Executive faces jail time for role in robo-signing scandal

DocX executive’s plea bargain includes jail time

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, over one million documents were signed and notarized from DocX and filed with property recorders across the nation between 2003 and 2009, resulting in $60 million in gross revenue during that period, and workers knowingly forged signatures on the documents through a now controversial process called robo-signing wherein more signatures meant more documents filed and more money earned.

Lender Processing Services (LPS) said they fired Lorraine Brown, a former executive at their subsidiary, DocX, when they discovered she had concealed the massive robo-signature scandal, and criminal charges were filed against her by Missouri Attorney General (AG) Chris Koster earlier this year.

A plea agreement has now been reached between Brown and the AG, under which, Brown will plead guilty to one felony count of forgery, one felony count of perjury, and one misdemeanor count of making a false declaration, which carries a term of less than two years imprisonment, not to exceed three years.

DocX’s practices “were the worst in the country.”

“DocX’s robo-signing practices were the worst in the county. Surrogate-signing crosses the threshold into criminal activity,” AG Koster said in a statement. “This agreement brings to justice the person most responsible for these activities and upholds the principle that when you sign your name to a legal document, it matters.”

Lender Processing Services spokesperson Michelle Kersch said in a statement that they have remediated all documents and cooperated with all government investigations. “LPS is committed to ensuring that all employees operate with integrity and compliance in everything they do on behalf of the company.”

Other charges to come to other individuals?

This plea agreement brings to light personal responsibility and justice that many American homeowners, mortgage lending institutions, and attorneys general across the nation have been calling for since the robo-signing scandal broke, given that one of the biggest players in the drama is now looking at jail time.

Could other dominoes fall next? Various counties have sued other entities for their role in forging documents as well as for sending homes into foreclosure without human review, but is jail time likely for anyone else, or is Brown’s plea bargain and jail time the only one to be had?