1 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE 17th
JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, IN AND FOR
2 BROWARD COUNTY FLORIDA
3 GENERAL JURISDICTION DIVISION
4 CONSOLIDATED CASES FOR DISCOVERY
PURSUANT TO COURT ORDER THE
5
BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON
6 FKA THE BANK OF NEW YORK,
AS TRUSTEE, ETC.,
7
Plaintiff.
8
vs.
9
JOSEPH BEHR, et al., CACE11023871 DIV. 11
10
VICKY LEE GRUSBY, et al., CACE11021448 DIV. 11
11
RICHARD VON HOUTMAN, et al., CACE08031733 DIV. 11
12
Defendants.
13 ______________________________________/
14
15 Proceedings had and taken place before the
16 Honorable FRANK D. LEDEE, one of the Judges of
17 said Court, at the Broward County Courthouse, 201
18 Southeast 6th Street, Suite 15129, Fort
19 Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday, the 9th day of
20 April, 2019, commencing at the hour of 11:47 a.m.,
21 and being a Hearing.
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23
24
25
1 APPEARANCES:
2 Appearing on behalf of the Plaintiff:
3 LIEBLER, GONZALEZ & PORTUONDO, P.A.
Courthouse Tower - 25th Floor
4 44 West Flagler Street, Suite 2500
Miami, Florida 33130
5 305-379-0400
Ajw@lgplaw.com
6 BY: ADAM J. WICK, ESQUIRE
Gg@lgplaw.com
7 BY: GABRIELLE L. GONZALEZ, ESQUIRE
8 Appearing on behalf of the Defendants:
9 JACOBS LEGAL, PLLC
169 East Flagler Street, Suite 1620
10 Miami, Florida 33131
305-358-7991
11 Efile@jakelegal.com
BY: BRUCE JACOBS, ESQUIRE
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3
1 (Thereupon, the following proceedings were
2 had:)
3 THE COURT: There has been one hour allocated
4 to this hearing. How would you like to split your
5 time, Mr. Jacobs?
6 MR. JACOBS: I have a presentation that I'll
7 make, and as soon as it is over, whatever time is
8 left over, I would want to put it to the end, if
9 there is any. It's kind of -- there is a lot of
10 material to get through. I'm going to try my best
11 to --
12 THE COURT: You have one hour. It's split
13 half-an-hour, half-an-hour.
14 MR. JACOBS: So, I'm going to do the best I
15 can.
16 THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Wick, how do you want
17 to split your time? Just a response?
18 MR. WICK: Just a response.
19 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Jacobs?
20 MR. JACOBS: Thank you, Your Honor.
21 THE COURT: If you would be kind enough,
22 gentlemen, to put your names on the record,
23 appearances on the record, and the styles of the
24 case as well as the case numbers, please.
25 MR. WICK: Sure. Adam Wick on behalf of the
4
1 Plaintiffs from the firm Liebler, Gonzalez and
2 Portuondo. These are three matters: Bank of New
3 York Mellon versus Richard Von Houtman, et al.,
4 Case Number CACE08031733; Bank of New York as
5 trustee versus Joseph Behr, Case Number
6 CACE11023871; and Bank of New York Mellon as
7 trustee versus Vicky Lee and Michael Grusby, et
8 al., Case Number CACE11021448.
9 MR. JACOBS: Good afternoon, Your Honor,
10 Bruce Jacobs. I'm here on behalf of all the
11 Defendants in those cases, and Your Honor, there
12 is going to be a Power Point presentation. There
13 was supposed to be screens for you. I just want
14 to make sure you're able to see it.
15 THE COURT: Absolutely. Please set it up.
16 Thank you, very much. I appreciate you gentlemen
17 coming in and setting it up. I appreciate that.
18 Okay. The cases this hearing is concerned with --
19 the cases are consolidated solely for the purpose
20 of this hearing because of the evidentiary nature
21 under discovery. But they are not consolidated
22 for the purposes of trial.
23 MR. JACOBS: That's right.
24 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
25 MR. JACOBS: Thank you, Your Honor. So, may
5
1 it please the Court, the question I'm asking the
2 Court to decide today is is there a probable cause
3 that there is contempt of court and crimes being
4 committed. And if there are, then I'm asking the
5 Court to issue an Order to Show Cause against Bank
6 of America, Bank of New York and the Liebler,
7 Gonzalez & Portuondo Law Firm.
8 So, the first slide sets up the Florida
9 Supreme Court describes what is the standard for a
10 contempt of court. It's rather low: Disobedience
11 of a court order, which we have many of in this
12 case; disrespect to the Court where the
13 administration of justice is impeded, and that,
14 Your Honor, has been the whole purpose of defying
15 the Court's order is to impede the administration
16 of justice.
17 Now, I followed the Rule 3.840, which sets up
18 how you start a criminal action from a civil case,
19 and it says that you have to produce an affidavit
20 of any person with knowledge. And I submitted my
21 affidavit. Why? Because I did all the motions, I
22 did all the depositions, I reviewed all the
23 discovery, I argued every appeal, I argued every
24 single order that we have, and have been fighting
25 with Bank of America, Bank of New York and the
6
1 Liebler, Gonzalez & Portuondo for years. Nobody
2 knows this better than I do.
3 I do have Joe Behr here, one of our clients.
4 He runs a facility that helps homeless people who
5 are fighting addiction and opioid addiction and
6 drug addiction, alcohol. He tries to preach to
7 them through Christ to bring them to a better
8 place in life. He doesn't know anything about any
9 of this.
10 And the response you saw was ignore
11 everything because we don't have Joe Behr's
12 affidavit. I am a person with knowledge, and that
13 is exactly what the rule requires.
14 And what are we talking about here? We are
15 talking about RICO conduct, felony conduct.
16 Forgery is a felony. Perjury is a felony. Gross
17 fraud and cheating is a felony. Even putting
18 false assignments in the public records, now a
19 felony.
20 And this is really three waves of foreclosure
21 fraud that we have seen. So, the first wave was
22 Judge Gordan. In 2005, all the original MERS
23 foreclosures were all filed in the name of MERS,
24 and Judge Gordon had an evidentiary hearing and
25 said this is -- all your allegations are clearly
7
1 palpably, inherently false. And said I've told
2 you before, gave you fair warning to stop
3 presenting this false evidence, and they acted in
4 bad faith. He struck all of the cases.
5 A year later, BakerHostetler from Fannie Mae
6 does an investigation, and what they determine is
7 that yes, the lawyers were routinely lying to the
8 Courts in Florida, and not just Florida, all over
9 the states that had judicial foreclosures.
10 So, the second wave of foreclosure was the
11 robo-signing scandal, all the lost note count
12 cases that were filed that had no endorsements on
13 the note and they had David Stern and DocX and all
14 these people creating these fake assignments of
15 mortgages to put into the public records.
16 So, in 2010, the Florida Attorney General's
17 Office issued their report, their Power Point
18 presentation, broke it all open. They're talking
19 about robo-signings. They're talking about fake
20 witnesses, fake documents, fake affidavits, and
21 this triggered an FBI investigation.
22 And the FBI, in 2010, said these foreclosure
23 mills were using false and fictitious documents in
24 courts across the nation to foreclose on
25 homeowners. And the idea -- what they ultimately
8
1 said was this is one of the top ten financial
2 crimes in the history of the United States.
3 And what happens when the government steps in
4 to stop it? Well, March 29, 2011, you have the
5 OCC Consent Order. The OCC regulates Bank of
6 America, and they found that the bank was
7 litigating foreclosure proceedings without having
8 properly-endorsed notes, 2010.
9 And they ordered there to be a compliance
10 program to go fix this, make sure it's all right,
11 make sure that there is a foreclosure review, an
12 independent foreclosure review, IFR. Every case
13 that was pending in 2009 and 2010, which includes
14 the Von Houtman case in these proceedings, they
15 were supposed to identify whether they had the
16 note properly endorsed at the time that they filed
17 the case.
18 Identified, and once they identified it, they
19 were going to prepare a report, give it to the OCC
20 and create a plan to remediate the financial
21 injury to the borrowers from these
22 misrepresentations.
23 What does that mean? They would have to
24 dismiss their foreclosure cases, pay the
25 attorney's fees, pay new filing fees, start all
9
1 over again, and that was too much for that. So,
2 what we know is that they created a secret forgery
3 mill at Bank of America using SOURCECORP, and it
4 was called the 90-day delinquent note endorsement
5 process.
6 It's dated April 1, 2011, three days, three
7 days after the OCC Consent Judgment. April Fools.
8 We're not going to do anything honestly; we're
9 just going to start forging endorsements.
10 Now, how do you know this? Because it's in
11 their records. This is what they were supposed to
12 do. They were supposed to get the notes, endorse
13 them, put into their system we received the
14 endorsed note this day. And you see that in the
15 records that we're going to go through.
16 And this is the high-level flowchart. This
17 is the big picture of what they were going to do.
18 This was attached to the 2011 contract, and what
19 we'll see is that there was different phases. The
20 first wave was let's just find the note.
21 We're going to pull every note that's
22 delinquent, and we're going to find them. And
23 we're going to see do we have an endorsed note
24 image available, which the answer was no in all of
25 them. But there was a place -- if the answer is
10
1 yes, if the note was properly endorsed in 2011,
2 we're going to just be done. That's it. That's
3 the end of the story.
4 But if it wasn't, then we're going to locate
5 the note. And if you locate the note, what's
6 supposed to happen next? You go to the next
7 level, where there is going to be a person, filing
8 associate, who is going to get the note, is going
9 to see is it endorsed for the last endorsement,
10 the Countrywide endorsement, the Countrywide and
11 blank endorsement.
12 That was what they need to put on, and it's
13 on all the cases. It didn't matter if there was a
14 blank endorsement or not, from whoever else it
15 was. The plan was we're going to endorse
16 everything, one big fell swoop.
17 And what you see is that the plan was
18 supposed to be a question. Does the endorsement
19 exist? Well, if yes, then log it into the system
20 and send it off to SOURCECORP for an image. And
21 then, it goes into the system. And now, if you
22 are doing the independent foreclosure review, you
23 would think everything was fine.
24 Well, what if there is no endorsement? Well,
25 according to the independent foreclosure review,
11
1 there should have been a report prepared, and
2 there should have been compensation to the
3 homeowner. But that's not what happened. What
4 did they do? They endorsed the note, right in the
5 middle of their own truck. That's the smoking
6 gun.
7 That's the evidence of forgery, probable
8 cause of forgery, which is a felony. There is a
9 lawyer on the west coast of Florida who is serving
10 nine years in prison right now for forging
11 endorsements in Bank of America foreclosures. So,
12 they did the same exact thing.
13 And when you look at it, it just continues
14 on. Put it back into the system. There is no
15 stop and tell the OCC anything. Why? Because
16 they were not ever going to be honest with the
17 Courts or the OCC or the federal government in any
18 way, shape or form. Why? Because they don't have
19 to be, in their opinion. They are above the law.
