Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post

A foreclosure fraud report compiled by two ousted Florida investigators was instrumental this month in winning a New York homeowner her case.

The report by former state assistant attorneys general June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards is a step-by-step account of how some lenders allegedly sidestepped foreclosure laws using flawed and possibly fraudulent paperwork. The report, which cites Ocwen Financial Corp., a loan servicer that has workers in West Palm Beach, was first reported in The Palm Beach Post.

Edwards said she and Clarkson were abruptly asked to resign or face firing from the attorney general’s office in late May without reason and with no time to brief other employees on their foreclosure investigations.

Florida foreclosure defense attorneys said it’s ironic that the duo’s findings would be used as evidence in a New York case after they were asked to resign in Florida despite positive performance reviews. The most recent evaluation of Edwards noted that her foreclosure investigation “has been instrumental in triggering a nationwide review of such practices.”

“It is telling that, once again, a New York court is more interested in exposing fraud taking place right here in Palm Beach County than our own Florida courts, even citing to the investigation of the Florida Attorney General,” said Tom Ice of Ice Legal in Royal Palm Beach.

Repeatedly mentioned in the New York ruling is Ocwen, which has about 245 employees in West Palm Beach.

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack in his July 1 ruling against HSBC Bank questions variations in signatures of Ocwen employees, who serviced the home loan for HSBC. He also ruled that HSBC had no standing to file the foreclosure because of a faulty assignment of mortgage.

Schack read about the report by Edwards and Clarkson titled “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases” in a Palm Beach Post article published in January. The article included information in the report on signatures of alleged Ocwen robo-signer Scott Anderson.

“While I have never personally met Mr. Anderson, his signatures have appeared in many foreclosure documents in this court,” Schack wrote. “His claims of wearing different corporate hats and the variations in the scrawls of initials used for his signature on mortgage documents has earned Mr. Anderson notoriety as a robo-signer.”

Schack meticulously describes four different styles of Anderson’s, saying in one signature variation “the letter ‘S’ is a cursive bell-shaped curve overlapping with the cursive letter ‘A’.”

In another variation “one cursive letter looks almost like the letter ‘O.’ It is a circle sitting in a valley created by something that looks like the cursive letter ‘M.’ ”

Ocwen says there has been no wrongdoing.

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