 |
Posted by: monkmo on 07/19/2009 05:04 PM
Updated by: monkmo on 07/19/2009 05:04 PM
Expires: 01/01/2014 12:00 AM
Financial Food Poisoning and the War on Farmers: Where’s a good movie director when you need one?
By Monica Davis
There’s a war going on. It’s happening mostly behind the scenes,
at the desks of a coven of crooked bureaucrats and banksters nationwide. If you
thought the bank bail out ate a hole in your pocket, watch what the banksters,
unindicted bureaucrats and land thieves are doing to the nation’s farmers and to
the security of your food supply.
The ongoing thievery in the banking, insurance and real estate
industry has ripped the heart out of the economy. As the result of organized
financial crime in the financial services and real estate industry, Americans
have lost billions of dollars in real estate equity, retirement accounts and
investment equity. Real estate values have dropped so much, that millions of
homeowners now owe more on their homes than the home is worth.
The drop in real estate value, combined with the catastrophe in
the investment industry has eviscerated the economy, creating a financial
inferno, which continues to consume jobs, home equity and retirement
investments.
What in the world happened? What brought down the most powerful
economy in the world?
Can we say greed? How about deregulation? Or, lack of
oversight?
An overly friendly regulatory system allowed banks
to lend the same funds over and over, leveraging money to impossible heights.
When the system finally crashed, the domino effect reverberated across the
board, from banking, to real estate, to investment planning, manufacturing and
beyond. No industry is untouched, no city unscathed, no citizen is
unchanged.
Aided, abetted, and possibly mousetrapped by untold numbers of
quantative analysts, "AKA" quants, many of whom are Chinese nationals, the
financial services industry created thousands of new investment vehicles in
uncharted waters. Now, we learn that the mathematical models upon which many of
these mystery meat and secret sauce investment vehicles were based, were tainted
and faulty. As the result, the world’s financial system continues to reel from
the effects of this financial food poisoning.
Today, everybody’s blaming everyone else. The Republicans blame
regulation. The Democrats say there wasn’t enough regulation. Industry analysts
blame faulty mathematics, and the investors, employees and taxpayers want to put
behinds behind bars.
Yet, the players, con men, forgers, and conspirators remain mostly
untouched. Except for a few such as Bernie Madoff, the major players are still
free to ply their trade—or spend their loot, or both. Funny thing, that. For all
of the trillions of dollars in equity and real estate value that was lost, for
all of the evidence of collusion, corruption, conspiracy, theft, forgery,
document deception, perjury and other asserted criminal acts, few have gone to
jail—or have even been called on their lies and perjury.
A law website defines perjury as: ... the ’willful and corrupt
taking of a false oath in regard to a material matter in a judicial proceeding."
It is sometimes called "lying under oath;" that is, deliberately telling a lie
in a courtroom proceeding after having taken an oath to tell the truth. It is
important that the false statement be material to the case at hand—that it could
affect the outcome of the case. It is not considered perjury, for example, to
lie about your age, unless your age is a key factor in proving the case.’
Agricultural officials have been lying in open court, in
bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings for more than thirty years, as is proven
by a host of testimony, Congressional hearings and investigative reports.
Unfortunately, few farmers are actually able to overcome the tainted testimony
in court. No matter how many paid receipts, requests for disclosure, or
Discovery, Fair Credit Act demands, or Freedom of Information Act requests they
make, most either never receive the pertinent information, or are actually
denied access to their own loan files. (Ibid)
The nation has endured a major case of financial food poisoning,
as crooks, conspirators and a gaggle of unindicted felons manipulate documents,
alter information, break federal Fair Credit disclosure laws, purjure themselves
before Congress and courts and take consumers, borrowers and farmers to the
cleaners. The liars, perjurors and thieves continue to threaten the nation’s
financial security, and compromise the viability of the farm credit process.
