LUNAR ECLIPSE IN LOS ANGELES, FEB 22, 2008

(Photo by SB)

The Big Sleaze

COUNTRYWIDE IN SAMAAN V ZERNIK

COUNTRYWIDE IN SAMAAN V ZERNIK – COMPILATION OF DATA

I.

Nature of the Case

Formally – Real Property Rights, a real estate dispute between Samaan and Zernik
In Fact – Countrywide is the dominant entity in this case.

II .
At a Glance

• Total pages filed by Countrywide so far (rough conservative estimate) ~ 3,000
• Total number of different party designations for Countrywide listed below - 12
• Number of judges whose disqualification openly involved Countrywide so far - 4
• Estimated personal annual income of Sandor Samuels – Party in Interest – many millions
• Estimated personal annual income of Angelo Mozilo – Party in Interest - many millions
• Value of the real property in question, or its ownership to Countrywide, Samuels, and/or
Mozilo – None
• Damages to Countrywide from the publication Jan 8, 2008 of one case of filing fraudulentdocuments in court - -Billions

III.
Designations of Countrywide1 in Court Papers

Lacking in Foundation

1. Transcripts

Date _________Judge_________ Designation
Aug 9, 2007_____ Connor__________ Countrywide
Aug 2, 2007 _____Segal___________ Plaintiff
Aug 1, 2007 _____Segal____________Plaintiff
July 23, 2007____ Connor __________Defendant

2. Minute Orders

Date________ _Judge _________Designations

Jan 15, 2008____ Friedman________ None

(Countrywide’s counsel listed as if it were counsel for Defendant Zernik, Countrywide is not mentioned by name)
Dec 4, 2007_____ Segal____________ Intervenor, Defendant, “not
a party”, “a witness”
Nov 14, 2007____ Segal____________ Intervenor
Nov 9, 2007 _____Segal____________ Intervenor
Nov 5, 2007_____ Segal____________ Intervenor
Oct 26, 2007____ Segal ____________Intervenor
Oct 23, 2007____ Segal____________ Intervenor
Oct 17, 2007_____ Segal____________ Intervenor
Oct 11, 2007 _____Segal____________ Intervenor
Oct 10, 2007_____ Segal____________ Intervenor
Aug 09, 2007____ Connor___________ Defendant
July 6, 2007_____ Connor___________ Non-party

REMOVED PER REQUEST

THANKS TO FRIENDS AND TOTAL STRANGERS!

Help arrived in the last two years from friends and total strangers, after our paths mysteriously crossed each other.

THANKS!

Joseph Zernik
Defendant and Cross Complainant
in pro per

FROM CONSPIRACY THEORY TO COMMON WISDOM... JAN 8, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) - Shares of Countrywide Financial Corp. plummeted Tuesday after a New York Times report said the mortgage lender fabricated bankruptcy documents and a Lehman Brothers analyst said the company is unlikely to return to prior profitability levels.
Shares of Countrywide fell $2.17, or 28.4 percent, to $5.47 Tuesday. Earlier in the session,
shares bottomed out at an all-time low of $5.05 after speculation the company was planning to file for bankruptcy itself. Countrywide later denied the rumors.
Countrywide shares have already lost about 26 percent of their value since the beginning of
the year. Since the beginning of 2007, shares of Countrywide have plummeted about 84
percent.
According to the New York Times article, Countrywide "recreated" letters claiming a borrower owed the company $4,700, even though the borrower was under bankruptcy protection.
Countrywide said in a statement documents were not recreated, and that it was not trying to pass off the letters as being sent borrower. Instead, the letters were printed with dates that listed when payment adjustments were made to the borrower's escrow The case is one of 300 bankruptcy cases in western Pennsylvania where Countrywide's practices are being scrutinized.
The nation's largest mortgage lender has been trying to cope with a worsening housing market and rising delinquencies and defaults, among subprime mortgages given to customers with poor credit history.
Countrywide posted $1.2 billion in losses in the third quarter of 2007 because of the weakening mortgage market. Countrywide million during that quarter to cover rising defaults among loans.
The lender essentially shut down its subprime lending operations and is instead focusing on originating loans that conform to Fannie Freddie Mac guidelines. Because the loans meet the criteria of two government-sponsored entities, they are considered safe investments.
But they are also less profitable. Lehman Brothers analyst Bruce Harting cut his fourth-quarter earnings estimate for Countrywide share from 36 cents per share.
"While Countrywide's transition to originating mostly GSE conforming mortgages has reduced balance sheet risk caused by its originations, the dramatic decline in Countrywide's earnings power this transition has caused has kept Countrywide's creditors company's liquidity," Harting wrote in a research note.
Harting said Countrywide will face additional pressure because the weakness in the overall housing market has depressed totally © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

