Well it seems that the lawyers in Florida are the first to taste the wrath of the courts in Foreclosuregate. The Palm Beach Post notes that a local lawyer was cited in contempt of court for presenting fake documents. It seems that they were declared lost, then filed later, then apparently were for another property. Laughable.
A day after federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae fired the prominent law firm of Ben-Ezra & Katz, a Miami judge found the firm’s founding partner, Marc Ben-Ezra, in contempt of court for filing “sham” foreclosure documents and “wasting the court’s time.”
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maxine Cohen Lando expressed her displeasure Friday in a case that involved a property in Homestead with a $265,134 foreclosure judgment issued in July.
Lando said the so-called original note and original mortgage were filed months after the bank said those documents were lost.
“That in itself is a fraud upon the court,” Lando wrote in an order to show cause as to why she should not hold Ben-Ezra & Katz attorneys in contempt.
But, she added, the action “pales in comparison” to the fact that the mortgage and note are to a different property in Lehigh Acres, and that the documents are improperly signed and notarized. Lando said her verbal contempt finding on Friday would be followed by a written order.
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