20 So, there was supposed to be, then, the IFR
21 endorsement review where everyone was going to
22 check it, make sure it's right. And just to kind
23 of recap it simply, they are going to pull the
24 notes. They are going to do everything that they
25 were supposed to do for the OCC.
12
1 All of it was really just a fa‡ade, a charade
2 that was intended to make it look like they were
3 doing something while they were creating this
4 process that all -- we would know if they turned
5 over the discovery that has been requested what
6 stamps were being used for sure. We don't need to
7 wait for that. We have seen it. We have seen it
8 in the cases that we have here, Your Honor.
9 So, let's look at the barricades, all right?
10 Mr. Behr is here. I submit there is probable
11 cause of forgery in the Behr case. Why? Because
12 we know that it went through the SOURCECORP
13 forgery mill. How do we know that? Well, this is
14 a 2006 note payable to the lending group.
15 According to their own records, the original
16 receipt in 2006, July, there is no endorsement two
17 years later, June of 2008. I asked for all of the
18 -- the Court ordered all of the date-stamped
19 images of the note in your system, produce them.
20 Their testimony has always been well, every
21 note was imaged and then endorsed within days of
22 origination, but here is a note from two years
23 after origination. Someone imaged it. In its
24 current form, there is no endorsement, and that is
25 the smoking gun of forgery, again.
13
1 Now, in 2011, which is five years later, I
2 issued a qualified written request, give me copies
3 of all your documents, and they sent me another
4 copy of the note, again, with no endorsements.
5 And what they did was they prepared one of these
6 assignments of mortgages from MERS. And let me
7 just make it clear, if it hasn't been clear from
8 my pleadings, Bank of America has admitted in the
9 false claims that case MERS has no right to do
10 anything.
11 Judge Gordon found MERS has no right to
12 transfer any notes. It was admitted to. So, this
13 is just documentation, materially false evidence
14 put into the public records so that it could be
15 presented to this Court as evidence of standing.
16 And what is, to me, most interesting is right
17 here. Joe Behr's note went on 8/15/2011
18 SOURCECORP. That is the scarlet letter. That's
19 how we know it was endorsed at that time. Why?
20 Because SOURCECORP is the only entity that has the
21 delinquent note endorsement process.
22 So, they even put in their own records
23 received endorsed note August 17, 2011, in
24 multiple places, and that's the endorsements that
25 you saw, the rubber stamps. Why? Because they
14
1 got caught in the robo-signing scandal because
2 everyone was using -- was signing each other's
3 names, and it was clearly not the same person
4 signing it. But here, they had stamps and you
5 couldn't tell how many people were doing it.
6 So, let's look at Grusby, all right? Grusby
7 is, to me, evidence of real misconduct. You see,
8 it was a 2006 note to Decision One Mortgage,
9 right? So, HSBC shut down Decision One Mortgage a
10 year later, in September of 2007, meaning it
11 doesn't exist anymore.
12 So, what right does anyone have to do
13 anything on their behalf? There is no right, but
14 what do you see here? You see 2007, a year after
15 origination, there is the first image of the note.
16 No image from when they -- from within days of
17 origination.
18 And the image they have has no endorsement on
19 it. Why? Because the notes were not being
20 endorsed. That was the whole point. That was the
21 whole thing. They didn't spend the money, the
22 time, whatever reason, someone decided we're not
23 endorsing these notes.
24 So, here is the thing that I find very shady.
25 There is, all of a sudden now, there is a receive
15
1 date of the endorsed original note in Grusby for
2 2006. Well, is that really true?
3 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, please turn
4 off your cell phone, put them in silent. Mr.
5 Jacobs?
6 MR. JACOBS: So, you see in 2006, all of a
7 sudden they are marking. We have the endorsed
8 original note. Now, you will remember from the
9 testimony of all the people, there was never a
10 record. There certainly wasn't any in Behr. They
11 weren't marking this, so how did this get here?
12 Well, what you'll see is that they did this
13 -- I caught them in the Wisetta (phonetic) Lewis
14 case. Ms. Lewis, can you stand up, please? So,
15 Wisetta Lewis is one of my clients, and in her
16 case, they produced a screenshot from 2014, the
17 same doc-403 screenshot. Says hey, look, they
18 received the note July 20, 2011. Why? Because it
19 went through SOURCECORP.
20 Well, wait a second. I asked for the -- they
21 gave me the same document in 2016, the same
22 screenshot. Now it says endorsed original note
23 September of 2006. What does that mean? They are
24 backdating the records, and that is -- again, in
25 Grusby, you see SOURCECORP. You see the scarlet
16
1 letter, and this is what the mill was all about.
2 And to back it up, they have these
3 assignments of mortgage. Again, MERS acting on
4 behalf of Decision One in 2011. Five years after
5 it was shut down, there is an assignment of
6 mortgage from MERS as nominee for a defunct
7 entity, and all of a sudden we look in May of 2014
8 -- May of 2014 is the first time in the Grusby
9 case you see they have an image of the note.
10 Sorry, 2013, the first time they have an image of
11 the note with these rubber stamps on it.
12 So, Von Houtman, to me, is the most
13 interesting one because it's -- what I realized
14 was Behr and Grusby were after the OCC Consent
15 Judgment. Von Houtman, they produced the original
16 note with an endorsement on it before the OCC
17 Consent Judgment.
18 So, what happened in Von Houtman?
19 Countrywide loan in 2007. They say we received
20 the note, nothing about endorsed note. They filed
21 a lost note count with a copy of a note that has
22 no endorsements on it in Von Houtman. They give
23 not one, but three assignments of mortgages, three
24 of them, all fake, all saying oh, this backdates
25 to a day which was just when they assigned the
17
1 case out to be foreclosed. And what ends up
2 happening is they produce at the trial --
3 THE COURT: Back one up, please.
4 MR. JACOBS: Sorry. This slide or the one
5 before it?
6 THE COURT: No, the one --
7 MR. JACOBS: Your Honor, so what happens is
8 in 2009, they produce the original note, and it
9 has got the rubber stamps on it. And the question
10 is how did it get there, because what we know is
11 that it has to be a forgery.
12 Why? Not only do they not have any record
13 anywhere of receiving the endorsed original note,
14 you look at the images that they produced, the
15 images from 2012 and 2016 have no endorsement on
16 them.
17 So, Bank of America has no endorsements in
18 the Von Houtman case in their system. What does
19 that mean? It meant the note was sent to the
20 lawyers who filed the case, and someone there had
21 to have the stamps. Why? Because that's how the
22 stamps -- that's the first time you see the stamps
23 is after it's out of Bank of America's care,
24 custody and control. The note is in the lawyer's
25 hands, and now it's showing up.
18
1 And is that so surprising when we're talking
2 about David Stern and Marshall Watson and people
3 who made millions and millions of dollars for
4 closing with fake evidence? No, it's not
5 surprising at all, but it's the only explanation
6 that you can see.
7 And how do we know for sure that this is all
8 fraud? Well, let's talk about what happened when
9 I started to depose. I asked for, in November 2,
10 2015, I started asking -- sent out discovery to
11 Liebler, Gonzalez & Portuondo. I want to get to
12 the bottom of SOURCECORP.
13 They produced a witness while they are
14 fighting me about no, you can't have the subpoenas
15 in this case. In these cases, I issued a subpoena
16 for all of SOURCECORP's records, doable. And they
17 were being issued in other courtrooms.
18 They produced a witness, Sandra Prestia, Bank
19 of America trial witness. As the trial witness,
20 says who is SOURCECORP? Oh, they're a building
21 that Bank of America uses to scan notes. Really?
22 Tell me some more about it. What else have you
23 heard? Oh, I was told that this is where the
24 collateral files would be stamped. The collateral
25 files are the promissory notes. That's where they
19
1 are going to be stamped. That's what the witness
2 testified to.
3 And then, they are ordered to produce a
4 corporate rep. Bank of New York, Bank of America
5 and Liebler, Gonzalez & Portuondo produce Ms.
6 Prestia again in that case, and she says yeah,
7 I've looked through everything. I'm here for the
8 subpoena.
9 Did you review everything? Okay. I just
10 want to make sure it's clear. We don't have
11 anything about SOURCECORP. And I misspoke in my
12 last deposition. Everything I said was not true.
13 SOURCECORP is a different entity.
14 Okay. Did you get me the contracts, the ones
15 that were in existence before? Did you ask for
16 them? You're the corporate rep; where are they?
17 Well, we were told this is all we have, which is a
18 lie. How do you know it's a lie? Because in this
19 case, the January 20, '18, order, this is
20 produced. The first time I've ever seen a color
21 copy of the SOURCECORP statement of work. I had
22 to get this from SOURCECORP, and I subpoenaed
23 them.
24 That was the only thing they gave me in
25 response to my subpoena, because I gave two
20
1 subpoenas in January of 2016. And they gave me --
2 first, they gave me the same 2013 contract that
3 Bank of America gave me. And then, they gave me
4 the 2011 contract with the smoking gun flowcharts.
5 So, they didn't give me anything else, and
6 what I find out when I sue in federal court under
7 the False Claims Act, because we subpoena
8 SOURCECORP and they say hey, we don't have
9 anything. Why? Bank of America had us execute an
10 extensive project to purge all its data, which we
11 were obligated to do.
12 You can't get more obvious that there is
13 destruction of evidence and violation of subpoenas
14 that I issued in -- I did a Notice of Intent in
15 these cases, too, which was blocked, but I didn't
16 need them because I had them from the judge in
17 Miami.
18 And what did I get? I got another smoking
19 gun. Here is all of what we did at SOURCECORP to
20 destroy all the records. We destroyed all the
21 data, all the metadata, the encryption technology,
22 and we gave detailed evidence about this to
23 everyone at Bank of America. Meanwhile, 1.88
24 billion records got destroyed while Sandra Prestia
25 is telling us we don't know anything about
21
1 SOURCECORP. Bank of America doesn't even know who
2 they are.
3 And to me, the most interesting part of this
4 is we're here now, and Judge Stone, January of
5 2018 ordered turn over the instructions to
6 SOURCECORP. Let's find out if you did that
7 because Mr. Jacobs was subpoenaing you, because
8 that would make this so much worse.
9 And what do they do? Well, after he ordered
10 them to turn it over, they said Judge, reconsider,
11 please. You don't need to make us turn this over.
12 Why? Because Thomas Rinn, (phonetic), senior
13 executive at Bank of America, the guy has got to
14 be super important, he wouldn't tell a lie. He
15 swore under oath that this was a routine purge per
16 the contract. We have copies of everything.
17 What's the problem?
18 Except for we've never seen any of the
19 copies, and this couldn't have been a routine
20 purge. Why? Well, first off, when Judge Stone
21 denied the reconsideration, they didn't produce
22 the documents. I moved for sanctions. I said
23 they only gave me the emails between SOURCECORP
24 and Bank of America from the end of the purge.
25 Where is everything about the beginning of the
22
1 purge?
2 And right before the hearing on sanctions,
3 there was this amendment that says oh, whatever we
4 gave you was not responsive and produced in error.
