FRIDAY, JULY 6, 2012 VOL. 24 NO. 119 CONWAY, N.H. MT. WASHINGTON VALLEY’S DAILY NEWSPAPER 356-3456 FREE

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OSSIPEE — Carroll County’s sheriff is rounding up a posse to investigate criminal mortgage fraud. Volunteers will be needed.

Sheriff Christopher Conley (R-Wolfeboro) held a press conference Monday to announce the creation of a task force to look at the impact of banking fraud on Carroll County.

Sheriff targets criminal mortgage fraud in countyVolunteers are needed to serve on task force

BY DAYMOND STEERTHE CONWAY DAILY SUN

Revelers found a little more room in the Gibson Playground at the basketball court behind the North Conway Com-munity Center to watch the fi reworks Wednesday night in North Conway. Schouler Park was packed for the fi reworks display and live music. The fi reworks went off a little early as a storm approached but most people stayed in the park on their blankets to watch the show. Story and more photos inside. (JAMIE GEMMITI PHOTO)

BARTLETT — The Bartlett Edu-cation Association and the Bartlett School Board have reached a tenta-tive agreement on a new contract for the 2013-14 school year.

Tentative agreement reached on Bartlett teachers’ contract

see MORTGAGE FRAUD page 8

see CONTRACT page 11

BY LLOYD JONESTHE CONWAY DAILY SUN

The Fourth in photos. Pages 14-15

Page 8 — THE CONWAY DAILY SUN, Friday, July 6, 2012

Buyers of Scrap M eta l Copper • Alum inum • Brass • Steel • Iron

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Strawberry Festival!

Saturday, July 7 • 2-4pm Strawberry Shortcake

$5.00 per person

Mt. Moriah Masonic Lodge

Brownfield, ME

Hosting national acts up close and personal in the foothills of the White Mountains in Western Maine. This less than 200 seat timber frame music hall serves fine wines and imported beers as well as dinner before selected shows.

Stone Mountain Stone Mountain Arts Center Arts Center Coming Up! Coming Up!

Stone Mountain Arts Center 695 Dugway Road Brownfield, ME

207-935-7292

For tickets and more info about our events go to: www.stonemountainartscenter.com

July 13 A Barn Burner with the Roy Sludge Trio featuring Duke Levine Just Added! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just Added! Just Added! SOLD OUT! July 15 Comedian Paula Poundstone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOLD OUT! SOLD OUT!

July 19 Stone Mountain Song Stage: featuring Suzy Bogguss, Lori Mckenna, Sarah Siskind, Peter Mulvey, and Chris Moore

SOLD OUT! July 22 Leon Russell - one show only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOLD OUT! SOLD OUT! July 26 Greg Brown - Singer Songwriter

Just Added! July 27 Rustic Overtones - Alt Rock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just Added! Just Added! Just Added! July 31, Aug 1 Lucinda Williams - Up Close & Personal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just Added! Just Added!

August 2 Kathy Mattea - Country star August 4 Stone Mountain LIVE Anniversary Show! Carol Noonan and the Stone

Mountain Boys host Maine’s Own Musical Jamboree Show with special guests Slaid Cleaves and Bill Kirchen

SOLD OUT ! August 6 Lyle Lovett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOLD OUT ! SOLD OUT ! August 9 Celtic Tenors August 11 The Red Stick Ramblers - Cajun, Swing August 12 Cowboy Junkies - One Show Only

SOLD OUT! August 13 Mary Chapin Carpenter - Up Close and Personal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SOLD OUT! SOLD OUT! August 14 Mary Chapin Carpenter - Up Close and Personal August 16 Shemeika Copeland August 17 A Blues Barn Burner with Monkey Junk August 19 Bob Marley - Comedian August 24 Chris Smither - Blues, Folk August 26 Waltzings for Dreamers New Music for FREE Series with The Henry Girls! August 30 La Bouttine Souriante - Canadian Traditional Super Group! August 31 Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives - Country Sept. 1 Quebe Sisters Band Sept. 7 The Old Barn Series with the Nuala Kennedy Band - Irish Sept. 16 Connie Smith - Country Legend Sept 19 Steve Earle - One Show Only

Just Added! Sept. 20 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Up Close and Personal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just Added! Just Added! Sept. 21 A Barn Burner with Session Americana... a Round Table Jambouree

