Key robo-signing case gets settled out of court and veteran attorney David Donet Sr. federally indicted for all sorts of bad stuff!

Simply amazing.  As we discussed a while back we were expecting a key robo-signing case to be litigated before the Florida Supreme Court which would have determined whether or not banks could simply absolves themselves from liability in instances where they were caught using forged documents during foreclosure proceedings.  We learned this morning that the case was settled out of court, from the Daily Business Review article...

The first robo-signing case scheduled to get to the Florida Supreme Court for oral arguments has been settled out of court by Bank of New York Mellon and the homeowner.
The settlement comes as a disappointment to homeowners in foreclosure who have been trying to challenge the use of fraudulent documents used by banks to expedite foreclosure orders for Florida circuit courts.
Enrique Nieves III of Ice Legal in Royal Palm Beach had been preparing for oral arguments in Roman Pino v. BNY Mellon after the 4th District Court of Appeal upheld the bank's right to voluntarily dismiss the case.

With the settlement, the 4th DCA ruling remains the law in every court in Florida. In Pino v. BNY Mellon, the homeowner requested an evidentiary hearing when the bank tried to re-initiate a foreclosure that had been stalled because of a questionable assignment of mortgage document.
The bank was trying to go forward with a cured document and Nieves was arguing they couldn't proceed until the original fraud allegation was aired on its merits.
Palm Beach Circuit Judge Meenu Sasser noted the bank had voluntarily dismissed the original foreclosure petition and that case could not be reopened. She treated the second foreclosure petition as an entirely separate matter, and Nieves appealed.
The 4th DCA sided with Sasser in an en banc decision. But there was a dissent mainly on grounds that an attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the court was still actionable. The majority panel acknowledged the issue was of great public importance due to the rampant use of questionable documents; that certification helped Nieves put the case before the Supreme Court.

Incredible how banks can perpetrate a fraud on the court yet if the average guy would have done the same thing, his ass would have landed in jail.  This is just another instance of our government not holding banks accountable for the mess they've helped create.  What's worse about this whole ordeal is that the robo-signing epidemic is still running rampant, we've been given several examples of robo-signing that's occurring right now, even after all the national media exposure.


Moving on, yesterday veteran attorney David Donet Sr. of Miami was federally indicted for a wide range of nefarious schemes, take a look at the indictment...

David Donet Sr Indictment

Besides ripping off his clients monies that were deposited in his trust account, Mr. Donet offered his victims a unique investment opportunity, from the federal indictment...

After the defendant received funds in his attorney trust account on behalf of certain clients from the representation of those clients, the defendant encouraged those clients to leave their funds in his trust account, falsely stating that the funds would be invested, when in truth and in fact, and as the defendant then and there well knew, no investment of client funds would occur.

If alarm bells didn't go off when the clients were offered this investment scheme, then perhaps they deserved to get ripped off.  Again, from the indictment...

The defendant falsely represented to certain clients that by keeping their funds in his attorney trust account: a) the funds would be insured and secure while the defendant invested the funds; b) the funds would provide 10% annual interest, to be paid in monthly installments; and c) clients could withdraw their principal at any time.

Sounds like a good ole fashion Ponzi scheme to me!  Mr. Donet was eventually responsible for the theft of over a million dollars of his clients funds, it's a damn shame as those clients who entrusted their money with Mr. Donet will never get their money back.  Oh well!