Attention Ted Strickland and Marc Dann: Let the Gumshoes Do Their Work

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Mortgage-fraud task force opens command center in Cleveland
Task force sets up office in Cleveland

A task force hacking through the Cleveland area’s tangled web of mortgage fraud has so much work that it has opened a full-time, high-tech command center.

Federal, state and Cuyahoga County agencies will fill the office with seven full-time and six part-time staff, County Prosecutor Bill Mason said. Investigators will collaborate on cases that may number in the thousands and involve hundreds of millions of dollars.

The office, opened within the last two weeks, is the only one of its kind in Ohio. It is in downtown Cleveland, but officials asked that the location be kept secret.

The task force, formed about a year ago, is shifting into high gear and uniting under one roof will improve communication and efficiency, Mason said.

In addition to Mason’s office, task force members will be from the Ohio attorney general’s office, the state Commerce Department, U.S. attorney’s office, FBI, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Postal Service, Department of Housing and Urban Development and local police departments.

….. The county is the foreclosure leader in Ohio, the state hit hardest by a nationwide spike. Ohio’s foreclosure rate for the first quarter of the year — 3.5 percent — was almost triple the national figure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Mortgage-fraud rings, capitalizing on some of the most lax lending policies in U.S. history, have blitzed entire Cleveland neighborhoods and extended their reach to outer suburbs like Solon. Mortgage brokers and others have cashed in on fees and inflated sale prices. Then, in many instances, they left homes abandoned.

Mortgage fraud is a problem nationwide, but the FBI considers Cuyahoga County a hot spot …..

….. Mortgage fraud may account for 25 percent of Ohio’s foreclosures, said state Attorney General Marc Dann, whose office is picking up much of the command center’s expense.
Dann declined to comment because he believes discussing it is prohibited by Ohio’s organized-crime law. Mason said the gag rule applies only to specific investigations.

Though the crackdown is only beginning, Mason’s office already has charged more than 140 people in cases involving more than 200 properties and $37.5 million in loans.

Ted and Marc: Congrats for your involvement in this. Now let them do their work.

Using criminal law is how you punish bad behavior and deter future bad behavior. You don’t do it by papering the good guys and the bad guys with guilty-until-proven-innocent subpoenas and lending regs that will contract the industry to the point where people who need loans and will be able to handle loans can’t get loans.