I had the pleasure of attending a meeting last night with a panel which included Neil Barofsky. Neil was the first Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program ("SIGTARP").
Many subjects were brought up during the discussion. The two main points though were the failure of HAMP and banker prosecutions. There wasn't one person in the room who seemed to believe HAMP ever had a chance to succeed. Which was pretty sad considering how much money the Fed pumped into this program. At the end of the session I had the opportunity to speak with Neil. Since he was a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (and Senior Trial Counsel who headed the Mortgage Fraud Group) I figured he'd be pretty interested in hearing what we do. Well I wasn't surprised. As soon as I mentioned "mortgage fraud, auditing and prosecutions" I had his attention. Our conversation quickly gravitated to the lack of prosecutions. In a nut shell he stated that it was "easier" to "settle". "Settle" like what the other AGs are doing as opposed to prosecuting individual cases. How sad is that? Because certain people don't want to do their jobs they "settle". AGAIN, WHERE'S THE DETERRENT?
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