Carole VanSickle | May 13, 2013
At least one of the notorious “banksters” involved in robo-signing on a national scale is heading for jail. Lorraine Brown, former president of mortgage document processor DocX, was sentenced to 40 months to 20 years in prison for her role in authorizing fraudulent signing of mortgage documents[1]. Brown was convicted on one count of conducting criminal enterprises (racketeering) and has been remanded to the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections in order to begin serving her sentence.
DocX was based in Georgia, where Brown lived. Investigators discovered that she played a key role in “establish[ing] and orchestrat[ing] a widespread scheme of robo-signing…in which employees were directed to fraudulently sign another authorized person’s name on mortgage documents in order to execute the documents as quickly as possible.” DocX referred to this practice as “facsimile signing” or “surrogate signing,” and the process went on under Brown’s direction from 2006 to 2009.
The suit was filed in Michigan in April 2011 by state attorney general Bille Schuette. Brown had already pled guilty to federal charges in Florida and reached a plea agreement on related charges in Missouri at the time of this latest conviction and sentencing.