Judge Schack `Twilight Zone' Foreclosure Law Firm Draws Fine, Suits in New York Courts - Bloomberg

Note this whole article is worth a read.. check it out by clicking on title link. Don't you wonder why the bank lawyers are not going to jail after filing false documents???? Pay particular attention to the fact that the lawyer is representing both forecloser and buyer of property - something we have talked about before....

`Twilight Zone' Foreclosure Law Firm Draws Fine, Suits in New York Courts - Bloomberg: "Steven J. Baum’s New York foreclosure law firm has attracted lawsuits and fines for its actions during the housing crisis, with one judge likening its arguments to something out of the “Twilight Zone.”

As recently as last month, Baum’s firm, which one lawyer for homeowners said processes about half the foreclosures in New York state, was ordered to pay $14,532.50 in legal fees and costs and a $5,000 fine by Nassau County District Court Judge Scott Fairgrieve in Hempstead, New York.

The judge said that when Paul Raia refused to vacate a Garden City co-op after foreclosure, Baum’s firm filed an eviction petition that misidentified the lender.

“Falsities were contained in five paragraphs out of only ten paragraphs in the entire petition,” Fairgrieve wrote in his Nov. 23 decision."

william shatner on twilight zone

                                                                   

and the next part: Pay particular attention to the fact that the lawyer is representing both forecloser and buyer of property

Schack threw out the case in part because he said the assignment of the loan had been done improperly. The assignment was made by a Baum lawyer on behalf of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. as the nominee for the mortgage bank, according to the judge’s opinion. The same day, the Baum firm represented the buyer of the loan by filing the foreclosure action, the judge said. Schack said it was a conflict for the firm to represent both sides.

“Steven J. Baum PC appears to be operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe,” the judge wrote in that May decision. “Next stop, the Twilight Zone,” he said, quoting from Serling’s TV series about science fiction and the supernatural.