to seize the property. The judge ruled that even though Thomas' long-dead husband "clearly" couldn't have sold the home, someone obviously did.
• But after multiple inquiries, Wells Fargo spokesman Jim Hynes told The Post, "We have decided not to pursue any legal action against . . . Ms. Thomas despite the rulings of the lower court. We are moving forward with dismissal of the foreclosure action."
• Thomas' lawyer, Naved Amed, said nobody told that to him, but he hopes it's true. "We've been asking them to stop their action for three years and their answer has always been 'no,'" he said.

For the story, see Widow's ID-theft nightmare nears end.