Tuesday, February 7, 2012 / by Justin Hoffmann
DocX faces forgery charges over foreclosures
In one of the first criminal prosecutions in the post-housing bust era, DocX has been indicted on forgery charges by a Missouri grand jury, The New York Times reports.
A grand jury in Boone County, Mo., handed up an indictment Friday accusing DocX, one of the largest companies that provided home foreclosure services to lenders across the nation, of 136 counts of forgery in the preparation of documents used to evict financially strained borrowers from their homes, the Times said.
Lorraine O. Brown, the company’s founder and former president, was indicted on the same charges, according to the report.
DocX is a unit of Lender Processing Services of Jacksonville, Fla. Its employees reportedly executed and notarized millions of mortgage documents for big banks and loan servicers over the years. Lender Processing closed the company in April 2010 after it saw evidence of apparent forgeries in its documents -- a practice now called “robo-signing.”
Robo-signing is the practice of a bank or lender service employee signing thousands of documents and affidavits without verifying the information contained in them.
“The grand jury indictment alleges that mass-produced fraudulent signatures on notarized real estate documents constitutes forgery,” Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who is investigating DocX, said in a statement, according to the Times. “Today’s indictment reflects our firm conviction that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters.”
By msnbc.com news services
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A grand jury in Boone County, Mo., handed up an indictment Friday accusing DocX, one of the largest companies that provided home foreclosure services to lenders across the nation, of 136 counts of forgery in the preparation of documents used to evict financially strained borrowers from their homes, the Times said.
Lorraine O. Brown, the company’s founder and former president, was indicted on the same charges, according to the report.
DocX is a unit of Lender Processing Services of Jacksonville, Fla. Its employees reportedly executed and notarized millions of mortgage documents for big banks and loan servicers over the years. Lender Processing closed the company in April 2010 after it saw evidence of apparent forgeries in its documents -- a practice now called “robo-signing.”
Robo-signing is the practice of a bank or lender service employee signing thousands of documents and affidavits without verifying the information contained in them.
“The grand jury indictment alleges that mass-produced fraudulent signatures on notarized real estate documents constitutes forgery,” Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who is investigating DocX, said in a statement, according to the Times. “Today’s indictment reflects our firm conviction that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters.”
By msnbc.com news services
Visit Source