5 And let me just tell you, we don't have anything
6 to give you. So, after fighting with me for over
7 a year about whether or not I should be entitled
8 to get the document, now they are saying we don't
9 have anything.
10 And the 2019 Florida Discovery Handbook, Page
11 2, says that that is discovery abuse and improper
12 delaying tactics. And I submit it's more. It's
13 just defiance of the Court's order. It is an
14 obstruction of the orderly administration of
15 justice, which is probable cause for contempt.
16 And that's what led us to here. This motion
17 that we filed was done because Your Honor said
18 give me everything. I'm not going to do this
19 piecemeal. I want the whole story. And I gave
20 you everything that I could come up with. I think
21 that there is clearly evidence of probable cause
22 of forgery, and now we're up to probable cause of
23 perjury because the testimony -- that this is from
24 the False Claims Act case.
25 They have told every judge, including the
23
1 federal court, that we have a process,
2 uncontroverted sworn testimony has been that we
3 always endorse the notes shortly after receipt.
4 We would image the notes, and then we would
5 endorse them. That's their testimony. They have
6 said it over and over. They represented it to
7 every court, including this one.
8 But we have the deposition of Linda D.
9 Martini from -- versus Countrywide. Linda D.
10 Martini was the senior team leader for Bank of
11 America in New Jersey in front of Judge Wizmer,
12 the chief judge of the New Jersey Bankruptcy
13 Court, and she testified no, our general practice
14 is not to endorse notes with allonges as they --
15 as the transfers were happening back in the day.
16 You know, we weren't -- it wasn't about the
17 transfer. It was being done after the fact,
18 because they walked into that case with an allonge
19 that was not attached to the note in the middle of
20 the trial, and the Court said what is going on
21 here?
22 And she admitted between 2006 and 2009, I
23 personally have never seen an endorsed note, ever.
24 And this is, to me, the truth, the absolute truth
25 that the only reason why you're seeing any of
24
1 these endorsements now, the practice they used in
2 2009 was to create an allonge as needed for court.
3 But wait a second, in 2009, everyone started
4 getting asked for the notes, and that's when
5 everything shifts.
6 And I think it's interesting, David Spector
7 had Michelle Solander's job in 2002 to 2006. This
8 guy walked the same floor, had the same processes,
9 did everything exactly the way Michelle Solander
10 did, according to her testimony.
11 But when you ask David Spector, what do you
12 know about these notes? I don't know. I don't
13 remember anything. I'm not sure. Why? Because
14 he is now president of PennyMac. He is not going
15 to -- he left in 2006. Do you think he's going to
16 come in and start making up a bunch of lies for
17 Bank of America? No, but Michelle Solander is
18 willing to.
19 That's Michelle Solander. She came into
20 court, and she said I walked the floor. I watched
21 them take the notes, log them in, put them in the
22 machine, image them, take them to the endorsement
23 room and endorse them. I asked her that because I
24 knew that I wanted to get every single fact I
25 could from her because I knew that they were lying
25
1 to me. This is 2013.
2 Maria Gardner, who is the head of Recontrust,
3 which is basically the second floor of Bank of
4 America. It is the document custodian. So, this
5 woman is the one that was responsible for that
6 whole process Michelle Solander was talking about,
7 and what does she say? She says -- you know, I
8 asked her well, did they scan all the notes
9 originally? What do you mean by scan? I'm like
10 did they put them in a machine? What are you
11 talking about? That did not occur in our area,
12 which means Michelle Solander committed perjury in
13 these cases.
14 So, the use of the rubber stamps, Maria
15 Gardner says that they stopped using these stamps
16 in 2011. And I asked about the endorsement rooms,
17 like what was going on here? Who was making the
18 decision? Were they using one stamp or another?
19 How did this happen in 2011? And what she said
20 was that there was an authorization that was there
21 for Michelle Solander and David Spector stamps
22 going back to 2002, which contradicts everything
23 that I have been told that Spector stamps were
24 until 2006 and Michelle Solander stamps were
25 sometime from 2006 after. They are caught here,
26
1 and she is admitting that's what it says.
2 So, let's talk about the coverup about
3 SOURCECORP because to me, this is also -- to not
4 be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
5 truth is a problem, too. Because I asked what
6 happened in 2011? We know now from the SOURCECORP
7 contract that was when they started the delinquent
8 note endorsement process.
9 But when I asked Michelle Solander, she was
10 saying oh, there was an initiative to image notes.
11 She never said anything about endorsements. They
12 were already endorsed years ago was her testimony.
13 And when I asked Maria Gardner, she said the same
14 thing, there was an initiative.
15 But meanwhile, they had this contract. They
16 didn't turn it over. They presented Thomas Rinn,
17 who was in charge of the whole process, he signed
18 that contract, to lie about it. And ultimately,
19 when you look at what we have been dealing with
20 here, Your Honor, this is a case of obstruction,
21 and to me, this is the gross fraud and cheating.
22 But Judge Trawick, in 2012 when I started
23 this, said take Mitchell Solander's deposition and
24 take the master document custodian, which was
25 Maria Gardner. And a few months later, he said
27
1 but they came in, Liebler Gonzalez came in and
2 said Judge, don't let Mr. Jacobs post this over
3 the internet, the video, because poor Michelle
4 Solander is going to have a whole bunch of people
5 who are going to be harassing her.
6 I said I'm not going to do that. I'm a
7 serious lawyer. I'm doing my work. I'm not going
8 to hand out this so every Tom, Dick and Harry can
9 use it for their own cases and mess it up.
10 But what happened was I filed it in this case
11 because they wouldn't give me a depo of the master
12 document custodian, and I attached it to a request
13 for production, put it into the website of the
14 Clerk of Court, and they used that to get Judge
15 Trawick to issue an Order to Show Cause against
16 me. They had me and my wife, who was eight months
17 pregnant with my daughter, and we were there
18 waiting, praying that I wasn't going to jail that
19 day.
20 And ultimately, that hearing -- Court Keeley
21 represented me. They brought in 12 or more of the
22 lawyers. I've never seen so many senior partners
23 of so many major firms asking for me to be put in
24 jail. And Judge Trawick, when he understood what
25 happened, said I'm quashing the Order to Show
28
1 Cause.
2 And then, he clarified his order and said --
3 I said, Judge, they are using this to block
4 discovery in these Broward cases and everywhere
5 else; don't let them do that. He clarified, you
6 shall respond to discovery without raising my
7 protective orders.
8 Four months later, August of 2014, Liebler,
9 Gonzalez & Portuondo files, in Grusby and Von
10 Houtman, Motions for Protective Order against the
11 Maria Gardner depo, which took me, like, a
12 year-and-a-half to get. And they say hey, Mr.
13 Jacobs is being dishonest. He didn't tell you
14 that there was a protective order over the
15 Solander deposition. He should be sanctioned for
16 that.
17 Meanwhile, they were being dishonest with
18 this Court. And ultimately, Judge Trawick said
19 you know what? I'm going to vacate my order
20 because it's clearly being used for a purpose it
21 was never intended to be used for because they
22 stopped me for months of getting to the truth
23 because I was afraid to go to jail at that time.
24 I was waiting until that whole thing got resolved.
25 But then, I got my chance. So, first off, in
29
1 Von Houtman, in this case, 2014, there was a
2 Motion for Sanctions that I filed. They made me
3 fly to New York to depose their expert. I get
4 there, and the expert has reviewed all kinds of
5 documents they didn't give me.
6 And Judge Stone issued sanctions. He said
7 you are going to take the depo again. They are
8 going to pay for everything. They are going to
9 give you $1,200.00 for your having to be wasting
10 your time like this. It's bad faith.
11 What happened? I had to file a motion to get
12 them to pay me the money. They didn't even pay
13 me. They didn't care about the $1,200.00, but
14 they didn't care about Judge Stone's authority.
15 And it's not just Judge Stone.
16 David Miller, in 2014, before and after the
17 deposition of Maria Gardner issued two orders
18 saying there is bad faith, outrageous misconduct.
19 And what he said was that there was outrageous
20 conduct that forced me to jump through so many
21 hoops clearly intended to deliberately block
22 discovery ordered by several circuit court judges.
23 That is, to me, a very powerful statement for
24 a judge to make, and told them don't do this.
25 Stop doing this. Stop acting in bad faith. And
30
1 said okay, after the deposition you are back here
2 again, and you did it again. You did it in bad
3 faith.
4 THE COURT: You have two minutes.
5 MR. JACOBS: So, let me just move through
6 then, Your Honor.
7 THE COURT: If you request a few additional
8 minutes, I'll be happy to do it. And I'll give
9 you the same.
10 MR. JACOBS: I would request -- I'm actually
11 ready to close.
12 THE COURT: I will give you an additional
13 minutes.
14 MR. JACOBS: Thank you, Your Honor. So, if
15 you look at what Judge Miller was saying in 2014
16 --
17 THE COURT: Go back to -- yeah, okay.
18 MR. JACOBS: He says, I want to know is there
19 law out there that says I can do something other
20 than just award attorney's fees? Bank of America
21 has $2.5 trillion. They don't care about your
22 attorney's fees, obviously. And at that time, we
23 didn't have it.
24 Now, we have Judge Klein's decision from the
25 Sundquist case, which lays out a whole 100 page
31
1 pad of how you handle a bank like Bank of America,
2 which he said has an attitude of impunity, and
3 sanctioned them $45 million for a bad loan mod.
4 What would be appropriate here? But what
5 happened, Your Honor, was that not only did they
6 move to disqualify Judge Miller, did they appeal
7 his orders, did they get them vacated by another
8 judge, but then, they just kept going on with the
9 same we're not giving you anything.
10 Judge Bronwyn Miller, who is now in the Third
11 District Court of Appeals, ordered the same exact
12 discovery and more. She just overruled all of
13 their objections. This is going back a long, long
14 time. For a year, we had to fight until we got to
15 an evidentiary hearing that went on for hours.
16 Then, at the end of the evidentiary hearing, she
17 found they are willfully seeking to stymie the
18 discovery process.
19 There is indisputable -- that the Plaintiff
20 has denied document routinely produced in
21 foreclosure litigation, caused unnecessary
22 expenditure of countless hours of judicial labor
23 on relatively straight-forward discovery requests,
24 which has delayed the resolution of this case for
25 years. That's contempt.
32
1 That is clearly contempt under Florida
2 Supreme Court Law, to delay the resolution of this
3 case for years. What is supposed to happen is I
4 say oh, I think you added these endorsements after
5 the fact for Countrywide. You are committing
6 forgery. Please turn over all the documents.
7 And the lawyer is supposed to say, Bank of
8 America, turn over all the documents or we are
9 going to report you ourselves. And Bank of
10 America is supposed to say yes, here are all the
11 documents. You got us. We'll take whatever our
12 punishment is. But that is never going to happen.
13 They are never going to do that, and you see that
14 all the way through this case.
