Dear Wine Lovers:
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Weston, Florida, 33326
Mattie Lee Blith has been dead 23 years but she’s still registered to vote in Palm Beach County.
Recent college graduate Brett Ackerman is registered three times in two counties.
And convicted felon Joseph Muro just signed up to vote — from a state mental institution for the criminally insane.
With balloting well under way in the general election, the Sun Sentinel found more than 65,000 ineligible and duplicate voters on Florida’s registration rolls
Ah Ha————————–
Over 30,000 convicted felons still on the voting rolls of the State of Florida registered to vote in 2008
Oh by the way about 5,200 of these 30,000 are still in prison-Big Deal!!! This is Florida- if you have a pulse your an honored member of the tribe. Flori-DA!!!!!
Shades of 2000 when the rest of the country watched Florida in all its dummy glory count hanging chads.
Hi everyone, I have (hope you noticed) I have been on a personal journey and hve not posted for over two months!- Amazing-, since I have been gone some of the usual Florida screw-ups and now some not so usual Federal screw-ups have occured including:
The Government and Wall Street have stolen a few TRILLION, and of course the great American Pariot Middle-Class (includes me) will pay it back over the next two- to-four years
Neither canidate has distinquished themseleves-so it looks like whoever wins we have troubles ahead of us
The great State of Florida as it’s usual Bone Head ways has over 30,000 FELONS still allowed to vote even if it is illegal (Only in Florida Rule)
Still have FELONS writing mortgages in the Great State of Florida(Only in Florida rule)
We have our continued home sale meltdown
Town of Davie trying to charge non-Davie residents a accident fee (police and fire) if they have an accident in Town Borders-Maybe they should clean up thier own internal mis-management of funds first
Well here we go again, Alligator Alley a road traveled by 30,000 cars and trucks per day is going to be sold to a foreign investor for the next 75 years. Ok we need the money, the Florida budget is crushed by a tune of over 2 billions dollars in cuts, the recession is in full bloom glory here in Florida.-BUT wait a second! This type of move reminds me of…… ME….., twenty-five years ago and everytime my personal budget was upside down. Ok, I am in the red this month, let me take some ridiculous credit card cash advance, at a usery rate of interest to cover my tushy, panic, little thought, no research, no cost comparsions, no logic if I bite the bullet I will survive, etc…, etc., etc…, six months later cursing that I owe this money at this never pay off interest rate-I think a lot of us can relate… But the idea of having a foreign based corporation own the lease on Alligator Alley for the next 75 years make me feel extremely jittery. The way the State is slipping this agreement under the radar lets me know that they donot like it-But they want the money NOW. Read this article and I believe we need to re-think this issue before its to late.
The Story
Last week brought one of the weirder public meetings I’ve seen. Finished in 22 minutes, no questions or discussion, just some transportation bureaucrats obliquely briefing other transportation bureaucrats about documents the public and media couldn’t see.
Welcome to the murky ride that’s taking us to the privatization of Alligator Alley.
At this point, we don’t know a lot, like how much tolls might go up or how much the state might get for leasing out the 78-mile stretch of Interstate 75 to a private operator for 50-75 years.
And I couldn’t get a clear answer Friday to an intriguing question: Whether part of the lease windfall would be used to help pay for Gov. Charlie Crist proposed $1.6 billion buyout of U.S. Sugar.
All we know is that this path has been set in motion with alarmingly little public input or debate.
This began last year when the Legislature approved, and Crist signed, a law allowing long-term private leases on state toll roads not operated by the Florida Turnpike Enterprise.
Faced with a budget crunch, Crist has embraced the idea for some easy cash.
I haven’t liked this proposal all along, but the way it’s moving forward makes me like it even less.
It’s gone from “Oh, we’re just exploring the possibilities” to a timetable posted on a state Web site that concludes with “Execution of Concession Agreement.”
The only two public hearings were held in May during workdays, and the Broward County meeting was sparsely attended. Those hearings were held before we knew the bidders or the proposed contract details.
