NYC Man Accused Of Using Forged Documents In Attempt To Swipe $128K From Foreclosed Homeowner In Alleged "Surplus Scam"

From the Office of the Queens County District Attorney:

• Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown [...] announced that a Flushing man has been charged with second-degree attempted grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and other charges for allegedly forging the signature of a man whose home had been foreclosed on in an effort to collect the surplus that resulted from a sale of the house.(1) District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant is accused of trying to steal a large amount of money owed to the victim in this case – and then challenging the victim in court when the scheme was uncovered. [...].”

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• District Attorney Brown said that, according to the charges, the complainant, Leonard Lum, was the owner of a property [...] in Corona, Queens, which was foreclosed upon on March 21, 2003. As a result of the foreclosure, there was a surplus of $128,044 owed to him as proceeds from the sale of his property through foreclosure action. The District Attorney said that, on December 17, 2008, the complainant filed an action [...] to collect the surplus.(2)

• On February 9, 2009, however, the defendant Harry Coumnas, of H.C. Sonic, Inc., allegedly filed a petition with the court in opposition of the complainant’s action, claiming that the complainant had assigned rights to the defendant to collect the $128,044 surplus in exchange for a payment of $25,000. The District Attorney further said that the defendant allegedly hired an attorney to file papers in an effort to collect the surplus, which included filing documents bearing the forged signatures of Leonard Lum and his wife, Betty Lum, purportedly assigning the surplus of $128,044 to the defendant in exchange for $25,000. According to the criminal complaint, the complainant never assigned the right to the surplus to the defendant and did not receive the sum of $25,000 from the defendant.

For the entire Queens DA press release, see Flushing Man Charged With Filing Fraudulent Court Papers To Collect Foreclosure Surplus (Allegedly Forged Victim’s Signature In Bid To Collect $128,000).

(1) The District Attorney identified the defendant as Harry Coumnas, 50, of 25-25 126th Street in Flushing. The defendant is charged with second-degree attempted grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, first-degree falsifying business records and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.

(2) Assuming the absence of typographical errors in the DA's press release, it appears that the $128K foreclosure surplus was sitting in the court registry for well over five years before the foreclosed homeowner "woke up" and attempted to retrieve his funds (March 21, 2003 to December 17, 2008). For all anyone knows, he (like most people who lose their homes to foreclosure) may not have been aware that he's entitled to money from the foreclosure sale of his home to the extent the sale price exceeds the debt owed to the foreclosing lender (subject to the claims of any intervening lienholders), and may only have become aware of his right to the cash after having his suspicions aroused by one of the many "foreclosure surplus chasers" who make their living ripping off foreclosed homeowners unaware of their rights to the sale overage.