COUNTRYWIDE FRAUD - NYT JAN 8, 2008

FROM CONSPIRACY THEORY TO COMMON WISDOM... NYT JAN 8, 2008

Fraud in the courtroom - common litigation strategy by Countrywide

January 8, 2008
Lender Tells Judge It ‘Recreated’ Letters
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
The Countrywide Financial Corporation fabricated documents related to the bankruptcy case of a Pennsylvania homeowner, court records show, raising new questions about the business practices of the giant mortgage lender at the center of the subprime mess. The documents three letters from Countrywide addressed to the homeowner claimed that the borrower owed the company $4,700 because of discrepancies in escrow deductions. Countrywide’s local counsel described the letters to the court as “recreated,” raising concern from the federal bankruptcy judge overseeing the case, Thomas P. Agresti. “These letters are a smoking gun that something is not right in Denmark,” Judge Agresti said in a Dec. 20 hearing in Pittsburgh. The emergence of the fabricated documents comes as Countrywide confronts a rising tide of complaints from borrowers who claim that the company pushed them into risky loans. The matter in Pittsburgh is one of 300 bankruptcy cases in which Countrywide’s practices have come under scrutiny in western Pennsylvania. Judge Agresti said that discovery should proceed so that those involved in the case, including the Chapter 13 trustee for the western district of Pennsylvania and the United States trustee, could determine how Countrywide’s systems might generate such documents. A spokesman for the lender, Rick Simon, said: “It is not Countrywide’s policy to create or ‘fabricate’ any documents as evidence that they were sent if they had not been. We believe it will be shown in further discovery that the Countrywide bankruptcy technician who generated the documents at issue did so as an efficient way to convey the dates the escrow analyses were done and the calculations of the payments as a result of the analyses.” The documents were generated in a case involving Sharon Diane Hill, a homeowner in Monroeville, Pa. Ms. Hill filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in March 2001 to try to save her home from foreclosure. After meeting her mortgage obligations under the 60month bankruptcy plan, Ms. Hill’s case was discharged and officially closed on March 9, 2007. Countrywide, the servicer on her loan, did not object to the discharge; court records from that date show she was current on her mortgage. But one month later, Ms. Hill received a notice of intention to foreclose from Countrywide, stating that she was in default and owed the company $4,166.
Court records show that the amount claimed by Countrywide was from the period during which Ms. Hill was making regular payments under the auspices of the bankruptcy court. They included “monthly charges” totaling $3,840 from November 2006 to April 2007, late charges of $128 and other charges of almost $200. A lawyer representing Ms. Hill in her bankruptcy case, Kenneth Steidl, of Steidl and Steinberg in Pittsburgh, wrote Countrywide a few weeks later stating that Ms. Hill had been deemed current on her mortgage during the period in question. But in May, Countrywide sent Ms. Hill another notice stating that her loan was delinquent and demanding that she pay $4,715.58. Neither Mr. Steidl nor Julia Steidl, who has also represented Ms. Hill, returned phone calls seeking comment. Justifying Ms. Hill’s arrears, Countrywide sent her lawyer copies of three letters on company letterhead addressed to the homeowner, as well as to Mr. Steidl and Ronda J. Winnecour, the Chapter 13 trustee for the western district of Pennsylvania. The Countrywide letters were dated September 2003, October 2004 and March 2007 and showed changes in escrow requirements on Ms. Hill’s loan. “This letter is to advise you that the escrow requirement has changed per the escrow analysis completed today,” each letter began. But Mr. Steidl told the court he had never received the letters. Furthermore, he noticed that his address on the first Countrywide letter was not the location of his office at the time, but an address he moved to later. Neither did the Chapter 13 trustee’s office have any record of receiving the letters, court records show. When Mr. Steidl discussed this with Leslie E. Puida, Countrywide’s outside counsel on the case, he said Ms. Puida told him that the letters had been “recreated” by Countrywide to reflect the escrow discrepancies, the court transcript shows. During these discussions, Ms. Puida reduced the amount that Countrywide claimed Ms. Hill owed to $1,500 from $4,700. Under questioning by the judge, Ms. Puida said that “a processor” at Countrywide had generated the letters to show how the escrow discrepancies arose. “They were not offered to prove that they had been sent,” Ms. Puida said. But she also said, under questioning from the court, that the letters did not carry a disclaimer indicating that they were not actual correspondence or that they had never been sent. A Countrywide spokesman said that in bankruptcy cases, Countrywide’s automated systems are sometimes overridden, with technicians making manual adjustments “to comply with bankruptcy laws and the requirements in the jurisdiction in which a bankruptcy is pending.” Asked by Judge Agresti why Countrywide would go to the trouble of “creating a letter that was never sent,” Ms. Puida, its lawyer, said she did not know. “I just, I can’t get over what I’m being told here about these recreations,” Judge Agresti said, “and what the purpose is or was and what was intended by them.” Ms. Hill’s matter is one of 300 bankruptcy cases involving Countrywide that have come under scrutiny by Ms. Winnecour, the Chapter 13 trustee in Pittsburgh. On Oct. 9, she asked the court to sanction Countrywide, contending that the company had lost or destroyed more than $500,000 in checks paid by homeowners in bankruptcy from December 2005 to April 2007. Ms. Winnecour said in court filings that she was concerned that even as Countrywide had misplaced or destroyed the checks, it levied charges on the borrowers, including late fees and legal costs. A spokesman in her office said she would not comment on the Hill case.
O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer in North Carolina who represents troubled borrowers, says that he routinely sees lenders pursue borrowers for additional money after their bankruptcies have been discharged and the courts have determined that the default has been cured and borrowers are current. Regarding the Hill matter, Mr. Gardner said: “The real problem in my mind when reading the transcript is that Countrywide’s lawyer could not explain how this happened.”