Barbara Kelleher, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Transportation, said it is unclear whether there’ll be more public hearings. Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Crist, said there are still numerous opportunities for public input, including workshops and presentations to county commissions.
Here’s my idea for public input. If you don’t like the idea of possible steep toll hikes and a profit-driven operator controlling a major highway crucial to hurricane evacuations, contact Crist and let him know.
o
Six groups have submitted proposals to the state, and all have foreign ties. The bidders include Atlantia S.p.A. of Italy, Vinci Concessions of France and a partnership of a Portuguese company and JP Morgan. There are also three Spanish companies competing; each has teamed up with an American investment/equity firm ( Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group).
The field will be winnowed at an Aug. 25 meeting in Naples and a contract draft is supposed to be released the following day. Then comes the selection of a preferred bidder, followed by a posting of a “formal intent to award.”
There is one hurdle. By law, the lease needs majority approval by the Legislative Budget Commission. “That’s kind of good news,” said Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston, who sits on the commission, comprised of 10 Republicans and four Democrats.
Rich is dead-set against the privatization proposal, and she also is bothered by the lack of public input.
Like me, she wonders why the state would lease an existing toll road when the state could get upfront cash through a bond issue backed by future toll revenues. A study by the KPMG accounting firm has suggested the state could raise $600 million to $1.6 billion through bonds.
“We can get money in another way and not sell our souls to outsiders or foreign companies,” she said.
Last year, the state collected $23.5 million in tolls from Alligator Alley and spent $6.1 million on operations and routine maintenance, according to the DOT. About 30,000 cars travel the road daily.
The DOT says the details of the toll increase won’t be known until a contract is worked out. Currently, the toll is $2.50 each way for passenger cars, $2 with a SunPass.
Also unclear: Whether the lease money could fund the Evergladesdeal for U.S. Sugar’s land. State law allows Alligator Alley revenue to go to the South Florida Water Management District Everglades Fund. A 1997 agreement set a $63 million overall cap on the contribution over 20 years, but there’s wriggle room for change. Officials say the bulk of the lease money will go toward new road projects in Broward and Collier counties.
Well I guess we should not be surprised that South Florida is again Number One in the nation for Medicaid fraud. We are very good at screwing people and screwing up. But this excellent investigative piece by the Miami Herald really gives you chills when you think about our government from a couple of different angles. This investigative piece strikes me right between the eyes when it consistently refers to illegal immigrates, or immigrates on qustionable status ripping off the system to the tune of hundrens of millions of dollars and then returning to the Dominican Repubic and Cuba. It seeems almost matter of factly that our Federal Government accepts billions of dollars in losses as the cost of doing business, Great, let’s have more of this trash invade our country and do nothing about it!
Wow, the government, Florida, John Edwards, dumb….dumber…and wow dumbest.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages the 43-year-old federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled, doesn’t have a specific amount for the cost of corruption nationwide. Internal audits mainly focus on billing mistakes, excessive payments and other waste with only a fractional measure of fraud. Therefore, the agency estimates its combined loss is $11 billion annually.
Private healthcare companies, credit card companies and other industries have implemented new technology to fight fraud aggressively, but Medicare has failed to adopt even the most basic changes that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general has warned are sorely needed to combat the crisis.
Medicare, one of the government’s largest agencies, seems more intent on paying claims quickly than verifying them first, according to many critics and law enforcement officials.
DRUG INFUSION
Consider this statistic: In 2005, South Florida clinics — mostly concentrated in Miami-Dade — submitted $2.2 billion in HIV-drug infusion bills to Medicare, according to the inspector general. That was 22 times more than the total HIV infusion claims submitted to Medicare by healthcare clinics in the rest of the country combined. The trend continues to this day.
In addition, false claims for medical supplies such as motorized wheelchairs, glucose monitors and oxygen equipment run into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually in South Florida.
