California Bankruptcy Lawyer Blog

San Jose Bankruptcy Attorney comments on recent indictment in Vallejo bankruptcy fraud case.

Recently the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California indicted a Vallejo woman for committing mortgage and bankruptcy fraud.  According to the indictment, Myra Holmes convinced her father to illegally transfer his interest in her home to her.  Her father had previously filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and the transfer was completed without the consent of the bankruptcy trustee or the permission of the bankruptcy court.

After the transfer was completed, the indictment alleges that Ms. Holmes refinanced the property and removed approximately $130,000 in equity in the home, which she used to fund personal expenses and settle personal debts, including accounts at Nieman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, Macy’s and Spiegel.  She has not repaid any of the illegally-withdrawn funds to the bankruptcy estate.

The maximum penalty that Ms. Holmes is facing for concealment of assets is five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution.  The penalty for bank fraud is 30 years imprisonment, a $1,000,000 fine and restitution.

Bankruptcy courts do not take kindly to actions designed to hide assets from bankruptcy proceedings.  If you have a prize possession that will be lost in bankruptcy, don’t try to sell it at a discount to a friend or relative or give it to them, with the hope of getting it back after your bankruptcy discharge is finalized.

In a bankruptcy filing, you are required to list everything that you have sold, transferred or given away for the past two years.  And none of those items can have changed hands for less than market value. It is wise to work closely with your bankruptcy attorney to be extremely thorough during this phase of the bankruptcy process.  Mistakes, or deceptions, made here can bring significant financial and legal repercussions down the road.

Vallejo woman charged with mortgage and bankruptcy fraud, USDOJ, October 7, 2009

If you have a question regarding Bankruptcy please contact us at 1-800-941-6730 or visit www.bkanswers.com and we can connect you with one of our experienced Bankruptcy Attorneys.  After you have spoken with one of our bankruptcy attorneys we can schedule you a free face to face appointment in our office location nearest you.  Our team of Bankruptcy Lawyers can assist you with all aspects of your case. If you are have questions about filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy, a chapter 11 bankruptcy, a chapter 13 bankruptcy, lien stripping, cram down, a stopping a foreclosure or wage garnishment, discharging debt, etc. we can help! We have bankruptcy attorneys located throughout California who can assist your needs.  Please feel free to complete our free bankruptcy evaluation and we can quickly determine if you are a qualified candidate for bankruptcy.

San Jose Bankruptcy Attorney Discusses how the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes filed for protection under Chapter 11

Every part of the country no matter in what field that you work in is affected by the current downturn in the economy. Even sports teams are not isolated from the perils of bankruptcy.
In the week of May 12, 2009, the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes filed for protection under Chapter 11. Perhaps if Chrysler's bankruptcy hadn't been stealing the headlines this item would have made more waves. What makes this case interesting, obviously, is the fact it is a professional sports franchise. As such, there are a lot of big time sports stars that are waiting for their paychecks until the Bankruptcy Court approves the payment of pre-petition wage claims. None of those names is bigger than the Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky is in the hockey hall of fame, but he still may not get paid for all those goals scored. In total, the Coyotes have asked to pay over half a million dollars in pre-petition wages. Along with his salary, Gretzky is also a creditor of the estate to the tune of $8 milliion in deferred compensation. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a repayment plan that has to accepted by all the creditors as well as the bankruptcy trustee. Therefore, until the plan is adopted, The Coyotes are going to have to come up with the money to play their players.

If you have a question regarding Bankruptcy please contact us at 1-800-941-6730 or visit www.bkanswers.com and we can connect you with one of our experienced Bankruptcy Attorneys. After you have spoken with one of our bankruptcy attorneys we can schedule you a free face to face appointment in our office location nearest you. Our team of Bankruptcy Lawyers can assist you with all aspects of your case. If you are have questions about filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy, a chapter 11 bankruptcy, a chapter 13 bankruptcy, lien stripping, cram down, stopping a foreclosure or wage garnishment, discharging debt, etc. we can help! We have bankruptcy attorneys located throughout California who can assist your needs. Please feel free to complete our free bankrupcty evaluation and we can quickly determine if you are a qualified candidate for bankruptcy.

Fremont Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Attorney Talks About Lenny Dykstra CH 11 Bankruptcy

For most of the United States, the name Lenny Dykstra is a baseball favorite that played for the Mets and the Phillies. For those who have kept an eye in the market world, the name Lenny Dykstra is a stock picker who markets his system for beating the market by claiming he has made over 100 winning stock picks. The first irony is that both are the same person. Lenny Dykstra has leveraged his brand name into a business to push his system of portoflio management. The second irony is that he just filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

Before we start shaking our head at a shooting star that flashed out, Mr. Dykstra is hardly a pauper with a hat in hand. He filed bankruptcy to stop a foreclosure on his property appraised at $25 million when he brought it for $17.5 million. Like most bankruptcy's today, Mr. Dykstra is a victim of a real estate scheme that went awry. Lenny needed $17.5 million to buy Wayne Gretzky's (yes, that Wayne Gretzky) estate. He was unable to get all the money in one loan (he could only get a $12 million dollar loan) so he had to take a second loan. Lenny, showing some dubious financial savvy, took an $8 million dollar second loan which resulted in $2.5 million dollars over the buying price. Theoretically, Lenny had more than enough equity to cover.

