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By Marcia Heroux Pounds, Sun Sentinel
August 20, 2010
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What has brought attention to Daniel J. Click here for more alerts. Standard messaging and data rates
Stern firm apply.
After months of wrangling with CitiMortgage, Dennis and Joyce
Broward Brown got fed up and hired an attorney to fight CitiMortgage's
foreclosures: A look at foreclosure on their Lauderdale Lakes home. The Browns claim
foreclosures by ZIP they are victims of fabricated documents used to foreclose after
code for 2010 CitiMortgage failed to credit them for mortgage payments.
Palm Beach
foreclosures: A look at "They ran my blood pressure up so bad," said Dennis Brown, who
foreclosures by ZIP hired Fort Lauderdale lawyer Kenneth Eric Trent to fight the
code for 2010 foreclosure.

Multimedia CitiMortgage and its lawyers, David Stern Law Offices, voluntarily
Prime your home for withdrew the case against the Browns in Broward County Circuit
sale: Tips to help you Court on June 16. But the Browns can't rest easy. Recently, they've
sell your home received new foreclosure letters from another lawyer representing
CitiMortgage.
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Foreclosures
Financial and Business Services The Browns' story is just one example of foreclosures resulting from
allegedly fraudulent mortgage assignments and other tactics that
Labor Legislation
"eliminate due process for the homeowner," Trent said.
See more topics »
Trent also is suing Stern and Stern's Plantation law firm in federal
court in a separate case with similar allegations.
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In that lawsuit, on behalf of Oakland Park homeowner Ignacio
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www.AvoidingMortgageForeclosure.com intentionally ambiguous to cloud the real ownership of Figueroa's
mortgage note.
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Recover lost wages & medical bills. Conta The foreclosure practices of Stern and two other law firms are under
www.Luhrsen.com investigation by the Florida Attorney General's Office. The attorney
general recently requested records going back to Jan. 1, 2008, from
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Thousands of Florida homeowners may have lost their homes as a
result of improper actions by the firms under investigation. In
announcing the probe, Attorney General Bill McCollum, a
Republican who is a running for governor, said the law firms may
have presented fabricated documents in court to speed the
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foreclosure process and obtain judgments against homeowners.

Jeffrey Tew, a Miami attorney who represents Stern's firm, said

while the attorney general may have received complaints, there Send me the following alerts:
"will not be evidence of fraud." Due to the large volume of STORM - Weather Alerts
foreclosures, there may have been clerical mistakes, he said. "In NEWS - Breaking News Alerts
the past two to three years, the Stern law firm has processed LOTTO - Lottery Numbers

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probably 100,000 foreclosures."
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But he disputes that Stern's law firm fabricated any documents. "I BIZ - Business news headlines
haven't seen any example where a bank didn't have a mortgage in ENT - Entertainment news headlines
default," Tew said. DEALS - Free offers and money saving deals

Stern represents well-known mortgage lenders including Bank of America, Chase, CitiMortgage, Inc., Fannie Submit
Mae, Freddie Mac, HSBC, SunTrust and Wells Fargo. These lenders also are the shareholders of Mortgage
Electronic Registration Systems (MERS). You can also sign up for by texting any of the above keywords to
23539. Standard messaging and data rates apply.
MERS is at the heart of the matter for Trent and other lawyers trying to stop what they view as illegal foreclosures
in the nation.

The mortgage registry was created by lenders in the early 1990s to track home loans, including those
repackaged as securities and sold to investors. When such loans were in foreclosure, MERS — not the original
lender — was often the entity foreclosing. Some lawyers have successfully fought foreclosures by contending
that MERS doesn't own the note, or the borrower's obligation to repay.

University of Utah law professor Christopher Peterson said MERS mortgage processing system goes against
long-standing principles of property law in assigning rights to a note or mortgage. He said the "owner" of a
mortgage can't be the same as the "agent" representing the homeowner, for example.

Yet MERS records "false documents" with names of people who are not executives of the registry system, but
often paralegals and clerks of law firms, he said. "It's an extremely controversial and arguably fraudlent practice,"
Peterson said.

Merscorp spokeswoman Karmela Lejarde declined to comment on the criticism of MERS or Trent's lawsuit, citing
company policy not to comment on pending lititgation.

Tew, who represents Stern's Law Offices, called Trent's lawsuit "fiction." He points to Florida's 5th District Court of
Appeal that ruled in July against a homeowner who tried to fight foreclosure on the basis that MERS didn't own
the note or mortgage.

For the Browns, foreclosure troubles began with not getting credit for their payments from CitiMortgage, their
mortgage servicer.

The couple says they couldn't clear it up with the lender. "They were claiming I was behind in payment, but I was
paying every month," said Brown, a carpenter who works for the Broward County School System and whose
three children and four grandchildren also live in his Lauderdale Lakes home.

They stopped paying on their mortgage in late 2007 and sought legal help.

Another issue in Browns' case is the signature on the assignment of Brown's mortgage, giving rights to
CitiMortgage, Trent said. The signature is by Cheryl Samons, who is identified as "assistant secretary of
Merscorp." In reality, Samons is an employee of Stern's law office.

Tew confirmed Samons' employment by Stern, but said "it's very common for companies to appoint a registered
agent. That process is absolutely legal and normal."

But Trent contends that mortgage assignments need to be made on personal knowledge, not hearsay, to be
admissible in court.

The Browns could be facing another foreclosure action, but Trent said he is confident he can fight it again. "They
don't have the basis to foreclose," he said.

CitiMortgage spokesman Mark Rodgers said privacy restrictions prevent the financial institution from discussing
a customer's foreclosure action. But Rodgers said procedures may resume in cases "where, despite our best
efforts, we have been unable to arrive at a satisfactory resolution acceptable to all the parties involved."

Tew said foreclosure defense lawyers are portraying homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages as
helpless victims. "Everyone is sympathetic, including us, for the homeowner who can't pay his mortgage. But it's
not fair to paint the banks and law firms that represent them as wearing the black hats."

Marcia Heroux Pounds can be reached at mpounds@SunSentinel.com or 561-243-6650.

Why are we overweight? Take a look at the fattiest foods in the nation for your answer
Copyright © 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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Related stories
From other South Florida sources
Fla. AG investigating foreclosure law firms | miamiherald.com
3 South Florida foreclosure law firms probed | miamiherald.com

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Comments (1) Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ

marciabiz at 10:25 AM August 21, 2010

While you have the right to your opinion, racial slurs are never appropriate and solve nothing. This
case, like many others in the courts, will be up to judges to decide. The larger issue involving
allegedly fraudulent mortgage documents is being looked at by the Florida Attorney General's
Office, as I write in the story. Marcia Heroux Pounds, Sun Sentinel

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