These two areas of healthcare corruption, which have become targets of heightened federal prosecutions, account for at least $2.5 billion in Medicare fraud annually in South Florida, according to authorities. But that figure is conservative because it excludes other areas of potential Medicare fraud — hospitals, home healthcare assistance and prescription drugs.
Still, the medicial equipment and HIV-infusion schemes alone add up to at least $7 million in Medicare fraud daily in South Florida, where a sprawling cast of illegal HIV-therapy clinics, bogus suppliers, inner-city patient recruiters, complicit doctors and devious billing companies have even used the names of dead doctors to bilk the U.S. government out of billions of Medicare dollars.
”I knew Miami was bad, but I was shocked when I got here,” said Timothy Delaney, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Miami and the head of the bureau’s national healthcare fraud program from 2000 to 2004. “There is fraud here like nowhere else in the country. Los Angeles is second, but nowhere like it is here.”
South Florida’s U.S. attorney, R. Alexander Acosta, placed much of the blame on Medicare and its system of screening bills, saying its poor oversight forces authorities to chase criminals long after they have absconded with taxpayer dollars. Little of the money is recovered.
”At a time when we’re trying to find billions of dollars to pay for healthcare in this country, it’s disgusting that so much money is being wasted because of Medicare fraud,” Acosta said.
Kimberly Brandt, director of program integrity at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said there’s only so much the agency can do to protect the system because of limited resources. Congress has appropriated $720 million to combat fraud, with no increase in the past three years. That’s a small piece of Medicare’s $432 billion annual budget.
”I think the important thing for people to understand is that this didn’t happen overnight, and it’s not something Medicare could have detected overnight,” she said.
Federal authorities are often unable to track down Medicare fraud culprits who flee the country.
A Miami Herald review of FBI, U.S. attorney and federal court records found that at least 56 of the roughly 700 Medicare fraud defendants are fugitives — with at least 18 suspected of having fled to Cuba during the past five years. The others went to Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Canada, Europe or are still in Florida.
Federal authorities and experts who have followed Medicare fraud say the South Florida perpetrators are not unlike segments of immigrant groups in other major cities who band together to abuse the system because of an implicit trust.
Cuban immigrants make up the vast majority of defendants prosecuted on charges of submitting billions of dollars in false Medicare claims since 2004, records show.
Among them: The Benitez brothers, charged with defrauding Medicare by billing $110 million in false claims for HIV-drug infusion treatments at their dozen clinics in Miami-Dade County. Medicare paid their companies about $84 million between 2001 and 2004, according to federal prosecutors.
The three brothers spent their ill-gotten gains on homes, helicopters, hotels, apartments, boats, even a water park — all in the resort area of Bavaro, Dominican Republic, according to federal authorities.
After being indicted on federal fraud charges in Miami in late May, Carlos, Jose and Luis Benitez used their Cuban passports to travel from South Florida to the Dominican Republic, then to Cuba. With help from Dominican authorities, the Justice Department is seizing their properties and freezing their bank accounts on the island.
The FBI’s Delaney and Medicare’s Brandt said that illegal healthcare operators of Cuban descent are among several pockets of immigrant crooks.
This article is laughable and it is another example of how bad the judgement and skills of our local administrators and politicians. Place this article where towns like Davie want to impose a seperate fee for Floridians who drive into town and have a traffic accident verus all the corrupution and incompetence that Broward towns consistently exhibit ( see Dennis Kovanes, Plantation 911, Broward Board of Education buying swamp land, Florida mortgage felons, etc, etc, etc).
Tradition in South Florida, nickle and dime the locals, and rob or allowed to be robbed on the larger scale by everyone else. The people who run various parts of Florida tend to not think thru questions and answers, think short term or long term, or even pay lip service to what might be best for the communities. You can hire anybody to come up with stupid answers to recessions, budget cuts, and general slow periods ( and we have an abundance of these types)-what we need are people who actually THINK, make at least an effort to develope plans and administrations that TRY to make South Florida seem like it’s part of The USA (Remember 2000 Presidential election,the hanging chads, the national response, Flori-duh !
This latest hair brain idea-as usual does not make sense.
