Pittsburgh Bankruptcy Chief Sanctions Lying Lawyer, Foreclosure Mill Firm For Filing Manufactured Docs; Orders Both To Report To Disciplinary Board

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports:

• The chief bankruptcy judge for Western Pennsylvania sanctioned an attorney and her Philadelphia law firm for filing deceptive documents in a foreclosure proceeding and then lying about them in a case against a Monroeville woman.

• The firm filed copies of three key letters created after the fact and never sent to the homeowner or her lawyer, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Agresti ruled. Under Agresti's order last week, attorney Leslie A. Puida and the firm Goldbeck, McCafferty and McKeever must report to the Disciplinary Board of the state Supreme Court, which could impose penalties.(1)

• Puida could not be reached. The firm did not respond to a request for comment [last week]. A partner in the firm told the judge it initiated practices and procedures to avoid a recurrence.

For more, see Judge sanctions attorney, law firm in Monroeville case.

In related stories, see:

• ABA Journal: Law Firm Accused of UPL, After Admittedly Filing Foreclosures Without Attorney Review,(2)
• AOL's Daily Finance: Thousands of Pennsylvania Foreclosures Could Be on Shaky Ground.

(1) Under Judge Agresti's order, the court declined to slam the firm with monetary sanctions (the Trustee suggested the firm cough up $50K), "[g]iven the magnitude of the financial loss which GMM has already experienced in the form of attorney fees and lost client revenue as a result of this matter" (around $400K in out-of-pocket expenses which will not be reimbursed by insurance coverage), saying that banging them for more cash "could jeopardize the continued operation of GMM, possibly threatening the livelihoods of innocent employees who had nothing to do with the violations addressed in the Rule."

Likewise, Judge Agresti declined to impose monetary fines on Puida or suspend her from practicing in the bankruptcy court in the state's Western District (the Trustee suggested one year), for reasons that can be described as practical (and possibly humanitarian) as set forth in his order.

Judge Agresti's ruling is the latest in the ongoing litigation involving Countrywide Home Loans, and alleged fabricated evidence, suspected forgeries, and requests for allegedly improper fees or payments from bankrupt homeowners filed in this and other cases he has overseen in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Pittsburgh. See:

• The Wall Street Journal: Judge Rejects Countrywide Plan To Settle Suit on Foreclosure Bid (requires paid subscription; if no subscription, TRY HERE),
• The Wall Street Journal: Judge Dings C’wide Settlement Over Alleged Forgeries (free access),
• In re Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. (Judge Agresti's April 1, 2008 opinion and order that OKs go-ahead for Countrywide subpoenas. "In each of these 10 cases, the UST identified actions engaged in by Countrywide that she claims were questionable or raised issues going to the integrity of the bankruptcy system" Agresti said in this order.).

(2) The following comment to the ABA Journal story was left by William A. Roper, Jr. which merits attention:

• Readers, reporters and editors have long since forgotten that the firm named in this suit was at the center of the In Re Hill case which led to the collapse of Countrywide and which telegraphed today’s robo-perjury and foreclosure fraud scandal almost three years ago. A review of some of the primary materials in In Re Hill is appropriate:
  
  http://www.scribd.com/doc/40761878/In-Re-Hill-Transcript-of-20-Dec-2007-Hearing?in_collection=2711712 (This document is the hearing transcript in the case In Re Hill, Case No. 01-22574, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, W.D. Pa. In a hearing before the Hon. Thomas P. AGRESTI it emerged that Countrywide had sent "recreated letters" to the counsel for the debtor),
  
  http://www.scribd.com/doc/40762581/In-Re-Hill-the-Recreated-Letters?in_collection=2711712 (Copies of the three "re-created" letters),
  
  http://www.scribd.com/doc/41551941/In-Re-Hill-Memorandum-Opinion-and-Order-05-Oct-2010?in_collection=2711712 (Chief Judge Agresti's October 5, 2010, memorandum opinion and order in In re Hill).
  
  *
  Nor was In Re Hill the first occasion when a U.S. Court found it appropriate to sanction GMM and attorney Ledlie PUIDA. Consider the Bankruptcy Court’s In Re Ennis decision from 2006:
  
  http://www.scribd.com/doc/44629988/In-Re-Ennis-Memorandum-Opinion-and-Order-of-28-Jul-2006?in_collection=2703239 (Judge Robert W. BENTZ Memorandum and Order imposing sanctions upon Countrywide, its foreclosure mill law firm Goldbeck, McCafferty & McKeever, and attorney Leslie PUIDA in the case of In Re Robert E. and Kathleen L. ENNIS, Case No. 05-11985, a matter before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court W.D. Pa.),
  
  Now, in December of 2010, we learn from the In Re Kemp case that BAC witnesses such as Linda DeMartini are asserting under oath that Countrywide NEVER DELIVERED the mortgage collateral to the mortgage trusts:
  
  http://www.scribd.com/doc/44619866/In-Re-Kemp-Decision-16-Nov-2010
  
  But BAC tells us that its witness was “mistaken” and that its outside counsel misunderstood its business. This is nothing more than business as usual at Countrywide/BAC where evidence fabrication, perjury and forgery are considered to be core competencies from which the firm derives a competitive advantage.