My Experience at Indy Mac: Fraud, Corruption, Criminality (Vernon Martin)

I’ve shared some tidbits with you in the last month about my experience at IndyMac as their chief commercial appraiser from October 2001 to the end of March 2002. Now that IndyMac has been seized by FDIC and their legal staff presumably unemployed, I will tell the rest of the story. Some people tell me that it must have been hell for me, but I look back on it as an adventure, like sailing into the “Perfect Storm”, a perfect storm of corruption and incompetence, and living to tell about it.

I first became acquainted with IndyMac through OTS appraisal examiner Darryl Washington, MAI. Darryl used to examine my appraisal department each year when at Home Savings of America, which was acquired by WAMU in 1998. During the summer of 2001, I had a chance encounter with him at a jazz concert. I asked him what he had been up to, and he told me that he had just completed the first examination of IndyMac Bank, which had just received its savings and loan charter only a year before. He said, “Vern, they could use a guy like you.”

{xtypo_quote_right} Then he(IndyMac CEO Mike Perry) turned to me with an idea. He asked me if I, as the chief commercial appraiser, had the regulatory authority to change the discounted cash flow models in each subdivision appraisal, which might have the effect of changing appraised values. I said that I could possibly do it, but why? He smiled and said "Don't housing prices always go up?" (Was he really too young to remember the early 1990s?)   {/xtypo_quote_right}

Several weeks later I saw the chief commercial appraiser position for IndyMac Bank posted on Monster.com. I responded with a cover letter that started with “Darryl Washington of the OTS suggested that I contact you….” Apparently, that was the right way to start the letter. IMB’s chief credit officer called me soon, asking “do you know Darryl Washington?’ I said “Yes, he examined my department annually at Home Savings.” His next question was “Do you know how to deal with him?” I assured the chief credit officer that I was used to dealing with the OTS and Darryl and that I could get IMB into compliance with OTS appraisal regulations.

After 3 interviews, IMB wanted me to start right away, because the OTS was returning in November. I started on 10/15/01 and had a month to familiarize myself with their commercial lending practices until the OTS showed up.

At the end of my first week, there was an urgent need to field review an appraisal of a subdivision in the Sacramento area. I went up there on the weekend, but also took along some other recent appraisal reports from the Sacramento area. One of the other appraisal reports concerned me. A residential subdivision had been appraised as “80% complete”, but when I visited it, it had only been rough-graded, probably no more than 15% complete. When I returned to the office on Monday I asked who the construction inspector was for that region. I was told that there were two inspectors for the Sacramento area; one was CEO Mike Perry’s father and the other one was Mike Perry’s father-in-law. The loan officer on the deal was Mike Perry’s younger brother, Roger, who had recently been hired. His previous experience had been as a cop. Thereafter I heard of favoritism towards relatives of Mike Perry and “FOMs”, and the chief credit officer advised me to take special care of Mike Perry’s brother. (“FOM” was IndyMac jargon for “Friend of Mike”.

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