Hi Florida: SCREW YOU
Prepare to pay more if you get into a traffic accident.Davie this month will likely vote on whether to bill drivers from outside the town who are cited in collisions requiring the attention of police and firefighters. Plantation, Miramar and Southwest Ranches are exploring similar proposals.
Davie and Miramar may charge nonresidents only. Plantation and Southwest Ranches have not decided who would be subject to the fee.
“There are going to be more user fees to offset the general reduction in tax revenue,” said Phil Rosenberg, Miramar’s human resources director. “This trend is coming to a Florida near you.”
Although the Central Florida municipalities of Deland and Winter Haven already charge such fees, critics say they pervert the intent of voter-approved tax cuts and question whether they are legal if applied only to nonresidents. The new levies could also ignite a fee war. Weston, for example, has threatened to respond in kind if neighboring cities impose accident charges on its residents.
Pembroke Pines commissioners on July 28 voted against imposing an accident fee, citing concerns it would expose the city to costly legal challenges.
Davie defended the fee as “a way of recouping tax dollars that are spent on nonresidents,” town spokesman Braulio Rosa said. “Because Davie has all these highways, Davie’s emergency personnel are often responding to accidents, but they are not reaping the benefits of their tax dollars.”
Emergency crews responded to 2,371 vehicle crashes in Davie from Jan. 1 through July 30, according to town figures.
“Even so, it’s not right,” said Norm Blanco, 70, president of the Villas of Arista Park Homeowner’s Association near Interstate 595 in Davie. “We are reaching. We are trying to get money to make up for the loss in our tax revenue.”
Many local governments already charge to transport accident victims by ambulance or helicopter. The new fees would cover the costs of emergency personnel, equipment and services sent to help at-fault drivers involved in wrecks.
Davie is considering an average charge of $840. Miramar, Plantation and Southwest Ranches are sorting out how much to charge, if anything, and under what circumstances. In Davie, the proposed fee would offset what the city typically spends to send public safety workers to accidents, including the cost of gas, vehicle maintenance and salaries, Assistant Fire Chief Frank Suriano said. The city has not determined whether to bill the families of at-fault drivers who are killed in accidents, Suriano said.
Fort Lauderdale said it had no immediate plans to impose such fees; Hollywood said they pose logistical challenges.
Bertha Henry, Broward County’s interim administrator, said, “When you start talking about public safety, you want to keep your focus on taking care of people during an accident.”
Brandon Hensler, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said that by singling out nonresidents, proposals being drafted in Davie and Miramar “raise questions about equal and fair treatment of citizens” and could spur lawsuits.
The municipalities considering accident fees say they will likely bill insurance companies, although uninsured drivers may have to pick up the tab.
If the fees are imposed, “motorists could see their premiums go up,” said Michal Connolly, a spokeswoman for State Farm Insurance, the state’s largest private insurer.
That worries Charles Greene, 57, a retired computer designer from Davie. “Anything that raises insurance rates is a terrible idea. Plus, once you allow government to dig into someone’s pocket, it’s just a matter of time before they charge residents, too.”
In Davie, the accident fees would generate about $690,000 annually; in Plantation, $500,000; and in Miramar, $200,000, according to figures provided by each municipality. Southwest Ranches officials are not far enough along with their research to estimate how much an accident fee would net.
“In the past, we have always been able to cover these expenses through the tax base,” Plantation Fire Battalion Chief Joel Gordon said. “There are fuel, personnel and maintenance costs — all the things that were covered by property taxes, are now potentially not covered. They have to be paid for somehow.”
Don Saxon, native Floridian (born Ft Lauderdale), Commissioner Financial Regulation
Under fire for allowing bank robbers and racketeers to sell home loans in Florida, the state’s chief mortgage industry regulator said he fought to ban ex-convicts from the business during the 2008 legislative session.
The regulator, Don Saxon, said he was ”proactive in drafting proposed language to change the law,” in a 40-page defense of his agency last week.
