Occupy Fights Foreclosures Denounces Federal Reserve/Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Settlement Deal with Banks

OCCUPY FIGHTS FORECLOSURES DENOUNCES FEDERAL RESERVE / OCC

SETTLEMENT DEAL WITH BANKS

Letting the banks "win" via federal level settlement soundly underestimates

the power and resolve of the American people

LOS ANGELES, JAN 9, 2013— Occupy Fights Foreclosures (OFF), subcommittee of Occupy LA, denounces the settlement deal announced by the OCC and Federal Reserve with 14 banks whose fraudulent foreclosures "had ridden roughshod over borrowers and the rule of law" according to Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times. The clear misapplication of justice that allowed the banks this seeming win soundly underestimates the power and resolve of the American people to see true justice is served. Occupy Fights Foreclosures joins the voices of millions of homeowners in saying this corruption and injustice cannot and will not stand.

Insiders have called the so called independent foreclosure review a "sham of a project." Banks insisted that no TV, radio, or print media be used to explain the program and its availability to former homeowners, now displaced from the homes where direct mail about the program was sent. Banks deliberately kept homeowners in the dark about their rights to the foreclosure review mandated by the courts. Only 11% of eligible homeowners had come forward as of the Dec. 31 deadline and homeowners have seen paltry compensation for losing their house via illegal means.

The independent contractors doing these foreclosure reviews were working under the banks, not the other way around. Findings were "quality controlled" by the banks who had violated the laws. A claims reviewer known as Luxtexente described in detail on Naked Capitalism that reviewers routinely found a dozen or more violations of foreclosure laws in a single file, not to mention "incompetence, immorality and poor judgment." Banks also routinely simply erased violations as the list of harm on borrowers grew. According to insider Luxtexente, "Issues of law were removed." Missed foreclosure timelines, missing documents, misapplied funds, multiple modifications … the list of violations was vast, but banks told reviewers to "ignore them."

This criminal behavior by the banks violates the very essence of trust the American people should have in our banking institutions. That the OCC and Federal Reserve would devalue and dishonor the American people by such a settlement makes a mockery of our monetary institutions. The harm caused to millions of American families is tantamount to a bank-made tsunami. Without just compensation for the rampant law-breaking of these financial institutions, there is a clear breach of faith in the American system. The OCC and the Federal Reserve's actions to sweep under the rug via a settlement the vast crimes without direct compensation to the victims underestimate the power and resolve of the American people. The unjust must be made just.

"Any victim of any crime doesn't have peace until they know the perpetrators of that crime have been brought to justice," says Carlos Marroquin, OFF activist. "There's no closure until you know the criminal has been brought to justice, you can see that with any kind of crime. We will not have closure until we see real justice for the homeowners who have had their homes stolen by criminal institutions."