But that left Lenny with a $200,000.00 a month mortgage payment with his $125,000 income. Lenny tried to refinance and learned that being a baseball star does not open up the credit market to you. So he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Rumor is that Lenny is worth over $15 million dollars due to his winning market action. If that were true, did he really need to file bankruptcy?

If you have a question regarding Bankruptcy please contact us at 1-800-941-6730 or visit www.bkanswers.com and we can connect you with one of our experienced Bankruptcy Attorneys. After you have spoken with one of our bankruptcy attorneys we can schedule you a free face to face appointment in our office location nearest you. Our team of Bankruptcy Lawyers can assist you with all aspects of your case. If you are have questions about filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy, a chapter 11 bankruptcy, a chapter 13 bankruptcy, lien stripping, cram down, stopping a foreclosure or wage garnishment, discharging debt, etc. we can help! We have bankruptcy attorneys located throughout California who can assist your needs. Please feel free to complete our free bankrupcty evaluation and we can quickly determine if you are a qualified candidate for bankruptcy.

Fremont Bankruptcy Attorney Discusses Women Sentenced To Prison Time For Bankruptcy Fraud

A woman who concealed property when filing for bankruptcy has been sentenced to five months in prison. Kathy M. Bartels received her sentence last week after pleading guilty to knowing before filing for bankruptcy that she would be receiving property from her deceased father’s estate. She deposited a $20,875 distribution check into her bank account on April 28, 2003, but did not list the inheritance or trust interest when she filed her bankruptcy documents. Less than one month after depositing the check, she lied to a bankruptcy trustee while under oath, denying that she was going to receive any inheritance during the next six months. In August 2003, she received a $42,872 check—the life insurance payout from her father’s death. She deposited that money into another account.

Bartels has now admitted to withholding the information from the trustee on purpose. She says that she knew that she needed to disclose information about any inheritances she had received within the six months of filing for bankruptcy. She is being ordered to pay $40,497 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release after she serves her prison term.

The United States Department of Justice says that 10% of all bankruptcy petitions have some element of fraud. When filing for bankruptcy, all debtors are supposed to fully disclose all assets and liabilities. Unfortunately, however, not everyone does this, and the concealment of assets or lying during a bankruptcy proceeding is a cause of most bankruptcy fraud cases. When a debtor does not list all of his or her assets on a bankruptcy schedule, the crimes of false statement and concealment are committed.

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Monterey Bankruptcy Attorney Discusses Phony Attorney’s Bankruptcy Conviction Reversed By Ninth Circuit In California

The bankruptcy fraud conviction of John Milwitt, a California man who pretended to be an attorney and stole money from a number of tenants who were about to be evicted, has been reversed by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the panel, in a 2-1 ruling, even though prosecutors proved that Milwitt deliberately tried to defraud the renters, they were unable to prove that he intentionally defrauded the landlords, which is what he is charged with in the indictment.

Milwitt published a deceptive ad in a phone book, saying that he was with a company named “AP Assistance.” The advertisement attracted the attention of a number of tenants who needed help to defend themselves from unlawful detainer actions. According to witnesses, Milwitt convinced the tenants that he was a lawyer—even though he had never gone to law school—and he told the renters that they were legally allowed to withhold their rent from the landlords. The tenants paid him fees, in exchange for him appearing in court on their behalf. Milwitt would then list them in court documents has having appeared in pro per. He did not represent any of them in court, which led to default judgments in favor of the landlords. Milwhitt had given a mailbox at a public mail service as an address, and this made it impossible for the tenants to immediately find out that he had not appeared in court for them. He filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection for six of the renters—all of them claim that they did not know or even authorize the petitions, which named the six tenants’ landlords as creditors. Because of the petitions, automatic stays were immediately enacted. This prevented the landlords from collecting the rent owed to them.

Milwhitt, Under 18 U.S.C. Sec 157, was indicted on six counts of bankruptcy fraud. According to the indictment, "he fraudulently obstructed the creditors’ legal right to collect back rents, and repossess the properties” by filing the fake petitions. He was found guilty of five of those counts by a jury.

The Ninth Circuit overturned the conviction, saying that the specific intent to defraud the victim or victims—in this case, the landlords—was not identifiable.

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San Jose Bankruptcy Attorney Discusses Sacramento Woman Who Filed 13 Bankruptcies Pleads Guilty To Fraud

A California woman has pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud after filing 13 bankruptcies from July 1999 to January 2006. Martha Montoya, a Sacramento resident, sought bankruptcy protection so that she could delay the payments of past due rents and continue living in rental homes for free.

Prosecutors say that she took advantage of the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay provisions after her landlords acquired judgments against her for rents owed. The landlords had also won the right to evict her family. Because she was under bankruptcy protection, however, the landlords could not collect the past due rents, evict her, or execute the judgments.

When an individual or a company files for bankruptcy, an automatic stay stops actions against you filed by many creditors, including Nolo.com):

· Utility disconnections. If you're behind on a utility bill and the company is threatening to disconnect your water, electric, gas, or telephone service, the automatic stay will prevent the disconnection for at least 20 days. (Also, bankruptcy will probably discharge the past due debts for utility service.) Although the amount of a utility bill itself rarely justifies a bankruptcy filing, preventing electrical service cutoff in January in New England might be justification enough.

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