Laura Richardson...isn’t she the one that defaulted on her mortgage while making $170,000 a year as a Congressthang? Michelle Malkin was all over her for a while on her incredible hypocrisy during the “housing bailout” fight last year.
}:-)4
(Like Obama, Laura is bi-racial, with a black father and a white mother. She stated that her perception of comments heard by her family as racist, spurred her pursuit of public service)
Richardson purchased a home in Sacramento with no money down[5] and a subprime mortgage. Washington Mutual alleged that she later walked away from her Sacramento home and the mortgage within two years of receiving the $578,000 mortgage and stopped making payments on the home and the mortgage. Washington Mutual foreclosed on the house and the final amount owed by Richardson was $578,000 which was $40,000 more than the home was worth.[6] According to county records, Richardson received a default notice and Notice of Trustee's Sale in late 2007.
In December 2007, Richardson was behind in payments by more than $18,000.[7] According to the couple that sold the home to Richardson, Richardson was not maintaining the home. Sharon Helmar has stated: "The neighbors are extremely unhappy with her. She didn't mow the lawn or take out the garbage while she was there. We lived there for a long time, 30 years, and we had to hide our heads whenever we came back to the neighborhood."[8]
Laura Richardson (center) with fellow congresswomen Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio (left) and Yvette Clarke of New York (right).
The real estate broker who bought Rep. Laura Richardson's Sacramento house at a foreclosure sale last month is accusing her of receiving preferential treatment because her lender has issued a notice to rescind the sale. James York, owner of Red Rock Mortgage, said he would file a lawsuit against Richardson and her lender, Washington Mutual, by the end of the week, and has every intention of keeping the house. York bought the Sacramento home at a foreclosure auction on May 7 for $388,000.
Richardson had not been making payments on the property for nearly a year, and had also gone into default on her two other houses in Long Beach and San Pedro. Richardson, D-Long Beach, has said that the auction should never have been held, because she had worked out a loan modification agreement with her lender beforehand and had begun making payments.[9]
Washington Mutual has since settled with York. Experts interviewed in relation to the foreclosure and recision have claimed that Washington Mutual's actions in Richardson's favor have been nearly unprecedented. "It seems to me it has nothing to do with the law, but it has to do with [Washington Mutual] trying to be deferential to a congresswoman," said Grant Nelson, the William H. Rehnquist Professor of Law at Pepperdine University.[10]
According to the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Richardson had also defaulted on payments for her primary home in Long Beach and an additional property she owns in San Pedro. Although she has worked out an agreement with her lender for the Long Beach property, the San Pedro home is still in default and faces foreclosure.[11]
She also initially did not disclose a loan from a strip club owner when on the City Council, public records show.[12]
Rep. Richardson's Sacramento home has been declared a 'public nuisance', as reported by the LA Times. The Code Enforcement Department in Sacramento has declared her home a "public nuisance" and threatened up to $5,000 a month fine if she does not fix up the property. The city action was prompted when police were called twice to investigate reports of a suspicious person in or around the house. Officers called the Code Enforcement Department, which boarded up a broken door. In July inspectors visited the house twice and found "junk and debris" in the driveway and "rotting fruit on the ground in the rear yard which creates rodent harborage."[10]
Rep. Richardson is currently under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics as a result of her ties to this Sacramento home. [13]