How could Lindsey have thought he wouldn’t get pinched? When you’re a multi-millionare partnered up in an LLC, famous no less, and you assist a man taking $500/week home to get approved for a mortgage of that value, something is obviously fishy. It doesn’t take an FBI Agent to see the scam.

First drug suspensions, now this. I was pumped to think that he’d stay on as a last PG reserve, helping school our Zoo Crew. From the looks of things though, Hunter may have bigger fish to fry this fall.

There is some clear shenanigans here by Lindsey Hunter and Bruce McClellan (you can’t misrepresent your finances in a contract, it’s called fraud) but it’s possible that both of them were getting swindled even worse by the other partner in the LLC. Lots of stuff here that is definitely wrong even if it doesn’t rise to the level of criminal. The lesson: if a deal sounds to good to be true, it is. That said, none of this suprises me. A lot of people thought getting in the housing market was like getting free money, including major US banks.

Bye, Lindsey. Nice knowing you.

I think that there must have been something in Lindsey’s wife’s diet pills that made him get involved in this. LOL

Dumars must be PISSED. Hunter was all set to go right into a nice cushy office job, too.

He’s a tenacious on-defender by day and a real estate mogul by night? Goddamn.

Rob G – Comparing Lindsey to a Real Estate Mogul would be like comparing Kwame Kilpatrick to a decent, law-abiding politician.

As far as his plush desk job, yeah I don’t think Davidson is going to think too highly of Hunter after this bust :\

Where’s the FBI investigating the US Mortgage Companies and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke? This is a farce!

I second Fadel’s comment except minus the farce part. Just because EVERYONE committed worse crimes doesn’t mean Lindsey didn’t. Still dude, the people REALLY responsible for this mess won’t ever go to trial….

PS for once you can’t blame it on Bush, the legislation that made the types of predatory loans that are causing the entire US economy to colapse was actually an outgoing gift from Slick Willie…. not to defend Bush in any way really just pointing out that this mess has been like 8 years in the making.

Ya can’t really blame one guy for this mess. Here is the absolute best review of the mortgage crisis I’ve heard, from beginning to end and all parties involved in making it happen:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355
(click on “full episode” under the crumpled dollar image)

If you’ve got an hour and enjoy NPR, you dirty commie hippie, its definitely worth a listen.

And now back to basketball! Let’s hope Lindsey was playing by the rules, I was really hoping to see him on the sidelines for years to come…

“you dirty commie hippie”

I resent the implication that I don’t wash.

It was a “collective” dirty commie hippie statement intended for all. Use at your own smelly peril!

This is exactly the sort of complacency that has plagued the pistons: flip just didn’t hold players accountable for their lending standards

It is actually possible that Lindsey was not aware that this was illegal. I helped expose the straw buying tactics of my fraudulent lending company (Tri-Minnesota Mortgage, which was run by Keith Trautman and Richard Garvey) leading to them being barred from loan servicing.

Here is what likely happened.

1) This McLellan fellow recognized that the re-fi boom was about to bust.

2) He went to one of many networks that taught brokers how to pull off these types of schemes.

3) He leveraged Lindsey’s name purely for credibility purposes, and dazzled him with the same confetti of paperwork he used to doup banks.

4) He did all of the actual swindling work, throwing money at Lindsey as was necessary.

That is the most likely explanation. While learning to create the necessary paper trail is relatively easy, it is difficult enough that I would need to see evidence that Lindsey took the time to learn the process.

McLellan is trying to score a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. The FBI is under a lot of pressure to find a high-profile case of mortgage fraud to prosecute, so that the government can say it exercised due diligence in ridding the housing market of the bad eggs. McLellan obviously doesn’t fit the bill, but Lindsey does.

As such, McLellan is painting Hunter as the major player here. He will also retrofit the documentation to match, and you can bet Countrywide will do everything in its power to help him do just that.

That said, silent partners and third parties (and, certainly, Limited Liability Corporations) form the guts of fraud schemes. The FBI may use a high-profile case such as this (along with the requisite funding) to provide the template for future prosecution in these matters.

Either way, it is difficult to see Dumars wanting to bring in an unwitting (at best) accomplice to fraud.

“This is exactly the sort of complacency that has plagued the pistons: flip just didn’t hold players accountable for their lending standards”

I was wondering where he got the nickname Freddie Mac.

I think Lindsey got his name used. Look at the guy who’s been in the NBA for 15 years or so, made a ton of money, has a front office gig for the Pistons whenever he says and the guy is going to try and score a measley million knowing full well it’s close to if not outright fraud? Let’s base the case on the last 15 years and not the last two.

As for the mortgage crises: The beginning came when the federal gov’t said mortgage banks/companies were not making enough loans to minority applicants. Once that flood gate was opened (i.e., looser standards) everybody jumped in. You can not tell me that someone sitting across the table from you and says, “That’s right. Interest only for the life of the loan. And you get to keep your house” is sitting there beleiving every last vowel as gospel. These folks believe and heard what they wanted to believe and hear.

Having worked in housing construction industry for a subcontractor for builders such as Centex, Pardee and DR Horton, folks got caught up in appreciation of 15% each year in their house. 15% of 300K is 45K, enough to take an equity out each year at 35K after closing costs and almost make your mortgage payments.

And akin to the S&L crisis in the 80’s, the more the market heated up, the more lenders wanted to make loans to sell in the secondary market and to have enough loans to make money since the portfolio itself was not investment grade. They ended up chasing their tails.

And then instead of selling 100 loans of various credit worthiness as a diversified portfolio, they split the 100 into quads of “great,” “good,” “not-so-good,” and “bad.” And obviously the money paid for the “great” part of the portolio returned a higher return than the “bad” quad. But in order to keep making money at that level, they decided to open up more applicants for approval by lowering their standards, because at a certain point, people who have “great” credit became short in supply.

At the end of the day, 95%+ people are paying their mortgage. It’s the other 5% that is fukn up market. Bottom line: the vast majority of these folks played the market and lost. And knew they were going to lose when they over-estimated their income or understated their liabilities.

“At the end of the day, 95%+ people are paying their mortgage. It’s the other 5% that is fukn up market. Bottom line: the vast majority of these folks played the market and lost.”

This is true. Most of the housing value lost has been in certain markets (e.g. $2,000 per square foot properties in CA) or bank-owned squalor.

That said, my wife and I had great credit, and could have afforded 30 year fixed or 5/1 ARMs, for which we applied. Somewhere along the line, our brokers (the straw-buying goons mentioned above) switched up the loan documentation to a one-month option ARM.

How many middle class folks are going to be surprised when their loan resets because they thought they had fixed terms? If it is even 2 or 3%, the housing market is set for another tumble. If my experience was unique, then we’ll probably see a turnaround late next year.

The mortgage crisis is caused by increasing the number of loans given to minorities? More likely, it had to do with Phil Gramm’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which paved the way not only for Enron, but also for the orgy of gambling that fueled the subprime meltdown.

Why did hunter put the dude on his bank account? That is a BIG RED FLAG, and I think Hunter is in trouble, fellas. The FBI ain’t playing around.