15 But let's look at the discovery orders in
16 this case. June of 2015, four years ago after
17 fighting forever to get to a final order that they
18 were finally going to not give another request,
19 protective order, whatever. Judge Stone enters an
20 order and says turn over all the documents which
21 establish when you started, changed or ended the
22 use of any of the stamps.
23 Started, changed or ended the use, which is
24 pretty obvious. There would have been a whole
25 process to do that. There would have been all
33
1 kinds of records related, which would have
2 explained exactly when that happened. And rather
3 than turn them over, they waited until the
4 deadline, and they filed a 1,000-page appeal to
5 the Fourth District Court of Appeals.
6 And then, the 4th DCA rejected it and said go
7 home. Go back to Judge Stone. You're out. And
8 what happened is I filed a Motion for Sanctions.
9 Why? Because they didn't turn over those
10 documents. And right before the Motion for
11 Sanctions that we're at today again, the same
12 concept, they file a Motion to Disqualify the
13 judge. You should be careful what you say. They
14 are going to move to disqualify you, too.
15 But they got the judge to issue a stay, which
16 again stopped the discovery from going forward.
17 And then, they issued a 3,000-page opinion to the
18 4th DCA asking for them to stop all this
19 discovery. Judge Stone actually should be -- no,
20 no. This was -- I'm sorry. When he denied the
21 Motion for Disqualification, they appealed him,
22 trying to get him disqualified. And ultimately,
23 the 4th DCA said no, ordered me fees.
24 And here we are now, January of 2018. We
25 have now finished the False Claims Act Case. The
34
1 Liebler, Gonzalez & Portuondo law firm represented
2 Bank of America in that case. They have all the
3 documents. They know exactly what documents I'm
4 looking for. Why? Because it was given to me in
5 the False Claims Act case.
6 And what happens? Judge Stone orders them to
7 show the documents showing the acquisition of the
8 rubber stamps. Where are those? You must have
9 bought them from someone. And give us all the
10 documents that show when and how the endorsements
11 were found in the subject note.
12 And what you'll see, Your Honor, is that
13 there was no production of any of that. Counsel
14 filed a response that says look, we provided all
15 these Notices of Compliance, but those Notices of
16 Compliance do not prove compliance. What we don't
17 have today, still, is anything showing the
18 acquisition of the notes.
19 Although, if you saw my response today, they
20 did give me something that says there's a process.
21 You have to fill out a form. You have to submit
22 it to MarkMaker. That's a four- generation-old
23 company that resides in Tampa that has all the
24 records that could have gotten it. But they
25 didn't even mention that in their response. They
35
1 didn't even mention that in any of their documents
2 that they have responded because they know they
3 are not turning that over.
4 So, they hope you don't look at it and they
5 hope I forget it. But I didn't forget it. And
6 how and when the endorsements were added, all
7 documents that show -- and ask them to show you
8 what they consider to be all the documents that
9 show how and when the endorsements were added,
10 particularly compare them with the date-stamped
11 thing, which is the notes that we have that have
12 no endorsements on them, and you'll know that they
13 don't have any documents because the documents
14 that they would bring are the ones that would show
15 it is forgery and perjury, and they are not going
16 to turn those over ever. It doesn't matter how
17 many times you ask them.
18 And here is where I think, Your Honor, at
19 this point now, we have been through this journey
20 and this journey has gotten to a place where there
21 are two basic steps to take right now. Step one
22 is Rule 1.380. The 1.380 was a rule that says you
23 violate a court order, I'm going to deem it
24 admitted.
25 They clearly have violated the Court's order
36
1 to turn over the records showing that they forged
2 the endorsements, they backdated them by perjury
3 and they destroyed nearly two billion records in
4 defiance of a court-ordered subpoena. You can
5 deem that admitted at this point because it has
6 been since January of 2008 we have been waiting
7 for them to produce the documents.
8 We don't have to wait anymore. Judge Miller
9 tried to do it with attorney's fees. Judge
10 Bronwyn Miller and David Miller both issued orders
11 saying stop it, give us attorney's fees. You
12 don't have to do that anymore, just deem it
13 admitted.
14 And then, we get to the final step, which is
15 the Order to Show Cause, because this is criminal.
16 As a former prosecutor yourself, I know you know
17 criminal when you see it. Probable cause is here,
18 and when you see probable cause, it starts with an
19 order to show cause, setting an arraignment. Let
20 them plead guilty or not guilty at this point.
21 There is certainly probable cause to believe
22 that they are defying the Court's order, that they
23 are interfering with the orderly administration of
24 justice, that it's forgery and it's perjury, it's
25 obstruction, it's destruction of evidence, it's
37
1 false documents in the public record.
2 How many things can you do in a way that is
3 so dishonest in an equitable action? And this is
4 not new. This has been going on for a party that
5 has been told multiple times to stop doing it and
6 promised in the National Mortgage Settlement to
7 stop doing it.
8 So, just yesterday, Commissioner Ken Russell,
9 who is here in court, went to the Miami
10 Commission, and right before the end of the day,
11 everyone there unanimously voted to give Your
12 Honor a vessel. And the mayor, last night, signed
13 off on it. And that's this resolution.
14 What this resolution does, Your Honor, is the
15 City of Miami has their own fight with Bank of
16 America and so does the State of Hawaii. They
17 have all been dealing with -- it's basically
18 racial profiling is the big issue that they were
19 fighting about and how they went after the
20 minority communities, the African Americans and
21 the Hispanics, and wiped out those communities
22 because once house became dragged in, the rest of
23 them did.
24 And the City fought all the way to the U.S.
25 Supreme Court and just got back. They get to go
38
1 forward. And they have done a study, a master
2 study of affordable housing needs in the City of
3 Miami and are prepared to do that for the entire
4 State of Florida.
5 And the vessel that we are creating for Your
6 Honor is this. Judge Klein in California, in his
7 100-page opinion explains if you are going to
8 sanction a party like Bank of America, you have to
9 -- don't give it to the lawyer. Don't give it to
10 the borrower. Give it to the people. Do
11 something good with it. The Constitution says in
12 the Preamble one of the purposes of government is
13 to promote the general welfare.
14 So, what can we do here to deal with Bank of
15 America? What is the appropriate thing? Well,
16 you could, if you go through this process, and you
17 need to serve them with an Order to Show Cause
18 that lays out the findings and set an arraignment
19 and give them an opportunity to plead guilty or
20 not guilty. And we have a trial if they want,
21 although it should be deemed admitted already that
22 they did all this.
23 And then, we go to sentencing, and they could
24 present whatever they want at sentencing. And
25 once that is all over and the Court decides I'm
39
1 going to sanction Bank of America, now you don't
2 have to give it to me. You don't have to give it
3 to Mr. Behr. You can put it into the City of
4 Miami's dedicated account. And what Commissioner
5 Russell and Mayor Suarez have both promised me is
6 that they are going to make sure that that money
7 doesn't ever get raided.
8 THE COURT: Counsel?
9 MR. JACOBS: Yes.
10 THE COURT: Is the Commissioner prepared to
11 testify as to every deal that has been entered
12 into for this HUD Housing, Section 8 Housing
13 portion of this? Is he willing to do this?
14 MR. JACOBS: Whatever you want.
15 COMMISSIONER RUSSELL: I'm sorry. I'm not
16 understanding.
17 THE COURT: Commissioner, you are here as a
18 government official.
19 COMMISSIONER RUSSELL: Yes.
20 THE COURT: You have been represented that
21 there is a resolution that has been passed.
22 COMMISSIONER RUSSELL: Yes.
23 THE COURT: I take it that this is being
24 presented to this Court based on your agreement to
25 do so.
40
1 COMMISSIONER RUSSELL: Yes. Yes, Your Honor.
2 THE COURT: Okay. Behind that legislation,
3 there are agreements that have led to all the
4 litigation resulting in this resolution. Are you
5 prepared to testify to that?
6 COMMISSIONER RUSSELL: Yes.
7 THE COURT: Thank you. Go ahead.
8 MR. JACOBS: So, Your Honor, at this point
9 now, I think the main point that -- and I think
10 that that is if you find that sanctions are
11 appropriate and we have a hearing, I would like to
12 present to you all of the evidence of why the
13 sanctions should be something that could change
14 the face of affordable housing for the State of
15 Florida, and probably do more. Healthcare,
16 childcare, drug addiction, climate change.
17 If you notice, in the last 10, 15 years, we
18 have seen the largest transfer of wealth from the
19 people of Miami and the State of Florida and the
20 United States to Bank of America, which in 2005
21 had $1.5 trillion in assets. Now, it has $2.5
22 trillion is assets. And meanwhile, they have no
23 respect for the rule of law.
24 So, I think Your Honor, this is an
25 opportunity. This is a historic opportunity for
41
1 this Court, should you deem it worthy to take
2 action. All you need to do to start this process
3 the correct way is to say I'm going to issue the
4 Order to Show Cause. And then let this process
5 play itself out, and give everyone a chance to
6 explain to you all the reasons why you should or
7 should not do whatever it is.
8 But the only question you have to answer
9 yourself today is is there probable cause that
10 there -- could we go back to the first slide? Is
11 there probable cause of criminal contempt? Has
12 there been disobedience of a court order?
13 Clearly. Has there been disrespect to the Court
14 where the administration of justice has been
15 impeded? To multiple courts over many years, over
16 and over and over about the same issue, which we
17 now know why. Because they were creating a
18 foreclosure mill, a forgery mill three days after
19 the OCC Consent Judgment found they were
20 litigating cases without properly-endorsed notes.
21 Thank you, Your Honor.
22 THE COURT: Mr. Wick?
23 MR. WICK: All right. Good afternoon, Your
24 Honor. One thing I want to make abundantly clear
25 is that Bank of America is not here today, that no
42
1 appearance has been made on behalf of Bank of
2 America here today and I would proffer that there
3 has been no evidence that any of these motions
4 that Mr. Jacobs has filed in these three cases
5 have been served on Bank of America. So, just so
6 that's clear.
7 The only individuals that were here before
8 Your Honor today are the Plaintiffs, the Bank of
9 New York Mellon trustees, and also Mr. Jacobs's
10 clients, Joseph Behr, Richard Von Houtman, Michael
11 and Vicky Lee Grusby. And also, an appearance has
12 been made by me on behalf of Liebler, Gonzalez &
13 Portuondo. I just want to make sure that that is
14 clear.
15 THE COURT: Is Bank of America involved as
16 the servicer, the master servicer? Any
17 indispensable part in these three litigations?
18 Actually, there are four litigations.
19 MR. WICK: Yes. They are the current
20 servicer of the Von Houtman loan, and I believe
21 that they are the master servicers under the other
22 two. But that still doesn't change the fact that
23 Mr. Jacobs is looking for relief against them
24 specifically.
25 They would be an agent of the Plaintiffs.
43
1 They would be a servicing agent of the Plaintiffs.
2 Mr. Jacobs is looking for specific relief against
3 Bank of America, and I'm just proffering that he
4 hasn't served them and they're not here. So, any
5 relief that Your Honor seeks to enter here today,
6 I would argue would be improper as to Bank of
7 America on an abundant amount of due process
8 reasons.
