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National news reports are calling Florida �The Ponzi State� suggesting lending practices in the Sunshine State were the beginning of the nation�s problems. State regulators were lax and allowed convicted felons to become mortgage brokers, bilking banks out of millions. Today at the state Capitol, legislation was filed to give Florida�s Attorney General more authority to prosecute fraud in the lending industry. Attorney General Bill McCollum says right now there is little he can do.�� � ��

�This gives us enough and we believe that we will be able to go after folks and prosecute them in the future, that we never could have before. And we�ll be able to use the office�s civil side, with Scott Palmer and Trish Connors, to really dig into this and go after cases aggressively when we see them,� McCollum said.

The Office of Financial Regulation currently has authority to charge brokers with wrongdoing, but the agency has few staff to carry out the job.

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