marie mcdonnell affidavit re docx

8/20/2019 Marie McDonnell Affidavit RE DOCX

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4. I am the same Marie McDonnell who provided

am

icus briefs to the Massachusetts

Land Court (4/ 17flOO9 & 6/2912009) and to lhe Massachusetts Sup reme Judicial Court

(1 11120 I0) in lhe landmark

cases

U S BankNafivnaJA

S5OCiafi

on

Y

tbanez and Wtlls Fargo

Bank,

N.A , \I.

LoRace, 458 Mass, 637 (2011)

in which the

COIIfU

vacated two foreclosures

prosecuted by trustees of securitization trusrs. My seminal contribution was to shift the debate

beyond d

ef

ective assignmen ts

of

mortgage

10

anexamination

of t

he

fata l breaks in the

cha

in

of

title that occurred due to the uuer failure of the entities that securitized these mortgages to

document the transfers between themselves.

5. In January

2011,

John L O' Brien, Register of the

Essex

Southern District

Registry of

Deeds

in Sa lem, Massachusett s ( Register O ' Brien ), commissioned McDonnel l

Prope

rty Analytics, Inc. ( MPA ) to conduct a forensie examination to lest tbe integrity of his

registry due to his concerns tha t: I ) Mortgege ElecltOllic Registra tion Systems, Inc. ( MERS ' )

proclaims W I ils members can avoid recording assignments o f mortgage if they reg ister them

electronicall y in the

R S

System; and 2) due to the robo-sign ing scandal spotl ight ing Linda

Green - an employee of DefendanI DocX, LLC - as featur

ed

in a

60

Minutes expose on the

subject which first aired on Apri l 3, 201 J.

6. I

submitted my findings to Registe r O 'Brien on June

28, 2011

which revealed

widespread, systemic, patterns of practice employed by or on behalf of several of tile nations '

largest banks that had

eroded the trans

pa

rency and

COITUpied

the chain of title to real property

records ma intained by the

Essex

Southern District Registry of Deeds,

7. I found that by failing to record assignments of mortgage necessary to main tain a

comple te, unbroken chai n of tide, combined with the recordation of assignmenls of mortgage

thai contained false slalements. misrepresenlalions

and

omissions or

mat

erial fact in a feigned

and fraudulent attempt

10

close the gap, resulted in a

co

rt\Jpt

ed

chai n

or

ti tle. My report is

available to the public in its entirety at : hllp·/lsalcmdccds.com/pdrtAudjl.vdf.

8. In another landmark mortgage foreclosure case brough t

on

appeal before the

Massachusells Supreme Judicial Court in the mailer ofHenrietta Eaton S. Federal Nmiol1aJ

Mo guge tf ssocimio

& Another . 462 Mass. 569 (2012) Eaton y, Fl l l i e Mae ) , I filed an

amicus brief and

I

supplementa l brief in wh ich

I

explained how the forec losure of Eaton's

property was grounded in a fraudulent ass ignment of mongage lhal was typical of what

I

ObSCTVed while auditing the Essex Southern District Registry of Deeds.

9. I' ve also trained state

an

d federal law enforcement and regulatory agenci es

regarding detection o f invalid assignments, robe-signing, fraud and misrepresentation in

1 M D o n n I J ;

tI>e

appeal

of

US a * Nati m J j Au

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org ss,rch numbuohp? doo=SJC. Hl6'M4 RCl-SCjlfch.

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Septem

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January

30, 2012 in he ......

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mortgage and foreclosure instruments. For example, in March of 2012, I conducted a one-day

workshop for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's staff, United States Attorneys,

and investigators. In February 2013 I will be conducting a three-day training in Washington,

D.C. for special agents of the federal government at the request of the Office of the Inspector

General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

10. My experience in working with tate and federal law enforcement dates back to

the early to mid-1990 ' ' when I uncov red a mortgage fraud scheme orchestrated by The Dime

Savings Bank ofNew York, that led to Attorney General investigation in Massachusetts, ew

Hampshire and Connecticut and, ultimately, to rnulti-mi lion dollar settlement awards and relief

programs for consumers.

