Whistleblower Lawsuit Yields $18M for Florida Woman

Five of the nation’s largest banks must pay $18 million to the Florida whistleblower whose foreclosure battle helped blow the lid off the “robo-signing” scandal in which some lenders forged documents in order to foreclose on thousands of homes.

Lawyer and fraud investigator Lynn Szymoniak played a major role in uncovering the nationwide practice by lenders of failing to obtain required mortgage assignments, according to CBS News. Szymoniak uncovered the fraud after her own bank moved to foreclose on her Florida home and sent her what appeared to be false documents. She began investigating and found fake paperwork in thousands of other foreclosure cases.

Szymoniak then sued the nation’s largest mortgage servicers under a whistleblower provision in the False Claims Act, which lets citizens act as whistleblowers to file lawsuits against companies that have directly or indirectly defrauded the federal government. Whistleblowers are entitled to a portion of any settlement reached by the government in such cases.

Szymoniak’s award is part of a larger $95 million agreement to settle the case reached between the five banks --Ally Financial, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo -- and the U.S. Attorneys in North Carolina and South Carolina.

If you or someone you know has information about practices that are defrauding the government, contact Sokolove Law for a free legal consultation and to learn more about filing a whistleblower lawsuit.