But Saxon, commissioner of the Office of Financial Regulation, never took his case to legislators who could effectively push the change and didn’t ask key Cabinet leaders to support the idea, The Miami Herald has found.
The longtime state regulator has faced mounting calls for his resignation since the newspaper reported last week that his office allowed more than 10,000 people with criminal records to sell mortgages in Florida between 2000 and 2007.
Brokers with convictions went on to steal at least $85 million from consumers and banks, The Miami Herald found, while the state’s mortgage-fraud rate reached the highest level in the nation.
Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but everytime I research another Florida disaster, ie. mortgage fraud, 911 failure, traffic highway designs, budget corruption and misuse, overcrowding, destruction of the beauty of South Florida, no affordable housing, failure of the education system, etc, etc, etc, if there is a “ground zero” villian it usually goes right to a native Floridian, elected or appointed who seems to have created most of the problem (see Don Saxon, example number one)!
I have been visiting and vacationing in Florida since 1975, I have lived here full time since 2004, all I have have ever hear from the”locals’ is how it’ New Yorker’s who destroyed our state, it’s those “Cubans” who have destroyed our state, it’s those “non -english hispanics” who have destroyed our state, blah, blah blah!
Wake up, do a little research about Your State, it consistenly has been one of Florida’s own who have screwed this state up , like Mr Don Saxon of Ft Lauderdale.
To many homes and condo’s in South Florida?, How did that happen, well it’s a three part equation, Part One a local land owner has to sell it, Part Two a local elected/appointed official has to approve it, and then Part Three the Bad Guys (Ie out of state people) buy and build it!
To many illegal aliens bring down wages (which are always way to low) living in Florida, who’s fault is that.
Right to work state, that translates to me in a Right Not To Make Money State, who’s fault is that.
Horrible traffic, ridiculous highway designs (see the Golden Glades and Route 595 and the turnpike, who’s fault is that.
Tallahasse being held hostage by Disney so that they refuse to allow South Florida to become the tourist capital of the world, which it should be, who’s fault is that.
On, and on, and on, who’s fault is that.
Come on South Florida, wake up and participate, before it really is to late.
responses, suggestions, etc comments@thinkweston.com
REMEMBERING SERGEANT CHRIS REYKA
This August marks the one-year anniversary of Sergeant Chris Reyka’s tragic death. Sgt. Reyka was brutally gunned down while checking on a suspicious vehicle at a Pompano Beach Walgreen’s. The person or persons responsible for this heinous crime have not been brought to justice.
Throughout his career, Sgt. Reyka was highly praised by his superiors and peers for his dedication to duty. Prior to becoming a law enforcement officer, Sgt. Reyka served with the U.S. Marines. He was an outstanding law man, a courageous American and most importantly – a dedicated family man.
The more than 6,000 members of the Broward Sheriff’s Office mourned the loss of Sgt. Reyka. But, there is nobody that felt his loss more than his family. Sgt. Reyka’s widow, Kim, and their four children: Ashley, Sean, Autumn and Spencer have been left to deal with the aftermath of this senseless tragedy.
In just a 12-month period, the Broward Sheriff’s Office suffered the loss of three deputy sheriffs shot and killed in the line of duty.
BSO is committed to solving Sgt. Reyka’s homicide, but we need your help. We are certain that someone; somewhere knows who perpetrated this crime. Our agency will never stop working to solve Sgt. Reyka’s murder. I ask you to visit our web site, www.sheriff.org to view a photo of the car we are looking for. There is a substantial reward for the person that leads us to the successful prosecution of the killer or killers. There could be no better reward than giving the Reyka family the closure they deserve.
On Friday, August 8, at 9:00 a.m., the Broward Sheriff’s Office will hold a Sgt. Chris Reyka Rally and March staring at BSO’s Pompano District Office. The march will end at the Walgreen’s where Sgt. Reyka lost his life (2.6 mile march). We are asking all Broward residents and business owners to participate. For details about the event you can visit our web site or call 954.831.8902.
