Fleischmann explained in the report that some 40% of randomly-sampled mortgage holders with the bank had inflated their incomes in order to be approved for loans.
In one case, she investigated a manicurist who claimed to be earning $117,000 per year. According to Fleischmann’s calculations, the woman would have worked 488 days in a single year to earn that amount.
“And that's with no overhead," Fleischmann said. "It wasn't possible."
The bank was guilty of accepting countless applications of this nature, she said.
Despite her efforts to raise the red flags internally to her manager, she was continually shot down.
“If you sent him an e-mail, he would actually come out and yell at you,” she said. “The whole point of having a compliance and diligence group is to have policies that are set out clearly in writing. So to have exactly the opposite of that – that was very worrisome.'
JP Morgan Chase is the largest bank in the U.S., with total assets of $2.5 trillion.=pic(MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS)
After speaking with the SEC, federal prosecutors put together a case that resulted in the bank paying out $9 billion.
Outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder publicly stated that the Department of Justice wanted to send a clear signal that one’s profit does not exempt him or her from the law.
“'No firm, no matter how profitable, is above the law, and the passage of time is no shield from accountability.'
Fleischmann said she knows that she puts herself at risk for losing a lot by revealing the inner workings of JP Morgan
"I could be sued into bankruptcy," she said. "I could lose my license to practice law. I could lose everything. But if we don't start speaking up, then this really is all we're going to get: the biggest financial cover-up in history."
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