The legal battle between Katie Sweeney and the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) has escalated, with new allegations emerging against United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM).

In a motion filed Oct. 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Sweeney sought permission to amend her complaint to add UWM, the title sponsor for AIME, and Sarah DeCiantis, UWM’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, as defendants. Sweeney alleges that they “tortiously interfered” with her transition agreement.

Per the court filing, Sweeney claims UWM “actively encouraged Defendant AIME to breach the agreement that Plaintiff Sweeney seeks to enforce in this lawsuit,” including a failure to pay compensation that AIME owed Sweeney under her employment transition agreement.

“In this respect, Sweeney believes that DeCiantis and UWM have threatened to withhold UWM funds from AIME or take other retributive action if AIME does not follow UWM’s directive.”

Sweeney has named DeCiantis in her filings before. In September, Sweeney, when arguing that AIME acknowledged her 2023 bonus and approved her transition agreement, noted that DeCiantis, not AIME’s president alone, negotiated and revised the terms of her exit from AIME.

Sweeney, who was CEO of the trade group from 2021 to 2023, said she resigned amid concerns over “unethical and possibly illegal” activity within the organization, including the discovery of an employee who was embezzling company funds.

AIME has argued that Sweeney “misrepresented” her role at the organization, denied that she was ever the CEO and instead described her as a board chair.

The original case, originally filed suit in February in Texas’s Tarrant County District Court, accuses AIME of breaching a transition agreement by failing to pay Sweeney $300,000 in earned bonuses and severance.

According to the filing, AIME agreed in early 2024 to pay Sweeney a $240,000 bonus for 2023 and $240,000 in severance over a 12-month period following her resignation as CEO.

Sweeney alleges AIME failed to deliver the bonus and missed the final three severance payments, which amounted to $60,000. The halting of payments coincides with Sweeney’s hiring at Rocket Pro in January 2025 as its executive vice president of strategy and broker advocacy.

Sweeney claims AIME told her that UWM instructed the trade group not to pay her.

AIME later moved Sweeney’s case from Texas state court to federal court in April. It then filed a response that outlined several counterclaims — accusing Sweeney of orchestrating her own exit deal, pressuring then-President Marc Summers to approve it, and authorizing more than $900,000 in payments to herself from 2021 to 2024.

In an August filing responding to AIME’s counterclaims, Sweeney denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the group had already recognized her 2023 bonus and approved her transition agreement.

The Oct. 28 filing paints a picture of growing tension between Sweeney and UWM leadership during her tenure at the trade group.

Per the complaint, Sweeney claims that AIME’s internal finances were in disarray. An audit in 2023 uncovered that an employee had embezzled funds for more than a year, including mortgage payments allegedly sent to UWM.

Sweeney said Summers admitted he knew about the misuse of funds but failed to act. When she pushed for the employee’s termination and for Summers’ removal, DeCiantis refused, allegedly telling Sweeney that Summers “would not now, nor ever, be removed” from AIME.

Sweeney said she later called on UWM to let AIME operate independently and proposed governance reforms, but DeCiantis rejected most of her requests, ultimately leading to Sweeney’s resignation.

AIME has previously alleged that Sweeney directed contracts and sponsorships to groups she had ties to, including the Broker Action Coalition and Brokers are Better, now called The Mortgage Xchange.

Neither AIME nor UWM immediately responded to HousingWire‘s requests for comment. Sweeney said she had no comment.

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