Free Brief in Support of Motion - District Court of Colorado - Colorado

Case 1:03-cv-02485-MSK-PAC

Document 339-40

Filed 01/31/2006

Page 1 of 5

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRièT OF COLORADO

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Civil Action No. 03-MK-2485
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CAMILLE MELONAKIS-KURZ , individually and on behalf of other similarly si tuated employees,

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Plaintiff,

v.
HEARTLAND HOME FINANCE, INC.,

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Defendant.

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VIDEOTAPE DEPOSITION OF:
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-------------------------------------------------------PURSUANT TO NOTICE, the videotape deposi tion of CHRISTOPHER MATTHEW SWEET was taken on behalf of the Plaintiff at 1900 Grant Street, Suite 800, Denver, Colorado 80203, on December 1, 2005, at 12:37 a.m. before

CHRISTOPHER MATTHEW SWEET December 1, 2005

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Stacy L. Arms trong, Certi f ied Shorthand Reporter,
Certified Meri t Reporter, and Notary Public wi thin

Colorado.
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APPEARANCES
For the Plaintiff:
JILL M. NOVAK, ESQ.
Nichol s Kas ter & Ander son PLLP

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4600 IDS Center
For the Defendant:

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402 ELI ZABETH RAYMOND, ESQ.

Ice Miller

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One American Square, Box 82001 Indianapolis, Indiana 46282

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Also Present:
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Martin Pieczynski Dennis Clayton, Videographer

Case 1:03-cv-02485-MSK-PAC

Document 339-40

Filed 01/31/2006

Page 2 of 5

Christopher Matthew Sweet 12/1/2005 Camille Melonakis-Kurz, et aL. v. Heartland Home Finance, Inc.
42

1

Q.

Sure.
-- before we submitted it to the underwriters

2

A.

3 or the processors.
4

Q.

So did you -- After he looked it over and then

5 did he like okay it or tell you, hey, this is okay, or
6 did he sign something?
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MS. RAYMOND:

Obj ectioni compound.

A.

He didn i t sign anything. He would look over
(BY MS. NOVAK)

9 it and say that it was okay to give to processing.
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Q.

Okay.

So you would -- he

11 would look over it, then it would go to processing.
12 And then what happened after that?
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A.

Processing would take care of sending it to

14 our home office where it would then be underwritten -15 to my knowledge, it would then be underwritten and given

16 an approval or declined.
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Q.

By underwriting?

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A.
Q.

Correct.
Okay.
Were you ever allowed to refer loans

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20 out to other lenders?
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A.
Q. A.

By referred do you mean broker?

Yes.
We were allowed to broker loans out.
It was a

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24 practice that the company was trying to move away from.

25 There were certain exceptions that we were allowed to
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Case 1:03-cv-02485-MSK-PAC

Document 339-40

Filed 01/31/2006

Page 3 of 5

Christopher Matthew Sweet 12/1/2005 Camille Melonakis-Kurz, et aL. v. Heartland Home Finance, Inc.
43

1 broker out certain loans, but only upon an approval from

2 a manager above Raviv.
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4

Q.

A.

So Eric? Exactly.
Okay.

And I don i t know if Eric needed

5 approval from anybody above him; that's where I -6

Q.

These loans that you would broker out

7 to other lenders, how did you know what lender to broker

8 it out to? Did you have a list of lenders?
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A.

We didn i t have a list.

We had -- All we had

10 was our managers', Raviv and Josh's, past experience
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wi th being able to get loans underwr i t ten.
Q.

They had

12 preferred lenders that they would go to.
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So would they tell you what lender to go to,

14 Raviv and Eric?
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A.
Q.

Yes, they would.

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Okay.

Before you could take a loan to another

17 lender, did it have to go through Heartland first?
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A.

Let me back up. When we i re tal king about

19 brokering loans, excuse me, they -- Raviv -- it i S not as
20 if when I had the loan documents that I would go to the
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other lender directly.
Q.

I think that was something tha t

22 happened up at underwriting at our home office.
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24

Okay.
So they could be the ones that decided where

A.

25

the -- where the loan could be brokered to.

So I'm --

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Case 1:03-cv-02485-MSK-PAC

Document 339-40

Filed 01/31/2006

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Christopher Matthew Sweet 121112005

Camille Melonakis-Kurz, et aL. v. Heartland Home Finance, Inc.
96

there are four loans on this sheet.

One iS an

underwriting fee of 205, one has an underwriting fee
of 350, one has zero, and the fourth one has 500.

Why are these fees different?

A. Because -- The fees are different because,
like I said, these were fees that we could put on to

take the customer's awareness of the interest rate -Well, I don't know how to explain this.
We were given

our own discretion as far as what fees that we wanted to
put on the -- I believe it's called a HUD.

Or on the

1003 application when we would go through it with a

customer, they would see the fees.

And I guess I would

need you to as k that question one more time, please.

And I'm sure you're referring to Waggoner?
remember the specifics to that loan.

I don't

And I can't recall

why there aren't any underwriting fees on that
particular loan.

Q. Did cus tomers ever obj ect to a broker ing fee?
A. I don't believe they did.
Q. Here there's a variance between the loans as
far as the brokering fee charged.
There's two loans

tha t have $150 bro ker fees and two loans that have zero

broker fees.

Why are those different?

A. Does that have anything to do with conforming
or nonconforming?

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Case 1:03-cv-02485-MSK-PAC

Document 339-40

Filed 01/31/2006

Page 5 of 5

Christopher Matthew Sweet 1211/2005

Camille Melonakis-Kurz, et aL. v. Heartland Home Finance, Inc.
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1 on these loans, they're different, right?
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A.
Q.

Correct.
So that's an example of how the loans are all

4 different, right?
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MS. NOVAK:

Obj ection; vague.

A.

Yeah, I don't -- I don't understand -- How

7 they're all different or are these -- Well, the loan
8 amounts are different, yes. And the fees paid, based on
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your spreadsheet right here, appear to be different.

Do

10 any of the numbers appear to be the same? Not based on

11 your spreadsheet.
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Q.

(BY MS. RAYMOND)

And the loan officers

13 had discretion in setting the fees, right?
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A.

I believe I already answered yes to that

15 question.
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Q.

Thank you. According to this, the lenders

17 that you went through on your loans, it was all through

18' HMB; is that right?
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A.

I think, if we might go back for a second,

20 these fee loans look to be a percentage of -- yeah, of
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the fees paid, correct.

So if the 2.84 percent is -- of
I believe that's

$125,000 is going to be $3,560.

correct.
from.

So that

that is where that percentage comes

I think I may have suggested that those fees come

25 from the back end, from process ing and underwriting, and
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