The last thing Armand Assante wanted was to become a poster boy for mortgage fraud. But when the FBI wouldn't get involved, he had to take matters into his own hands.

Fortunately, the 64-year-old actor has the wherewithal to take on a bank, in this case an "institution" that has been labeled a foreclosure mill by some. Most people don't have the money or the will to fight their lenders, and end up losing their homes.

Assante's case against Eastern Savings Bank of Hunt Valley, Md., is complicated, as most of these kinds of things are. But it pretty much boils down to this: He wanted to refinance his loan on his 222-acre family farm in Campbell Hall, N.Y., some 50 miles north of New York City. But Eastern turned him down.

It wouldn't even take a $1.4 million payoff at the height of the mortgage meltdown, according to Assante's complaint, when all he owed was $1.475 million.

The Emmy-winning actor almost lost the property in a bankruptcy proceeding in the process of trying to save the farm, which had been in his family for ages. And as he continued to fight, he discovered that he was paying an exorbitant interest rate -- one that Eastern supposedly wanted to keep on its books -- and that Eastern's record in working with troubled borrowers ranged from poor to terrible.

At a time when the national average mortgage rate was roughly 4.5 percent, Assante was paying 9.9 percent. He also says that in 2009, 47 percent of Eastern's mortgages were delinquent, whereas the national average was 5 percent. And that in 2008, the Maryland bank was earning 13 percent of its gross profit from foreclosures versus a national average of 0.5 percent.

Eastern was "writing risky loans in order to take them back," says the actor's attorney, Thomas Vasti.

There's a lot more to this story, but the FBI wouldn't get involved. Assante got in the door there because of who he is and who he knows. But that was it.

"They basically told me that they wouldn't get involved unless the case was $5 million or more or something commercial," Assante said. "I was told that they have so many cases that they were overwhelmed."

But that doesn't square with an audit of the Justice Department's efforts to address the problem. Although the Obama administration has said wiping out mortgage fraud is a top priority, an examination by the DOJ's Inspector General found that the department "did not uniformly ensure that mortgage fraud was prioritized at a level commensurate with its public statements."

The IG also found that the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division ranked loan fraud as the lowest criminal threat in its lowest crime category. And while the FBI received $196 million in funding to investigate mortgage fraud from fiscal years 2009 through 2011, by the end of that time, the number of agents investigating such activities actually declined, as well as the number of pending investigations.

The report has attracted the attention of three federal legislators, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2016.

Along with Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., senator Warren has asked Attorney General Eric Holder for a sit-down to discuss the apparent lack of effort in investigating and prosecuting crimes such as predatory lending, loan modification scams and abusive servicing practices.

The DOJ watchdog's report certainly was damning. For example, it found "numerous significant errors and inaccuracies" in the claims made by Holder during an October 2012 press briefing, when the attorney general said the Distressed Homeowner Initiative had resulted in charges against 530 criminal defendants, including 172 executives, over the preceding 12 months.

Holder also announced that 110 federal civil cases were filed against more than 150 defendants for losses totaling at least $37 million and involving more than 15,000 victims.

But almost a year later, it was revealed that several of those statistics "were substantially overstated," the report says. Specifically, only 107 criminal defendants were charged, not 530 as originally stated, and the total losses associated with Distressed Homeowners cases were $95 million, 91 percent less than the $1 billion reported by Holder.

Even worse, perhaps, is that although the department was aware of the "serious flaws" in its stats, it continued to cite them in its mortgage fraud press releases for 10 months.

But back to Assante, who sometimes plays a heavy on TV and in the movies. In this case, he alleges, the bank was the bad guy. An examination of his loan documents by forensic mortgage expert Michael Richardson revealed a "file full of fraud." Among other things, Richardson says he found altered loan documents and missing, but required, disclosures.

Vasti, the actor's attorney, believes Eastern has "been doing this to hundreds of people." But this time, it appears, the bank has picked the wrong guy.

Since the passage of the National Housing Act of 1934, Americans have been promised a safe, decent and sanitary home. While it isn't written in stone like our federal housing policy, the national agenda also aims to make sure that anyone who has served his or her country in the military service should also have a safe, decent and stable place to call home.

Frequently, that goal can be achieved through the GI Bill, which allows for no-down-payment loans. On top of that, many states have special programs for the servicemen and women residing within their borders.

Many private entities also have stepped up to help America's returning GIs in one way or another. National homebuilder Pulte, for example, gave away 20 brand-new homes to worthy veterans over the last two years.

But arguably, no single company has done more than the Madison, Wisconsin-based Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. Over the last two years, Fairway, which has 190 branches covering all 50 states, has given 27 houses mortgage-free to wounded veterans or their families.

"I believe you can make a difference and make a living at the same time. That's when it becomes fun," says Louise Thaxton, the 61-year-old dynamo who makes Fairway's effort roll.

"Nobody asks to be a hero; it just sometimes turns out that way," she says, quoting a popular line from the 2001 military film "Black Hawk Down." "We can step back and someone else can give them a mortgage-free house, or we can step up."

Working in Fairway's Leesville, Louisiana, office, Thaxton is on a crusade on behalf of servicepeople returning from the wars in the Middle East.

"I saw the need for excellence in serving the military," she explains. "We're the watchdog for the better part of the world, and someone needs to be a watchdog that stands between the warriors and the wolves."

That watchdog, as it turns out, is a 5-foot-2 grandmother of 17 who sees the military as a "targeted population," easily cheated, over-billed, ripped off and scammed.

In other words, our fighting men and women make great marks.

They typically are young and financially inexperienced. They may have been trained for combat, but not for fiscal battles. What's more, servicepeople are often transient and, therefore, totally unaware of which local businesses are honest and which are not.

