Loandepot is suing its former chief operating officer for allegedly stealing confidential information in November 2020, right before she
According to Loandepot's suit, filed in the Superior Court of California for the County of Orange in late October, over 8,000 files of customer data were taken by Tammy Richards by way of a "secret video recording application on her personal cell phone."
The discovery of this surfaced during a deposition in which Richard's supposedly admitted to taking files before going on medical leave in late 2020. If this is the case, the former executive may have breached Loandepot's policies and procedures. HousingWire first reported the story.
Three months after temporarily departing the company, Richards officially announced her exit from the company, and in September 2021, she filed a suit against the lender, alleging gender discrimination and wrongful termination over her refusal to participate in a scheme to loosen underwriting standards.
"LoanDepot's lawsuit is devoid of any merit, and is nothing more than a retaliatory act in response to Ms. Richard's whistleblower lawsuit," Tammy Richards' legal representation, James Bryant, partner at the Cochran Group wrote in an email.
A spokesperson for Loandepot said the "complaint [speaks] for itself."
Loandepot's suit also alleges Richards "proved inept in the complex, fast-paced, consumer-centric world of lending" and that "concerns regarding Richards' performance grew to a crescendo in 2020," which resulted in the souring of the relationship between the mortgage company and the executive.
"During this time, there were numerous problems with Richards' operational oversight, including her blundered rollout of new technology, inadequate training, and poor staffing," Loandepot claims in its lawsuit. "Loandepot needed its COO to step up, but instead, Richards crumbled."
On Nov. 4, 2020, Richards was informed by the company that she would be demoted to chief mortgage officer and a few weeks later, Richards hired an attorney and informed the company that she needed to take an immediate leave of absence, Loandepot wrote in its complaint.
Richards has over 30 years of experience in the mortgage business, including at Countrywide Home Loans and she was one of
Loandepot is seeking punitive damages, and other relief in an amount to be proven at trial. A hearing will take place on April 15, 2024 and will be overseen by Andrew De La Cruz, a judge on the Superior Court of Orange County in California.
Following Richards' departure from Loandepot, she filed a suit against the company, Anthony Hseih, the company founder, and Peter MacDonald, the former executive vice president and general counsel. One of the claims made by the suit is that Hseih "began to initiate his wide scale fraud for profit scheme. During a production meeting in which Ms. Richards was present, Hsieh allegedly began to scream 'I am Mello Clear, and we must immediately close loans regardless of documentation!'"
Richards' lawyer noted these allegations in response to the new suit from Loandepot.
"The document at issue is a video preserving evidence of LoanDepot's nefarious Alpha Project, in which its now removed CEO, Anthony Hsieh and his lackeys, implemented a scheme allowing senior account managers the power to bypass the underwriting process in order to close loans prior to obtaining all required documents from the borrower, and all for the purpose of inflating its IPO price," he wrote.
The case is still pending.
