Case 1:15-cv-00293-LTS-JCF Document 148-6 Filed 02/28/17 Page 1 of 11

EXHIBIT 5
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Brent S. Tantillo

1629 K Street
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006

T 786-506-2991
btantillo@tantillolaw.com
January 6, 2017

Via Email

Mr. Christian Pistilli, Esq.

Covington & Burling LLP
One City Center
850 Tenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001-4956

Re: S&A Capital Partners, Inc., et al. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.,
et al.
Civil Action No. 15-CV-293 (LTS) (JCF)

Dear Chris:

This responds to your letter dated December 22, 2016. It is clear from your
letter that on certain issues, we have fulfilled our meet and confer obligations.
Clarification of the following items may avoid briefing on these additional issues
in a motion to compel:

Loan Data and Documents

Please provide all back-up documents for the loan data you represent is
“summarized on the spreadsheet Bates stamped JPMC-MRS-00099526-
JPMC-MRS-00099577” and explain why Defendants have provided such a
spreadsheet rather than the underlying loan data. If you have provided the
underlying loan data, please provide Plaintiffs with the Bates stamp numbers
of the supporting documents.

You state that production of documents typically found in loan files sold to
Plaintiffs are not encompassed in Plaintiffs’ Document Requests. Plaintiffs
Case 1:15-cv-00293-LTS-JCF Document 148-6 Filed 02/28/17 Page 3 of 11

disagree. They are covered by numerous Requests, including, but not limited
to Request Nos. 3, 8, 12, 14, 16-18, 21, and 30. Your statement that “such a
request would not be appropriate under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 especially since
Plaintiffs have already produced copies of the loan files that they were
previously provided by Chase”, misses the point. As you know, Plaintiffs
allege that Defendants never provided the full loan files for all loans sold to
Plaintiffs. The Magistrate ruled at pages 17-19 of his decision that
Defendants were to provide copies of all loan files. And your demand that
Plaintiffs should meet and confer on “particular documents regarding
particular loans for which Plaintiffs would like Chase to search” is in direct
conflict with footnote 9 of the Magistrate’s order, where he rejects
Defendants’ contention that “it is plaintiffs’ responsibility to identify the
specific loans that form the basis of their claims.”

With respect to your promise that Chase has produced or is in the process of
producing any note sale agreements, please clarify whether you are limiting
that production to loans sold to S&A and 1st Fidelity or to “loans identified
by Plaintiffs on May 20, 2016 as purportedly having been purchased by
S&A or 1st Fidelity…”.

Search Terms

Defendants state that they will provide a response to our proposal regarding
additional search terms when they have competed their analysis of Plaintiffs’
proposal. Please advise as to the date when we will receive a response, since
it impacts completion of document production and preparation for
depositions.

Plaintiffs do not have a legal obligation to justify their deposition notices.

See e.g. Chevron Corporation v. Donziger, 11 Civ. 0691 (LAK) (JCF),
(S.D.N.Y. 2013)(attached). However, it is obvious from the documents
produced to date that these deponents have relevant and important
knowledge of the claims in the case. Plaintiffs appreciate Defendants’
agreement to add Mr. Adamovic as a custodian. As previously stated,
Plaintiffs will be providing justification for the additional requested
custodians after consideration of your most recent production of additional
200,000+ pages in discovery.
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Depositions of Chase Personnel

You state that you are in the process of producing documents for Ms.
Solomon, Mr. Kassem, Mr. Oquendo, Mr. Paxton and Mr. Boyle or that
production is complete “using the search terms set forth in Chase’s February
24, 2016 discovery responses.” It is important that the parties come to an
agreement on Plaintiffs’ proposed additional search terms before Plaintiffs
can commit to proceeding with these depositions.

Privilege Log

Without waiving Plaintiffs’ claim that there are serious deficiencies in

Defendants’ first privilege log, we request that you provide a date certain by
which you will be providing a privilege log as to the additional documents
produced by Defendants.

Other Documents

You state that “Chase searched additional documents using search terms
designed to capture the material referenced in Magistrate Judge Francis’s
July 14, 2106 order…” and that “[t]hose searches would likely have
captured the vast majority of the responsive communications set forth in
your letter, such as any communications with Plaintiffs regarding note sale
agreements.” Please provide us with a list of these additional search terms
since that information would be helpful on our meet and confer regarding
our requested additional search terms.

