For years, the names Lee Mertins and Eduardo San Roman have been connected to both Assero — website now removed — and 24 Asset Management. A simple state corporation search in Pennsylvania and Florida connect the dots. Mertins pre-dates the current fraud by almost a decade wherein he cooked the books at Asset Management Specialists (AMS), which sold off to Mortgage Contracting Services (MCS) according to many people including co-workers and an originator of work to AMS. The record is rife with Labor’s accounts — including mine in full disclosure — of the fraudulent activity at AMS. The personnel who flowed outward from the AMS purchase culminated in one of the largest crime scenes in the history of our Industry which was the Involuntary Bankruptcy of National Field Network. The story of AMS is, quite honestly, Ground Zero for fraud; however, that is for another day.
We have been covering the simultaneous collapse of Assero and the rise of 24 Asset Management since early 2022. In 2022 Housing and Urban Development issued nearly $100 Million in Awards upon the HUD M&M FSM contract to the completely unknown 24 Asset Management. Today, after multiple protests and bridge contracts, they have culminated with roughly $18 Million in Awards which have survived.
HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge is in charge of and responsible for all activities at HUD. She is a Biden Administration appointee and took the position only after her first choice, as the Secretary of Agriculture, was given to someone else. And that left a bad taste in the Secretary’s mouth. Her current go to man, though, is HUD’s Acting Deputy Director of Procurement, Craig Karnes. In full disclosure, up until I began taking on his pet project 24 Asset Management, we had a fairly cordial and ongoing dialogue. Once I began moving over the documentation and statements from victims, Deputy Director Karnes shut down. It was Crisis Management 101 and Karnes had been through tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent Crisis Management, on behalf of HUD, over the decade or so that I dealt with him.
Hi Paul can you give me a call when you get a chance please [redacted] my name is [redacted] I was wondering do you [know] any good lawyers so I can fight for my money from Assero please give me a call whenever you get a chance please. — This claim arrived this morning via email and after a phone call with the victim they stated that $30,000+ was defrauded from them and they received a 1099 for the monies stolen from them.
As opposed to fraudulent activity in the past, this activity was committed by a Fannie Mae Prime Vendor. And no matter how Secretary Fudge or Deputy Director Karnes want to paint it, Fannie Mae is under HUD conservatorship. Building on that, though, usually fly-by-night firms like Assero simply fade away and not much else is ever known about it. Lee Mertins and Eduardo San Roman, though, couldn’t do that. They kicked the fraud up a notch by filing fraudulent 1099s to contractors who never received the money. Deputy Director Karnes knows this and I am sure that a simple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request would show that the HUD M&M Director, SF Housing, and Secretary Fudge are all aware, as well.
There is no argument about whether or not Assero was actively operated by Eduardo San Roman and Lee Mertins. And there is no argument that Eduardo San Roman actively operates HUD M&M FSM Awardee 24 Asset Management. Finally, there is no argument that, at minimum, Deputy Director Karnes possesses names, phone numbers, and email addresses of Assero victims. The only question on everyone’s mind is whether or not the protection given to Eduardo San Roman is the culmination of a pay-to-play scheme.
As the GAO has just denied the BLM and Innotion Enterprises protests of the HUD Award to 24 Asset Management, NOW is the time to push the issue. If you are owed money by Assero and/or you are also the victim of a fraudulent 1099 from Assero, reach out today to be included in correspondence with the IRS and multiple state Departments of Labor.