9 Now, the next point I would like to make is
10 that it's May 24th. We are in no different
11 position than we were on April 9th, when this
12 matter was previously before Your Honor, when we
13 had a hearing that lasted upwards of an hour-
14 and-a-half to which Mr. Jacobs was more than an
15 hour late in getting there.
16 And all I've heard is statements by Mr.
17 Jacobs as to his review of documents. The entire
18 Power Point presentation was simply him pointing
19 to documents and making representations as to what
20 date entries meant, what Bank of America was and
21 was not doing in its officed, what Bank of
22 America's employees were or were not doing on a
23 daily basis.
24 In fact, Mr. Jacobs even made a point at one
25 time to say that no promissory note has ever been
44
1 endorsed after origination. When he was pointing
2 to the slides concerning SOURCECORP, where the
3 arrow diverted, where the review of the note was
4 is it yes, is it no, and Mr. Jacobs made the
5 statement that no notes were ever endorsed. How
6 can Mr. Jacobs make this statement? He holds no
7 personal knowledge as to any of the issues that he
8 just made argument on for the past 45 minutes.
9 Now, as I stated, we're at the same point we
10 were on April 9th, and Your Honor was very clear.
11 I filed the transcript. I specifically identified
12 Your Honor's pronouncement from that hearing. A
13 mere allegation that this has occurred is going to
14 be insufficient.
15 And this hasn't been corrected. And rather
16 than correcting it, we have actually expanded that
17 type of conclusory argument. We have expanded the
18 types of relief being sought. If you will recall,
19 when we were here on April 9th, it was a single
20 paragraph in a single discovery order.
21 Now, I've just seen a presentation and I've
22 read through the filings that we're litigating
23 everything from 2005 cases brought in the name of
24 MERS, that we're litigating a number of cases that
25 Mr. Jacobs has. A number of his clients, I
45
1 believe, are here, and this chart demonstrates a
2 lot of what has happened in Mr. Jacobs's cases
3 that he cites here today, Your Honor.
4 And if you look, matter of Bank of America
5 versus Jenny Rodriguez, he cites that for the two
6 Judge Miller orders that he wants Your Honor to
7 take judicial order of. That matter was reduced
8 to a Summary Final Judgment on January 4, 2017,
9 and affirmed on appeal.
10 And another thing I want to make abundantly
11 clear, I'll go back to this chart here in a
12 minute, is that it is wholly improper for Mr.
13 Jacobs to continue to ask this Court to take
14 judicial notice of orders that have been vacated,
15 and he asked Your Honor to do that for three
16 orders. And that representation or that request
17 was made in both of his motions.
18 And this is the part that I want to make
19 abundantly clear. These posters exemplify the
20 three orders that Mr. Jacobs wants you to take
21 judicial order of. The one from Judge Bronwyn
22 Miller in the matter of Bank of New York Mellon
23 versus Lisa Morales. There is the order. Here is
24 the order vacating it.
25 He wants you to take judicial notice of the
46
1 October 31, 2014, order of Judge David Miller.
2 Here is the order. Here is the order vacating it.
3 And this is the most egregious point here. He
4 wants you to take judicial notice of Defendant's
5 version of the December 12, 2014, order from Judge
6 David Miller.
7 This is a circumstance, Your Honor, where a
8 hearing was held, and both Defendant and Plaintiff
9 submitted an order for the judge to execute.
10 Judge executed both of those. Here is the order
11 vacating both of those orders, and here is Mr.
12 Jacobs's statements to the Court at the hearing
13 where that order vacating those prior orders was
14 entered. And Mr. Jacobs's statement, "Yes, I
15 think -- I think that the court should definitely
16 vacate the order." That's Mr. Jacobs's statement
17 in August 6, 2015.
18 So, Mr. Jacobs is telling the Court in Bank
19 of America versus Jenny Rodriguez to vacate an
20 order. And then, four years later, he is now
21 telling Your Honor take judicial notice of that
22 order, rely upon it to find sanctions against Bank
23 of New York Mellon, Bank of America, my firm.
24 And if you read his filings close enough, he
25 makes insinuation that any attorney involved in
47
1 these cases should likewise be criminally
2 prosecuted, which would include myself.
3 Now, again, Mr. Jacobs made a lot of
4 representations as to other cases, as to things
5 that have happened, and you just have to go down
6 the list. He cites to Michelle Solander's
7 deposition testimony a lot.
8 Michelle Solander's deposition was taken in
9 her individual capacity in the matter of Bank of
10 America versus Almeda Freig (phonetic). That
11 matter was reduced to a Consent Final Judgment on
12 June 22, 2015. A Consent Final Judgment,
13 specifically agreed to by Mr. Jacobs himself.
14 Look at the matter of Bank of New York versus
15 the Estate of Barry Alberts (phonetic). You'll
16 see this throughout the filings. Whenever he
17 mentions, I believe it's Judge Stanford Blake,
18 there are some hyperlinks in his filings as to
19 Judge Stanford Blake. That matter resulted in
20 deed in lieu of foreclosure, October 28, 2016.
21 He cites to this Bank of New York Mellon
22 versus Nathaniel Mallow case a lot. This is the
23 case where he brings up the two depositions that
24 were taken of Sandra Prestia. And I'll remind the
25 Court, the first deposition was taken in her
48
1 individual capacity as the trial witness for that
2 matter. That was her deposition taken January 11,
3 2016. And her second deposition was taken as a
4 corporate representative on a limited number of
5 areas, on behalf of Bank of New York Mellon in
6 that case.
7 Regardless of his claims about what
8 SOURCECORP did or what Bank of America instructed
9 them to do are all of these things, Final Judgment
10 of Foreclosure entered in the Mallow case June 29,
11 2016. The appeal has since been dismissed. The
12 foreclosure sale occurred. I believe they are
13 working on getting the certificate of title issued
14 or writ of possession.
15 He cites in his briefing to the Weinstein
16 case. I believe this is the case where the
17 deposition is David Spector was taken. And again,
18 I don't understand why we're even talking about
19 David Spector because his endorsement if found on
20 none of these three loans.
21 David Spector's endorsement is not on Von
22 Houtman, Behr or Grusby. But regardless, he has
23 referenced, and I'll make a point about it. He
24 references his testimony from that case, the
25 Weinstein case, Final Judgment of Foreclosure,
49
1 January 14, 2013.
2 Going further, he mentions the Schwartz case
3 in his filings. This is a case that was
4 originally brought by Bank of America. Nationstar
5 Mortgage, LLC, was substituted in as the Party-
6 Plaintiff. Regardless, Summary Final Judgment of
7 Foreclosure, October 23, 2017. Affirmed on appeal
8 just a month ago.
9 So, if Mr. Jacobs's claims as to forgery or
10 fraud or all these things have any viability, how
11 then are all of these final judgments being
12 entered in all of these cases? He's got multiple
13 requests for judicial notice to Your Honor asking
14 that the entire court files of some of these
15 matters be taken in this proceeding here today.
16 What could judicial notice of a Consent Final
17 Judgment -- how could that ever help Mr. Jacobs's
18 case? If anything, that does a service to me and
19 shows that the viability of his claims is null.
20 And again, the point I want to keep harkening
21 back is that we have now, and I'll use this term,
22 and I don't like to use this term, wasted all of
23 our time from the April 9th hearing until today
24 because nothing has changed. We have no evidence
25 cited.
50
1 I know he makes reference to some deposition
2 testimony. That's not deposition testimony in
3 this case, with the exception of the Maria Gardner
4 deposition. And if I could have my binder with
5 Mr. Jacobs's filings, if Your Honor will look at
6 -- this is Mr. Jacobs's Corrected Joint Motion for
7 Sanctions under the Court's inherent contempt
8 powers and for fraud upon the Court. This is his
9 44-page motion, and if you actually turn to --
10 THE COURT: What page?
11 MR. WICK: Page 13, Your Honor. He's got an
12 excerpt there from the deposition of Maria Gardner
13 made in this case as corporate representative.
14 And her deposition testimony right there, "We
15 don't record the endorsement activity."
16 It's abundantly clear, yet Mr. Jacobs keeps
17 saying records are being withheld, that there
18 should be contempt findings because we're not
19 producing things. And I've cited the case over
20 and over and over again in my brief that before
21 contempt can be ordered against a party, it must
22 be shown that party had an ability to comply with
23 the order at issue.
24 And the things that are materially lacking
25 from Mr. Jacobs presentation is, one, whether any
51
1 of these documents do in fact exist, and two,
2 means or possessions by which these Plaintiffs can
3 obtain these documents. Both of those things are
4 lacking from his presentation. He insinuates. He
5 speculates. He infers the documents are being
6 withheld, but he has no deposition testimony. He
7 has no affidavits. He has no sworn, certified,
8 admissible evidence that would show that these
9 documents are not being produced.
10 It's as simple as that, and I say that from a
11 perspective, Your Honor, that you were very clear.
12 You were very clear to Mr. Jacobs at the last
13 hearing that making these types of bold,
14 conclusory statements was going to be insufficient
15 and that you were going to hold him to that.
16 And that's another point I want to make to
17 the fact of how we came to get here today because
18 I had a feeling that this is how this hearing was
19 going to go, that we were going to -- it was going
20 to morph. That, you know, Mr. Jacobs is provided
21 an opportunity to amend, he really runs with it.
22 But I just want to make it abundantly clear,
23 because I made these objections in my briefing,
24 that my clients and me were prejudiced by our
25 ability to prepare for today's hearing, that Your
52
1 Honor was very clear that Mr. Jacobs was to be
2 given 20 days to amend his legally deficient
3 Motion for Sanctions.
4 Ant I've got audio recording if Your Honor
5 wants to hear of Mr. Jacobs going on his radio
6 show stating that he did not begin drafting these
7 motions until May 1, 2019, even though the
8 original deadline in Your Honor's order was April
9 29, 2019.
10 And these filings came in on May 13th, after
11 multiple extensions. None of the supporting
12 documentation was accessible to me because rather
13 than attach the exhibits to the documents, they
14 were provided as hyperlinks. And the hyperlinks
15 didn't work. The hyperlinks were to a Dropbox
16 account, which I did not have permission or access
17 to directly.
18 And I document all the emails that went back
19 and forth, and it wasn't until 5:10 p.m. on
20 Friday, May 17th, after corrected versions of Mr.
21 Jacobs's filings had been made in the court record
22 that I was finally given 100-percent access to all
23 supporting documents that he is referring to for
24 these proceedings. So, that's less than seven
25 days from today's hearing.
53
1 I would also like to put my objection on the
2 record as to his continued efforts to consolidate
3 these matters. He is asking for a probable cause
4 -- he's asking for a finding of criminal contempt,
5 and if you read the wherefor clauses in his
6 motions, it goes even further than that.
7 He is asking Your Honor to enter sanctions
8 that will forever deny mortgage foreclosure relief
9 to my clients. He is asking for injunctive relief
10 as to what can and cannot be presented to courts
11 throughout the State of Florida. He is asking for
12 monetary sanctions to be imposed of an untold
13 amount to be dedicated the public good. And there
14 is a whole host of other things.
