OPENING GENERAL SESSION: Breaking the Silence – How Julie K. Brown Uncovered the Jeffrey Epstein Story
MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit provides an update on the association’s advocacy efforts in Washington and highlights the key policy and regulatory issues facing the industry. He is then joined by award-winning investigative reporter Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald for an inside look at the reporting that reignited national scrutiny of the Jeffrey Epstein case and exposed systemic failures within the legal system. Brown reveals how she revisited a closed case, identified overlooked victims, and methodically built trust with sources whose voices had long gone unheard. This discussion explores the legal, procedural, and institutional barriers Brown encountered, including sealed records, non-prosecution agreements, and resistance from powerful interests, and how persistence, documentation, and disciplined investigative methods helped overcome those challenges. Sponsored by: Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLP.
Speakers
Welcome
Robert (Bob) Broeksmit is President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Bob is a senior finance executive and corporate officer with a 35-year career in the mortgage sector. He has directed all aspects of lending activities, including marketing, sales, operations, secondary marketing, loan servicing, and default management. He has also served as a mortgage underwriting expert testifying on many large, high-profile cases. Prior to joining MBA in 2018, Bob served as President and Chief Operating Officer with Treliant, heading the firm’s mortgage litigation support practice and serving diverse financial services clientele including large banks, independent mortgage lenders, community banks, credit unions, and service providers to the mortgage industry. As a Washington-based financial services consultancy, Treliant’s mortgage practice included strategic advisory for executive management and corporate boards; litigation defense, including file reviews, litigation strategy, expert reports, and expert testimony; CFPB examination preparation and implementation of mortgage regulations promulgated by the CFPB and other regulators; and operational aspects of mortgage banking, ranging from origination to servicing and loss mitigation. Before Treliant, Bob held senior leadership positions in the mortgage business, including fourteen years with Chevy Chase Bank (including after its purchase by Capital One), where he was Executive Vice President and President of its B.F. Saul Mortgage Company subsidiary. Bob also was a Vice President at Prudential Home Mortgage for seven years. He has overseen annual originations of $9 billion, a balance sheet of $10 billion in residential mortgages, and a servicing portfolio of $20 billion. He also held positions at Great Western Mortgage, Krupp Residential Mortgage, and The Money Store. Bob has served as the Chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Residential Board of Governors and as a member of its Board of Directors. Firms under his leadership have garnered multiple awards for servicing operations excellence, including Freddie Mac’s Tier One and Hall of Fame designations. He is a Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB) and a graduate of Yale University.
Introductions
Brian McGrath counsels companies on a wide range of complex commercial legal issues. As Partner and the co-chair of Hinshaw and Culbertson’s Consumer Financial Services Practice Group, he has helped clients navigate litigation involving financial services, intellectual property, antitrust, and white-collar criminal investigations throughout his career. An outside-the-box thinker, McGrath partners with his clients to deliver simple, tailored solutions to their legal problems. In recent years, McGrath has leveraged his broad experience to focus on serving clients in the financial services industry. He works with many financial institutions—including mortgage loan servicers—regarding lender liability and consumer protection statutes. He also handles complaints concerning the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), as well as regulatory issues involving Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) enforcement actions.
Featured Speakers
Julie K. Brown is widely considered one of the best investigative journalists in the country. During her 40-year career, she has won some of the top investigative prizes in journalism for exposing corruption and racial and human rights abuses in the nation’s criminal justice system. Her 2018 groundbreaking investigation “Perversion of Justice,” led to the arrests of sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell; the resignation of the U.S. secretary of labor; the first arrest of a British Royal in 400 years – and the downfall of countless other captains of industry, politics, media and academia around the world. The ensuing scandal led to the release of millions of Justice Department files about Epstein’s sex trafficking and money laundering empire -- and ignited a global reckoning about the delicate balance between power, wealth and morality. Her effort to persuade a reluctant police chief and traumatized survivors to go on the record for the first time stands as a distinguished example of investigative reporting. She has won two George Polk Awards, a Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Columbia Journalism Award, the Hillman Prize, PEN America’s Voice of Courage Award and in 2020, she was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people. She has frequently appeared on CNN, MSNOW, NBC News and has been profiled in The New York Times and other newspapers and magazines. She is the author of “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story,” which is the basis for an upcoming Sony TV limited series produced by Oscar-winning director Adam McKay.
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