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     Current Issue Highlights Highlights Archive             Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: May 2000 Legal Service Plan Lawyers Save Member's Home, Money; Affect Swindlers's Arrests, Trial Extraordinary efforts by Local 237 Legal Services Plan attorneys to save a retired member's home from foreclosure resulted not only in saving the home, but also in uncovering a vicious big-bucks racket that resulted in the arrests of two greedy rip-off artists. Matthew Cooper, director of the Legal Services Plan, said the case -- which Local attorneys fought persistently for 10 years -- began in 1990 when Ana Morales, a a former Housing Assistant with the Housing Authority fell behind in the mortgage on her home in South Ozone Park, Queens. She was approached at that time by two men , Paul Martinez and George Serel, who smooth-talked her into signing up with them to remedy her financial affairs. Give them money, they said, and they would pay off her mortgage. Mrs. Morales paid them for two years. However, when she went to refinance her home, figuring the debt had been settled, she learned not only that she no longer owned her home, but that the bank had begun foreclosure proceedings. Martinez and Serel had talked her into signing not a financial contract , but a "quit claim deed," a paper making a dummy corporation they created the owner of the home she lived in for 25 years and where she raised her family. The land-grab operators used this deed as collateral for a loan from the GreenPoint Savings Bank. The men used part of their loan to pay off what Morales owed, and kept the rest, a cash windfall of more than $30,000 over and above the money they had received in monthly payments. They pocketed all the money, never paid anything back to the bank, and dissolved the company they were then using as a front. Distraught, Mrs. Morales approached the Local's Legal Services Plan for help to get out of this legal morass. Cooper assigned the case to Attorney Ann M. Schneider, who, he said, "realized a great injustice had been done and took the case on as a crusade." Mrs. Morales agreed. "She would call me, even on Saturdays and Sundays. I never thought she would use her own time on my case." Cooper monitored the case and took an active part in it with Schneider. Both made dozens of court appearances in an unrelenting effort to save Mrs. Morales' home. Schneider -- who left Local 237 two years ago to become supervising attorney of the Legal Services Department for the private law firm of Garlic, Kravitz and Listhaus in Manhattan-- and Cooper waded through a tangle of complicated legal transactions in their investigations. Eventually, the attorneys filed two legal actions, one against the bank in the foreclosure arguing it was not entitled to anything because of a fraudulent mortgage, the other against the two swindlers and their dummy company. "We were told repeatedly that we couldn't win," Cooper said, "that the bank was entitled to its money and that Mrs. Morales would lose her home.." As the attorneys plowed through the paper trail left by the two con men, they learned that the scamsters' illicit operations could have affected as many as 200 homeowners in Queens alone. Armed with this material, the lawyers assisted the U.S. Attorney's office in a sweeping investigation that resulted in U.S. Attorney Tanya Hill prosecuting both men. After a trial at the end of 1998, Martinez was found guilty mail fraud and sentenced to more than four years in prison Serel plead guilty and promised to make restitution. Just as importantly, the crooks were required to deed the property back to Mrs. Morales. The bank, meanwhile, continued efforts to seize Mrs. Morales' home insisting it had not done anything except make a good-faith loan. Cooper continued the fight, making numerous court appearances, at which the bank was represented by a high-powered Long Island law firm and Serel was represented by high-profile criminal defender Benjamin Branfman. "It was a real David and Goliath situation," said Cooper. "We were against the big boys, and we were more than holding our own." Finally, the bank filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that no matter what arguments the Legal Plan attorneys might win, the bank had done nothing wrong and was entitled to foreclose on the property. Cooper assigned Attorney Christopher Rodriguez to respond to this motion and he dived into the two-foot deep box of files, sifting through all the records to come up with a satisfactory challenge to the bank's contention. "Chris did a superb job," Cooper said. "He came up with great papers and the court sided with us. It was a major turning point in the case." Once the judge agreed with the Local's argument, he said, the bank realized it would take several more years of litigation to try to seize the home. It gave up its effort and agreed to settle with Mrs. Morales for a sum much less than it would have realized by selling the home in foreclosure. At this point, Mrs. Morales needed a new mortgage. The Legal Plan turned to Doug Adler at the Manhattan Mortgage Co. to find a lender, and to John Coscia at Custom Title Service to handle the complex title issues. "Both of them really came through for Mrs. Morales," Cooper said. "This wasn't just business for them. This was helping a union member to keep her home." Cooper estimated that it cost the bank more than $100,000 in legal fees in the foreclosure effort. Representation by lawyers from the Local's Legal Services Plan was provided at no cost to Mrs. Morales as part of the many services by the union to its members. Local 237 President Carl Haynes joined Mrs. Morales in praising the Legal Plan's success. "The attorneys in our Legal Plan are there day and night for members," he said. "It is impossible to overstate the value of this service." |
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