15 What he's doing is he is short circuiting the
16 adjudication of this matter. Instead of going to
17 summary judgment, instead of doing to trial, we
18 are now having an hour-long-plus hearing on
19 sanctions issues that -- a lot of these issues are
20 something that you would present at trial. You
21 would not present things of this nature for a
22 sanctions hearing because, again, I proffer the
23 focus of this hearing has been lost. The focus of
24 these proceedings has been lost. We were
25 previously here on one paragraph of one order for
54
1 one document request. And now, I'm having to
2 present Your Honor with rebuttal argument as to
3 every single case, practically, that Mr. Jacobs
4 has had in South Florida over the last decade.
5 And he still has not pointed to one order that has
6 not been vacated that made any findings of
7 sanctions, bad faith, etcetera against Bank of New
8 York Mellon, Bank of America or the Liebler,
9 Gonzalez & Portuondo firm. That hasn't been shown
10 here today, Your Honor. He is relying on three
11 vacated orders, as my boards show, don't exist,
12 that Mr. Jacobs, by stipulation of himself, asked
13 that the one be vacated.
14 If any finding of bad faith is to be made,
15 and I use that word cautiously against another
16 attorney, it's that. You stipulate to an order
17 being vacated in 2015, just to throw it in front
18 of another court four years later and ask that
19 court to take judicial notice of it as if it's
20 true and correct?
21 Again, as the Amended Motion for Sanctions, I
22 would argue is legally deficient. There is no
23 evidence of documents in existence. There is no
24 evidence of means by which Plaintiffs can obtain
25 them.
55
1 As to the Motion for Order to Show Cause, I
2 would argue that that is, likewise, legally
3 deficient. And the case I really want to harken
4 on, and this was cited in my response, Your Honor,
5 because it's the exact same situation that we're
6 faced with right here, the case of Hagan v.
7 State. This is 853 So.2d 595 out of the 5th DCA.
8 It's a 2003 case.
9 And in that case, there had been an order of
10 protection entered between two neighbors and that
11 there was to be no contact between these two
12 neighbors. Upon the affidavit of an investigating
13 officer, an Order to Show Cause was entered saying
14 that the one neighbor had come in contact with the
15 other.
16 And from that Order to Show Cause, a contempt
17 proceeding arose. And from that contempt
18 proceeding, that neighbor was placed in jail, and
19 that neighbor appealed that, sought certiorari
20 review. And on appeal, the Appellate Court said
21 that investigating officer's affidavit was
22 insufficient to support a Motion for Order to Show
23 Cause.
24 It was insufficient because it was hearsay.
25 The officer did not have personal knowledge. The
56
1 officer based his knowledge of the facts over his
2 review of the circumstances. That's the exact
3 same thing that Mr. Jacobs has done here. He has
4 even said it.
5 He said that he has reviewed these documents.
6 He has taken these depositions. He has been to
7 these hearings. He has drafted these motions. He
8 is not Bank of New York Mellon. He's not
9 employed. He hasn't stated otherwise. He has
10 never shown an affidavit to that effect. Same for
11 Bank of America, same for Liebler, Gonzalez &
12 Portuondo.
13 So, all these representations that he makes
14 as to these various entities are based solely --
15 they can be based on his investigation, but that's
16 all hearsay. It's all inadmissible, and it can't
17 stand as a basis for this Court to now enter a
18 Show Cause Order against Bank of New York Mellon,
19 Bank of America, my firm and all the attorneys of
20 my firm that have worked on these cases.
21 He has filed three memos of law. I really
22 didn't even go into those, Your Honor, because
23 those were things that would be more suited for
24 trial. He is arguing as to whether -- how
25 endorsements can be fixed, the affect of
57
1 assignments of mortgage. And he also provided a
2 litany of reference to Bank of America and things
3 that have happened to it with federal regulators
4 in years passed. I mean, none of those things are
5 proper for this hearing here today.
6 How much time do I have left, Your Honor? I
7 don't have my watch on me.
8 THE COURT: You have 15 minutes left.
9 MR. WICK: Fifteen minutes.
10 For the last minutes, I would make the
11 argument that I made to Your Honor on the 9th,
12 that discovery has shifted in the sense of what it
13 was intended to do. It was intended to
14 investigate the pleadings, the issues as framed by
15 the pleadings.
16 And in this case, you've got three
17 residential foreclosure actions with no
18 counterclaims. All counterclaims have been
19 dismissed with prejudice. There are 10
20 affirmative defenses asserted by each of the
21 Defendants.
22 Those 10 affirmative defenses make no mention
23 of conspiracy. They don't use the word RICO.
24 They don't use the word perjury. They don't use
25 any of that. This is the definition of a fishing
58
1 expedition being undertaken, likely for Mr.
2 Jacobs's own cause. I don't know how much say his
3 clients have. I can only speculate, and I don't
4 want to do that because I just argued how bad
5 speculation is in these types of proceedings.
6 But what I will say is that as framed, you
7 don't have any of these issues. You've got 10
8 affirmative defenses, a simple standing defense
9 that you would see in any other case just simply
10 saying signatures on the note aren't authentic.
11 You've got a conditions precedent case.
12 You've got a defense saying that the note is
13 not negotiable, violation of RESPA, unclean hands,
14 but not with all the things -- not with respect to
15 all the things that Mr. Jacobs just told you here
16 for an hour. His unclean hands defense is based
17 on dual tracking, loss mitigation issues, on
18 accounting, loan accounting, loan charges,
19 etcetera, none of those things he mentioned here
20 today.
21 He argues that documentary stamped taxes
22 weren't paid on the note. He argues violations of
23 FDCPA, TILA, CFPB and the force placement of
24 insurance. Those are what Defendants are
25 traveling under to be adjudicated in these
59
1 proceedings. They are not traveling under wild
2 claims of perjury, fraud, RICO, criminal conduct,
3 etcetera. It's not pled.
4 There are no Motions for Leave pending. In
5 fact, I wouldn't think a Motion for Leave would be
6 accepted by this Court with how long these matters
7 have been pending. Leave has been granted, I
8 think, five or six times in each of these cases.
9 So, I would argue for a protective order to
10 be in place. You know, I rambled it off at the
11 last hearing. I'll ramble it off again. I mean,
12 in Von Houtman, you've got 11 Requests for
13 Production, 207 individual requests. You've got
14 11 deposition notices. You see the same in Grusby
15 and Behr.
16 In Grusby, you have 12 Requests for
17 Production, 178 individual requests, 9 deposition
18 notices. In Behr, you've got 10 Requests for
19 Production, 202 individual requests, 8 Notices of
20 Deposition.
21 Motions for Summary Judgment are pending in
22 all three of these cases right now. The
23 Plaintiffs are looking to finally get an
24 adjudication on the merits of these cases, and
25 these types of discovery tactics, these types of
60
1 red herrings are not going to bring these cases to
2 a close. If anything, this is why these cases
3 have languished as long as they have.
4 And I cite to the case law there as to when
5 discovery becomes vexatious, that it is proper
6 within the discretion of the Trial Court to enter
7 a protective order. And I think the Court needs
8 to go one step further, and I think that for these
9 cases to be put on track, or the administration of
10 these three cases to be aligned with how other
11 cases in this circuit are handled, is that
12 sanctions need to be entered against Defendants
13 and their counsel to dissuade the type of behavior
14 that we have continually seen in this case.
15 I mean, I pointed, in my motion, to the
16 blatant misrepresentations that are easily
17 disproven simply by looking at the face of a
18 document compared to the assertion being put in a
19 paragraph. And I point to the fact that Mr.
20 Jacobs, in two filing and at two hearings,
21 continues to ask this Court to take judicial
22 notice of three orders that have been vacated for
23 years. These types of tactics are improper.
24 These types of tactics, I would go so far as to
25 say, are reckless.
61
1 So, I would leave you with, Your Honor, you
2 know, our request is simple. Deny his Motion for
3 Sanctions with prejudice. Deny his Motion for
4 Order to Show Cause with prejudice. Enter a
5 protective order. Enter sanctions as Your Honor
6 sees fit to put these cases on track, and provide
7 us with hearing dates set in stone for the Motions
8 for Summary Judgment for the Behr and the Von
9 Houtman matters. The Grusby matter has already
10 been set for hearing for July 19th. And that's
11 what I would leave you with, Your Honor.
12 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
13 MR. JACOBS: Yes, Your Honor. So, I think
14 the right place to start is the Boca Burger
15 because the Supreme Court has dealt with people
16 like this before. And what it says is the heart
17 of all legal ethics is a lawyer's duty of candor
18 to a tribunal. It's an exacting duty. It's an
19 imposing burden, and it's one that is
20 self-regulated. We have to do this ourselves.
21 And the Supreme Court says we do not accept
22 the notion that outcomes should depend on who is
23 the most powerful, most eloquent, best dressed,
24 most devious, most persistent with the last word
25 or for that matter, who was able to misdirect a
62
1 judge.
2 And let's look at what we just heard. So,
3 for starters, the big difference between this case
4 and the case between the two neighbors who were
5 fighting over whatever the -- was is this is not
6 -- this is hearsay. Everything is hearsay, but
7 it's all statements of a party opponent. That's a
8 clear exception to the Hearsay Rule.
9 Every document they gave me is a statement by
10 them, and I'm allowed to -- this isn't even the
11 evidentiary hearing. This is just probable cause.
12 A probable affidavit is supposed to be based on
13 hearsay. It's allowed to be based on hearsay.
14 But it's not hearsay because it's all their
15 documents. It's all court orders.
16 Now, they said oh, every single order has
17 been vacated. Not Judge Stone's order in the Von
18 Houtman case, the one that said there is a
19 sanction of the Inequitable Conduct Doctrine.
20 MR. WICK: I'm going to object. I don't
21 believe that order states that, and I believe that
22 Mr. Jacobs made a point previously --
23 THE COURT: Could you pull up the order?
24 MR. WICK: -- to say that that order stated
25 that it was a bad faith filing.
63
1 MR. JACOBS: The one on the Inequitable
2 Conduct Doctrine? The one that has the $1,200.00.
3 So, Your Honor, you can look at the order. It's
4 in the obstruction section. But the order is
5 entitled Order Granting Sanctions for the
6 Inequitable Conduct Doctrine. That's a special
7 doctrine that deals with bad faith. So, that
8 wasn't vacated, and that's in these cases.
9 And I personally don't think it matters when
10 I'm asking the Court to take judicial notice. I
11 did say in every one of the pleadings that I
12 mentioned it these have been vacated, but I don't
13 think that that means that the Court can't decide
14 for itself whether there is a problem here that
15 Judge Bronwyn Miller and Judge David Miller spent
16 a lot of time and effort to get, you know,
17 something going that would bring some justice to
18 this.
19 I don't think that the Court has to say oh,
20 let's sanction Mr. Jacobs for suggesting that
21 these orders were issued correctly. They were.