Forellsic Examination of he Essex Southern District Registrv

11. John 0 Brien was the first Register

of

Deeds in the country to commission a

forensic examination

of

a Registry

of

Deeds. He did so because he was troubled by the fact that

he could no longer look his constituents in the eye and tell them truthfully who own d their

property. Despite this awareness, Register

O

Brien was not prepared f

or

the results of my audi

and when he read my report he declared publically: My registry a crime scene.

12. The result ofmy investigation revealed widespread, systemic, methodical patterns

of practice whereby the public land recording

sy

tern has been used by the nation s largest banks

to transfer title to rea l pr perty that the banks do not own. This is especially true where a

foreclosure is involved.

13. This charade is being carried out by the filing of a defective, often fraudulent

conveyancing document such as an assignment of mortgage, which becomes the breeder

document that enables the alleged assignee to obtain all other documents necessary to

extinguish the property owner' s rights and trans fer full legal and equitable title as well as

possession to the fraudster.

14. Once these documents appear in a registry of deeds, they are presumed to be valid

and are relied upon by the public, the courts, title examiners, title insurance companies, and other

stakeholders as the underlying real property is bought, sold, financed, and on occasion,

foreclosed upon .

15. Because it has a direct bearing on the restitution Register O Brien is seeking fr

om

this Court as

1

considers the sentencing

of

Lorraine Brown, I briefly summarize the scope

of

the

audit and results that emerged as we completed our review of 565 assignments

of

mortgage

which required that we examine some 3,317 title documents

3

A true and correct copyofmy Report enritl d Forensic Examination fAssignments fMortgage

Recorded During 2010 In The Essex Sou/hem District Registry 0/ Deeds which I released on June 28, 20I I, is

availableon Register O'Brien's

website

at:

tn -/lsalemdeeds.com

df u l

A FlD

r\V

1TOFM eDON • L 01/11/013)

PAG 3 ·



Lorraine Brown, DocK, LLC of J.PS

19. 1 am profound ly familiar with the style, ronten t andpropensity for defects and

misinformation contained in var ious ass ignments and diSl;;hargcs o f mortgage that were

pepared,

elleo uted

n

recorded in the: public records th roughout the country by

and

under the direction

of

Lorraine Brown at DocX, LLC, Lender Processing Services ( LPS

and its

predec

essor,

Fidelity

Natiooal

lnfoemauon

Services.

20, Beo ause of the depth and bread th o f my specialized knowledge in this regard,

Register John O Brien h s requested tha t 1 estimate the cost of aud iting some5,963 documents

generated by DocX, LLC tha t were recorded in the

Essex Southern

District Registry

o f Deeds,

or

registered in the Essex

Southern

Distric t Land Court Registry from JanUllry 1, 2005 thro

ugh

<: er

31, 2009.

21. Register O Brie n informed me that during this time

period

a total

of

5,688

discharges of mortgage and 275 assignments for a total of 5,963 docwnents were

recorded/eegrstered by DocX, LLC in the Essell Southern District Registry of Deeds

an

d Land

Court Registry.

22. I have

had

the opportun ity to conduct a preliminary review

of

a representati ve

sampling of these documents and found that in addition to the fact that tltey are adm itted

forgeries Su Lorraine Brown s test imony and Plea Agreement with the Department o f Justice),

the majority o f these doc uments evidence

gaps

in the chain o f tit le or consti tute wild deeds

they fail to connect the ori gina l mo rtgagee with the entity who is d ischarging or

assigning the mortgage.

23. Register O Brien has also determined that a total of 10,567 Docx , LLC

discharges and assignments were r

eco

rded by in his Registry of Deeds from 1998 through 2011.

I have reviewed a sampling of these ea rlier documents and can att

es

t to the fact that they bear the

same infirmit ies as the DocX, LLC documen ts involved in Count One o f the United States

Attorney s case now before th is Court.

24. Register O Brien is concerned that the Docx , LLC documents which have been

record

ed aga

inst tbe title to his

co

nstituents propert ies are now vo id as a matter o f law due to the

admiss ion of Lorraine Brown that they are forgeri

es

. Moreover, thes e DocX, LtC filing s (most

of

which do lIot ill l lw prop n it s h al art 0 h aw beell i f o

d osll,t ) are defective for other

reasons and further compromise the good, clear and marketable tit le to rea l proper ty

that

Register

O Brien s constit

uen

ts have a right to ex pe<:t.