When a law enforcement officer is sworn in to duty he must take an oath to serve and protect. Sgt. Chris Reyka was doing just that when he was taken from us. For his sacrifice we will honor him always
any ideas, comments, suggestions click comments@thinkweston.com
The Miami Herald has released an eight month investigative piece on the mortgage industry in Florida. Well what a shock, the mortgage industry which exploded over the past eight years in South Florida was overwhemed with criminals doing what they do best STEAL. All the sterotypes about Florida fall right into place, criminals flocking to Florida, a local governement cutting corners to make money, unsuspecting seniors and the less sophisticated (which Florida has an abundance) being duped. So what do we have, a recession in Florida additionally feulded by our ”mind set” of sloppy government who are almost never held to ANY standard! Well the national image of Florida is the “Fraud State“. Hey you can never accuse us of not being good at what we are bad at!
Miami Herald Investigative Report (Partial):
Gary Kafka, former body builder uith a long rap sheet and violent past, wrote millions of dollars in mortgages in South Florida without ever applying for a state license.
Fresh out of prison after serving time for bank fraud, he never went through a criminal background check before selling loans. He never took a competency exam.
He never had to.
More than half the mortgage professionals registered in Florida — 120,563 — entered the industry this decade without being licensed by the state, The Miami Herald found.
Miami Herald investigation showed that more than 10,000 people with criminal records were permitted to work in Florida’s mortgage industry during the housing boom between 2000 and 2007. Of those, 4,065 cleared background checks despite having committed crimes that state law requires regulators to screen, including bank robbery, racketeering and extortion.
Florida has the highest mortgage fraud rate in the country.
Known as loan originators, they perform the same job as mortgage brokers but aren’t bound by the same rules.
Time and again, industry leaders asked Florida regulators to bring this group under their watch by imposing mandatory licensing. But regulators refused to press for any changes, claiming that lawmakers would never approve.
The state’s refusal proved costly during the biggest housing boom in Florida history: Thousands of loan originators entered the industry with criminal histories, state records show.
While The Miami Herald found breakdowns in the state’s licensing system for mortgage brokers, the lack of controls over originators created even more problems for an industry steeped in the highest fraud rate in the nation.
The special group was created by state lawmakers 17 years ago to make it easier for lenders to hire people as the industry was growing.
But in the past eight years, more people with criminal records jumped into the business as loan originators than as any other category of mortgage professionals.
‘IT’S EMBARRASSING’
”It’s more than disappointing, it’s embarrassing,” said Joseph Falk, a Miami mortgage broker and former president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, who tried to get regulators to license loan originators in 2002.
”It was pretty easy for someone to enter the industry because there were no standards. If there’s no one policing, anyone who wanted to join the industry could do so.”
Pamela Simmons turned to a loan originator with a criminal past in 2005 to refinance her three-bedroom house in Pompano Beach, but ended up losing it.
”This was everything to me,” said the single mother, tears in her eyes as she stood in front of the house. ”It’s the only home I ever owned.”
A review of thousands of pages of court documents, state industry reports, internal e-mails and police reports shows that from 2000 to 2007:
• 5,306 people with criminal histories( did not pass a background check-or were never checked at all!) became loan originators — a rate of nearly two a day. Worse, those include 2,201 who had committed financial crimes
• Even large lenders hired loan originators with criminal backgrounds. The Miami Herald found that in at least 30 companies with 50 or more employees, more than one in five originators had a criminal record.
• Nearly two dozen people stripped of their licenses as mortgage brokers were able to sidestep regulators by becoming loan originators. Nine others who were denied licenses because of prior crimes or regulatory violations were able to do the same.
”It’s a huge hole,” said Ronald Brenner, a former Florida mortgage regulator who once led the agency’s Miami office. ”You could get the worst thief in the world, a fraudster to the nth degree, and when he gets out of jail he can come work at your mortgage operation, and if he doesn’t have a broker’s license, all the better.”
Kafka, 48, joined America’s Best Lending in Boynton Beach in 2004 after living in a halfway house.