22 That's what the opinion of those judges are. The
23 fact that someone else later vacated them doesn't
24 change the fact -- I mean, Judge Bronwyn Miller
25 vacated an order because Bank of America --
64
1 because the law firm said I want to present an
2 additional witness, the lawyers, to explain why
3 you shouldn't have sanctioned us.
4 And Judge Miller said sure, I'll vacate the
5 order and give you that opportunity. And then,
6 they said we're not going to present any
7 witnesses, and then she got elevated to the 3rd
8 DCA. So, that means that I should be sanctioned
9 for bringing up that order? I don't think so. I
10 don't think that that's appropriate.
11 Your Honor, I think that the idea that we
12 filed everything and there was nothing accessible
13 to them because the links didn't work -- like, if
14 that's really the excuse to get out of everything
15 we have seen here today, every one of the links --
16 I sent the Court and Counsel copies of every
17 document in a separate pdf.
18 What were they? They were orders. They were
19 identified orders in the motion. They were
20 motions that they filed. So, it's not like they
21 didn't have access to it, but they want it to be
22 perfect. Why? Because unless they have it to
23 their standard, then who can do anything? They
24 are Bank of America. They have more money than
25 anybody.
65
1 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs, let's refocus the
2 issue here.
3 MR. JACOBS: Certainly.
4 THE COURT: All right. Yours is an order
5 that was entered on 1/29/2018.
6 MR. JACOBS: Yes, Your Honor.
7 THE COURT: That was entered by Judge Stone.
8 MR. JACOBS: Yes.
9 THE COURT: Okay. It is titled Order on
10 Plaintiff's Objections Response and Motion for
11 Protective Order as to Defendant's Discovery Dated
12 October 11, 2017, and October 12, 2017.
13 MR. JACOBS: Yes, Your Honor.
14 THE COURT: Okay. That's an operative order
15 --
16 MR. JACOBS: Right.
17 THE COURT: -- that is before the Court.
18 MR. JACOBS: Absolutely.
19 THE COURT: This is the one that you are
20 alleging they have failed to comply with.
21 MR. JACOBS: Yes.
22 THE COURT: All right. I have reviewed every
23 piece of evidence that you have submitted in this
24 litigation. I have reviewed everything that you
25 have submitted in this litigation. I challenge
66
1 the two of you to actually address the actual
2 substance of the this particular order.
3 MR. JACOBS: Happy to do that.
4 THE COURT: How have you complied, Mr. Wick?
5 How have they not complied? That is as simple as
6 this is. This hearing and this litigation has
7 gone so far afield that we are in the position
8 right now that I am going to redirect this to the
9 basics of this litigation.
10 MR. JACOBS: Sure.
11 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs, if you feel that you
12 have probable cause to seek an indictment or to
13 seek an -- involving state court charging Bank of
14 America, please go to the lawful authorities,
15 which are the police department, Florida Public
16 Law Enforcement, the FBI or any other lawful
17 entity that has jurisdiction over these matters
18 and present your evidence.
19 I had requested at the last hearing that we
20 were here to provide the Court with evidence that
21 substantiated your allegations. What I got was
22 Judge, please rely on orders that had been
23 vacated. Both of you are making an assumption
24 that to they immure to the benefits of the
25 defense.
67
1 You have orders that have been vacated that,
2 if you look at them, many of -- in most cases,
3 they immure to the issue of the Plaintiff. That's
4 exactly the problem. So, let's refocus.
5 MR. JACOBS: Sure.
6 THE COURT: Mr. Wick, the defense has raised
7 an issue that you have failed to comply. I
8 believe that they have met their burden as to
9 showing that as to the order that was issued by
10 Judge Stone, there is concern that you have failed
11 to comply. How have you complied?
12 MR. WICK: Well, we filed notices on March
13 30, 2018; April 24, 2018' May 21, 2018; April 5,
14 2019, and in those notices we made reference to
15 documentation responsive to each individual
16 request of that order. Each paragraph contains a
17 paragraph underneath it that has the Bates-stamped
18 documents identified that are reflective for that
19 specific portion of the order.
20 That was done on March 30, 2018, and May 21,
21 2018. The notice of April 24, 2018, was as to the
22 Plaintiff's agreement, after coordinating with Mr.
23 Jacobs's office, to present a witness for
24 deposition on May 23, 2018. We had a hearing on
25 this issue on April 8, 2019, before Your Honor
68
1 where we were requesting sanctions for our
2 attendance at that deposition, but Mr. Jacobs's
3 non-attendance at that deposition. In my
4 response, as Exhibit H, I have, again, attached
5 the emails from Mr. Jacobs's office confirming
6 that date.
7 We complied. I filed the transcript from
8 that deposition, in which the deponent stated -- I
9 asked the question, "Are you prepared, ready to
10 testify as to this area of inquiry," and I read
11 each one out of the order, and the witness said
12 yes to each one. Mr. Jacobs chose not to attend
13 that deposition because he was at four hearing in
14 Miami-Dade motion calendar that day.
15 So, we have complied. And I am also going to
16 repeat that representations by an attorney for one
17 of the parties regarding the facts and document
18 attached as exhibits to a motion do not constitute
19 evidence. So, his continued banging of the drum
20 that there are documents in existence, that we are
21 withholding documents, purged documents,
22 SOURCECORP documents, etcetera, etcetera. There
23 is no evidence of that.
24 And he keeps pointing to that email, 1.88
25 billion objects. What are those objects? There
69
1 is no deposition testimony saying what those
2 objects are. Is Mr. Jacobs assuming that 1.88
3 billion promissory notes exist?
4 THE COURT: Again, we are going off-track
5 here.
6 MR. WICK: Right.
7 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
8 MR. JACOBS: Yes, sir?
9 THE COURT: I want you to focus in on the
10 following documents. It is the Plaintiff's Notice
11 of Compliance that was issued on 3/3/2018,
12 4/4/2018, 5/21/2018, 4/5/2019, 3/30/2018, those
13 documents.
14 MR. JACOBS: So, Your Honor --
15 THE COURT: Hold on.
16 MR. JACOBS: Yes.
17 THE COURT: My question. In those documents,
18 how have they failed to comply with Judge Stone's
19 order, basically given the discovery?
20 MR. JACOBS: So, the first thing I would say
21 is look through their responses that you have. In
22 whatever responses they have filed, they never
23 once said anything about the acquisition of
24 stamps. They haven't said here is our compliance
25 with the acquisition of the stamps. They haven't
70
1 given anything on it. They just left it out.
2 And when I asked for it, specifically, in all
3 this, I point out that there is screenshots of
4 procedures they gave me that clearly identify that
5 there are forms created. MarkMaker is the company
6 they used to buy the stamps from. They have
7 those. They haven't turned them over. That,
8 right there, is a violation of the Court's order.
9 MR. WICK: Mr. Jacobs does not have personal
10 knowledge that forms showing when rubber stamps
11 were purchased still exist.
12 THE COURT: That's not the issue. The issue
13 is Judge Stone instructed --
14 MR. WICK: I mean --
15 THE COURT: Judge Stone instructed you to
16 turn over any documents relating to the rubber
17 stamps.
18 MR. WICK: Relating to the acquisition --
19 THE COURT: Of the rubber stamps.
20 MR. WICK: Of the acquisition. I'll proffer
21 to Your Honor, we searched. There are no
22 documents.
23 THE COURT: Okay. Did you file a response to
24 that effect?
25 MR. WICK: We have identified that. Like,
71
1 our response to 2F says --
2 THE COURT: This is simple. This is a simple
3 question.
4 MR. WICK: Well, I -- because we --
5 THE COURT: Have you filed a response to that
6 effect? Under penalty of perjury, have you done
7 so?
8 MR. WICK: I want to be clear on this, Your
9 Honor, 2F some documents were found that were
10 responsive to it, some were found that weren't
11 responsive -- others were not able to be found.
12 Okay. So, our response to 2F is, specifically,
13 "Contemporaneously herewith through separate cover
14 Plaintiff produced documents to Defendants'
15 counsel bearing Bates Number GN.2008 Order 001198
16 to GN.2008 Order 01244 representing documentation
17 responsive to this request in the custody, control
18 and possession of Plaintiff." That is specific to
19 Paragraph 2F of the order.
20 MR. JACOBS: So, Your Honor, none of that was
21 -- there is no statement from the bank ever, from
22 Liebler Gonzalez or anyone that says we searched
23 for it, the acquisition stamps, and didn't find
24 them, but we gave you these documents instead.
25 That is not said.
72
1 MR. WICK: That statement could have easily
2 occurred at the May 23, 2018, deposition had Mr.
3 Jacobs chosen to attend. That is when those
4 statements come about.
5 THE COURT: There was a court order. The
6 Court ordered you to address that particular
7 issue. They didn't say at the deposition. Judge
8 Stone did not say at the deposition. He said, he
9 ordered that you turn over any documents related
10 to the acquisition of those stamps. Clearly, that
11 was not done.
12 MR. JACOBS: Your Honor, the second issue --
13 MR. WICK: I don't know what more you want
14 out of me, Your Honor, because -- do you want me
15 to put on here that there were no documents?
16 THE COURT: Yes.
17 MR. WICK: Because --
18 THE COURT: With that, we have no issue with
19 this.
20 MR. WICK: Because the request asked for more
21 showing the use of the rubber stamps. That is
22 what 2F says, "Any documents showing the use of
23 rubber stamps during any delinquent note
24 endorsement process." Use of rubber stamps, we
25 produced.
73
1 THE COURT: It also dealt with the
2 acquisition of the rubber stamps.
3 MR. JACOBS: And Your Honor, just to be
4 clear, the --
5 THE COURT: Is there anything else?
6 MR. JACOBS: Yes, Your Honor, two other parts
7 of the order.
8 THE COURT: Please. Regarding this order?
9 MR. JACOBS: Yes, two other parts of the
10 order.
11 THE COURT: Good.
12 MR. JACOBS: There was the order under H that
13 said turn over all the documents showing that --
14 when and how the notes were endorsed in these
15 cases, and if you look, all the documents clearly
16 aren't there.
17 THE COURT: As to these three cases?
18 MR. JACOBS: As to these three cases, turn
19 over all the documents that show how and when the
20 endorsements were created, meaning give us all the
21 evidence that proves whether or not you were doing
22 this in 2006 within days or origination or whether
23 you were doing this in 2011 pursuant to the
24 SOURCECORP contract, because you have an
25 obligation to turn that over.
74
1 THE COURT: If it exists.
2 MR. JACOBS: Well, it certainly exists.
3 THE COURT: If it exists.
4 MR. JACOBS: Well, I would suggest, Your
5 Honor, at this point, when we have seen
6 destruction of evidence, when we have seen
7 defiance of Court orders, we have seen misleading
8 the Courts -- they asked how is it that all these
9 cases got affirmed on appeal.
10 They have been deflecting and misdirecting
11 courts forever. I think at some point it's not
12 enough for them to simply say we don't have it,
13 which is exactly what the last part of the order
14 was, that I think kind of ties it up perfectly,
15 because the last part of the order was give over
16 the instructions to SOURCECORP.
