More On Alleged South Florida Bogus Foreclosure Document Manufacturing Foreclosure Mill

Mother Jones recently ran a profile on South Florida foreclosure mill operated by attorney David J. Stern and the alleged manufacturing and backdating of bogus foreclosure documents that this firm his accused of engaging in.(1) An excerpt:

• LATE ONE NIGHT IN February 2009, Ariane Ice sat poring over records on the website of Florida's Palm Beach County. She'd been at it for weeks, forsaking sleep to sift through thousands of legal documents. She and her husband, Tom, an attorney, ran a boutique foreclosure defense firm called Ice Legal. (Slogan: "Your home is your castle. Defend it.") Now they were up against one of Florida's biggest foreclosure law firms: Founded by multimillionaire attorney David J. Stern, it controlled one-fifth of the state's booming market in foreclosure-related services. Ice had a strong hunch that Stern's operation was up to something, and that night she found her smoking gun.

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• A Florida notary's stamp is valid for four years, and its expiration date is visible on the imprint. But here in front of Ice were dozens of assignments notarized with stamps that hadn't even existed until months—in some cases nearly a year—after the foreclosures were filed. Which meant Stern's people were foreclosing first and doing their legal paperwork later. In effect, it also meant they were lying to the court—an act that could get a lawyer disbarred or even prosecuted. "There's no question that it's pervasive," says Tom Ice of the backdated documents—nearly two dozen of which were verified by Mother Jones. "We've found tons of them."

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• But the Ices had uncovered what looked like a pattern, so Tom booked a deposition with Stern's top deputy, Cheryl Samons, and confronted her with the backdated documents—including two from cases her firm had filed against Ice Legal's clients. Samons, whose counsel was present, insisted that the filings were just a mistake. She refused to elaborate, so the Ices moved to depose the notaries and other Stern employees whose names were on the evidence. On the eve of those depositions, however, the firm dropped foreclosure proceedings against the Ices' clients.

• It was a bittersweet victory: The Ices had won their cases, but Stern's practices remained under wraps. "This was done to cover up fraud," Tom fumes. "It was done precisely so they could try to hit a reset button and keep us from getting the real goods."

For the entire story, see EXCLUSIVE: Fannie and Freddie's Foreclosure Barons (How the federal housing agencies and bailed-out banks are helping shady lawyers make millions by pushing families out of their homes).

Thanks to Mike Dillon of GetDShirtz.com for the heads-up on the story.

(1) Mother Jones has made the following documents available online in connection with allegations made against this operation:

• Federal Securities Fraud Suit, Cooper and Methi v. DJSP Enterprises, David J. Stern, and Kumar Gursahaney, July 2010;
• Class Action Racketeering Suit, Figueroa v. MERSCORP, Law Offices of David J. Stern, and David J. Stern, July 2010;
• Fair Debt Collection Violation Suit, Hugo San Martin and Melissa San Martin v. Law Offices of David J. Stern, July 2010;
• Class Action Suit for Fair Debt Collecting Violations, Rory Hewitt v. Law Offices of David J. Stern and David J. Stern, October 2009;
• Florida Bar, Public Reprimand, Complaint Against David J. Stern, Sept. 2002;
• Florida Bar, Public Reprimand, Consent Judgment Against David J. Stern, Oct. 2002;
• Freddie Mac Designated Counsel, Retention Agreement with Law Offices of David J. Stern, April 2003;
• Freddie Mac Designated Counsel, Memo to Law Offices of David J. Stern, March 2006;
• Amended Complaint Alleging Sexual Harassment, Bridgette Balboni v. Law Offices of David J. Stern and David J. Stern, July 1999.