Just Added! Sept. 23 Keb Mo - Up Close and Personal with his Band . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just Added! Just Added! Sept. 27 A Recession Session with Kenny White Sept. 28 The Old Barn Series with Cahalen Morrison & Eli West Sept. 30 Glen Phillips & Grant-Lee Phillips - Double Bill

Just Added! Oct. 1 John Hiatt and the Combo - Up Close and Personal . . . . . . . . Just Added! Just Added! Oct. 21 Steep Canyon - bluegrass Nov. 2 Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas - Master Scottish Fiddler and Cellist Nov. 8 Mary Black Nov. 9 Nanci Griffith - Up Close and Personal Nov. 10 Capitol Steps - Evening Show Nov. 11 Capitol Steps - Afternoon Show Nov. 17 Jay Ungar & Molly Mason/Darrol Anger & Emy Phelps - Fiddle/Americana April 27, 2013 April Verch - Fiddler, Stepper

Holiday Week!!! Thursday, July 5

Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul.

Wild Celtic Fiddler and Band

Saturday, July 7

Stone Mountain LIVE

Carol Noonan and the Stone

Mountain Boys host Maine’s Own

Musical Revue and Dining

Experience with special guests

The Sweetback Sisters

Com in g R ig h t U p ! C o m in g R ig h t U p ! C o m in g R ig h t U p !

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Turn off faceboook and your cell phone and turn on your senses to the up close and personal

style of the Stone Mountain Arts Center!

Nestled in the foothills of the White Mountains in Brownfield Maine, seeing a show at Stone Mountain is like no other venue experience.

Just under 200 seats in a timberframe setting.... serving fine wines and beer and dinner before shows by reservation. Owner, singer song writer Carol Noonan, invites you to experience

a musicians’ hole in the wall up a dirt road, and country mile. p.s. We do great country weddings too!!!

Tamworth Firemen’s Club Auction

Annual Fundraiser July 7, 2012

at the

South Tamworth Fire Station Route 25, South Tamworth

(rain or shine)

New Items, Slightly Used Items, Gift Certificates

Volunteers should have knowledge of the mortgage or banking industries or an interest in those subjects.

Conley was motivated to create the task force after he learned 51 banking institutions fi led for bank-ruptcy protection in federal court in May. He wondered if those bankruptcies might impact Carroll County residents. But there have been other issues that gave him concern as well. Conley said thousands of prop-erty owners in the county may be affected by mortgage fraud in general.

“During the past year, there have been many events, that have come to my attention or I have been involved with, affecting property owners — i.e. properties being foreclosed on that were owned outright, fi nancial insti-tutions that staked a claim to a property but didn’t have a deed, note or mortgage history, persons who owned property and were told they were in arrears on a mortgage they paid,” said Conley. “A common thread in each case is there was no accountability by the fi nancial institution, no one to present a reply, no decision maker to speak with.”

The Conway Daily Sun is aware of two such issues. In Effi ngham late last year, JP Morgan Chase and a company called Lender Processing Services wrongly claimed ownership of the Drew family’s second home. The Drews found a notice on the home claiming that JP Morgan Chase owned the property. The home’s locks were changed and about $14,000 worth of belongings were removed. The Drews eventually settled with the bank.

“That’s another case where the mortgage, the title and the communication were not quite right,” said Conley.

In March, JP Morgan and LPS had put a similar notice on the Rust family’s home in Eaton. However, the notice was put on the wrong house. No belongings were removed from the Rust’s home because the mis-take was caught quickly.

By checking the county’s Registry of Deeds, sheriff’s Cpl. Brittany Perley confi rmed there was no mortgage or lien on Rust’s single-story home on Ridge Road.

“(The Rusts) said they felt they weren’t making any headway at getting through to someone to ensure they (LPS and Chase) would not continue going to her house,” wrote Perley in her police report. “At this point they felt it was unstoppable and when the process con-tinued they would be forced to sue the bank.”

Perley said people living in neighborhoods with a lot of second homes need to be especially vigilant because the second-home owners might not know about notices that are posted on their properties.

“It’s good the neighbor saw it,” said Perley about the notice on Rust’s door. “Otherwise we would have ended up like we did in Effi ngham.”

JP Morgan has publicly apologized for the errors in Effi ngham and Eaton.

