By Kimberly Miller

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Florida’s attorney general has closed a high-profile investigation into alleged wrongdoing by the state’s largest foreclosure law firms with no findings.

The probes, opened by former attorney general Bill McCollum in 2010, ended not with the swiftness of a gavel falling, but in a slow fizzle of court judgments, law firm implosions and the firing of two top state investigators by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

A February Florida Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on the state from investigating the firms under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act was the real decider, attorney general communications director Jennifer Meale said Friday.

“Accordingly, we have closed our law firm investigations and anticipate that any enforcement action will be up to the discretion of the Florida Bar,” Meale said.

The Florida Bar has maintained it only has the power to investigate individual attorneys. As of mid-August, 149 cases of attorney-related foreclosure fraud had been investigated by the Florida Bar with no disciplinary actions taken. There were 171 cases pending at that time.

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