The lawsuit’s filing, just days before the first presidential debate and a little over a month before the election, may be a way for the Obama administration to try to convince voters that it is working to hold mortgage miscreants accountable for wrongdoing.
The suit was brought in New York State court by Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, who is also a co-chairman of the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group.
The federal mortgage task force that was formed in January by the Justice Department filed its first complaint against a big bank on Monday, citing a broad pattern of misconduct in the packaging and sale of mortgage securities during the housing boom.
The civil suit against Bear Stearns & Company, now a unit of JPMorgan Chase, was brought in New York State Supreme Court by Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general who is also a co-chairman of the task force, known as the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group.
The complaint contends that Bear Stearns and its lending unit, EMC Mortgage, defrauded investors who purchased mortgage securities packaged by the companies from 2005 through 2007.
The firms made material misrepresentations about the quality of the loans in the securities, the lawsuit said, and ignored evidence of broad defects among the loans that they pooled and sold to investors.
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