Restituti

on

Calculus

25. When consideri ng restitution for the victims of Lorraine Brown s lIC t;ons, the

Court should undefswt,d that there is no simple that witt undo the damage caused by the

recordation ohpprox imately one million (1,000,000 forged documents in the nation s brick and

mo

tU

r land recording faciliti

es

.

AfTT llAVn Of o 0 1111



26. The problem o f rep lacing an otherwise valid conveyancing document tha t

has

been executed or notarized by a robe-signer or a surrogate-sig

net

ean be cured by recording a

corrective document that has been duly acknowledged by a

co

rporate officer who has personal

knowledge o f the facts contained therein and who is properly authorized.

27.

However, my preliminary research and rev iew of the sub

jec

t documents prepar

ed

,

execu ted and r

ecord

ed by

Docx,

LLC indicate thaI there are ot her issues that must be addressed

as

el].

For example:

• The entity purport ing 10 discharge

or

assign the

mortgage

is no t the original

l

en

der and did not establish its authority to act by way

of

an ass igrunen t or power

ofattorney. Accordingly, the

DocX

document reveals a break in the chain o f tille .

• A power of attorney

re f

erenced in the DocXdocument was not recorded; or does

not cover the situa tion at hand.

• The assignment

of

mortgage purports to convey the

note

and mortgage from the

lender directly into a

sec

uritized trus t years after the trust closed . Such a

conveyance is a

lega

l impossibility and indicat

es tha

t the assigrunent is a

deception.

28. Based on my prior experience of havi ng conducted McDonnell Property

Analytic

s Foremic u amiooJion fAssigwnefl s f orlgage Recorded During 1010 In

TM

Essex SoutMrn District Registry

f

Deeds and in

view of the

facllhat

the

vast

majori ry of the

DocX,

LLC documents are discharges

mo

rtgage rather than assignments,

I

estimate that

lr

would cost 3 75.

00

per property to i

den

tify

tbe damag

e

10

the

cha

in of rid e caused by these

forged and fraudulent filings.

29.

Co

nsideri ng the fact that there are

p p r o ~ i m t l y

1,000,000

DocX

documents on

recerd and

rhat the Essex Southern Districr Registry

c f

Deeds is known to con tain 10,567 of

these, or

abo

ut 1.06

.

1believe tha t it

wou

ld be helpful to the

Court

and to

the

public at large to

cond

uct a study on

1,000 (0.

1f) .)

of

these questioned documents to ident ify the def

ects

and

recommend

a repair

process.

30. I

wou

ld

des

ign an audit plllll thai maps

out

the ty

pes of

document and title defe

cts

that exist in the conlro l iffluP; idenrify the DocX client who ordered the document; and

recommend tbe steps that

WQUl

d need to be taken to rectify the defects.

31. I would abo consul t with a number of tit le insurance companies and several of

DocX

s

major

cl i

en

ts to discuss t

he

feasibility of restoring clouded titles without having to resort

10 the j udicial proc

ess

.

32. Finally, I

wou

ld cons ult with a variety

of

technology providers to detennine how

we

migb

t use technology to identify the

DocX

documents as well as gaps in the chain o f title that

resulted from these fil ings .

AFFID

\ ·IT Of Mc DoNNE . 0 1/1

13



•

COMMONWEAL

TI l

OF MASSACHUSE

TTS

COUNTY OF BARNSTABLE 55

At Brewster , Massachusetts, on

this

I I

ill

day of January 13, be fore mC the

tmden igned

aulhorily, personally appeared MARIE MCDONNELL. proved to me through evidence of

identity, to wit: a Driver s License, (0 be rhe signer(s) of the eueched document,

and who swore

Of

effirrned 10me, under the penalties of perjury, lhal the contents

of

said

documenl are truthful and accurate, 10

the

best of her knowledge and belief.

Subscri bed 10 and sworn

bef

ore me.

£

~ f

Notary

Public

AT

....

opy _

Ct tRI

ST NE

M MUIlPHV

My Commission

p i r e s _ ~

~ PU

LI

MIa

.....

I1

Ol l

AF

P O

ITOFMcOoN

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. (Ol

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