Attorney General Biden’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force announces June 8-9 housing workshops

Statewide events to provide on-site opportunities to discuss mortgage modification with lenders, learn about government programs, and connect with housing counselors
On June 8th and 9th, Delaware homeowners are invited to attend free statewide housing workshops sponsored by the Delaware Attorney General’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force, in conjunction with the Delaware State Housing Authority and the Office of the State Bank Commissioner. The workshops are aimed at facilitating loan modifications, reducing foreclosures, and providing educational information to help resident stay in their homes.
Tuesday
June 8
3 – 7 p.m.
Chase Center
Riverfront
815 Justison St.
Wilmington
Wells Fargo
PHH
GMAC
OCWEN
Chase
CitiMortgage
Bank of America
Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae

Wednesday
June 9
10 a.m. – 1
p.m.
Outlook at the
Duncan
Center
500 West
Loockerman St.
Dover
Wells Fargo
PHH
GMAC
OCWEN
Chase
CitiMortgage
Bank of America
Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae
Wednesday
June 9
4 – 7 p.m.
Western
Sussex
Boys and
Girls Club
310 Virginia Ave
Seaford
Wells Fargo
PHH
GMAC
OCWEN
Chase
CitiMortgage
Bank of America
Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae

Homeowners who wish to meet on-site with their mortgage servicer are encouraged to bring information about current income and details about their current mortgage, including loan number, monthly payment, interest rate, and loan balance.

Certified housing counselors from many non-profit agencies across Delaware will also be onhand to meet with homeowners, including YWCA, Neighborhood House, Hockessin Community
Center, CCCS of Maryland & Delaware, First State Community Action, Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council (DCRAC), Interfaith Community Housing, and NCALL.

For more information about the June 8th and 9th housing workshops, call the Attorney General’s Foreclosure Hotline at 1-800-220-5424 or visit http://www.deforeclosurehelp.org, www.deforeclosurehelp.org or www.attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/mortgageforeclosure.
Media interested in attending theseworkshops should contact Jason Miller at the Delaware Attorney General’s Office at (302) 577-8949.

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The June 8th and 9th workshops are offered amid continued record-setting foreclosure filings in Delaware, which surpassed 6,000 in 2009. Filings have continued near that same pace, up slightly (6%) for the first four months of 2010, to 2,044 vs. 1,925 during the same period last year. A more disturbing but not unexpected trend is the record pace of sheriff sales of foreclosed homes, with June’s monthly record of more than 500 homes expected to be broken in July with close to 600 homes.

“Attorney General Biden’s Mortgage Fraud Task Force is taking action to reduce foreclosures and combat housing scams statewide,” stated Chief Deputy Attorney General Charles Butler. “We urge homeowners who have missed mortgage payments or are concerned about losing their homes to foreclosure or housing fraud to attend these workshops and get free help they need and deserve.”

Homeowners who are worried about missing a mortgage payment, are facing foreclosure, or suspect foreclosure fraud are urged to attend and receive immediate on-site help from housing
professionals. At each workshop, mortgage servicers, state employees, and HUD-certified housing counselors will discuss mortgage modifications, the Delaware Mortgage Assistance Program (DEMAP) and other government homeowner programs, and foreclosure rescue scams.

Walk-ins are encouraged.


Attorney General’s Office calls for stronger patient protections, increased oversight of the medical profession in response to widespread failures to report Earl Bradley’s suspicious behaviors.

A report released today by Attorney General Beau Biden’s office finds that numerous
health care professionals appear to have failed to live up to their legal responsibilities to report EarlBradley’s suspicious behaviors. The findings show that Delaware’s laws and procedures governing the medical field are broken and in need of significant reforms to better protect patients.

The report also finds that the Delaware Board of Medical Practice did not fulfill its legal
obligation to investigate allegations that Bradley molested a patient in Philadelphia shortly before moving to the First State and that, several years later, the Delaware Medical Society
never reported Bradley to the Board despite intending to do so.

In January, Biden commissioned the Department of Justice to look into which individuals and
entities had suspicions about Bradley’s behavior and whether they were required to report their
concerns to the Board of Medical Practice and/or the Division of Family Services under Delaware law.

“We will never know if a report to the Board of Medical Practice would have stopped Earl
Bradley from harming more patients,” Biden said. “We do know that the public will be best served if our findings are used to spark important improvements in Delaware law that will lead to a safer environment for patients. We know what went wrong. Now we must act. The Attorney General’s Office looks forward to working with the Governor and the General Assembly on specific legislation to enact these recommendations.”

Bradley, who has been indicted on more than 500 counts of rape and other sexual assault
offenses against patients at his pediatric practice, received his Delaware medical license in 1994. That year, just before Bradley moved to Delaware, a Philadelphia mother alleged she saw Bradley with his hand in her daughter’s diaper after claiming he was taking her to a room to see a Barney dinosaur toy.

“I want to do everything in my power to stop this man,” the mother wrote to the Pennsylvania Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, which oversees the medical profession. “I know what I saw.”

The child’s mother reported the incident both to the Bureau and to the Philadelphia Police
Department. Both closed their investigations with no findings of wrongdoing by Bradley after
minimal review. The Delaware Board of Medical Practice learned about the charges but did not
pursue an investigation of its own – even though section 1731A of the state’s Medical Practices Act requires it to look into such allegations, even if the alleged offenses occurred in another state.

“As you well know, since the alleged infraction occurred in Pennsylvania, we were unable to
do our own investigation. We relied on you, and you came through for us,” the executive director of the Delaware Board of Medical Practice wrote to his/her counterpart in Pennsylvania in 1995 after Delaware’s Board opted not to look into the Pennsylvania incident.

