Posts Tagged ‘Law Offices of David Stern’
BLOOMBERG- David J. Stern Headed to Foreclosure?
Author: Matthew D. Weidner, Esq.
Oh what irony, Oh what deliciously sweet irony…..You simply must read the attached report from Bloomberg…
Witness: Signatures Were Faked at Foreclosure Firm
Author: MattWeidner
“Former secretary says signatures were faked at law firm being investigated over foreclosures”
The Associated Press
By MIKE SCHNEIDER and TAMARA LUSH Associated Press Writers
“An office manager at a Florida law firm under investigation for fabricating foreclosure documents would sign her name to 1,000 files a day without reviewing them and would allow paralegals to sign her name for her when she got tired, her former secretary said in a deposition released Monday.
Cheryl Salmons, office manager for the foreclosure department at the law offices of David Stern, would sign 500 files in the morning and another 500 files in the afternoon without reviewing them and with no witnesses, said former assistant Kelly Scott in a deposition released by the Florida attorney general’s office.
The files were laid out on a conference room table for Salmons to sign, the former secretary said.
“She doesn’t review them. She just looks,” Scott said. “The paper is going to be in the top folder so it’s visible to her, and she knows exactly where she has to put her signature.”
Paralegals would then collect the files and swap them with each other, signing them as witnesses even though they had already been notarized and executed, Scott said.
Salmons allowed some paralegals to sign her name for her, said the former assistant, who worked at the firm for a year in 2008.
The deposition took place two weeks ago as part of the attorney general’s investigation into the law firm.
Another deposition released Monday was of Mary Cordova, who worked at G&Z Process for two months. Stern’s law firm used G&Z as a process server for foreclosures.
Cordova said when she was hired, she was told that she needed to process at least 22 cases per eight-hour shift.
“It was almost like we didn’t have time to really look at what we were doing,” she said during her deposition. “It’s like this is the particular information, input that, turn that page, here’s this piece of information, type that in. It’s more about speed than accuracy per se. Although a supervisor would look at the papers to see if they’re pretty accurate.”
Why is David J. Stern Not In Handcuffs? Stunning Examples of Fraud…
Author: MattWeidner
Serious, pervasive, systemic fraud lies at the heart of the current foreclosure meltdown. This fraud was not committed in shady backrooms, although it might have started there. This fraud was carried out thousands of times a day in hundreds of courtrooms and courthouses all across the State of Florida.
This fraud wasn’t a “Flash Crash” scheme that popped and no-one could catch it. This fraud moved slowly, deliberately, purposefully in front of clerks of courts, attorneys, judges, the financial markets, regulators, legislators and the press. There is no way to keep this Pandora’s box shut anymore. There is no way to put this genie back in the bottle.
In the past week, I’ve done interviews with Canadian reporters, Australian reporters, British reporters. They’re all struggling to understand what went wrong and just how big the problem is. The attachments below are just like stars…..just a few little examples of a universe of fraudulent documents that are recorded in courthouses all across this state….each one representing a black hole that will suck our mortgage and financial markets further into a mess. I challenge anyone who is struggling to grasp the magnitude of this problem to print out the three attachments, lay them out and study them. These flawed and fraudulent assignments of mortgage pollute and make toxic the title to every piece of real estate they touch…..and this was all done in the most public of all forums…our open and accessible public records system…..
Will The Florida Bar Really Take Action Against The Foreclosure Mills? Stay Tuned.
Author: MattWeidner
Although the Florida Supreme Court has declined to take any affirmative action against the widespread fraud and abuse that is occurring in Florida courtrooms, all attorneys should be reminded that they have an obligation under the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar to report all potential ethical violations of other attorneys.
As reported in the attached article that appeared in the Florida Daily Business Review, I recently filed a complaint with the Florida Bar requesting that they look into the very unusual situation involving the Law Offices of David Stern and the non-legal component (whatever that is) of that practice, David J. Stern Enterprises. I encourage everyone to read this article carefully (especially US Congressman Grayson) then stay tuned to see if the Florida Bar actually takes any interest in the very real issues that provoked the complaint…..
For comprehensive reporting of many complex issues that relate to our courts and foreclosure in particular, please visit the website of the Daily Business Review Here.
While I’m certainly glad that national and statewide press have now picked up on the issues relating to foreclosure and foreclosure fraud, we cannot forget that the excellent regional press sources like Daily Business Review have been tracking and reporting on these issues for quite some time. Please support their reporting and effort by subscribing to their excellent paper.
What Will It Take To Stop This Madness? Local Television on Foreclosure Fraud.