Very truly yours,

Brent Tantillo
Managing Shareholder

cc: Robert Wick

Philip Levitz
Michael Maya
Mary Jane Fait
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Brent S. Tantillo

1629 K Street, NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006

T 786-506-2991
btantillo@tantillolaw.com
January 13, 2017

Via Email

Mr. Christian Pistilli, Esq.

Covington & Burling LLP
One City Center
850 Tenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001-4956

Re: S&A Capital Partners, Inc., et al. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.,
et al.
Civil Action No. 15-CV-293 (LTS) (JCF)

Dear Chris:

We have been working diligently to analyze the information provided by

Chase as part of the discovery process. The purpose of this letter is to describe
why loan file information provided to date is inadequate in terms of
comprehensiveness and/or our ability to connect specific documents to specific
requests.

You have requested that we provide detailed and specific damage

calculations. We are making a good faith effort to do so with the incomplete,
inadequate and incomprehensible data we have received to date. We are asking
that you make a good faith effort to provide us the information we need to explain
to you the extent of the damage Chase’s conduct caused Plaintiffs.

On February 25th, 2009, MRS agreed to purchase 3,529 first-lien mortgage

loans with an aggregate face value of $156.3 million from Chase. The MLPA
refers to an Exhibit A as a master list of loans that Chase was selling to MRS.

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Furthermore, in Section 6 of the MLPA, Chase represents that “The information

set forth on the Data Tape provided by Seller (Chase) to Purchaser (MRS) is true
and correct in all material respects”. We never received an Exhibit A or a Data
Tape. Furthermore, Chase has never provided the loan files requested.

We are requesting Chase provide the exact files that it represents as Exhibit
A and the Data Tape, proof as to when these were originally provided to Plaintiffs
to service the MRS loans, and an explanation of why Chase believes the data
contained therein is sufficient for both Chase and Plaintiffs to fulfill their legal
obligations to transition the loans without impacting the borrower, and sufficient
for Plaintiffs to service said loans.

Chase produced an initial spreadsheet from Eddie Guerrero (Bate stamped

S&A06 234447) that shows 3,529 unique account numbers and a column titled
ACCTBAL that totals $156,324,613.80. This spreadsheet is materially deficient in
that:

• The spreadsheet does not show original principal amount, interest rate,
current principal balance or accrued unpaid principal/interest/penalties.
Only 256 loans show a last payment amount (9 are negative and 9 are less
than $10). 1,981 show a last payment date – but no amount.
• The spreadsheet appears to have been created by merging several existing
spreadsheets without regard to consistency in data integrity,
comprehensiveness or labeling. The information that appears in any given
column is inconsistent and incomplete.
o In column COMM1 - 981 loans include the phrase “PROPERTY
ADDRESS:”, 858 indicate some form of Bankruptcy, 488 are blank
and the remaining 1,201 have random information.
o In column COMM2 - 1,072 contain some form of address
information, 749 are blank and the remaining 1,707 have random
information.
o 1,045 loans show “MORTGAGE POSITION: 1” in COMM5 and 11
in COMM6. All 3,528 loans were represented as 1st-lien. We have no
information proving this is actually true. In fact, we have evidence
that the majority of the loans were non 1st-liens, deficient (already
foreclosed, in bankruptcy proceedings) or not even owned by Chase –
and thus should never have been offered for sale.

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We have never received a spreadsheet that provided comprehensive: account

balance & payment information; deficiency information (bankruptcy, foreclosure,
settlement, etc…); customer name, contact address, phone number and SSN;
comprehensive property address; and proof that the loan is a 1st-lien mortgage loan,
owned by Chase, and eligible to be sold. Nor have we received detailed customer
files for each loan that we could correlate to this spreadsheet. If Chase disagrees
with this assessment, we are requesting Chase resend this information along with
proof as to when it was originally provided and an explanation of why Chase
believes the data contained therein is sufficient for both Chase and Plaintiffs to
fulfill their legal obligations to transition the loans without impacting the borrower,
and sufficient for Plaintiffs to service said loans.

