As Kortas and Casa make peace, AIME is back in the mix

Mike Kortas and Anthony Casa, two of the most prominent personalities in the mortgage brokerage space, have put aside a longstanding feud and reached an agreement for NEXA Lending to acquire UMortgage. But they have also recently mended — or deepened — another relationship through their status with the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME). Casa, who founded AIME in 2017, took a leave of absence from the organization in the summer of 2020 after sending videos to Rocket Mortgage‘s Austin Niemiec that included comments of a sexual nature about Niemiec’s wife, Theresa. The videos were distributed to other industry executives, leading Niemiec to sue Casa and Casa to officially step down in October 2020. The case was later dismissed with prejudice in April 2022. Kortas, meanwhile, cut ties with AIME in 2022, saying then that he believed the trade group failed to adequately address bullying and online attacks within the broker community. He also said AIME rebuffed his request to establish an ethics committee and refused to provide its bylaws. AIME, which was then run by Katie Fisher (nee Sweeney) and Marc Summers — who were appointed after Casa announced his leave of absence...