While his federal probation officer said in court records that Kakfa should not be working in the mortgage industry, he went on to join two other firms without disclosing his past.
Two years after he began to peddle mortgages, he was convicted of cheating lenders of $2.7 million in loans at America’s Best Lending by inflating incomes, boosting assets and misrepresenting other finances.
”You never would have guessed it,” said Philip Sencer, who hired Kafka at a Wellington firm in 2006. ”He was the type of guy you’d invite to your home for a barbeque.”
BURDEN ON LENDERS
State regulators say they don’t license loan originators, but they regulate those who hire them: mortgage lenders. The 1991 law allowing originators made it clear: The burden is on the lenders to ensure that everyone follows the law.
If a lender refuses to act on complaints against a loan originator, the state can discipline the lender, said Terry Straub, recently appointed director of the Office of Financial Regulation’s Division of Finance.
”We hold them accountable,” he said. But The Miami Herald found that in at least nine major cases when originators were arrested for mortgage fraud, no action was taken against their lenders.
While Florida requires lenders to report the names of their loan originators every quarter, the newspaper found that hundreds of companies don’t follow the law. In the first half of 2005 — during the peak of the boom — 355 didn’t file required reports, according to the state’s own records.
Falk, the former president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, said the lack of reporting in the state system allows too many gaps.
The lack of tracking leads to even more problems: Without any central registration and with no requirements for entry, loan originators with criminal histories can move from firm to firm without divulging their past.
There is no state law requiring lenders to check their background.
If they had, they would have found that Kafka spent nearly three years in federal prison for loan fraud in 1999 and illegally keeping an arsenal of guns and ammunition while a resident of Ocean Ridge, near Boynton Beach.
Sencer, who hired Kafka at Financial Security in Wellington, said he learned of Kafka’s police record only after federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents showed up at his office in 2005. Sencer said that when he met with prosecutors, ‘they told me, ”You got duped.’ ”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Karadbil, who prosecuted Kafka, said the former loan originator was able to conceal his past while peddling loans, partly because he didn’t have to submit to criminal background checks.
”There has to be some way to know in this industry whether you’re dealing with a convicted felon,” Karadbil said. ”At least borrowers or employers should know that.”
Even before his latest conviction, Kafka had a criminal record dating to 1977, including 15 arrests and four felony convictions, court records show. The charges include grand theft, burglary and possession of contraband in prison.
He is now back in prison — serving 57 months — for the most recent mortgage scheme.
A NEW CALLING
Harry Rolle was a convicted felon who had declared personal bankruptcy three times before he became a loan originator in 2001 for International Lenders of South Florida in Oakland Park.
Within months, he found his first victim: Elsa Erarte, a single mother who worked at Walgreens in Miami. Rolle pocketed a $16,000 down payment she had given him while he was supposed to help her find a home, saying it was nonrefundable.
She sued Rolle in Miami-Dade Circuit Court and got her money back in a judgment in 2004. ”It was all the money she had,” recalled her attorney, Joel Friedman. ”She had spent years saving it.”
But the court case didn’t stop Rolle.
The 53-year-old loan salesman went on to cheat four more borrowers through a variety of means: pocketing their down payments, skimming from their loans, and selling their homes without their approval, court records state.
”The guy was a consummate con artist,” said Joseph Wilson, an investigator for the Office of Financial Regulation, who referred the case to police. ”He had the ability to gain people’s confidence by saying what people wanted to hear.”
In 2005, the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office finally prosecuted Rolle as a habitual offender on fraud charges — for ripping off Erarte and others. A judge gave him a year in jail.
Under state law, there is nothing to stop loan originators convicted of ripping off borrowers from returning to the industry.
Because they aren’t licensed, there are no records of discipline or past crimes involving money or moral turpitude — and no files for public inspection.
Bernard Williams, who pleaded guilty to stealing $6,000 from two elderly women — the bills ripped from the seams of their clothes — said he found the easiest route to sell home loans by becoming a loan originator in 2001.
