Judge Sentences Alpharetta Woman in Mortgage Robo-Signing Case

An Alpharetta woman has been sentenced to five years in jail for her participation in a six-year scheme to prepare and file more than 1 million fraudulently mortgage-related documents with property recorders’ offices throughout the United States.

Lorraine Brown, 56, of Alpharetta, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. in the Middle District of Florida, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

Brown also was sentenced to serve two years of supervised release and ordered to pay a $15,00 fine.  She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in November 2012.
“Lorraine Brown will spend five years in prison for her central role in a scheme to fraudulently execute thousands of mortgage-related documents while our nation’s housing market was at its most vulnerable point in generations,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Raman.

Brown was an executive at LPS and the chief executive of DocX LLC, which was a wholly-owned subsidiary of LPS, until it was closed down in early 2010.  DocX’s main clients were residential mortgage servicers, which typically undertake certain actions for the owners of mortgage-backed promissory notes.
According to plea documents, Brown implemented robo-signing practices at DocX to enable DocX and Brown to generate greater profit.  Temporary workers were hired to act as authorized signers who were paid much less and without the quality control represented by Brown to DocX’s clients.  Some of these temporary workers were able to sign thousands of mortgage-related instruments a day.  Between 2003 and 2009, DocX generated approximately $60 million in gross revenue.        

After these documents were falsely signed and fraudulently notarized, Brown authorized DocX employees to file and record them with local county property records offices across the country.

Brown faces charges in Michican for having those documents filed in local records offices. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced in November 2012 after Brown entered a guilty plea in federal court that he had charged her with racketeering for her alleged role in authorizing the "robo-signing " of mortgage documents filed in Michigan.