Creative stock photo, blog post by John Hoff
Just to briefly recap a rather complex story, here...
John Foster, the mild-mannered delivery truck driver whose identity was stolen as part of a mortgage fraud at 1564 Hillside Ave. N. won a judgment of $849,000 and change, a development this blogger reported with considerable glee back in March.
The other side didn't even show up in court to fight the lawsuit, apparently deciding a "head in the sand like the myths about ostriches" defense was in their best bet. Despite not showing up to fight the lawsuit (though mortgage fraud participant Trent Bowman was apparently in the court room as a spectator) one of the defendants filed an appeal after the district court judgment. This blog has characterized the appeal as a "too little, too late" eleventh hour attempt.
Now there has been a ruling from the State Court of Appeals in regard to the "too little, too late" appeal attempt. Click here for a copy of their recent ruling, which must surely be fair because it is bound to make both sides rather unhappy...
First of all, the court is allowing these "too little, too late" appellants to appeal. HOWEVER, the court goes out of its way to note the rather limited grounds upon which an appeal can be made from default judgment.
Basically, there would have to be some kind of science fiction, ruling-pulled-from-a-judge's-ass, crazy as a March hare, helter-skelter ruling in the courts below. That didn't happen here but, well, defendants will have their chance to argue that it did.
Secondly, the court denies a motion by mortgage fraud victims (and successful litigants) John Foster and Melony Michaels to have the defendant post a bond equal to the size of the judgment. This would, undoubtedly, make collection much easier once all the appeals are cleared away. It was worth a shot, but it didn't work.
So that's zero for two for John and Melony.
HOWEVER...
The court ruled the $849,000 judgment could be enforced while the appeal proceeds. This will, no doubt, involve looking for leprechaun gold in big iron pots hidden under rocks.
The defendants have until July 29 to file their appeal.
I can hardly wait to see what they cough up. You ask me, they're just trying to buy time while figuring out how to hide assets.
In the meantime, word comes that due to prison overcrowding, Larry Maxwell is sitting in jail down in Steele County. More on THAT later.
Only John Foster now? Why don't you mention Melony Michaels anymore? She has become known as just his wife on this blog. Why?
ReplyDeleteWell, you're just wrong. Look where the blog post uses the phrase "successful litigants" and lists the names of both John Foster and Melony Michaels.
ReplyDeleteBTW, it's not a default judgement. It was a trial and we won. They notified the Judge they had given documentation and were choosing not to come to trial. The trial proceeded and we won by verdict and not default judgment. They were just so arrogant that they expected us to lose. They were shocked when we won.
ReplyDeleteAlso, thank you to anonymous for caring to see my name as much as possible. This has been a full time job with much frustration and little reward but what I am doing will help many, many people behind us. These 7 years will benefit others more than us no doubt but stopping at any point without setting precedents and putting protections in place for victims of ID theft like this would not be an option for me. My husband has to be gone all business hours so it has to be me alone to fight for both of us and thousands of future victims.
Johnny Northside has been incredible keeping the story in front of the public and we thank him for that.
Thanks for the sweet concern for my acknowledgement though!!