February 11, 2011

In a stinging 3-page Order, a Miami-Dade County, Florida Circuit Court Judge has dismissed a foreclosure with prejudice after finding that the Plaintiff’s Firm, known foreclosure mill Ben-Ezra & Katz, P.A., filed an Assignment of Mortgage with the Court which the Court found to be “a complete sham” and “fraudulent”. The assignment was found to have not been properly executed as it was “signed” on January 6, 2008 but “notarized” over a year later on January 20, 2009 with a crossed-out Notary and attaching a “California All-Purpose Acknowledgement” dated in 2009. The Court held that “the filing of this document is also a Fraud upon the Court.”

The Court further found that the filing of an “Original Note and Original Mortgage” months after the Plaintiff represented to the Court in its Complaint that the original Note and Mortgage had been lost was “in and of itself a Fraud Upon the Court.” The Court noted more significantly: “However, this pales in comparison to the subsequent outright fraud presented to the Court in order to pursue a foreclosure action against the Defendant and mislead the Court to obtain the entry of Final Judgment.” What occurred was that the “original” note and mortgage filed by Ben-Ezra & Katz and certified to be the originals thereof actually belonged to another person with another property, and had nothing to do with the pending case.

The final judgment which had been entered against the borrower was vacated by the Court “for Fraud” under Florida’s post-judgment relief rule.

The Order further commanded the owners of the Ben-Ezra & Katz Firm to appear before the Court to explain why they should not be held in contempt for not only failing to appear for a duly noticed hearing, but also for “Presenting false pleadings, misleading the Court, and wasting the Court’s time”.

Kudos to this court for making public the absolute fraudulent conduct of this known foreclosure mill, which we have also litigated against and continue to litigate against.

We publish this decision not only for its substance, but in view of the fact that the Ben-Ezra & Katz Firm is currently in the process of taking over foreclosure matters once handled by the now infamous Law Offices of David J. Stern, which was terminated by many of its clients after having been found by the Florida Attorney General to have committed a litany of fraudulent acts in foreclosure actions. Guess the clients who fired Stern wanted a Firm just as unscrupulous as the one they discharged.

The significance of this opinion is that it was rendered on the borrower’s Motion to vacate a prior judgment. If Ben Ezra & Katz engaged in such blatent fraud in one case, chances are that they probably did it more than once, so borrowers who were foreclosed on by Ben-Ezra & Katz should carefully examine their case for possible relief from any judgment. We here will be doing so, for sure.

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com