The sheriff listed several indicators that increase the likelihood that a property could be subjected to fraud, including: The property was purchased or fi nanced or refi nanced after January of 1997, the property was purchased or fi nanced refi nanced after January 1997 and the mortgage servicer (who you direct payments to) has changed, inaccurate inquiries from fi nancial institutions relative to your mortgage and the bottom page on your mortgage has the following statement, “New Hampshire Mortgage -single family -Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Uniform Instrument MERS modi-fi ed form 3030 01/01.”

Conley believes Carroll County will be a good place to look at how big a problem mortgage fraud actually is because it has a small population. It’s unclear how many county residents are actually victims of “complex and convoluted” mortgage frauds.

“We don’t know what we don’t know,” said Conley.In New Hampshire, mortgage fraud is prosecuted by

the Attorney General’s Offi ce. Conley said the jurisdic-

see MORTGAGE FRAUD page 10

MORTGAGE FRAUD from page one

Page 10 — THE CONWAY DAILY SUN, Friday, July 6, 2012

What if my spouse or I need to be in a nursing home? Will I be able to keep my home and life savings?

How can I protect the Inheritance from my children’s creditors & divorcing spouses?

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Thursday, July 26 • 12:30pm – 2pm Gibson Center, 14 Grove St., No. Conway, NH

Presented by: Attorney Edward Beasley of Beasley and Ferber, PA, Past Chair, American Bar Association Elder Law Committee

Special Guest Linda Sjostrom of TAURUS Financial Group, Berlin, NH, will discuss tax planning, including: • How to avoid paying State of NH tax on dividends & interest income • Tax Reduction Strategies • Avoiding capital gains by reviewing your tax bracket • Importance of cost basis on your investments

Jeanne Limmer Dance Center and The Branch A season of opportunities and experiences… ~* Voices from The Valley - a performance workshop with

Stephen Clapp, Sat. July 7th, 10:00-1:00

~* Children’s classes and camps begin July 9th

~* On going Int. level Modern classes with guest artist

~* On going Ballet I & Hip-Hop - dancers 11+yrs.

~* Cultivate Dance Festival Aug. 9th- 11th (Bethlehem, NH)

Summer Dance

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tion is shared and that he hasn’t spoken to the Attorney General’s Offi ce about his task force.Conley also said the issue of banking fraud is of “great concern” in Grafton County.

Earlier this year, the State of New Hampshire joined with 48 other states and the federal government in a settle-ment with the nation’s fi ve largest banks and mortgage servicers for “fore-closure abuse, fraud and unacceptable nationwide mortgage servicing prac-tices,” according to the Attorney Gen-eral’s Offi ce.

“The proposed agreement provides an estimated $43.6 million in direct relief to New Hampshire homeowners and addresses future mortgage loan servic-ing practices,” states the New Hamp-shire Attorney General’s Offi ce.

Critics of the settlement, like inves-tigative journalist Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone, panned the settlement as so inadequate that it could be consid-ered a bailout.

The Attorney General Offi ce lawyer in charge of mortgage fraud, Rob Adams, was on vacation this week and could not be reached.

Conley isn’t worried about setting off a turf war with the state of New Hamp-shire.

“It comes down to if not you, then who? And if not now then when?” said Conley.

Jurisdictions around the country are going after the banks, said Conley. He said Louisiana parishes are suing banks for damages under Racketeer

Infl uenced and Corrupt Organizations laws and that the same banks are oper-ating in Carroll County. Maryland’s Attorney General is seeking damages for the destruction of the reliability of public records, deeds and titles.

Anyone making a complaint should have the following information avail-able: legal name of property owner (borrowers) physical addresses of the property and description, mailing address of the property and borrowers, a description of the problem and a con-tact e-mail.

This is an election year and two other candidates will be vying for Conley’s offi ce in November.

Republican candidate Domenic Rich-ardi said whether or not he would continue Conley’s program depends on what exactly Conley does. Richardi indicated that a lot of the work could be done in house as opposed to with a group of volunteers.

The other candidate, Frances Lord, an Independent, couldn’t be reached.

Investment advisor Anthony Clout-ier, of Freedom, said he’s glad that a law enforcement agency is looking at the issue. Cloutier has a television show about fi nance, called Main Street Money, which is aired on Valley Vision.

“They should be concerned about this in Concord, and this may be the only way to get their attention,” said Cloutier.

Anyone interested may contact the sheriff’s offi ce at Carrollcountysher-iff@carrollcountynh.net or by phone at 539-2284 Ext. 317 or in a written letter Attn. Deputy Brian King, P.O. Box 190, Ossipee NH 03864.

MORTGAGE FRAUD from page 8