Department of Justice Announces Results of Distressed Homeowner Initiative

LOS ANGELES, CA – October 10, 2012 – (RealEstateRama) — Today, Attorney General Eric Holder, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, FBI Associate Deputy Director Kevin L. Perkins, and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jon Leibowitz announced the results of the Distressed Homeowner Initiative, the first-ever nationwide effort to target fraud schemes that prey upon suffering homeowners. The yearlong initiative, organized by the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force’s Mortgage Fraud Working Group, resulted in 530 criminal defendants charged in 285 federal cases filed in U.S. District Courts across the country. These cases involved more than 73,000 homeowner victims and total losses by those victims are estimated by law enforcement at more than $1 billion.