17 In this case, they were ordered to turn --
18 there was a subpoena issued for SOURCECORP's
19 records. Those records were destroyed. There is
20 an email from SOURCECORP saying Bank of America
21 ordered us to destroy them. At the time that
22 these subpoenas were being requested to this law
23 firm who is working with Bank of America as the
24 master servicer and the servicer, who is
25 representing the Bank of New York Mellon --
75
1 THE COURT: I take it at the trial you are
2 going to attempt to introduce that letter,
3 correct?
4 MR. JACOBS: Well, I can't get to trial
5 because I don't have the evidence. That is the
6 whole point of the contempt proceedings.
7 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
8 MR. JACOBS: Yes.
9 THE COURT: I take it that you are going to
10 try to introduce that letter at trial, which is
11 SOURCECORP saying Bank of America instructed us to
12 destroy all these records; is that correct?
13 MR. JACOBS: It certainly would be part of
14 the evidence if we ever got there.
15 THE COURT: Thank you. Is there any other
16 thing that I need to address as far as Judge
17 Stone's order?
18 MR. JACOBS: So, Judge Stone ordered that
19 they produce the instructions to SOURCECORP that
20 led to that email, and Judge Stone said I want it.
21 I'm overruling your objections. I'm overruling
22 your Motion for Protective Order. Turn it over.
23 Then, they asked for reconsideration; he denied
24 that and said turn it over. Then, they gave me
25 documents, and what they gave me was a bunch of
76
1 emails from February of 2016 at the end of the
2 purge.
3 So, you can see, they clearly are talking
4 about the FASTRIEVE purge. This is Bank of
5 America and SOURCECORP back and forth talking with
6 each other.
7 THE COURT: Okay.
8 MR. JACOBS: Then, when I filed the Motion
9 for Sanctions saying they didn't give me the
10 instructions from the beginning of the purge,
11 where are the rest of the emails? They, two days
12 before the hearing on the Motion for Sanctions,
13 filed this amendment that says actually,
14 everything we gave you was in error and not
15 responsive, and we don't have any documents in our
16 care, custody and control.
17 And I ask the Court to consider that. Bank
18 of America was able to produce six pages, seven
19 pages of emails from the end of the purge from
20 years ago because Judge Stone ordered it, and now,
21 they are here representing to the Court, after
22 fighting me for a year, to say it's objectionable,
23 it's a protective order, reconsider, all of that,
24 which is what the Discovery Handbook says is
25 clear, sanctionable conduct in and of itself to
77
1 say there is nothing.
2 But they already produced the documents.
3 They are just not the emails from the beginning.
4 And I think that the Court does not have to accept
5 the representations being made unsworn by Counsel,
6 and I don't think we even have to keep going
7 anymore because I can't do a trial. They want to
8 just go right to Summary Judgment. That is not
9 how any of this is supposed to work.
10 Because they have so interfered with the
11 orderly administration of justice -- I have
12 defenses. I'm entitled to raise them. They are
13 good defenses. The Second DCA said it's a good
14 defense, they added the endorsement, backdated by
15 perjury, used a false mortgage assignment. That's
16 what happened in all three of these cases. Even
17 the Fourth DCA said if they added the endorsement
18 after Countrywide dissolved, that's fraud. But I
19 didn't get the evidence in that case.
20 So, here I am saying Judge, give me the
21 evidence. They got a judgment against Amy
22 Schwartz, which I don't know if she is here today,
23 but she's the mother of autistic children. She is
24 a teacher who teaches autistic children. And
25 yeah, they got -- they were able to get that case
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1 through on a Summary Judgment, but we are back on
2 a Motion to Vacate Judgment Due to Fraud. That
3 hasn't been dealt with yet.
4 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
5 MR. JACOBS: Yes, Your Honor?
6 THE COURT: Focus.
7 MR. JACOBS: Certainly. So, the issue here,
8 Your Honor, is did they comply with the order to
9 give me the acquisition? Clearly not. To give me
10 everything that shows how and when the notes were
11 endorsed? Clearly not. Did they comply with the
12 order to give me the SOURCECORP instructions?
13 Clearly not.
14 At this point, what is the Court left to do?
15 Is it to continue the game and let's keep going as
16 they move for Summary Judgment? Or is it to say
17 enough, 1.380, you violated a court order?
18 Everything else I have given you is just flavor
19 for that so that you have the ability -- you know
20 that the record is strong enough that when you go
21 up on appeal saying that they can't do this, that
22 you will get affirmed on appeal.
23 Because that's the whole problem here, is
24 they keep saying every order that I entered is a
25 problem. They have never had this evidence put
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1 before them. They never had this order put before
2 them. They have never had you having to consider
3 this. No one else has ever considered this
4 before, and you have the opportunity to say I find
5 that they violated the order. And you could
6 impose sanctions and say give them a million
7 dollars, but they don't care. They have $2.5
8 trillion. They're not going to give me anything.
9 They didn't do it when Judge David Miller ordered
10 it. They didn't do it when Judge Bronwyn Miller
11 ordered it.
12 THE COURT: Clearly, both orders were
13 vacated.
14 MR. JACOBS: I mean, if Your Honor --
15 THE COURT: Clearly, both orders were
16 vacated.
17 MR. JACOBS: But respectfully, Your Honor,
18 Judge Miller did order Bank of America directly,
19 in that case, was -- made Bank of America a party,
20 made them -- ordered them to turn over the same
21 documents.
22 THE COURT: Bank of America is not here. You
23 chose not to notify anyone that Bank of America
24 was here.
25 MR. JACOBS: Well, let's be clear, Your
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1 Honor. I'm trying to start a process against
2 people that are committing crimes against this
3 Court. Let me make sure I'm clear, Your Honor.
4 This is not like two neighbors fighting with each
5 other. I can't sue them under a class action
6 lawsuit or under any theory because this is an
7 attack on the Court itself.
8 I don't have standing, has been their
9 argument the whole way through, litigation
10 privilege that the only one who can address this
11 is this Court. And everything that has happened
12 up until now, all I'm doing is saying to the Court
13 you have all of this in front of you and you can
14 absolutely, if you choose to, say well, these have
15 been vacated.
16 But the fact is, in this case, you have
17 overwhelming evidence, certainly probable cause
18 and you are the only one that has the power to do
19 anything about it. If we send this back to the
20 State Attorney's Office or to the Attorney
21 General's Office, who -- respectfully, Your Honor,
22 this is Bank of America.
23 Please understand that I'm coming to you
24 because I put my faith and trust in you that you
25 would see that there is a need for somebody who
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1 has got it in front of them that knows the
2 evidence will back them up to say yeah, you can't
3 do this. I don't care who you are.
4 And these people, when you're talking about
5 politicians and you're talking about people that
6 have all kinds of other issues like -- this is the
7 problem that I see is that Bank of America is
8 considering itself to be above the law and it acts
9 with impunity. It can defy court orders at will,
10 of multiple judges. It will get them vacated.
11 Don't worry. Why? Because everyone is afraid
12 that Bank of America is going to get them reversed
13 and embarrass them, but the reality of the day,
14 Your Honor, is that you have enough here to just
15 follow the law. And if Your Honor wants me to
16 keep going, I'll keep doing what I've got to do.
17 This is not over. This is happening in Hawaii.
18 This is happening in Miami. This is happening in
19 other states. Because this was the National
20 Mortgage Settlement. These are the same people
21 who promised to stop using false evidence in
22 foreclosures. The U.S. Government had my False
23 Claims Act case. They declined to intervene. I
24 went through on my own with Lilly Ann Sanchez, a
25 former U.S. Attorney, Ben Kuehne --
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1 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
2 MR. JACOBS: Yes.
3 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs, I've heard this
4 before.
5 MR. JACOBS: Okay.
6 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Wick, two- minute
7 rebuttal. That's it.
8 MR. WICK: All right. I'll just fixate on
9 the part that Your Honor seems concerned that we
10 violated this order because we didn't write in our
11 Notice of Compliance --
12 THE COURT: You failed to comply. There's no
13 --
14 MR. WICK: Failed to comply. Failed to
15 comply with the order for stating that there were
16 no documents responsive to the acquisition of
17 stamps. And you know, I proffer to Your Honor, if
18 anything, you know, that was a simple oversight in
19 that order, or in that Notice of Compliance, I
20 should say, that could have easily been rectified
21 upon deposition testimony on May 23rd a year ago.
22 On May 23, 2018, when --
23 THE COURT: Yes, he did not show. I got it.
24 MR. WICK: Because that is typically when you
25 would see this type of questioning arise or where
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1 you would get these kind of facts on that.
2 THE COURT: That is a very dangerous game to
3 play, and the reason being is that when a court
4 order is issued and it is specific, I can tell you
5 I expect compliance. So do all of my colleagues.
6 In this situation, no, Judge, if he had just
7 waited, he could have asked the question again or
8 he could have asked the question in his
9 deposition. This is a very nice way of politely
10 saying no, Judge, we're not going to comply.
11 MR. WICK: I don't want to come off as that,
12 and I apologize, Your Honor. My response to each
13 one of these paragraphs as you see in the Notice
14 of Compliance was, you know, I'm presenting these
15 are the documentations. These are the documents
16 responsive to this request. There is nothing
17 else.
18 THE COURT: Okay.
19 MR. WICK: If there was something else, we
20 would have produced it.
21 THE COURT: Then say that. Then say that.
22 MR. WICK: But I apologize if it was unclear,
23 but that was my content through these writings was
24 -- that's why I did it individually. If you look,
25 each paragraph has specific number to number range
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1 that -- and I changed them for each case so that
2 they were specific to Behr, Grusby and Von Houtman
3 for the documentation that was specific to each
4 loan that wasn't simply a policy document or a
5 procedure document.
6 You know, things that were screenshot
7 specific to Behr's loan compared to Von Houtman's
8 loan, you'll se the numbers change between the
9 notices. That's the level of specificity I went
10 on this, and I apologize if I needed to put more
11 as to what wasn't available. I thought by saying
12 this is the world of documents, this what's
13 available was sufficient.
14 MR. JACOBS: Your Honor, where does --
15 THE COURT: Mr. Jacobs?
16 MR. JACOBS: I'm sorry.
17 THE COURT: This is it. I will rule within
18 the next 30 days on your Motion for Sanctions. I
19 thank you both.
20 MR. JACOBS: Thank you.
21 MR. WICK: Thank you, Your Honor.
22 (The proceedings were concluded at 3:29 p.m.)
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1 C E R T I F I C A T E
3 STATE OF FLORIDA
4 COUNTY OF BROWARD
6 I, Sergey Moroz, Reporter, certify that I was
7 authorized to and did report the foregoing
8 proceedings, and that the transcript is a true and
9 correct transcription of my electronic notes to
10 the proceedings.
11
12 Signed this 31st day of May, 2019.
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14
15
16 _________________________
Sergey Moroz, Reporter
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