NY AG sues JPMorgan over Bear Stearns securities NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general's office has hit JPMorgan Chase & Co. with a civil lawsuit, alleging that investment bank Bear Stearns — prior to its collapse and subsequent sale to JPMorgan in 2008 — perpetrated massive fraud in deals involving billions in residential mortgage-backed securities. Many of them defaulted on their loans when the housing bubble burst and their introductory "teaser" interest rates skyrocketed. Because many of those mortgages had been sliced and repackaged as securities that could be bought and sold — known as RMBS — the mass defaults led to huge losses at large U.S.