Another glaring breakdown occurred in 2004, when the Medical Society of Delaware’s
controversial Physicians Health Committee failed to report allegations by Bradley’s sister, who had previously worked in his office. In a letter, she accused Bradley of excessive time spent with patients, mood swings, bad hygiene, poor record keeping, problems with anger management and exorbitant spending. The letter also included a line – allegedly not transmitted because of a fax machine problem – stating that Bradley inappropriately touched girls.

The Committee voted to report Bradley to the Board of Medical Practice, but inexplicably the
information was never sent to the Board and no attempt to follow up was made. The chair of the Physicians Health Committee, who received the sister’s complaint, also had an individual duty to personally report Bradley after receiving the sister’s letter and follow-up call.

The investigation also uncovered many problems with the statute that mandates that health care providers report reasonable suspicions of inappropriate behavior by physicians. To address them and to better protect patients, Biden endorsed about two dozen statutory and procedural changes, including:

• Require all doctors to be supervised when with minor patients.
• Sharply increase financial penalties for failure to report suspicious and unprofessional behaviorby physicians.
• Make the Board of Medical Practice’s disciplinary hearings more transparent by removingneedless “protect the doctor” provisions. Currently the board is the only such public body permitted to conduct closed disciplinary hearings.
• Change the Board’s investigation process so that a specially trained investigator – and not a
fellow physician, as is currently the case – decides whether to turn a case over to the
Department of Justice for criminal investigation.
•Require the Board to notify law enforcement agencies when it receives complaints of criminalmisconduct by doctors.
• Require the Board to investigate verbal complaints, allow it to investigate anonymouscomplaints, and streamline its emergency license suspension process.
• Mandate that hospitals report all investigatory actions taken against employees.The Department of Justice investigation identified many more mistakes in the handling of reports of

Bradley’s behavior over the years, including:

• In 1996, a Beebe Hospital executive should have reported allegations to the Board of Medical Practice that Bradley excessively kissed his patients and required only girls to be naked during sports physicals.

•Beebe staff should have reported Bradley to the Board in 1998 for taking pictures of patients and performing a gynecological exam on a patient against her mother’s wishes.

•There is additional evidence that other doctors had concerns but did not report them. For instance, one doctor who worked with Bradley referred to him as a “pedophile” in casual
conversation. Another doctor heard from several patients’ parents that they had left Bradley
because he conducted long vaginal exams. Another doctor treating former Bradley patients
heard parent complaints that Bradley forced children to undress and removed patients from their parents’ supervision. That information could have been sent to the Board for investigation.

The full report is available on the Attorney General’s website at
http://www.attorneygeneral.delaware.gov.
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Attorney General Biden discharged from Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience

Doctor says Biden’s neurological status is “perfect” Attorney General Beau Biden returned home this afternoon from Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, Department of Justice spokesman Jason Miller said.

Biden’s doctor, Dr. Robert Rosenwasser of Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience, made the
following statement upon the Attorney General’s discharge: “On the morning of Tuesday May
11, Attorney General Beau Biden suffered a minor stroke. Due to rapid triage, diagnosis, and
institution of appropriate medical therapy, he is leaving Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience of
Thomas Jefferson University neurologically normal. I am pleased to report that the results of his
final discharge general and neurological exam find his neurological status perfect in all arenas
including motor skills, language function, and cognitive assessment. I am extremely pleased
about his status as of discharge and have released him to assume full responsibilities as Attorney General after a brief period of rest at home.”

“Attorney General Biden is resting at home with his family,” Miller said. “He is feeling
great and is looking forward to returning to work full-time as soon as he can. We cannot wait to
have him back.”

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Department of Justice announces resolution to consumer fraud investigation

Nine customers will receive discounts and incentives they believed had been offered but not provided. “Attorney General Biden has made protecting consumers a top priority for the Department of Justice because Delawareans deserve to be treated fairly,” said Timothy Mullaney, Director of the Department’s Fraud and Consumer Protection Division. “We will make sure these companies follow through on this agreement and that consumers receive the refunds they deserve.”

The complaints were lodged between June 2009 and May 2010 against Serenity Travel and Destination Vacation International. Customers alleged that the companies offered discounts on cruises, lodging and other travel products if they attended the companies’ marketing presentations, but then either failed to provide promised incentives or required customers to pay previously undisclosed fees. Customers also complained that they were pressured to pay to join the travel clubs before they could research the companies, were not provided travel price quotes at marketing presentations, and that the company opened credit cards in their names without permission.

Serenity, customers said, claimed to have a strong rating from the Better Business Bureau when, in fact, the company had lost its accreditation. In the settlement, the companies agreed to refund customers within 30 days for the fees they paid to join the travel club. Additional customers will receive discounts they were originallypromised. The companies also agreed to clearly disclose all of the terms and conditions forreceiving incentives over the phone, in written promotions, at oral presentations, in gift acknowledgement forms signed by customers, and on their websites. Moreover, the companies’ disclosures of terms and conditions, which under the settlement must be approved by the Delaware Department of Justice, will also include exact dollar amounts, specific requirements, such as attending marketing presentations, and blackout dates and geographic restrictions for travel. They will also disclose to customers that they can obtain the best price on travel booked through the companies by calling the companies rather than using their Web site.

Delaware Consumers can file a complaint with the Consumer Protection Unit by calling800-220-5424. A consumer complaint form is also available on the Attorney General’s website at www.attorneygeneral.delaware.gov.

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