Many of the foreclosures against farmers rest on perjured
testimony. Federal farm loan agency officials have lied about farm loans, forged
documents, perjured themselves in court and, through it all, have reportedly
been allowed to operate their agencies with a free reign.
A former Secretary of Agriculture admitted to Congress that most
of the agencies have never been audited. Imagine, a federal agency which acts as
the "bank of last resort" to millions of farmers, having thousands of branches
which have never been audited.
What a license to steal!
As one observer of the American condition once said, "The best way
to rob a bank is to own one." And, indeed, the insiders have been busy carting
off the loot as fast as their fingers could offshore the funds or manipulate the
accounts.
While today’s headlines continue their obsession with the Wall
Street-engineered meltdown, a similar and ongoing meltdown in the agriculture
sector, particularly among family farmers, goes mostly unnoticed. Except for the
occasional headline, the plight of today’s farmers is the bastard stepchild of
the news media.
Not sexy enough. Too complicated. Out of sight and out of
mind.
Farmers have said there was something rotten in the federal farm
loan system for decades. Hundreds of thousands of farmers were losing their
livelihoods through foreclosure, when many say their loan records were altered,
incomplete or outright in accurate.
Many claim they had paid off loans and were foreclosed on anyway.
Others say they were foreclosed for loans they never received or applied for.
Billions of dollars in farm land, equipment, mineral rights and equity was sold
right out from under them—for pennies on the dollar, and, to this day, thousands
say it isn’t right, or even legal.
And, even more frightening, according to a federal audit, the
agency’s records are not computerized and in many cases, The
county office staff must rely on memory when considering the applicant’s
eligibility for interest rate assistance. If any time has passed or there has
been any turn over in staff, this is nearly impossible. As a result, interest
rate assistance has been unknowingly approved for ineligible applicants which is
only discovered after trying to input the loan closing information. The loan
official has then been forced to either ask the bank to withdraw their request
or to deny the guarantee after the bank received the conditional commitment and
closed their loan. This presents a tremendous credibility problem for FSA.
(Building Rural America National Association of Credit Specialistsof theUSDA –
Farm Service Agency, 6-25-2007 Federal Manager’s Conference)
"Relying on memory" leaves the loan process open to all sorts of
abuses and personnel failures, and the agency has been "relying on memory" and
inclinations, for decades. The Garcia class action, the legal action filed by a
group of Hispanic farmers against the USDA, in noting the possibilities for
fraud and abuse in records and loan servicing that "relies on memory" demands
that, The court-appointed monitor will retain a team of
technology experts to perform an audit of the hardware and software currently in
use as regards to the FSA farm loan and benefit programs which, by manythe
accounts, is badly in need of modernization. The results of the audit will be
shared with the court, the USDA, GAO and the appropriate committees of Congress,
together with cost estimates for accomplishing this modernization.
(www.garciaclassaction.com)
The silent campaign against American farmers is silent only
because the story isn’t “sexy” enough to hijack headlines. After all, what is
“sexy” about farmers who lose land because of hostile farm loan policies,
collusion, racketeering, racism, sexism, age bias, and corruption? What is sexy
about farmers who believe they are worth more to their families dead than alive,
and who arrange their own deaths in order to give their families insured
security? What is sexy about farmers being scared off their land, or even killed
when supremacists go beyond harassing phone calls and threatening drive-bys to
murder?
Corruption in the farm loan program, corruption in the US banking
and investment sectors, unindicted felons still running programs, making policy
and receiving paychecks. ’Tis enough to give organized crime a bad name.
And organized crime, criminal conspiracy it is. When employees of
federal farm loan programs willingly violate federal law, routinely alter and
forge loan documents and reportedly give perjored testimony in court, manipulate
documents and violate their own administrative rules as a matter of course, and
conduct vendettas against whistleblowers, it’s enough to make a person give up
faith in the justice system all together.
