Today, PT will look more closely at the ACTUAL DOCUMENTS submitted to the City for clues to sloppiness or, worse, fraud.
But first, let's review. What we have learned so far is that this project was the Mayor's initiative, and that QuadTech would provide a methodology and tools to implement the Mayor's vision.
Fair enough. To be thorough, PT slogged his way through both the City's RFP (47 pages) and QuadTech's proposal (52 pages). No, make that 53 pages.
Reaching the end of the proposal packet, PT thought he had gotten the pages out of order, as the page after page 52 (the last page) was page 47.
Going back, however, he found there ALREADY WAS A PAGE 47 in the packet. So, the copy machine just generated a second copy of the page? Happens sometimes. If so, why was it at the END of the packet and not RIGHT AFTER THE FIRST COPY?
Why indeed. Upon closer inspection, the signatures on the two page 47s DO NOT APPEAR TO BE THE SAME. Take a look for yourself --
This is a scan of the signature on page 47 in the packet.
This is a scan of the signature on the 'extra' page 47 at the end of the packet.
See what I mean? Now, the second, extra, page appears to be on the same stationery as all the others in the packet and is NOT a fax. Is it the signature of a City employee? A QuadTech employee? Was it the ORIGINAL SUBMISSION, and was the CORRECT SIGNATURE submitted to the City AFTER THE BID PACKAGE WAS OPENED?
If so, that would be a violation of the public bidding law. There is to be no 'FIXING' of the contents once they are submitted, sealed, in the bid process.
All of this caused PT to go over other pages with signatures more closely. ALL THE OTHER PAGES appear to bear a signature identical with that on the page 47 that is in sequence.
Scan of signature on the Non-Collusion Affidavit page.
Scan of signature on the Mandatory Affirmative Action Compliance statement.
But wait, SOMETHING ELSE caught PT's eye. The signature on page 46, the Non-Collusion Affidavit -- meant to prevent BID-RIGGING, requires NOTARIZATION. Curiously, this item is dated as notarized on September 5th, the due date for the proposal, while other items in the packet attest a September 1st date.
Notaries public perform a valuable function in many legal processes, particularly in affirmations that the person signing the document is who she says she is. PT's personal experience includes hundreds of real estate transactions where contracts and mortgage applications had to be notarized, as well as petitions for public office, in which the individual petitions need to be notarized.
Scan of signature space of the "Notary" on the Non-Collusion Affidavit.
In no case did PT ever see a notary fail to include the JURAT, which identifies the jurisdiction granting the notary's commission and that the person who appeared before the notary affirmed the truth of their statement or identity.
Curiously, the notarization of the Non-Collusion Affidavit here contains no JURAT, just an indication of an expiration date. Also, curiously, there is no signature for the notary, only a PRINTED name. So we CANNOT CONCLUDE from it by what authority the person who signed as Notary Public was allowed to do so, nor by what jurisdiction, nor even that they are a bona fide Notary Public. A fatal flaw? Evidently not in Plainfield.
So, are we witnessing sloppiness in violation of the statutes? Or fraud?
Let's hope the Prosecutor, to whom this matter evidently has been referred, got to see ALL the pages.
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3 comments:
Hi,
Thank you very much for the article you published on mortgage fraud. We posted this story on our Mortgage Fraud Discussion Board: http://discussionboards.mortgagefraudqc.com/.
A similar thing happened to me in the mid-1990s by a company in Huntington Beach, Anastasi Realty and his brother who owned Anastasi construction. I was a single mother and making a very moderate income when I was coerced with promises of building my credit and hope of my own home ownership one day. After getting reeled in by promises of becoming a property owner (while renting myself), an intermediary orchestrated the loans on the homes that valued approximately $750k for the new construction town homes, back then!. There were first, second and Title 1 (or third) liens on the homes. Another co-worker was also in possession of three other units. After the simultaneous closings and the disbursement of all of the funds, of which I received nothing, the culprits pocketed close to two million dollars off of us. Within two months the “tenants” stopped paying the rents (one of the tenants was the individual who orchestrated the deals). When I began to inquire as the lender’s collection calls began, I was threatened with being turned into the FBI for my participation, and then my children were threatened and I left it alone.
This motivated my desire to learn more and I have had a career in fighting mortgage fraud for the past 10 years. If there is ever anything I can be of assistance with feel free to contact me. We welcome you to visit our Mortgage Fraud discussion board and encourage your readers to utilize our blog as well to share their similar experiences. The reason the criminals are allowed to continue is that their names and company information remain a secret until (and IF) there is a prosecution.
Please let your readers know they can openly share their stories so we can prevent other innocent people searching for the American Dream from having their lives destroyed.
Cindi Dixon, Director
Mortgage Fraud Investigations
Mela Capital Group
Cindi@MortgageFraudQC.com
http://ReportMortgageFraud.Org
http://discussionboards.mortgagefraudqc.com/
Hey PT...the City Clerk had been advised years ago that the same individual notarizing papers (Tatiana) was not in compliance with legal notarization...in fact,upon investigation, her time had expired and her signature was totally different from a previous notarization she had done...but because "we are not hand-writing experts"...it just gets passed thru, no matter... and we wonder why Plainfield is going to Hell in a hand basket! Who is supervising the supervisors?
This is an excellent blog post. Something should definitely be done if a notary can continue to commit fraud years after being reported...
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