Free Republic

The Florida Bar is asking for disciplinary action against South Florida attorney David J. Stern for ignoring a Fifth District Court of Appeal’s order in a foreclosure case where his firm represented SunTrust Bank. A complaint filed with the Florida Supreme Court Friday charges Stern, whose Plantation-based company was once the largest foreclosure firm in the state, with violating rules of professional conduct and disobeying a court obligation. Read complaint here Stern’s attorney, Jeff Tew, said Stern was fired by SunTrust in mid Dec. 2010, before the Feb. 16 order was issued. Also, with 10,000 pieces of mail coming into...

HEY JUDGE COX, THIS IS WHAT YOUR MOTION TO QUASH IS PROTECTING!

“I’m not going to be here next week” is how Mr. Geeai greeted me on a delightfully cool morning last week, “so your readers are going to have to live without me. You can come and hang out, but you have to bring your own coffee.” “Is this the annual Geeai family campout?’ “Indeed it is”, he replied. “Chris is coming up from California and we are all going to hang for a week. So you and your readers have to live without me next week.” “That’s OK. I’ll take notes” Remember David Stern?“The jerk who is making hundreds of...

FRAUD UPON THE COURT! Case Dismissed! In the Circuit Court of the Fourth Judicial Circuit in and for Duval County, FL

Attorney General Bill McCollum News Release: Florida Law Firms Subpoenaed Over Foreclosure Filing Practices TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced his office has launched three new investigations into allegations of unfair and deceptive actions by Florida law firms handling foreclosure cases. The Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division is investigating whether improper documentation may have been created and filed with Florida courts to speed up foreclosure processes, potentially without the knowledge or consent of the homeowners involved. The new investigations name The Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, P.A.; Shapiro & Fishman, LLP; and the Law Offices of...

Florida's purported largest foreclosure law firm filed thousands of documents to take people's homes that contained deceptive and intentionally ambiguous information, according to a proposed class action lawsuit. The suit, filed last month in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, says David J. Stern and his Plantation-based legal team violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by generating fraudulent mortgage assignments when pursuing foreclosures. An assignment is held by the entity that has the right to receive mortgage payments. Stern's practice, which the lawsuit claims filed up to 7,000 new foreclosure cases in Florida every month last year,...

In South Florida, a foreclosure defense lawyer discovered more than 20 mortgage documents submitted by Stern’s firm that bore notary seals that did not exist at the time the documents supposedly were notarized. The Florida Bar reprimanded Stern in 2002 for overcharging and misleading clients, and is now considering a complaint questioning whether he should be allowed to farm out so much of his firm’s business to nonlawyers. Stern declined to be interviewed for this story. By 1999, Stern’s firm represented banks in foreclosure actions against more than 10,000 home­owners, according to records in a class action lawsuit filed in...

You could call him the foreclosure king of Florida. As lawyer for several major banks, David J. Stern handles 20 percent of all foreclosure cases in the nation's fourth most populous state. It is from Stern's law firm that well over 100,000 Floridians, including many in the Tampa Bay area, have received the dreaded notice to pay up or face losing their homes. The foreclosure business has been good to Stern, who lives in a $15 million Fort Lauderdale mansion and reaped $58.5 million by selling his back-office operations to a new public company in which he is a major...