Unfortunately, "...in lawsuit after lawsuit,
FmHA (precourser to current Farm Services Agency (FSA) has been found guilty of
widespread misconduct; in some nstances, even serious criminal acts." (Oklahoma
Digest, 5-12-1984)
And, less you think all of the farmers that the feds are
foreclosing on are serious deadbeats anyhow, think again. The Oklahoma Digest’s
reporter notes that, in one case, "Attorneys and out-of-state FmHA officials who
have examined the documents say the unauthorized changs constitute forgery to
illegally foreclose on the Surfaces." (Ibid)
The agency has even allegedly charged farmers more interest than
the loan contract, promissory note called for, charging 14% on an 11% note.
(Ibid) But, the criminality doesn’t end with illegally charging higher interest
rates than the promissory note allows. There’s more.
Not to be outdone by merely manipulating loan interest illegally,
federal farm loan officials have also been accused of writing loans their own
benefit (a Nebraska FSA employee faces 10 counts of wire fraud after allegedly
entering false data on electronic filings for the family farm Lincoln Journal
Star 5-23-09), writing loans against the alleged borrower’s knowlege and
refusing to give farmers’ attorneys "computer print outs showing payments made
by borrowers. Acording to agency regulations, this informnation must be made
available to the borrower or any authorized representative." (Ibid)
And, then, there’s the hororrific case of alleged vindictive
prosecution in the Iowa case of Darwin and Diana Rice. Accordiing to reporter
Pete Hardin, writing in the Milkweed:
The shocking history of the U.S. government’s legal persecution of
DarwinRice shakes the foundation of the United States’ legal system. How can
USDAbureaucrats, U.S. Justice Department lawyers – in league with crooked
bankers– so doggedly persecute the Rices into financial ruin? The government’s
prose-cution of Darwin Rice rests upon perjured testimony, altered documents,
andfalsely-based charges of criminality. From the time that Darwin and Diane
Riceapplied for a $200,000 Farm Services Agency (FSA) loan and a $182,000
loanguarantee in early summer 2000, USDA personnel set a trap. One USDA employee
instructed Darwin write a $74,400 check from theRice’s supervised account … to
herself! When asked, in January 2008, why Dar-win Rice had signed a check made
out to her from a “supervised account” holding USDA funds loaned to Darwin Rice,
that same FSA loan specialist repliedthat the money was deposited in a trust
fund with a law firm to cover legalexpenses (title and loan processing) involved
with USDA’s preparing the $200,000 loan and $182,000 loan guarantee for the
Rices! (Pete Hardin, Vindictive Prosecution? Feds Hound Darwin Rice, Iowa
Farmer. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:mzhWNRotF88J:www.themilkweed.com/Darwin%2520Rice%2520Nov%252008.pdf+USDA+OIG+employee+fraud&cd=72&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
There is even a claim that Rice was set up because of a
whistleblower complaint he made in 1995. Reportedly, "The United Bank of Iowa
installed as head of the newly-acquired branch in Churdan: Rob Walker,
onecharacter who’d been fingered by Darwin, nearly 15 years prior, as a major
play-er in the FSA loan guarantee fraud. Pay-back time for Darwin from
Walker?.The United Bank of Iowa instructed Darwin to sell assets. So, in next
twomonths, Darwin sold off $300,000 worth of livestock and grain; those
receiptswere used to pay down loans. After that, the bank told Darwin he was too
small to farm and had to get out." (Ibid)
After being thumped on the head by the alleged bank fraudster, the
Rices got tied up in an agency document forgery where FSA officials allegedly
"altered their financial statement after Rices signed it". "As part of the loan
guarantee review process, Darwin and Diane signed two“Farm & Home Plans” for
FSA, dated June 30 and July 12, 2000. But post-dated,hand-entered changes in
separate plan – dated July 7, 2000 – were used by FSAfor the loan. The Rices
claim they never saw the July 7, 2000 Farm & Home Plan.That July 7, 2000
document later surfaced, complete with hand-entered changesdated September 19,
2000 (initialed by PJV – Paula J. Volesky, the same FSAemployee who got the
$74,400 check from Rice’s account). Amid all these plans,FSA managed to drop the