FROM "CONSPIRATORIAL THEORY" TO COMMON WISDOM...LOS ANGELES TIMES, DEC 14, 2007

2 states probe Countrywide home loans
The Calabasas lender says California and Illinois have issued subpoenas.
By E. Scott Reckard and Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers December 14, 2007
The nation's No. 1 mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial Corp., is under investigation by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and the attorney general's office in Illinois, the Calabasas company said Thursday.
Countrywide said it had received subpoenas for documents from California and Illinois but declined to elaborate, citing company policy. It said it was cooperating in the two probes.

Related Stories
FULL COVERAGE: SOUTHLAND HOUSING MARKET
U.S. investigates Countrywide fees
Groups protest Countrywide actions
Freddie Mac woes may hit Countrywide
Countrywide critics slam board's pay
Countrywide mortgage volume falls 48%
Credit downgrade would have dire effects, Countrywide says

A spokesman for Brown said he couldn't comment. The attorney general has said he was taking a broad look into the lending practices of mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers and what roles they might have played in the mortgage meltdown crisis.
The investigation in Illinois, which was first reported in the New York Times, grew out of a probe into broker One Source Mortgage, which the state has charged with luring borrowers into loans they couldn't afford. Countrywide was the chief provider of these loans known as payoption mortgages which allow a borrower to pay less than the full interest that comes due each month, sending the loan balance up.
A former employee of One Source told investigators that the only Countrywide loan the broker tried to sell was the payoption type because the rebates were so huge, said Veronica Spicer, an assistant Illinois attorney general in the consumer protection division.

IN THE REALM OF DELUSIONAL CLARITY, THE ROAD TO SALVATION IS ONLY TROUGH STATISTICS...

FROM WRIT PETITION TO THE COURT OF APPEAL:

SLEEZY YET CURIOUS AMERICANA

In the realm of delusional clarity the way to salvation is through statistics...

From submission to the California Court of Appeal:

Racetrack

An array of sleezy, yet curious Americana. The photography of Lisa Kereszi is raw and fantastic (reviewed by by Josh Rubin)

NOTHING AS ENDEARING AS A LECTURE ON THE LAW (and ethics) FROM A CRIMINAL...Part II

Angelo Mozilo
Chairman of the Board, CEO,
Chairman of Internal Audit Committee,
Countrywide

Corporate Responsibility
Countrywide's Code of Business Ethics

A Message from the CEO


Countrywide's Code of Business Ethics reflects the company's existing culture and serves as a guide for our directors, officers and employees in their daily activities. In all of our business practices, we are committed to doing the right thing. As a result, Countrywide has a strong reputation for integrity with its customers, business partners, shareholders and its own employees.


