Recent Foreclosure Fraud Mess At Florida AG's Office Gets Messier

The Florida Times Union reports:

• An assistant attorney general in the Tampa Economic Crimes Division has resigned the day after he wrote a 16-page memo criticizing the department. Andrew Bennett Spark said he didn't want to comment any further, but did acknowledge that he resigned on Wednesday.



• Tuesday, he sent a memo to the state's media outlining a handful of complaints of the Economic Crimes Division. He said that an investigation into what he considered false advertising by a car dealer was cut short because the car dealer's attorney, Robert Shimberg, was on Attorney General Pam Bondi's transition team. The department would not open an investigation into a fitness chain, he said, because it was also represented by Shimberg.



• Spark also complained that the department made it more difficult for him to investigate ProVest, a process server that has been the subject of a number of complaints in connection to foreclosures. Spark said he inherited the ProVest case when June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards were fired as the attorney general's lead investigators into foreclosure fraud.

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• [According to a statement from Florida AG Pam Bondi,] "Yesterday, we attempted to place Spark on administrative leave while the inspector general investigated the public dissemination of information on active investigations; however, before we could do so, he resigned."

For more, see Assistant attorney general resigns after blasting Tampa department.

See also, The Palm Beach Post: Assistant attorney general resigns after memo blasting Florida AG's office.