Can a Thief Really Steal A Home In Florida?
Years ago, I asked the question, ” Judge just who are you giving that house away to?” As I watched judges granting foreclosure judgments one after the other to alphabet soup or vaguely identified plaintiffs, I was deeply disturbed that none of us, including the judges, knew who was directing such trauma and who was profiting from the acts.
At that point in time, I thought it was kind of important for judges and for all of us to know exactly who it was that was directing our elected circuit court judges to throw our neighbors out into the streets. The question became, ” The Capacity Argument” and it was made successfully in thousands of cases all across the state.
Last week however, I learned that it doesn’t matter one bit at all who is directing our judges to throw neighbors and families into the street. I lost a trial where the issues of capacity and ownership were front and center. It remains a desperately painful loss and it signifies a far more dangerous and systemically flawed system that expands far beyond this one individual case. This issues demonstrated in this singular case, extrapolated out across millions of cases across this nation, illustrate that the nuclear bomb has already detonated all across this country and confirm my proposition that we are all merely living in the radiated cities left behind in the wake. Every courtroom is ground zero.
Losing is such a painful experience on so many levels, but the most infuriating aspects of this trial was the argument advanced by the bank (successfully I regret to admit) not only that it didn’t matter who was directing the judge to throw a neighbor into the street because the law holds (according to this attorney) that that even a thief could walk into a courtroom and take a Floridian’s home, but that it was futile and improper for me to even raise such issues.
The alleged authority for this absurd proposition is found in the following section of Florida Statutes which reads:
673.3011″ƒPerson entitled to enforce instrument.””The term ” person entitled to enforce” an instrument means: The holder of the instrument; (and especially this)
” A person may be a person entitled to enforce the instrument even though the person is not the owner of the instrument or is in wrongful possession of the instrument.”
And this was precisely one of the main points that was argued by the big bank tall building lawyers that were hell bent on throwing my client out into the street. In this particular case, the bank had managed to find the original promissory note. Now the law requires the bank to prove that they had the original promissory note prior to filing the lawsuit, but the fact that they didn’t even have a copy of the note when the filed the lawsuit”¦NOT EVEN A COPY”¦.and the fact that the original note didn’t mysteriously show up until years after the fact and the fact that the assignments of mortgage post dated the filing of the lawsuit by nearly a year did not stand in the way of a judgment throwing them into the street.
Now, I had evidence to suggest that the note at issue in my case was not in fact endorsed by the woman who was alleged to have endorsed it. The evidence came in the form of an affidavit she filed in another foreclosure case where she asserted that a mark which purported to be her signature was not in fact her signature. Pursuant to the facts of that affidavit, the alleged endorsement in that case was a FORGERY. Given the similarity in mark I argued, it was reasonable to infer that the mark was not authorized in my case. Now keep in mind please that this was no signature in any sense of the word. The entire case, this trauma inflicted upon my client, this travesty inflicted upon our court system all came down to a sloppy mark that was nothing but a sloppy squiggle, a tiny loop. One would think that a judgment totaling nearly three quarters of a million dollars would require a bit more than that, but one would be wrong in this case.
I tried like heck to convince the woman to come and testify, that the tiny squiggle was not hers but she lawyered up in a big way and burrowed up deep. Her lawyer sits on high, ethically minded committee, so I pleaded with him to let his client come and let the truth be known, but he refused and just went silent”¦ignored my repeated phone calls and emails. So much for ethics and morality and truth to the tribunal and the oath that you would prevent wrongs from perpetuating.
Now I did not prove that a thief stole the home in this case. I in fact was not even able to enter evidence to invoke the question. The Plaintiff first objected that I was even discussing the matter, they then successfully argued that even if I did prove in fact that the endorsement was a forgery it did not matter. Even a thief could steal the note and they were still entitled to foreclose.
I lost that argument.
(Now mind you I’m not done with these rogue squiggles yet. I’m burrowed up here licking my wounds right now but those squiggles will have their day in court. I suspect there are thousands of these particular squiggles and I will in fact pursue this issue and these rogue squiggles with tenacity until the full truth is exposed.)
Now, this particular lawsuit also included an infamous Linda Green Docx, LLC assignment. The Plaintiff first filed this assignment in the case then, presumably when the weight of evidence regarding the improper and fraudulent DOCX lawsuits and indictments became too great, they filed a filed a ” Notice of Non-Reliance on Assignment of Mortgage”. Because a judge cannot just acknowledge the news and all the common knowledge about fraudulent assignments, I brought the issues before the court long in advance, by providing filings from the Nevada Attorney General’s indictment and references to some of the other many cases that lay out the facts of this crime spree, including referencing the lawsuit filed between the plaintiff in my case the company the was responsible for this rogue assignment of mortgage. In that lawsuit, the plaintiff asserted that thousands of assignments were executed improperly or without authority”¦.I
dunno, kinda seemed relevant to me. But the other side argued that none of what I was arguing mattered and I had no right to be bringing these facts before the court. Despite the fact that the assignments were filed by the attorney in the case and recorded in the official records, the bank attorney argued that the court should just ignore all of that. The court did ignore all of that.