Author: MattWeidner
National, regional and local press are reporting the serious issues relating to Foreclosure Fraud nearly every day now. A handful of honest judge with integrity are taking notice of the fraud in the foreclosure process and holding the lawyers and their clients to task. A ranking member of the United States Congress has written a letter to the Chief Justice asking for a moratorium on foreclosures. And yet in spite of all of this, across this state, oftentimes in secret courtrooms that are hidden from the public using evidence and information that is hidden from the scrutiny of press or public view, judges will be signing thousands of foreclosure judgments.
I was in one of those secret Kafka-esque courtrooms in Tampa yesterday. I made the speech I just made to the judge as he was in the middle of robo signing hundreds of judgments. He seemed annoyed at my presence in the courtroom and my suggestion that there was anything at all wrong with the process. We all know this is horribly wrong and like a sick patient that ignores his symptoms before it’s too late, the longer we allow this to play out, the worse the day of reckoning will be. One of my motivations early on was to bring attention to this crisis in the hopes that officials would step up and stop this madness. Our Attorney General is to be commended for taking the lead in this crisis…we can only hope that the Office of Attorney General maintains the integrity necessary to give these investigations their full force and impact.
Florida Attorney General Investigates- Should Judges Shut Down The Foreclosure Mills?
Author: Matthew D. Weidner, Esq.
The announcement yesterday that Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum is investigating the Law Offices of David Stern, Marshall Watson and Shapiro and Fishman for violations of Florida’s unfair and deceptive trade practices act and the announcement that the Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division is looking into whether these firms have submitted false documentation to courts in order to speed foreclosures should be enough to stop the insane march to foreclosure sale that is happening thousands of times in Florida every day.
So why should the investigation by Florida’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer shut down foreclosures across the state? Well, keep in mind that the Attorney General’s office is already investigating Florida Default Law so with today’s announcement, virtually all of the foreclosure mills operating in the State of Florida are being investigated by the Florida Attorney General. The companies being investigated for serious violations of state laws are not fly by night call centers….they’re not shady loss mitigation or loan modification fronts, we’re talking here about law firms and lawyers….highly trained professionals that a) should know better and b) should be held to a higher standard than your typical shady businessperson.
Foreclosure Slop and Sewer Service Everywhere
Last week I reported on the fact that I got a $1.5 Million Dollar Judgment Thrown Out (Post Here). The next day, I stumbled across another $1 Million Dollar Judgment that should probably be thrown out because it was questionable on its face. (Post Here) Just since then I’ve stumbled upon several examples of questionable service and I’m convinced that the foreclosure docket is littered with improper service that makes any action taken on the foreclosure case, including any Final Judgment of Foreclosure VOID! That means it’s like the Final Judgment did not happen at all. The subpoenas issued by the Attorney General seek information about the service of process companies employed by the mills, among other things. One can only assume based on this that the AG is looking at issues of sewer service and other improprieties related to service.
Any Time a Foreclosure Mill Uses Constructive Service, No Judgment Should Be Entered
Any person that is the subject of a lawsuit is entitled to personal service…that means a Sheriff or process server personally hands that lawsuit to the defendant and swears to the court that he identified the defendant (and puts the date and time of service on the affidavit). Constructive service or service by publication should only be used in the very rare circumstances when the Defendant cannot be found. The process server is required to make an Affidavit of Diligent Search and Inquiry that specifies all of the steps the server took in order to try and obtain service. In an unreasonably high number of foreclosure cases, the process servers swear to the court that they made a diligent effort to perfect personal service on the defendant but were not able to. Here is a key fact to look for in every case where constructive service is used….how long after the summons was issued did the Plaintiff move for constructive service? In far too many cases, constructive service is applied for less than 30 days after the original summons was issued. Given the unreasonably high volume of summonses issued to small time process servers, it is physically impossible for them to have made a diligent search for all those defendants.
Allegations of Faked Documents
Our courts and our judges must be able to rely upon the representations of the lawyers that appear in their courtrooms and rely upon the veracity of the evidence they submit. Based on the broad nature of the Attorney General’s investigations and the widespread evidence of forged and fake documents that are being submitted by the foreclosure mills, our judges should have zero confidence in any of the evidence that has been submitted by the mills….some judge have already expressed as much…the question now is why are the millionaire foreclosure mills still given the benefit of the doubt….that’s really what summary judgment is….in my mind not a single additional summary judgment should be granted until judges can develop some confidence that the orders they’re signing are not based on faked, forged, questionable evidence. I’m going into a hearing today where I’ll make just that case….
I wonder how our senior judges (or any judge for that matter) will feel about issuing summary judgments to law firms that are under investigation by the Attorney General.
