Since 1999, I have been saying publicly that Kennedy and his henchmen should be in jail.
Massive systemic fraud has been ‘the’ way of life for Kennedy and First American going back to the mid 90s!
Starting in the mid 90s, Kennedy and First American were after the lion’s share of the market. The word from the top down was: “Get a piece of any business by hook or by crook”.
Kennedy had launched the new company policy: ‘Insure anything – litigate everything’.
This new culture was very much deplored by company veterans and senior execs such as Bill Heslington and Tom Brusca. Prior to being retired and dismissed somewhere in South Carolina so he could not testify in my case, Bill Heslington told me: “We could lose our license for doing what the company did to you with the approval of John P. Dahl in Seattle!”
Veteran, Tom Brusca was equally aghast that the company could and would engage in such an outright fraudulent transaction behind my back at the behest of a crooked ex partner of mine! Indeed, the transaction First American engaged in had been shunned outright by all other insurers.
At the time Tom Brusca remarked that under the old guard, such an outrageous dark shady deal would have been remedied and set straight forthwith without any arguments. But that the new blood within the company ranks was out to get business at any cost and had adopted the policy to litigate everything. Tom pointed out that the company had banked on the fact that it would take on average between three to four years to settle any claim. Few claimants could finance the prohibitive legal costs that would extend for that long in Court. On a legal cost versus return ratio, most claims would peter out and First American would win by default. Indeed at the time Tom pointed out that on average only three percent of premiums collected by First American were paid out to settle claims. Tom then laughed saying: “We could even avoid paying that if we chose to. But we do pay that much to warrant our existence!!!
In the mid 90s the whole Title industry was well aware of the new directive adopted and passed down the chain of command by First American. Veterans at Chicago Title were in utter disbelief to note what kind of fraudulent deals First American would insure in exchange sometimes for confidential and undisclosed ‘Indemnification Agreements’ from the insured. To make matters worse, on occasions such Indemnification Agreements became such hot potatoes that when the deals went bad, First American did not even dare to enforce the Indemnification Agreement and collect thereon. First American sought then to limit its exposure by letting the insured crooks run loose for fear the crooks might squeal and First American would be further exposed!!! This was to the detriment of both First American shareholders and the victims of such misplaced company greed.
In the mid 90s, concurrently with the adoption of such an abhorrent modus operandi, the new blood at First American embarked on a buying spree. In order to do so First American had recourse to a number of strategies designed to inflate the price of its stock.
Thus seeking outside expertise and assistance to manipulate its stock price, First American appealed to a well known stock manipulator who had been banned from the Alberta Stock Exchange. One would think that it could not get very much worse than that. But it did!
At its shareholders’ meeting in Santa Ana on April 22, 1999, The First American, KKK clan of senior execs (Kennedy, Kermot and Klemens) conceded that they had engaged in ‘Creative Accounting; That the Feds got them to restate their figures; And Kennedy admitted that adjustments made to the creative accounting figures had a temporary negative impact on the company stock price. But that they would get the price up again so they could buy companies cheap again!!! (I have a variety of the ‘creative’ statements of the KKK clan on tape to this day!)
No sooner said, then done.
At the same shareholders meeting on April 22, 1999, Kennedy ‘guaranteed’ (Kennedy’s word) to stockbrokers and shareholders present at the meeting that the company would increase its dividend by the end of 1999! That statement had the immediate effect of driving the stock up. But 1999 went by and the dividend was not increased as ‘guaranteed’ by Kennedy! At the time, numerous entries on the Yahoo/FAF/Message Board by me were refuted by the same shills haunting the board with disinformation today. Those same shills wrote that I was a liar and that Kennedy could not have ever made such a statement; That Kennedy by himself could not ‘guarantee’ a dividend increase; That it took Directors’ Board approval to do so!
Finally, to call up all of the lies from execs as well as shills, I published the Kennedy, Kermot and Klemens misleading statements on the web through Geo Cities. This was obviously so embarrassing to the company and the KKK clan that somehow my message was made to disappear. All relevant statements caught on tape are still all in my possession today!
Now let us review what if anything has changed in the First American rapacious greed mentality ‘Get the business by hook or by crook’:
In June 1998, one of the most eminent lawyers in the Title Industry, Mr. Jerome Lasky of Moses & Singer, New York, reviewed the evidence produced by First American in my case, albeit that it was discovered in depositions that John P. Dahl had tempered with exhibits. Mr. Lasky concluded and wrote:
“Indeed, we have been provided by you with an internal document of the title company, obtained by you through discovery, which shows that the title company, although fully aware of the risk they were assuming, decided to issue the policy to the lender in order to get this piece of business, and specifically with a view to obtaining future business from your partners. The policy was thus issued for the business reasons of First American, despite their knowledge that by issuing the policy they were enabling your partners to breach their contractual agreement with you.”
Mr. Lasky’s opinion affirmed the belief within the whole title industry then that First American was indeed out to get the lion’s share of the market by hook or by crook!
That was in 1998. Does the same mindset endure through to 2009?
On November 1, 2007, Paritosh Bansal and Martha Graybow of Reuters report:
Washington Mutual pressured the First American unit to inflate appraisals as a condition for doing future business together, the AG's office said, adding that the alleged scheme was detailed in numerous e-mails.
Cuomo also released e-mails he claims showed executives were aware they violated federal regulations. .


