Matt Weidner – Fighting With The American People

Posts Tagged ‘bac funding’

On March 1, 2010 a warrant for my arrest was signed by a Pinellas County Judge.  The warrant was signed based on an affidavit of probable cause that was signed by an officer of the private company that the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office has contracted to process all their probable cause affidavits and arrest warrants.  For hundreds of years, only actual deputized officers of the Sheriff’s office signed these affidavits and they were kept within the Pinellas County courts, but that process was recently contracted out to a private company.

When I appeared before the judge, I reviewed the affidavit and it was clear that whomever signed the affidavit got the facts all wrong.  I’m 175 pounds, not 204.  I’ve got brown hair, not white hair.  I’ve got blue eyes, not brown eyes. And most importantly, I couldn’t have committed the serious felony crime the affidavit accused me of because I wasn’t even born yet on the date the affidavit said I committed the crime.  When I appeared before the judge and pointed all this out her response was astonishing…while she admitted that the affidavit was totally wrong and that it was clear from its face that I could not have committed the crime, she told me, “The prosecutor admits that the affidavit is wrong and while you may not have committed this specific crime, the affidavit says you committed a crime.  The prosecutor assures me that they believe you’ve committed a crime even if it’s not the crime that I’m going to sign this arrest warrant for and that’s enough information for me.”

The judge signed the arrest warrant even though she knew and the prosecutors admitted that the facts in the affidavit did not support my arrest.

There were hundreds of attorneys in the courtroom who had clients that were being arrested on precisely the same obviously wrong set of facts, but they could do nothing.  The facts were all wrong, the files were all wrong, but the warrants were signed.  If this weren’t bad enough, I thought about the thousands of files on the judge’s bench where no attorney were present.  She was so busy and those accused had no attorney to challenge the facts in the affidavit, so the judge just signed thousands of those cases every single day.

Sorry lenders, sorry plaintiff’s attorneys, I was not arrested.  The story above did not happen.  Not exactly that way anyway.  But every single day in courtrooms all across this country, acts no less severe than the ones I described above are happening.  While an arrest is the most serious exercise of judicial power, close behind it is the judicial act of throwing a person or family out of their home.  Unfortunately, this dire judicial act is being done hundreds of thousands of times across the country every day based on fraudulent information and based on facts that are in direct contradiction to taking that most severe judicial act–throwing a person out of their home.

We truly are living in a Kafaka-esque world where this scenario above plays out in courtrooms across the country every day.  Lenders and their attorneys are committing gross fraud on the courts.  The practice is shockingly widespread and pervasive.  The lies and tactics employed by the banks and officers of the court to fulfill their ultimate goals of taking back property (to what end?  who will buy them?  how will the banks recover $$ even after they have taken the property back?) are becoming very well documented in depositions, SEC filings, class action lawsuits and other definitive places.

There are bright spots though….the Sixth Circuit of Pinellas County, Florida and the Second District Court of Appeals in Florida is one such place.  The recent opinions released by judges from these two courts make it clear that the judges take their jobs and their solemn responsibility to their citizens seriously.  The opinions that force lenders to prove their right to foreclose and challenge the improper tactics of the banks and lenders, make it clear that in their courtrooms and neighborhoods at least, the law and the rights of consumers and citizens are more important than the arrogance, bullying and abuses of nameless, faceless, shifting entities that are attempting to steal our country!

We can only hope that courts in the rest of the country will turn their gaze to Pinellas County, Florida….

The Flames of Justice Are Burning Bright!

Courts across the country have been granting banks foreclosure when they have scant evidence or documentation to support the granting of foreclosure.  Let’s be clear what’s happening here.  When a judge grants a Plaintiff foreclosure, that’s a claim that potentially puts hundreds of thousands of dollars in that Plaintff’s pocket.  Not so long ago, it was relatively clear that the Plaintiff was the party entitled to collect the money–their name was on the loan docs and the borrower made their payment to that lender over the course of the loan.  It was also relatively clear how much the Plaintiff was owed.  The Plaintiff kept the books and they largely did a fair job in keeping and presenting those records to the court in order to get their judgment

An On-Going Epidemic of Affidavit, Assignment and Evidence Fraud on The Court.

In response to the massive wave of foreclosure business, Plaintiffs and lenders have started churning out completely improper work product that does not fulfill the basis requirements of competent legal practice.  They are also churning out work product that is fraudulent and completely without any factual basis…i.e.

• If the Plaintff’s firms need an assignment of mortgage to give their Plaintiff the right to foreclose, they don’t bother getting it from the party that owns the mortgage, they simply create a fraudulent document and file it with the court;
• If the Plaintiff’s firm needs an affidavit to support how much they claim to be owed by the Defendant they do not get it from a source that is competent to provide that testimony and they do not attach any documents to support the amount claimed due as required by law, they merely have a nameless face sign an affidavit that says any old thing and submit that to the court;
• If the Plaintiff’s firm needs to get formal service on a Defendant, sometimes they don’t wait around for the process server to actually track that person down, they just lie say they attempted to get service on the person and file that lie to the court. (And when the process service company is owned by the Plaintiff’s firm, they’ll charge exorbitant fees for doing so.)

An Unfair Burden on The Judiciary

Anywhoo, the point is we’re all aware of all this conduct….and so much more.  Unfortunately the judiciary is just bursting at the seams with so many new cases that they just cannot keep up.  Their staff are just overwhelmed…the judges cannot possibly be expected to render the best legal work they expect of themselves, but they’re trapped in an uncomfortable and untenable situation.  In partial response, the courts are adopting new procedures that will be very damaging in the long run….like summarily passing cases through without much actual review or consideration.

The Result of The Unfair Burden on the Judiciary- Unsupported Judicial Opinions

The net result of the pressure placed on the judiciary is bad orders and bad title work and opinions coming out.  The Second DCA just released their BAC Funding v. US Bank opinion.  That opinion shuts the door on many of the bad processes and procedures that are now plaguing courts in this circuit and others.  The reply brief that was submitted in that case illustrates what harm can come when Orders of the court are issued without proper hearing.  In this case a Summary Judgment of Foreclosure was entered without a hearing.  Although there were many problems with the file from the outset and both sets of attorneys new this, the trial court had instituted a process of not bothering to hold hearings on these cases.  The results are the trial court entered judgment when they should not have…and now we’ve got a wonderful appeal.

The entire BAC Funding Brief can be found here it is a clear and concise illustration of what goes wrong when courts engage in summary procedures without considering important facts. I’ve previously complained about ex-parte Motion to Dismiss Denial practice because I’m concerned that our courts will face much greater problems going forward if they respond to the overwhelming increase in case loads with summarily dismissing cases.  I have profound respect for our courts and want to help them work though this crisis without causing greater problems down the road.