TUC Still Passing Funny Money

[wserra]

Some people don't learn so well.

TUC continues to try to negotiate funny money against Bank of America. BoA filed this affidavit attaching some examples along with a motion to hold TUC in contempt for violating the injunction. The Court set a hearing for this Friday (August 15). Obviously remembering their antics, the Court put in the order that TUC, as a corporation, must appear by licensed counsel who is either a member of the SDFL bar or admitted PHV. TUC has not yet filed anything in response.

Surprise, surprise.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Looks like their mortgage payoff program isn't working out they way they planned.

Apparently bank and mail fraud is considered a civil matter in that part of Florida.

[wserra]

Apparently bank and mail fraud is considered a civil matter in that part of Florida.

That is bizarre, isn't it? Are all of south Florida's LEOs sipping mojitos on the beach?

[The Observer]

It would be interesting if a real property search in South Florida was ran on the names that appeared at the bottom of the phony drafts to see if any of those people are titled on property that is currently in foreclosure. The question in my mind is if TUC started their recruitment drive by focusing on people who were facing financial distress due to the subprime meltdown and were on the verge of losing their homes.

[notorial dissent]

Well, TUC has managed to make the Comptroller’s list and the Fed warning list, which means they should be of interest to the FBI at this point.

What I don’t understand is how the checks even got as far as they did, they should have been kicked back from processing before they ever got very far, just for bad routing numbers, maybe BofA doesn’t process that way, but that is usually the first catch on a bad check is if the routing is bad.

Course, I'm still wondering why they were trying to run a DRAFT through the system in the first place, those are collection items, or at least they used to be.

[.]

real property search in South Florida

They all show up in Miami-Dade records. Three of them have mortgages but only one of them has anything that coincides with the numbers/lender shown in the affidavit.

Willie has a BoA mortgage originated in 2005 for $136,800 and a loan number ending in 4088 (and apparently a current payoff amount of about $131,325.) But, the SW 114th Court 2007 property taxes of $1,086 are paid. The taxes are low as it appears he has owned the property since 1994. Paid $60K. No lis pendens filings at all for Willie, so it wouldn't appear that there has been any action to foreclose.

See Miami-Dade Clerk's File Number 2005 R 1026361.

The guy doesn't seem to be in any trouble on the property, perhaps he just thinks he can magically make the mortgage go away with funny money.

[.]

Miami-Dade public records also show no bankruptcy, no divorce and no judgment liens for Willie. No indication of any problem other than a small judgment 20+ years ago. No juicy stuff at all.

Willie might want to think about cooperating with the feds and/or the Miami Mortgage Fraud Task Force (which works with the feds,) considering that someone is likely to be sniffing around quite soon inquiring as to why he thought it was a good idea to deposit a $131K fraudulent instrument.

For a guy who seems to have kept his nose clean for decades, he might soon yearn for the day when there were no criminal lawyers in addition to BoA with a lien on his re-financed house. Unless, of course, he kept all of the re-fi proceeds and can just write them a very large check.

[TheSaint]

That is bizarre, isn't it? Are all of south Florida's LEOs sipping mojitos on the beach?

Doesn't BoA have to make this a criminal matter? I don't see where they've done anything against TUC other than file injunctions and whatnot. Which is surprising for them. In my experience, Bank of America does not suffer graft lightly.

[notorial dissent]

I have to agree with the Saint, I find it very untypical of BoA to take such a tame response, I would have thought they would have been on the phone to the Comptroller’s Office and to the FL AG’s office the minute this happened, unless they don’t take this all that seriously, why I would have a hard time believing. As this violates a whole raft of Fed statutes not to mention state statutes, I would think something a little more obvious would have happened by now.

[wserra]

Doesn't BoA have to make this a criminal matter?

BoA doesn't have the power to "make it a criminal matter" - that's up to law enforcement. I find it impossible to believe that BoA hasn't complained to the relevant authorities. The rest is up to them.

[Judge Roy Bean]

B of A can't, but the judge in the civil matter could have.

I find it hard to believe that as bad as B of A's reputation is that it could be so ugly in FL that a Federal Judge would basically ignore criminal acts he or she discovered in a civil case.

Maybe there has already been a referral from the Judge in the civil case and it just isn't on the docket.Anyone know off hand if FL has different rules about docketing criminal referral orders?

[wserra]

I have seen referrals to the relevant United States Attrorney's office both docketed and not docketed in other cases. Nonetheless, I find it hard to believe that it would require a referral for the FLSD Office to notice TUC. Don't they read the papers? (And I'm still sure that BoA complained. Why wouldn't they?)

[Dr. Caligari]

It looks like they have some friends...

YouTube Video Depicts Judicial Candidate Supporting Rogue Organization
Billy Shields
Daily Business Review
August 12, 2008



A Miami judicial candidate appears in a YouTube video promoting a rogue organization that has rolled out its own currency and attempted to seize two Bank of America branches.

