Bush pardons mortgage fra

12/25/2008


Bush: no stranger to estranging justice. President George W. Bush has characterized the recent US housing crisis as a product of greed and Wall Street excess. But that doesn't seem to have been Bush's opinion when he pardoned Isaac Toussie, 30, of Brooklyn, the son of a New York real estate developer, who defrauded the Housing and Urban Development Department government for millions of dollars and pled guilty to inflating the incomes of at least 100 families to make them eligible for federal loans in the lead-up to the worst housing crisis the United States has ever had. Toussie was among 19 pardoned by President George W. Bush in his semi-annual pre-Christmas clemencies. What's more, Toussie's father gave $28,500 to the Republican National Committee this year, according to a RAW STORY analysis of federal campaign finance records available at the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog Open Secrets. Robert and his son were sued in 2001 in what was billed as the largest real-estate discrimination lawsuit ever filed in New York State on behalf of some 400 families. They said they were duped into buying overpriced and shoddily built properties. The two were accused of being in cahoots with more than a dozen lenders to defraud minority home buyers, most of whom had imperfect credit records. Toussie admitted to mortgage fraud and to defrauding Suffolk County by issuing letters that inflated the value of a property the county and a town bought by $2.7 million. As Politico's Ben Smith notes, Toussie and "his father were poster children in a 2002 BusinessWeek piece on the dark side of the housing boom." Issac Toussie was sentenced to five months in prison and five months' home detention in 2003 and was fined $10,000. He escaped restitution after prosecutors said that records had been destroyed in the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. SOURCE: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/New_Yorker_pardoned_by_Bush_pled_1223.html UPDATE!: President George W. Bush took the very rare step Wednesday of revoking a pardon he had granted only a day before, after learning in news reports of political contributions to Republicans by the man's father and other information. Bush pardoned 19 people on Tuesday, including Isaac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, N.Y., who had been convicted of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and of mail fraud. On Wednesday, the White House issued an extraordinary statement saying the president was reversing his decision in Toussie's case. White House press secretary Dana Perino said the new decision was "based on information that has subsequently come to light," including on the extent and nature of Toussie's prior criminal offenses. She also said that neither the White House counsel's office nor the president had been aware of a political contribution by Toussie's father that "might create an appearance of impropriety." "Given that, this was the prudent thing to do," she said. The new information came to the White House's attention from news reports, Perino said. A story in the New York Daily News said Toussie's father, Robert, donated $28,500 to the national Republican Party in April. It came just months before Toussie's pardon petition, the newspaper said. The counsel's office generally doesn't include vetting of political contributions in its reviews on such matters, as that would be "highly inappropriate on many levels," she said. The White House decision on Toussie had come without a recommendation from the pardon attorney, Ronald L. Rodgers, as Toussie's request for a pardon came less than five years after completion of his sentence, so that eliminated another step in the review process. The Justice Department advises the president on who qualifies for pardons. Only people who have waited five years after their conviction or release from prison can apply for a pardon under the department's guidelines. Criminals are required to begin serving time, or otherwise exhaust any appeals, before they can be considered for sentence commutation. But the president can forgive people outside that process if he chooses. Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled — meaning he can forgive anyone he wants, at any time. Perino said she is not aware of any other instance of a pardon reversal, in the Bush administration or others. "The counsel to the president reviewed the application and believed, based on the information known to him at the time, that it was a meritorious application," she said. Bush now believes the case should rest with the pardon attorney. The Daily News story on Wednesday, and another in Newsday and on blogs, shed light on Toussie's record. He pleaded guilty for lying to HUD and mail fraud, admitting that he falsified finances of prospective homebuyers seeking HUD mortgages. He was sentenced to five months in prison and five months' house arrest, a $10,000 fine and no restitution, the Daily News reported. In another case, Toussie pleaded guilty to having a friend send his local county a letter that falsely inflated property values. The Daily News also located a lawyer representing hundreds of ex-customers who have sued Toussie in federal court, accusing him of luring poor, minority homebuyers into buying overpriced homes with mortgages that had hidden costs. Federal Election Commission records show a number of donations to Republicans this year by Robert Toussie and by a Laura Toussie who lists the same address. Between them, they gave $4,600 to Minnesota GOP Sen. Norm Coleman and another $4,600 to Oregon Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, all on Oct. 15. Coleman is locked in a still-undecided race against Democrat Al Franken, and Smith lost in November to Democrat Jeff Merkley. On Oct. 30, Robert Toussie also gave $2,300 to GOP Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia. His contribution to the Republican National Committee came as part of a fundraiser in March for GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Out of a total donation of $30,800 by Toussie, $2,300 went to McCain's campaign and $28,500 went to the RNC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28382843/page/2/ classic layouts