WELLS FARGO: DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACK COMMUNITIES

Beth Jacobson, a former top subprime-loan broker for Wells Fargo, now works to help consumers whose homes are subject to foreclosure because of shoddy Wells Fargo mortgages.

For nearly ten years, Ms. Jacobson worked as a highly successful insider at Wells Fargo --- becoming rich --- as the bank targeted black communities for shoddy home mortgages in such urban areas as Baltimore City, Prince Georges County, and Washington, D.C., among others.

In her scathing sworn court testimony (Affidavit) against Wells Fargo's discriminatory lending practices in heavily black communities, Beth Jacobson describes, among other things, watching Wells Fargo loan officers comb through heavily black communities such as Baltimore and Prince George's County, forging relationship with churches and community groups to sell their members shoddy and predatory mortgages. Her testimony is a key component of the groundbreaking civil lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore against Wells Fargo for its discriminatory and predatory mortgage lending practices: Mayor and City Council of Baltimore versus Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo Financial Leasing, Inc., Civil No. JFM1: 08CV-00062, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland (2009).

The city of Baltimore case against Wells Fargo has spawned several copycat lawsuits across the country against the lender, and federal law enforcement regulators have launched several investigations with similar allegations.