On the video, Mario Garcia is depicted introducing himself as a "chief master independent contractor" to the United Cities Group and offers to provide legal services to network members.

"I've been chosen to provide members of the network of TUC with all of the legal services to all our network members," Garcia says in the promotional video with the group's emblem in the background.

He is running against Miami-Dade assistant state attorney Stacy Glick for a circuit court seat being vacated by her father, Leonard Glick.

But Garcia now disavows any relationship with the United Cities Group. He said he attended some informational sessions but decided not to become affiliated with the group and severed ties with it two years ago.

Garcia said he learned of the video's appearance on the Web for the first time after the Daily Business Review e-mailed him the YouTube link.

Asked how the organization obtained the footage, Garcia replied: "I don't know. It looks like they took that footage from one of the initial meetings." He added, "We're going to obviously take action" against United Cities.

U.S. District Judge Alan Gold in Miami issued a preliminary injunction against United Cities after armed men dressed in black entered Bank of America branches in Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay, Fla., blocked exits and tried to seize bank assets on behalf of the group last month.

United Cities presented "fake court documents to persuade local law enforcement officials into assisting them in ‘foreclosing' entire bank branches," the bank said in court filings.

Garcia said he was initially intrigued by the group's concept but became worried when its members couldn't come up with plausible explanations for what they were doing.

"The concept in and of itself had all kinds of wonderful legalities in it," he said. "But I kept asking the question, 'What is [the alternate currency] backed by,' and I couldn't get an answer."

Calls to United Cities trustee Paul Woods, a Miami attorney, were not returned.

Bank of America spokeswoman Britney Sheehan declined to comment on the litigation.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Something tells me more than just one of the participants is no longer involved, but the target audience wouldn't know that nor know how to even find out.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Does anyone have a Florida prosecutor contact?

[Demosthenes]

Does anyone have a Florida prosecutor contact?

Yes.

[Nikki]

Does anyone have a Florida prosecutor contact?

Yes.

Translation: I have the personal cell phone number for every law enforcement person in the world and TUC should start wondering what that red dot on his chest means.

[foolery]

Anyone have any more info about these people or their lifeline program? Has anyone heard of it working and people actually getting checks passed at other banks? I have a close family member that has already put a house in and he's a mortgage broker and wants to start recruiting clients for it. I'm trying to get him to hold out at least until the verdict at the BoA vs United cities case. If anyone has any updates please let me know so we can help keep many many people from losings their money.

[wserra]

Anyone have any more info about these people or their lifeline program?

I assume this is what you mean by "their lifeline program":

Today On May 7, 2008, TUC and it's Global Private Network representing hundreds of thousands of members suffering under the deepening global financial crisis and the deteriorating US mortgage market, is putting it’s Certified Financial Portfolio of more than 357 Billion dollars to work by announcing TUC’s “BUSINESS AND PROPERTY LIFELINE”, a targeted program to help delinquent property owners sell properties before experiencing forced sales with tax liabilities.

This has been tried before: "We have a huge pool of money which we will use (once you pay us) to buy out your present mortgages and get you out of debt." Since (of course) the wackos and thieves at TUC have nothing like $357,000,000,000 in real money - I'd be surprised if they have $357 - there is a term for this: bank fraud. People go to jail for it, and have with exactly this type of scheme. Anyone who can't read the BoA affidavit I put up above and realize this deserves what is surely coming to him.

Has anyone heard of it working and people actually getting checks passed at other banks?

No, never. I have heard of people trying this fraud and going to jail for it (and, of course, losing their homes). Google "Dorean Group", or go to the Advance Fee Fraud forum here and read the many posts about it.

I have a close family member that has already put a house in

I'm sorry to hear that. He should back out as quickly as possible.

[wserra]

The hearing scheduled for yesterday (August 15) was adjourned to August 25. The minute entry in the docket says that TUC's non-lawyer mouthpiece Marrero was on the phone, and claimed he didn't get notice of the hearing.

[rant]Those morons at TUC can't have it both ways. They claim that this guy Marrero can represent them - a corporation - although he is not a lawyer. He can't. They then want to claim that they didn't get notice of the hearing, although in an electronic filing (ECF) case the docket entry itself is notice - but he's not a lawyer, so he didn't understand. And where is south Florida law enforcement? I know it's August, but all of the criminals aren't lounging on the beach. Perhaps someone would show those responsible the post of "foolery" above - people are getting duped here, and law enforcement's silence is enabling the dupers.

The FBI appears to understand the problem:

If you’re a homeowner who’s having a tough time making your mortgage payments, be aware of e-mails or web-based ads from companies who claim they can help you eliminate your mortgage debt while all you have to do is pay an up-front fee for them to do the paperwork—it’s a scam.

Where they are is anybody's guess. Maybe they're busy delivering Canadian engineers to Syria.[/rant]