”I didn’t have a problem getting in,” he told The Miami Herald.
Williams, 54, said he decided to sell loans because the market was booming and he knew that ”there was money to be made.” Over the next five years, he worked for three separate lenders.
But while he was writing loans for dozens of working-class families, he and several co-conspirators were accused by Florida’s attorney general of fleecing 80 people of nearly $2 million, according to a civil fraud suit filed in Broward County Circuit Court in January.
The suit says Williams, who has not been criminally charged, joined others in a scheme to siphon money from loans designed to save people from losing their homes. Like Pamela Simmons, several claim that Williams put their homes up for sale without their permission. He and others then pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in profits in each case by charging inflated fees, the suit alleges.
”I worked hard — three jobs — to get that house,” said Simmons, 40, who has five children.
Williams insists he did nothing wrong, saying the suit will be resolved in his favor. ”This is all a headache,” said Williams, who continues to work as a loan originator in North Miami-Dade.
He refused to talk about his guilty plea in 1994 for stealing from two elderly women, drawing a 30-day sentence and five years of probation.
`FEEDING FRENZY’
As the housing boom exploded in 2001, so did the number of people rushing into the mortgage industry, with loan originators leading the way. But as their numbers rose each year — 66 a day in 2005 — so did the number of former criminals.
With home sales rising more than 20 percent a year in parts of Florida, mortgage companies were hiring loan originators at an unprecedented rate, state records show.
”Back then, it was such a feeding frenzy,” said David Velazquez, 37, a former loan originator in Broward who served time in prison for drug trafficking. ‘People were saying, `We need loan originators. We’ll train you.’ It was so busy. They were pulling in anyone they could.”
In all, more than 5,300 people with criminal histories rushed into Florida’s mortgage industry as loan originators since 2000. Even for people who had five or more convictions, there were no impediments to getting in.
According to state Department of Corrections data and county court records:
• Brian Lendin served six prison terms totaling a dozen years between 1983 and 2000 for crimes including grand theft, manslaughter and aggravated battery.
• Rosendo Perez was convicted of mortgage fraud, grand theft and forgery between 1990 and 2000.
• Ronald D. Collins was convicted 37 times between
I live on the border of Davie, a town in Broward County. And if you didn’t know Davie prides itself on its “Redneck” image, which includes not being so friendly to strangers, especially if they have a “Yankee” accent ( I kid you not). Well of course being a “Yankee-Boy” who moved there I was given an initial period of grief. But being a classic New York City Boy (Hell’s Kitchen) I can’t be run off easy ( to stubborn or to stupid). The good stuff is that I had to bone up on the Civil War, in Davie I presume like it is in the rural South they still argue about it like it was only a couple of years ago, I trashed them about their racial intolorance, their anti-semitism, and there basic anti-If your not like Larry The Cable Man ( who happens to be a very intelligent guy as most comics are) we don’t like you social position. They gave me a hard time about being from New Yawk, wearing shirts with collars, reading a newspaper at the bar, and stuff like that. After a year or so, the rednecks and I have resolved our casual “friendship”, and have met at some kind of middle ground. Some have become very good friends, and with this in mind I pay homage with some of my favorite Redneck Jokes, I hope you like them,
You know that your a redneck if;
You’ve been to a funeral and there were more pick-ups than cars.
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You prefer car keys to Q-tips.
Your soap on a rope doubles as an air freshener
You have spent more on your pickup truck than on your education
You’re a lite beer drinker, because you start drinking when it gets light.
Your Junior/Senior Prom had a Daycare.
You think the last words to The Star Spangled Banner are, “Gentlemen, start your engines.”
You can remember the entire NASCAR series schedule but can’t remember your wifes birthday, kids birthday, or anniversary.
You own a home that is mobile and 5 cars that aren’t.
Your boat has not left the drive-way in 15 years.
You have a picture of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, or Elvis over your fireplace.
You’ve ever financed a tattoo
Have some more redneck jokes we can publish send to comments@thinkweston.com
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