A recent article in the Washington Post that called Florida "ground zero for the housing bust" questioned why two foreclosure investigators working for the state's attorney general's office were fired out of the blue after exposing some of the most "egregious abuses" taking place within the foreclosure process.

The Washington Post said that Florida was hit especially hard with the foreclosure crisis and shady foreclosure practices because of the many "foreclosure mill" law firms based in the state that were hired by the banks and lenders to file as many foreclosures as they could in recent years.

The alarming findings made by the two investigators grabbed national headlines last fall after they revealed how record numbers of foreclosures were being filed in Florida without the necessary paper work and with forged signatures and maybe even fraudulent documents.

The pair's work was praised by a supervisor as being "instrumental in triggering a nationwide review of such practices" less than a month before they were sent packing. They were even said to have "achieved what is believed to be the first settlement in the United States relating to law firm foreclosure mills" following a $2 million settlement with the law offices of Marshall C. Watson of Fort Lauderdale.

"We were farther along in our investigation because we had dug a little deeper than anybody else," one of the investigators said. "We kept opening up more and more investigations, more and more cases."

However, the investigators said that when the current attorney general took office in January, their work was treated differently and was questioned. Ultimately, on May 20 the two investigators were told that they could either resign or be fired. They chose to resign.

A spokesperson for the Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Washington Post that the office would not comment on the firing of the two investigators, and that the office "continues to actively pursue the investigations into foreclosure law firms."

But the two investigators, who have since opened a foreclosure defense firm in South Florida, said that they worry that the work they poured their hearts and souls into will simply not get done and other mishandlings of foreclosures will go undiscovered.

Source: The Washington Post, "Florida foreclosure investigators say they were forced to resign," Brady Dennis, 7/14/2011.