I lost that argument.
Next, I had been asking since August 2010 for some proof that the servicer plaintiff had the right to enforce the note and foreclose on the mortgage. Show me a pooling and servicing agreement. Show me a power of attorney. Show me a note scribbled on a post it note. Show me. something. They never produced the first piece of paper, not one shred of an agreement or a letter or a contract, but that didn’t matter one bit. I argued that allowing my client to be thrown into the street with no evidence whatsoever that the plaintiff had any right was a fundamental violation of the right to confront one’s accusers and just a plain old violation of common sense, but that didn’t matter. I argued that as a simple matter of law we should know who was going to benefit from the judgment that totals nearly three quarters of a million dollars. I argued that as a community we all had an obligation to know who was benefiting from throwing this man and his wife into the street.
I lost that argument.
Oh, just a few more things. I took the deposition of two corporate representatives and reviewed all the documents I could wrench out of them, but neither could tell me who owned the note and mortgage. They were both absolutely explicit that the plaintiff did not own the note and they were equally clear and specific that they had no idea who owned the note. But that too did not matter one bit. I argued that the court should at least require the plaintiff to know who they were foreclosing for. But that argument was rejected. This phantom plaintiff, with no proof and no idea who owned the note and mortgage was permitted to foreclose and will throw my client out into the street.
I lost that argument.
Now who will get the proceeds from the eventual sale of this property? Will they figure out who owns the note and mortgage eventually? I wonder.
One last thing. I asked how the plaintiff even knew that their attorney was authorized to represent them. If they had no servicing contract and they had no idea who owned the mortgage, did they even have a retainer agreement with the attorney that was representing them? Nope. Nada. Nothing. But that too was a loser.
I lost that argument.
I’m steaming and stewing and furious at this madness. I just cannot believe this is the nation we live in, but this in fact is the case. We live in a nation where unknown and undisclosed principals can direct front companies like hit men to come take you out of your home. The fact of the matter is I failed. I did not do my job. I did not meet the heavy burden placed upon me by clients that trusted me. The court made its ruling in a cold and dispassionate way given the facts and the law before it, such as these things are. The bank’s arguments were not novel or complex frankly. The bank merely argued that this is the state of the law and that the court and all of us must accept this reality. But I find it all most terrifying and sickening. This in fact is not the law of the land. It is a dangerous misapprehension and twisting of the law that is gaining a foothold. Such a foothold must not be allowed to gain traction, we must all fight and pursue cases and prevent such misinterpretations from gaining acceptance, but this is a difficult thing to do in this current environment. Why is this so? Well, consider the following:
We live in a country where our laws and our courts bow in supplication to the banking and ruling class.
We live in a country where our laws and our courts are not really ours at all. They belong to the banking and ruling class.
We live in a country where hundreds of millions of dollars is being granted in judgments by judges who have no idea who they are granting these judgments to
We live in a country where title to homes and properties are being passed around and secreted from one shadowy trust or company to the next.
We live in a country where the banks routinely mislead the public, engage in fraud and financial crimes but they are rewarded both with big settlements at the national level and with rewards and benefits on the street at the local level.
We live in a country where the president and the nation’s attorney generals hold press conferences to announce a broad settlement with the enemy when in fact no terms have been signed, no agreement has been reached.
We live in a country where attorneys can stand in courts of law and announce explicitly that the law of the land is that thieves can steal houses.
And win that argument.
One more time.
We live in a country where attorneys can stand in courts of law and announce explicitly that the law of the land is that thieves can steal houses.
But can there be any doubt that this is in fact all madness? Given the facts as I have described them and the known wrongful and criminal conduct of the banking class can there be any doubt but that they will not become even more emboldened by the affirmation of such principles?
This madness from the banking class has made a mockery of our courts and our laws and government. The fundamental principles of our nation’s entire system of government have in fact been thrown into a wood chipper. The core elements of a system of laws that existed to protect all of us from all of them have been destroyed. From the beginning of our nation’s history our system of laws and our judges existed to protect the basic legal, economic and social rights of all and to ensure individual liberty. But this is no longer the case. Today our laws and our courts exist to further the interests of a much larger and far more powerful oppressive class.
And just how will this devolution play out? Will the liberties and rights of a formerly free people maintain a foothold against such tyranny? Will our nation’s trial and appellate courts stand in the brink and provide shelter and protection for this nation’s hundreds of millions of souls? Will the banking class suddenly become fair and trustworthy negotiating partners? Will those in power in government and in business impose self restraint and be mindful of individual justice and liberty? Or will their march into madness and oppression merely intensify?