We have received multiple spreadsheets indicating that a significant number

of the loans purportedly sold to MRS were later lien released and/or had a letter of
forgiveness sent to the borrower. We have also received multiple spreadsheets
showing that Chase continued to collect on a significant number of the loans
purportedly sold to MRS, and never forwarded said payments to MRS.

In order for Plaintiffs to complete their damages analysis, we are requesting

a full accounting for all 3,528 loans that were purportedly sold to MRS:

• Which were sent to the Chase department in charge of determining if they

would be forgiven/lien released, which had forgiveness letters sent, when the
forgiveness letter was sent, if and when a retraction letter was sent, and
which were lien released regardless of whether or not a letter was sent. We
are also requesting this information for loans sold by Chase to S&A and 1st
Fidelity.
• Which made payments to Chase or any affiliate after the sale date of
February 25th, 2009, the date of those payments and the total amounts.

We have several spreadsheets addressing the lien release issue. However, they
are not comprehensive or consistent:

• Spreadsheet bates stamped JPMC-MRS-00015873 contain 16,575 loans.

15,436 are labeled “Active in RCV1”. 1,139 are labeled as “Released in
2012”. Nowhere does Chase indicate if any of these loans were purportedly
sold to MRS, however we have independently verified that 1 belonged to 1st

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Fidelity and 2 belonged to S&A by manually searching for loan number

matches. This is not a comprehensive list as we only searched a sub-
segment of our total loan portfolios due to the amount of time required.
• Spreadsheets JPMC-MRS-00021301, JPMC-MRS-00020595, JPMC-MRS-
00020593, JPMC-MRS-00019442, JPMC-MRS-00019097, and JPMC-
MRS-00019091 show 12,890 loans labeled RCV1. There is no explanation
of how these differ from the list above. 8,100 of these loans are listed as
“Lien Released”. 429 of the 12,890 RCV1 loans are labeled as belonging to
MRS209. 241 of the MRS209 loans are label “Lien Released”. These 429
loans and 241 lien released loans also appear in JPMC-MRS-00020587 and
JPMC-MRS-00019930 which show 2,923 loans – 429 listed as MRS of
which 241 are listed as lien released. Finally, JPMC-MRS-00020630 shows
1,187 loans that were sold – 429 of which are labeled MRS (241 listed as
Remediation Required, 188 listed a Cancel Lien Release).
• Spreadsheets JPMC-MRS-00019782, JPMC-MRS-00019095, JPMC-MRS-
00020618 and JPMC-MRS-00020591 show 11,274 loans. There is no
explanation of how these differ from the lists above. 3,027 are labeled “Lien
Released Remediate”. 193 of these are listed as MRS209. Additionally, a
separate tab in each spreadsheet show 235 MRS loans. These 235 MRS
loans also show up in a list of 922 loans in JPMC-MRS-00004811.
• JPMC-MRS-00028399 shows 8,316 loans labeled as “Charge Off
Unsecured”. 106 of these are labeled as MRS 209. None of these loans
match to any of the loans listed above. Furthermore, we have independently
verified that 64 of these loans belonged to 1st Fidelity and 11 belonged to
S&A by manually searching for loan number matches. This is not a
comprehensive list as we only searched a sub-segment of our total loan
portfolios due to the amount of time required.
• Several of these spreadsheets show Chase having received payments after
the February 25th, 2009 sale date of these loans to MRS.

As you can see, expecting Plaintiffs to go through dozens of unlabeled,

unsupported and unexplained spreadsheets to identify which of the 3,529 loans
purportedly sold to MRS might have been inappropriately lien released, and which
continued making payments to Chase following the sale – is an unreasonable
burden on Plaintiffs. However, this information is extremely pertinent to the case.
Even if Chase paid Plaintiffs the full-face value of the loans it purportedly sold to
MRS, this information also impacts the 1st Fidelity and S&A portfolios.

