Alex Brandon/AP Photo
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks at a rally for Donald Trump in Greensboro, North Carolina, in November.
June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards were attorneys in the Economic Crimes division of the Florida attorney general’s office, based in Fort Lauderdale. They joined the government to prevent companies from ripping off their customers. In 2010, they heard from an oncology nurse named Lisa Epstein, who delivered information about how law firms across the state were using hundreds of thousands of phony documents to foreclose on homeowners. Lisa knew this because the banks tried to do it to her.
A group of foreclosure victims had found documents that were literally signed “Bogus Assignee.” They had documents dated 9/9/9999. They had documents notarized on dates before they were allegedly created. They traced these documents back to Florida’s “foreclosure mills,” law firms that churned out foreclosures the way a factory churns out sweaters. The false documents were necessary because banks and lenders, striving during the housing bubble to sell mortgages and deliver them to investors, securitized the loans without maintaining chain of title, botching the true ownership records. Instead of rectifying the situation, the banks had the foreclosure mills concoct false evidence and present it in courts to dispossess people.
Within months, the attorney general’s office had opened investigations into Lender Processing Services, Florida Default Law Group, the Law Office of David J. Stern, Marshall C. Watson, Shapiro & Fishman, and other components of Florida’s great foreclosure machine. In the course of the investigation, Clarkson and Edwards deposed Tammie Lou Kapusta, a former paralegal with David J. Stern, who testified that the firm employed offshore foreclosure document shops in Guam and the Philippines, receiving fake documents that the paralegals would sign. Notary stamps were sitting around the office, and anyone on the team would use them and forge the signatures of the notaries.
By October 2010, all of the leading banks stopped pursuing foreclosures in Florida and across the country, because they could no longer do it legally. It was an incredible example of citizen activism making a real difference, aided by Clarkson and Edwards, the first two law enforcement officials who were actually willing to investigate the fraud.
The system was working, until Pam Bondi came to town.
Bondi won election as Florida attorney general in 2010, thanks in part to thousands of dollars in contributions from none other than Lender Processing Services and its affiliates. After hearing about a slide presentation Clarkson and Edwards gave to county clerks in Florida that depicted how LPS employees signed false documents for JPMorgan Chase through a limited power of attorney agreement, Bondi dispatched the Economic Crimes unit’s director to scream at them, and warn them to lay low.
Clarkson and Edwards were deliberately frozen out of the 50-state attorney general investigation of foreclosure fraud, despite having the most knowledge of any prosecutors in the country. Most of their cases against the foreclosure mills were taken away from them, without even being able to provide transition notes to the new prosecutors. They were ordered not to speak to any other AG office, share any documents, file discovery requests, or take depositions. They were essentially neutered from performing their job, at the height of a massive crime wave they helped uncover.
By May 2011, Clarkson and Edwards were fired; after asking their supervisor why, he said, “It came from the top. Tallahassee didn’t give me a reason.”
After the story got out, Bondi’s spokesperson issued a statement smearing the two attorneys for a “lack of professionalism.” An inspector general report released later was even more gratuitous yet also petty, accusing Clarkson and Edwards of having “messy desks” and drawing complaints from corporate lobbyists. And the biggest allegation of misconduct in the report was that the attorneys dared to listen to Florida residents like Lisa Epstein and other foreclosure victims, who the report claimed were simply leveraging their relationships with the prosecutors to get free homes.
After Clarkson and Edwards left, the Florida attorney general’s office never issued another subpoena to any foreclosure mill or associated target. Bondi settled one case with a mill for a paltry $2 million, a small portion of the profits from illegal foreclosures. Other investigations were closed without charges. Top deputies from the AG’s office became senior executives at LPS and other foreclosure mills.
In perhaps the most brazen development, LPS successfully encouraged Bondi’s office to lobby their counterparts in Michigan to reduce charges against the company, even while LPS was at the time (at least theoretically) under active investigation in Florida.
Today, Clarkson and Edwards have a small consumer-focused law firm. Pam Bondi is now Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, after Matt Gaetz withdrew yesterday. Her track record of firing meddling attorneys who went after her corporate allies should serve her well, given Trump’s stated desire for vengeance against his enemies at the Justice Department.
There’s a lot out there about Bondi, including her soliciting a $25,000 contribution from Trump and subsequently scotching an investigation into his fake university, while lying about how many complaints from former students at the university she received. She also became a lobbyist with Trump-whisperer Brian Ballard after her stint as attorney general of Florida ended, seeking sweetheart treatment for clients like Amazon, GM, and Uber.
But the firing of Clarkson and Edwards, which is detailed further in my 2016 book Chain of Title, is the most emblematic example of Bondi’s extreme willingness to do the bidding of anyone who pays her. The conversion of corporate donations into protection for that corporation, even if it meant firing her own staff, was done without so much as the bat of an eyelash.
The alleged “realignment” of the Republican Party into one that looks out for the little guy has never been so laughable as with the announcement of Bondi to run the Justice Department. Matt Gaetz may have been a sleazeball. But Bondi entered office as millions of Americans were losing their homes due to routinized fraud that key attorneys on her team ferreted out, and she saw to it that nobody would pay any real price for that, except for the attorneys who were attempting to protect the public. Unfortunately, this kind of execrable conduct doesn’t trigger concern on the part of Republican senators; it’s just how business is done in Trump’s Washington.
I asked Lisa Epstein about the Bondi selection. She said: “The institutions weren’t there for people during the global financial crisis, and the chickens are coming home to roost.”