value of Darwin’s assets from $829,309 to $735,369 inone week: a decline of
$94,000. (Ibid)
Not to be outdone by the document deception perpetrated against
farmers across the country, FSA emloyees have even allegedly participated in
bank frauds with loan recipients:
On August 17, 2006, a former FSA loan officer was sentenced in
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Arkansas to serve 1 day in Federal
prison, 60 months’ supervised release, 6 months of home detention with ankle
bracelet monitoring, and ordered to serve 100 hours of community service. The
former loan officer was also ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution for assisting
another individual to defraud FSA via bank fraud (false entries on bank
documents, etc.) (USDA)
Not "sexy" enough? Let’s look at the case of the USDA loan
employee who allegedly told a delinquent borrower that he wouldn’t foreclose on
her loan in exchange for sexual favors. Responding to an inquiry into the
matter, a letter from the Office of the Secretary of the US Department of
Agriculture, dated October 15, 1999, the USDA said:
After a thorough review of all the information obtained, one can
conclude that circumstantialevidence exists that Mr. Vivian Cordova did
improperly solicit sexual encounters from femaleborrowers whose Farmers Home
Administration loans came under his jurisdiction.
(http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:BP5kQMks0lQJ:www.osc.gov/FY2000/Scanned/DI-97-1166/AgencyReport.pdf+USDA+OIG+employee+fraud&cd=88&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
Then, there’s the case of an FSA county committee chairperson who
allegedly misused his power of attorney for a dead relative and stuck his hand
in the till to the tune of allegedly receiving hundreds of thousands of improper
farm program benefits, and the case of another fellow Louisianna FSA employee
who who failed to report improper fund disbursement to a farmer on land he no
longer owned.
Prompted by a request from the Louisiana State
office,we found that a current FSA county committeechairperson used his
preexisting power of attorney for arelative to continue to sign up and qualify
for programbenefits even though the relative had passed away andthe heirs of the
relative’s estate had sold the land in1993. Another Louisiana producer received
improperfarm program benefits for crop acreage bases on landthat the producer
had sold and, therefore, in which hehad no interest. However, a county office
employee,who became aware of the sale, allowed the producer,nonetheless, to
receive program payments on the land.For these two cases, producers received
improper farmprogram benefits, totaling more than $918,300 (Office of
Inspector General Semiannual Report to Congress, FY 2004—First Half)
Because farm loans involve such large amounts of money, a few
corrupt insiders can steal, mismanage and redirect tens of millions of dollars
in federal farm loan and farm program payments. Because of this opportunity for
malfeasance and theft, the USDA Office of Inspector General says investigating
USDA employee corruption is a priority.
That said, anecdotal evidence of employee corruption,
mismanagement of funds and programs, points to a billion dollar problem that
crosses Administrations. Retaliation, institutional corruption, graft, sexual
intimidation, racial threats, families being thrown off land, children abused by
evicting authorities—sounds like somebody should make a movie.
Michael Moore, where are you? Denzel Washington, where are you?
Clint Eastwood, where are you? Spike Lee, where are you? Oprah, where are
you?
Monica Davis is an author, columnnist, radio personality and
public speaker. She is has written 5 books and hundreds of articles on a variety
of subjects including, lynching, black farmers, food security, alternative
energy, economics and politics. She is published in the US, Great Britain and
India. Her articles have been read into the Congressional Record and used by
home schoolers in New Zealand. Ms. Davis has conducted seminars and
presentations on black farmers and the plight of farm women at universities and
museums. Her book, Land, Legacy and Lynching: Building the Future in Black
America has been cited in several doctoral dissertations. Her author website is: http://www.lulu.com/davis4000_2000 She may be reached at: davis4000_2000 [at] yahoo.com
|
|
.gif)
