Nine Lender Employees Indicted For Roles In Alleged Fraudulent Subprime Loan Peddling Racket 'Greased' By Bankster Securitization Process

In Cleveland, Ohio, The Plain Dealer reports:

• A Cuyahoga County grand jury on Wednesday indicted nine employees of California-based Argent Mortgage Inc. for their suspected roles in approving fraudulent home loans. It's the first time in Ohio and one of few instances nationwide that a mortgage fraud investigation has led to criminal charges against employees of a subprime lender, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said.

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• The indictment alleges that Argent employees helped coach mortgage brokers about how to falsify loan documents so that they misstated the source or existence of down payments as well as borrower's income and assets. Employees at an Argent loan processing center in Illinois ultimately approved the loans knowing that the company's own lending rules had not been satisfied.

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• This fraud was facilitated by the practice of subprime lenders that, with the help of Wall Street, pooled mortgages into asset-backed securities and sold them to eager investors. Subprime lenders used their considerable profits to make even more loans while blatantly ignoring long accepted standards used to discern which borrowers could actually afford to pay back the loans they received.



• "The securitization and selling of these fraudulent, subprime loans to Wall Street typified the rampant greed of the industry that ultimately led to the financial crisis," Mason said in a statement.

For more, see Former employees of subprime mortgage lender indicted by Cuyahoga County grand jury.

See also, OhioFRAUDclosure: OHIO says enough !! - 9 Indicted from ARGENT MORTGAGE.