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Chase has provided us 22 forgiveness letters that were sent to borrowers

where 1st Fidelity or S&A owned the 2nd mortgage. However, there is no reason
for Plaintiffs to believe this is comprehensive given that Chase owned
approximately 2,000 2nd mortgages and roughly 2/3rds of them were sold to
Plaintiffs by Chase. Nor does this include instances where loans were released and
a letter was not sent to the borrower. As mentioned above, Plaintiffs found dozens
of loans owned by 1st Fidelity and S&A in the excel files sent by Chase. As
Plaintiffs had to find these loans by manually searching for matching loan
numbers, and then confirming the borrower and property details, this was only
done on a sub-section of Plaintiffs’ loans. Furthermore, differences in account
number formats complicates this analysis. If Plaintiffs were to conduct a truly
thorough search of the tens (hundreds) of thousands of loans in the Chase
spreadsheets vs the thousands of loans that are, or have, been owned by Plaintiffs –
this analysis would cost at least $50,000.

• By way of example – we have searched spreadsheets bates numbered JPMC-

MRS-15873, JPMC-MRS-21301, JPMC-MRS-28399 for a random sampling
of over 200 1st Fidelity/S&A loans. 54.3% of them appeared in one or more
spreadsheets. Identifying which spreadsheets, they are in, and why, takes
time and effort by someone versed in the nuances of Plaintiffs’ business and
the lawsuits. We have over 5,000 loans between 1st Fidelity, S&A and
MRS. Approximately 2/3rds of the 2,000 2nd lien mortgages owned by 1st
Fidelity and S&A were purchased from Chase. 100% of the 3,528 loans
purportedly sold to MRS were bought from Chase (although apparently,
Chase did not actually own all of them).
• In response to our previous requests for data regarding loans owned by 1st
Fidelity, S&A and MRS that were sold to Plaintiffs by Chase you provided
us a 52-page PDF (JPMC-MRS-00099526_image.pdf) with approximately
80 loans per page.

o This list is not comprehensive. MRS loans alone total 3,528.

Additionally, S&A and 1st Fidelity bought more than 1,000 loans from
Chase.
o The data in the document is not sufficient. It includes only loan
number, borrower name, property address and loan amount fields.
Not all of the loans have complete information. None of the loans
have sufficient information for either servicing the loans effectively or

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for calculating damages. For example, the list does not show which
loans were released or where a debt extinguishment letter was sent.
o A PDF file is insufficient for analytical work. The quality of the scan
is not even sufficient for OCR conversion, which is inaccurate in even
the most ideal scenarios. This data obviously exists at Chase in
spreadsheet form.
o We are requesting a complete list of loans sold to MRS, 1st Fidelity
and S&A by any Chase entity in a professionally labeled, easily
understandable and analyzable Excel file. We are requesting
information showing if Chase owned the loan or if it was owned by
another entity and sold to Plaintiffs. We are requesting information
showing where a debt extinguishment letter was sent, the date it was
sent, and if/when any retraction letter was sent. We are requesting an
accounting of which loans were sent to the Chase department in
charge of analyzing which liens might be released, an indication of
which loans were released and an indication of whether and how any
inappropriate lien releases might have been remediated.

Plaintiffs have conducted title searches on a sub-segment of loans owned by

1 Fidelity and S&A and loans purportedly sold to MRS (1st-lien current loans).
st

Of these, 31 1st Fidelity, 25 S&A and 14 MRS 1st-lien mortgages have been
inappropriately lien released by Chase. Doing a similar search on all of our current
loans would cost approximately $50,000 and this would exclude loans that are no
longer current. Plaintiffs have compiled a list of several dozen instances where
improper lien releases by Chase resulted in a legal confrontation with the buyer
and the loss of the loan/property.

As such, we are requesting a full accounting for all loans that are or have
been owned by Plaintiffs that were sent to the Chase department in charge of
determining if they would be forgiven, which had forgiveness letters sent, when
the forgiveness letter was sent, if and when a retraction letter was sent, and which
were lien released regardless of whether or not a letter was sent. If Chase is unable
to do this, we are requesting a single, comprehensive file of all liens released by
Chase that we are able to search for our loans. Account numbers, borrower SSN
numbers and property addresses in a consistent format would be needed to
conduct this analysis.

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Please let us know when we can schedule a call to discuss this issue.

Best Regards,

Brent Tantillo
Managing Shareholder

cc: Robert Wick

Michael Maya
Philip Levitz
Mary Jane Fait