http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-brunner/notarize-this-the-brewing_b_747461.html
Another must read, by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner
Under today's financial schemes, foreclosure documents are routinely created to demonstrate the transfer of the interest in the note so the right person brings the foreclosure lawsuit. In the case of Chase Home Finance, LLC, its Columbus, Ohio employee, Beth Cottrell, testified in her deposition that she helps create foreclosure documents by signing on behalf of the banks and financial institutions (including MERS) that have been involved. Then, a small group of notaries at Chase notarize her and others' signatures on various foreclosure documents (about 18,000 documents a month at Chase Home Finance, LLC).
While serving as a Chase Home Finance, LLC employee, Beth Cottrell's name has appeared in foreclosure affidavits from 2008 through 2010 in the Florida court system on documents showing mortgage amounts owed on behalf of Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Federal National Mortgage Association, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, People's Choice Home Loan, Wachovia and Citi, even though she was an employee of Chase Home Finance, LLC in Columbus.
In Ohio, I read two depositions of Beth Cottrell taken in Columbus, Ohio in May of this year, about a Florida foreclosure. I was frankly chagrined to read her description of the notary activity to process the 18,000 documents a month by the company she works for alone--using just eight notaries. In her deposition, Ms. Cottrell's stated that: no oath is administered for the signing of each document; notaries (not signers) are filling in numbers in the affidavits used in court ordered foreclosures; notarized documents are not verified by the person signing them, but rather, signers are relying on verification by others, and notaries know this at the time they notarize documents; and large numbers of documents are signed in bulk and notarized in bulk separately.