A culture of "corporate" ethics can only be built on a strong foundation of "personal" ethics. For this reason, we expect all of our directors, officers and employees to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects Countrywide's commitment to acting ethically and in compliance with the law. Every director, officer and employee is held accountable for complying with this Code.


The very nature of our business dictates a high level of respect for the confidentiality and privacy of customer and business partner information. We are also dedicated to ensuring the accuracy of our financial reporting and all other documentation that we prepare. We have strict policies prohibiting activities that conflict with the interests of Countrywide, our shareholders and our ability to provide unsurpassed service to our customers.


As Countrywide takes its place among the foremost diversified financial services providers, we will continue to set the industry standard for excellence and integrity.


Sincerely,
Angelo R. Mozilo
Chairman and CEO
Countrywide Financial Corporation

NOTHING AS ENDEARING AS A LECTURE ON THE LAW FROM A CRIMINAL...Part I

Mohammad Keshavarzi from Sheppard Mullin et al writing to me:

At 12:58 PM 2/6/2008, you wrote:
I learned today that you have been contacting the staff at the court of appeal. Such ex parte communication is improper. In the future plaintiff needs to be part of your communication with any court.
333 South Hope Street48th FloorLos Angeles, CA 90071-1448213.620.1780 office213.620.1398 faxhttp://www.sheppardmullin.com/ Moe Keshavarzi213.617.5544 direct 213.443.2910 direct faxMKeshavarzi@sheppardmullin.com Bio

And here is my response, definitely too long...

Moe:

You cannot be serious -

Do you mean you would like to accompany me anytime I go to the clerk's office to pay or copy file records?
Am I supposed to schedule any trip to the clerk's office with you in advance? How about when I call the courtroom assistant for scheduling? Would you expect it to be done by a conference call?
Would such rules apply only to me, or also to you and Countrywide?

Just so I do not dismiss this as ridiculous, please provide the details of the specific communications that you consider as improper and the subject of your email below, as well as the code section or rule of court that is the basis for your unfounded claim.

Needless to say, you have conducted numerous ex parte communications out of compliance and in violation of the law, with, for one example, Judge O'Brien as documented in transcript of Aug 30, 2007 and elsewhere. Similarly, it was just ridiculous watching Judge Goodman try to pretend he had no idea where the Proposed Order you "lodged" with him on September 14, 2007 came from. He should have taken some acting classes before trying to pull off something like that.

Also, I still am waiting to hear how the ex parte hearing of July 6, 2007 by Countrywide, to issue a gag order against me from talking with practically anybody and his brother about Countrywide and Sandor Samuels' corruption, was scheduled in a special court session, for a non-party listed on that day as Plaintiff (one of Judge Connor's innocent small random errors). The only plausible explanation I know of is through an ex parte communication with Judge Connor. Indeed, courtroom assistant told me that the unusual scheduling came directly from Judge Connor. And the only response from attorneys for Countrywide so far was that it involved "nothing improper". And of course, the ruling on July 6, 2007, to allow Countrywide to file moving papers after my deadline for the opposition was just standard due process of the law - the original intent of the framers of the constitution...

Otherwise, it is always a pleasant surprise to learn about the law and regulations from an attorney who appears specialized in providing services beyond the law. Your conduct in Samaan v Zernik, e.g. - the fabrication of fraudulent claims between Nov 3 and Nov 6, 2006, as documented in the 3-ways correspondence with Jae Arre (Samaan's husband - couldn't he pick up a name that reads less fabricated if he wanted to hide his previous identity?) and McLaurin (Countrywide's San Rafael Branch Manager - "the untouchable"), amounts to fraud and deceit - run of the mill criminal conduct.

Unfortunately, you cannot expect every court and every judge to be as cooperative in criminal conduct as Judge Connor. And in that case too, you completely misread the situation. Judge Connor had no interest and no intention of benefiting you or Samaan, only Countrywide. Her decision to award Samaan the right to purchase the property in a declining market, with no attorney fees, is just one indication of that. You were just a collateral beneficiary in a corrupt court action, where the only intent was to cater to any and all of Countrywide's wishes, for a fee, one must assume.

Recently I have been wondering what an attorney, who is versed in the law, like you, would put as the odds that Mozilo and Samuels would end up in jail...

Joseph Zernik
Defendant & Cross Complainant
in pro per