John Kelleher’s professional life is beginning to feel cyclical, like the seasons. Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto asked Kelleher, a chief deputy, to head a mortgage fraud task force in early 2007. With so many shady real estate players and dicey mortgages, the new task force kept him busy. Then the foreclosure wave started, and the task force shifted its focus to scam artists falsely promising to keep Nevadans in their homes for a steep fee. Then the fraudsters began offering phony loan modification services, so Kelleher went after them, too.
