Hello, LOs!
LoanDepot, the second-largest retail mortgage lender in the country, is facing accusations made by its former COO that the company cut corners to increase refi production volume during the height of last year's market frenzy. Tammy Richards says founder and CEO Anthony Hsieh did away with underwriting guidelines for thousands of loans as part of an effort to catch Rocket Mortgage.
Richards also made allegations that Hsieh and the rest of the male leadership team mistreated female employees by belittling and marginalized them, and also subjecting them to sexual harassment.
"Since the onset of Ms. Richards' employment with LDLLC, the treatment of female employees was a constant concern that Ms. Richards and numerous other female employees shared," her lawsuit reads. "As stated above, Ms. Richards was the only female in upper management. As the only female executive, Ms. Richards not only witnessed numerous instances of upper-level management employees, including Hsieh, engaging in acts against women that created a hostile environment, she too was at times subjected to disparate treatment, marginalized or overtly sexualized as a woman by her male colleagues. LoanDepot's upper-level managers, enabled by Hsieh, fostered a misogynistic 'frat house' culture within company's corporate office, at the expense of its female employees. From parties filled with prostitutes to sexual assaults against female employees, Hsieh and other upper level managers either swept these complaints under the rug in some instances, or completely disregarded them in others."
In one instance, Richards claims the company's operations manager quit aburptly on the grounds of unabated gender discrimination and sexual harassment. The lawsuit also says that one of Hsieh's top lieutenants, Tomo Yebisu, was heavily responsible for the lender's "frat house culture." Richards claims that in 2018, following the Chairman's Elite Awards, Yebisu held an afterparty at Hsieh's home, "where he rewarded LDLLC's male sales award recipients with a night filled with alcohol, drugs and prostitutes." The stories that followed were "so salacious," the lawsuit reads, that a senior vice president volunteered to resign.
The lender strenuously denies Richards's accusations and said the claims made in the lawsuit were "previously investigated by independent third parties and found to be without merit," though the lender declined to tell HousingWire who these third parties were or the scope of their investigation.
Are you a current or former employee of loanDepot? Have something to share? Reach out to me or my colleague Georgia Kromrei anonymously at jkleimann@housingwire.com or gkromrei@housingwire.com.
LOs – have you found "misogynistic frat house culture" commonplace in the mortgage industry? Are there lenders with bad cultures we should look into? Please email me anonymously.
James Kleimann
Managing Editor, HousingWire
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