Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Good Thing We've Been So Nice To The Banksters

Because they're such model citizens.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the world's fourth-largest bank, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and restitution and an injunction forcing it to clean up its foreclosed properties in Los Angeles.

The Frankfurt, Germany-based bank has foreclosed on more than 2,000 homes over the last four years in neighborhoods across the city, according to the suit — many concentrated in the northeast San Fernando Valley, northeast Los Angeles and South Los Angeles.

Los Angeles officials say the bank has been a dreadful landlord and neighbor. Prosecutors say that during a yearlong investigation, they found evidence that Deutsche Bank had illegally evicted some tenants, let others live in squalor and allowed hundreds of unoccupied properties to turn into graffiti-scarred dens for squatters, gang members and other criminals.

(ht reader j)