The New Untouchables

Steve Grumbine, Patrick Lovell, and Eric Vaughan join Paul Jay in a spirited discussion from Paul's decades long insight that reveals the game of deception played by the powerful. What does he think? For one thing, he believes by 2007-2008 the power of finance got so big we might be past the point of no return, yet Jay applauds all efforts by those who work to curb the huge financial powers, and there is a convergence of the financial sector with organized crime.

Author Michael Perino joins us today to shine a light yet again on how and why Pecora was the right guy for the right time in history and why what we have achieved with The New Untouchables: The Pecora Files is exactly how this had to play out today.

Join Steve, Eric, and Patrick as they join Thomas Frank to discuss how a populism movement can rise to the challenge now, considering all the wrongs we have and continue to reveal.

Countless numbers of Americans believe all politicians are corrupt and there's nothing they can do about it, but this episode's guest, Dennis Kucinich, once the youngest Mayor of a major US City, Cleveland, Ohio in the early 70's and later elected to Congressman, reveals the remarkable story of the “Boy Mayor” who stood up to corruption refusing to sell Cleveland Municipal Light and Power back to the banks during an era of potential bankruptcy.

Bruce Jacobs, a veteran prosecutor and defense attorney in Miami, joins Patrick Lovell, Steve Grumbine and Eric Vaughan for a discussion beginning with the concept of integrity.

In this episode our guests Kathleen Engel, research professor of law specializing in financial services at Suffolk University in Boston, and Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, former foreign exchange analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will transport viewers into the machine of corporate thievery that games malleable brokers to deceive the uninformed and most vulnerable.

In this episode, co-hosts Patrick Lovell, Steve Grumbine and Eric Vaughan talk with Terrie Crowley, who fought her illegal foreclosure in the courts of Chicago for 12 years through 11 judges on her own against the legal fire power of one of the largest financial firms in the world. Enter Nicholas Kostopoulos, a former DOJ Prosecutor out of Miami who soon learned mortgage fraud wasn't much different than the cocaine drug cases he was prosecuting in the 1980s.

Steve Grumbine, Patrick Lovell, and Eric Vaughan are joined in this episode by attorneys Thomas Cox and Max Gardner who are legal professionals and experts in real estate and foreclosure law making them invaluable “whistle-blowers” in the legal profession and judiciary as they expose the criminal rot within the system.

In our next episode, you meet Lainey Hashorva, a woman who defines grit and determination to rise above the pollution of Wells Fargo criminality, but it didn't come without exacting a pound of flesh. We will also introduce you to Beth Jacobson, who has an extraordinary story and is an expert witness in the foreclosure madness. What she reveals to us is quite literally the smoking gun of the murder weapon that killed the American Dream.

O'Brien and Thigpen had the courage to do what was right in a world of a whole lot of wrong. This episode is monumentally bigger than Deep Throat and Watergate. Monumentally bigger than Oliver North and Contragate. It's even monumentally larger than Trump and the Insurrection that will never be held accountable because we have become that corrupt.

Ilene Goldstein and her disabled husband were victims of calculated lies and fraud. After two years of losing equity in their home, paying on a loan fraught with everything the Goldstein's did not sign up for but were duped into, Ilene reached a breaking point and attempted suicide.

Doug Boggs and Paris Dube join Steve Grumbine and Patrick Lovell to discuss their personal victimization engineered by liars and thieves. “It's the same, old story,” Boggs says. Banks tell people who are current in their mortgage payments, “We can't do anything until you stop making your payments for three months!” This is part of the scheme. The big lie. Then more lies. People trust banks and the court system, but when both are perpetrating financial terrorism, no one is safe.

No matter who you were and are, financial terrorism looms large. In the aftermath of the 2008 Global Economic Collapse, tens of millions of people around the world were thrown into upheaval.

The American Dream is now a nightmare and will remain so until we come to terms with how this system operates so we can once and for all demand an end to the corruption.

Steve, Eric, and Patrick introduce Chris Swecker, former Chief Deputy in the FBI Criminal Division during the George W. Bush administration and Paul Pelletier, former prosecutor in the Department of Justice under Obama. Swecker reflects on how he built a national dragnet to reign in mortgage fraud and prosecute its biggest perpetrators, only to be scuttled by the high-profile political relationship between the targets and his elected bosses. Pelletier, similarly, weighs in on how a massive, national case was built against the biggest predatory lenders, only to be pushed aside by twin villains, the revolving door between the public and private sectors and the pernicious pro-bank ideology held by his appointed superiors.

Steve, Eric and Patrick are joined by William K. Black who reveals the curious case of Richard Bowen, former Citigroup VP and whistleblower, who blew the cover off the motherlode of fraudulent mortgages being sold through Citi. Bowen and Black engage in a trial examination-style conversation about why and to whom he reported Citi's malfeasance, how the regulators teased him with their interest and despite the weight of his revelations, did nothing about it. Bowen also reveals why Robert Rubin deserves a special place in the history of financial crime.

Steve, Eric, and Patrick hear West Virginia real estate appraiser Lori Noble's tales from the front lines as she talks about the Federal Government's 1999 repeal of Glass-Stegall via passage of Gramm-Leach-Bliley that was “sold” to appraisers to enhance privacy for information to cross state lines. What happened was carnage. Lenders like Countrywide inflicted devastation on communities, and Lori saw real death in the communities she served. It didn't pay to be an honest appraiser because that meant you'd get no work. Yet, having an honest appraisal remains a crucial part of any mortgage application process.  In the second part of this episode, Michael Winston, former Countrywide executive and whistleblower, discusses his education and grounding in ethical business practices, how his career took a giant U-turn at Countrywide, and the lonely, yet important nobility of being a whistleblower. 

Steve, Eric and Patrick connect with former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and retired detective Tom Murphy. They reflect on the lessons of their historic fraud investigation and RICO prosecution of Ohio-based predatory lenders in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, why they were the only cops on the beat, and what the government blueprint should be moving forward. 

Steve, Eric and Patrick check in with former OTS regulator William K. Black and former FCIC consultant Art Wilmarth about the history of financial crime and bank regulation from Glass-Steagall to Dodd-Frank, what the billionaire class and the Federal Government have done to undermine those efforts and what work is left to be done.