Historic RICO Prosecution of Alleged Mortgage Fraud Schemers in San Diego

[Mr. Ected]

Federal prosecutors in San Diego are using the RICO anti-racketeering laws to charge 24 people in an alleged $100 million mortgage-fraud ring.

They're claiming that this is the first time in the U.S. that RICO, commonly used against mobsters, has been used in a mortgage-fraud case.

In James Lieber's groundbreaking (for its historical sweep) Voice piece last January on Wall Street's meltdown, "What Cooked the World's Economy?," he mused about prosecutors possibly using RICO to prosecute gangbankers in, say, the "counterparty" scheme carried out by AIG and Goldman Sachs and other big banks:

Imagine if a ring of cashiers at a local bank made thousands of bad loans, aware that they could break the bank. They would be prosecuted for fraud and racketeering under the anti-gangster RICO Act. If their counterparties — the debtors — were in on the scam and understood that they didn't have to pay off the loans, they could be charged, too.

RICO has been used on Wall Street, though not in a mortgage-fraud case.

<snip>

http://www.thesmartasset.com/2009/04/historic_rico_prosecution_of_a.php

[Catshrink]

1. The is a great, precedent setting action.

The whole mortgage fraud thing is organized crime.

[girl gone mad]

2. This is a good start.

[pleah]

3. K&R