At Fort Polk in Louisiana, Thaxton saw young vets being raked over the coals by used car companies and payday lenders, and she also saw overcharging by title companies and even a bit of gouging by some mortgage brokers.

"I saw lenders not using VA or FHA loans because 'they were too hard' just so they could get the extra fees" from conventional mortgages, she says. "They would refinance people from a 30-year fixed loan to a three-year ARM just to get $5,000 in fees."

Besides closing her own deals, Thaxton began teaching her colleagues about the ins and outs of dealing with returning warriors, which is not the same as working with everyday citizens. For one thing, they often don't have the luxury of time and cannot wait for the market to turn. Another example: Vets may not be stationed at the same base as their spouse, or the civilian half of the couple may be unable to find work.

Four years ago, Thaxton asked her company to back an extension of her education efforts, and Fairway CEO Steve Jacobson gave her his blessing. "He told me to just run with it," Thaxton says.

So she set about creating a continuing education class for real estate agents and brokers on how to deal with military clients. At the end of the class, students are awarded a Certified Military Residential Specialist diploma. (The designation is Fairway's, and not the Mortgage Bankers Association's or the National Association of Realtors', which has its own military designation.)

Last summer, in Clarksville, Tennessee, the home of Fort Campbell, Thaxton led a three-hour seminar for 400 realty pros from as far as 100 miles away. Pacing back and forth in her ever-present combat boots -- she wears them even when she's training for her first half-marathon in the rural backroads of Louisiana -- she asked the entire audience to stand. Then she asked those who have served in the military to sit down.

Next, she asked anyone who's a military spouse, parent, grandparent or child to sit as well, followed by aunts, uncle, nieces and nephews of someone in the service.

Only a few people were left standing, and the point was made: "We are all connected to the military."

At each seminar, Fairway donates a home to a wounded vet. In Tennessee, the recipient was retired Army Specialist Marshall Lane, who was wounded during combat operations in Afghanistan, earning a Purple Heart as well as a Combat Medical Badge for performing his duties while under fire from the enemy.

Everywhere she goes, Thaxton rallies the real estate troops.

"I have a huge goal that every wounded warrior receive a mortgage-free house," she said in Clarksville. "It's not impossible if everyone gives something. There's none of us who can do everything, but everyone can do something."

When the evangelist for wounded vets closed the class, the entire room stood and burst into applause.

Hispanics recovered quickly from the housing downturn, according to a new report on the state of Latino home ownership in the United States.

But the study also found that the demographic hit a wall last year, blindsided by investors who gobbled up houses for cash -- easily outbidding buyers who required financing -- and by more stringent lending rules.

Absent those two barriers, the growth of Hispanic ownership "would likely have been much stronger" in 2013, concludes the annual report from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP).

Between 2000 and 2013, the Latino population accounted for nearly half of the increase in homeowners, with Latinos achieving an ownership rate of 46.1 percent, according to the study. Since 2010, though, Hispanics accounted for an even larger 56 percent of the country's total net ownership growth, making it a "crucial driver" of demand during the housing recovery.

Latinos also experienced a strong rebound in the value of their homes, the study found, rising 25.3 percent from the bottom of the housing recession in 2011.

But the gains came to a screeching halt last year.

The Hispanic ownership rate recorded only a "modest net increase" of 84,000 households, far less than the increases recorded in the previous two years -- 127,000 in 2011 and 348,000 in 2012.

The main reason: "far and away" a lack of inventory suitable for first-time Latino buyers, according to NAHREP co-founder and CEO Gary Acosta.

In a nationwide survey of NAHREP members, nearly half -- 42 percent -- said inventory shortages due to competition from cash investors was the "primary barrier" to Hispanic ownership last year.

More than 78 percent said they had at least one qualified client who had been actively searching for a house for more than three months without success. And 40 percent said they had more than five who have been unable to find a place they liked or who have seen their offers rejected because they involved financing.

NAHREP's members, 75 percent of whom are realty agents and 25 percent of whom are in the mortgage business, report that the first-time buyer clients are "losing out" to investors who can pay cash.

Prior to the housing crisis, the report notes, investors were a negligible part of the housing market.

In 2011, both mom-and-pop companies and big outfits with pockets full of money accounted for just a 5-percent share of all single-family home transactions. But last year, according to real estate data firm RealtyTrac, more than 40 percent of all sales were made to cash buyers.

"This astounding trend of cash sales and increasing percentage of sales to institutional investors ultimately results in a reduction of up to 50 percent of the available housing inventory to owner-occupant buyers," the report says.

The trend is particularly acute in markets with a heavy Latino population.

In Miami, for example, two-thirds of the homes sold last year were for cash. And in Atlanta, the fastest growing major city for Hispanics, 48 percent of the sales in last year's fourth quarter were to institutional investors.

In more expensive markets like Los Angeles and Chicago, sales to investors did not exceed the national average. But they were higher than the historical norms.

Worse, perhaps, is that the "land grab" of inexpensive, first-time buyer houses artificially drives up prices to the point where Hispanic and other owner-occupants are driven out of the market, the report says.

"The net effect of this trend is that it destines many Latino families to be renters by systematically edging them out of the prospect of home ownership," the report says. "Communities that were once dominated by owner-occupants have become rental communities."

NAHREP also faults tighter credit standards for the fall-off in first-time Hispanic buyers. New lending regulations and higher down-payment requirement have simply made it more difficult for any rookie buyer, Latino or not, the group says.

But it says "misguided government programs" that favor investors "have had unintended consequences that have contributed to the severe lack of housing inventory in dozens of Hispanic neighborhoods, leaving thousands of qualified buyers on the sidelines while inviting an unprecedented wave of institutional investors into the market."