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

Mike Kortas and Anthony Casa, two of the mortgage‑brokerage industry’s most recognizable figures, have officially ended their long‑running feud as NEXA Lending announced its acquisition of UMortgage, a deal that also paved the way for both men to re‑engage with the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME). Their reconciliation was brokered by former UMortgage chief sales officer Todd Bitter, who arranged a meeting that led Kortas to travel to Philadelphia and sit down with Casa. In an interview with HousingWire, Kortas said the personal grievances that had once seen them block each other on social media were set aside, noting that “the world cares more than we care” and that the dispute was no longer serving anyone. The renewed partnership not only sealed the UMortgage transaction but also signaled a broader realignment, with NEXA now poised to fund AIME memberships for its roughly 4,100 loan officers, dramatically expanding the trade group’s reach from a few hundred members to the entire NEXA brokerage.

The backdrop to this rapprochement involves a series of contentious episodes that had driven a wedge between the two men and between Kortas and AIME. Casa, who founded AIME in 2017, took a leave of absence in summer 2020 after sending videos containing sexual comments about Rocket Mortgage’s Austin Niemiec’s wife; the videos circulated among industry executives, prompting Niemiec to sue Casa and leading to Casa’s formal resignation in October 2020. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in April 2022. Meanwhile, Kortas severed ties with AIME in 2022, accusing the organization of failing to address bullying and online attacks within the broker community and of refusing his request to establish an ethics committee or share its bylaws. AIME, then led by Katie Fisher and Marc Summers, countered that it had created a five‑member ethics committee and was revising its bylaws, but Kortas’s VIP membership was revoked and NEXA loan officers were left to decide individually whether to remain AIME members.

Since the settlement, both parties have taken steps to rebuild trust and expand collaboration. New AIME chairman and CEO Jonathon Haddad, who assumed the role in January 2024 after Fisher moved to the Broker Action Coalition, made repairing the NEXA relationship a top priority, even flying to NEXA Fest at his own expense to signal commitment. Kortas, now “widely accepted back into the community,” has been nominated for the director of membership role, a position to be voted on within the next month, and he emphasized his interest in deeper involvement after being out of AIME for five or six years. Casa, who rejoined the association in 2026, praised Haddad’s leadership and described AIME as a “best‑in‑class trade association.” Haddad confirmed that Casa holds an annual VIP membership, aligning him with roughly 160 other VIP members, and highlighted the mutual value in educating new mortgage professionals—a goal both he and Kortas see as central to the renewed partnership.

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