On Thursday, I posted about Lilly Washington, the woman who was visiting her son in a military hospital in Germany and returned to find her home had been foreclosed, and all her belongings sent to the city dump, including her son's Purple Heart. As part of the Home Defenders League launch, she hosted a barbecue at her home for 70 people, including her local City Council Member and news crews from four local TV stations. The above video is her local NBC affiliate coverage.

This is from Lilly's letter to HDL partner LUCHA in May 2012:

They took my home. Evicted me twice. Helped put me in the hospital six times. Threw everything I owned in the city dump. And when they sold my house out from under me back in 2010, I was in a military hospital in Germany, helping care for my son, who was in a coma from injuries suffered in combat in Afghanistan.

That’s crazy, right? But I never gave up. After Bank of America sold my home – I was already negotiating with them for a loan modification and they even told me that they would put the negotiations on hold while I cared for my son – I decided I wasn’t leaving and I reoccupied it.

The Home Defenders League fills in a lot of details here that weren't available in earlier reports:

Here’s what happened to Lilly when she came back from Afghanistan (her son, thankfully, emerged from his coma). She found a ‘for sale’ sign in the yard and a new lock on the front door. Her house had been completely emptied; the furniture acquired over years, the Purple Heart her son had earned when he was shot during an earlier tour in Iraq: all gone. Bank of America had illegally and fraudulently sold her house to Fannie Mae only days after she’d left the country. And, they’d thrown all of her belongings in the city dump.

So like David confronting impossible odds, she stood up and fought. She moved back in, fought the eviction in court, and replaced her furniture with donations from her church. When the Sheriff’s deputies came in January 2012 to evict her, Lilly won a stay of eviction. Then in April she found a judge who finally recognized that she had been robbed by Wall Street bankers and let her legally possess her home again.

The fight has cost her, though. Fighting the Sheriff’s deputies gave her a slipped disk. The stress caused her a heart attack. She’s gone to the hospital six times and is facing yet another surgery. She’s on disability. But she’s outraged that the banks can break the law, steal her house, throw away everything she’s ever owned, ruin her health without facing any consequences whatsoever. She’s headed back to court to force Bank of America and Fannie Mae to give her title to the house free and clear and make them pay damages.

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A Phoenix, Arizona woman is taking on two mortgage giants, Bank of America and Fannie Mae, and the case is making its way through federal court. Lilly Washington is representing herself, and seeking ownership of her home and compensation for belongings that were thrown out when her home was wrongfully foreclosed.

Washington was in the middle of a loan modification with Bank of America when her son who is in the military was wounded and sent to a hospital in Germany. She informed the bank that she needed to go be with her son, and BoA assured her in a letter that they were aware of her trip and: "will await your return so that we can finish the loan modification process." She thought everything would be fine until her return.

But just days after leaving, the bank foreclosed, and Fannie Mae took ownership of her home:

Via:

"Everything was empty. Everything. Upstairs, downstairs everything was empty," says Lilly Washington.

Washington was stunned when she returned home and found a "for sale" sign in her yard. She managed to get back into the home and immediately started making calls.

"I said 'where did you put my stuff from the house. Which storage.' They said, 'we don't put in storage, it is at the city dump.'"

Washington had just returned from visiting her wounded son in Germany. She was gone for a month and half. Her son's Purple Heart was thrown away too.

"I said, my gosh how can you take that. He is fighting for this country. And you steal from his home, everything," says Washington.

Washington's church helped her refurnish the home as she wasn't able to recover any of her belongings, and she has been fighting for two years now to regain ownership.

Update after the jump...

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