Foreclosure Rescue Operator Gets 60 Days In Jail Amid Ongoing SC AG Suit Alleging UTP Act Violation & Criminal Probe Into Unauthorized Practice Of Law

In Horry County, South Carolina, The Horry Independent reports:

• A Lexington, N.C., man, who is listed as a defendant in more than 40 mortgage foreclosures in Horry County court, was sent to jail recently on contempt of court charges. Horry County jail logs show Robert Steve Jolly, 59, was still in jail [Wednesday] morning, two weeks into his 60-day sentence. Jolly was in Horry County court for a hearing recently that covered several topics.

• The S.C. Attorney General’s Office has filed a civil suit against Jolly,(1) asking a circuit judge to stop him from preying on people who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments. Also, according to Horry County court documents, Circuit Judge Michael Baxley summoned Jolly to court at the same time on a Notice of Hearing and Rule to Show Cause. According to the document, the purpose of that hearing was to take testimony and hear argument on whether Jolly or anyone acting on behalf of Robert Jolly & Associates should be dismissed from all presently pending cases before the court as a result of allegations of the unauthorized practice of law and/or taking of action to undermine the administration and interest of justice.

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• Mark Plowden, spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, said the investigation began on the civil side, not the criminal side. “Now this office has a two-pronged attack against Jolly. There are these civil proceedings that you see before you, but there’s also a parallel criminal investigation ... The criminal investigation will be into unauthorized practice of law,” Plowden said, adding that the criminal investigation is not as far along as the civil one.

For more, see State Attorney General mounts fight for distressed borrowers.

Go here and Go here for other posts on issues relating to foreclosure rescue activities and the unlicensed/unauthorized practice of law.

(1) The story reports that the Attorney General’s Office claims Jolly has violated the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act, and that, according to the lawsuit, Jolly began seeking out financially distressed South Carolina homeowners and titleholders to real property in March of 2007, offering to help them avoid foreclosure of their homes. Jolly encouraged homeowners to give his company a quitclaim deed, or a similar document, giving him rights to their property, according to the lawsuit. In exchange, he promised to pay off their mortgages and, in turn, they agreed to make monthly payments to Jolly & Associates to pay down their debt, according to the lawsuit. The idea was to keep homeowners from facing foreclosure. The lawsuit claims that Jolly is neither a real estate agent nor a lawyer licensed in the state of South Carolina; and that Jolly received payments from the homeowners, but didn’t pay their rightful mortgage companies, which actually put the homeowners farther behind in their payments than they already were.

In a case with a similar fact pattern (see Ohio Man Guilty Of 26 Counts In Foreclosure Rescue, Rent Skimming Scam; Allegedly Conned 14 Homeowners Into Belief He Would Renegotiate Home Loans), Licking County, Ohio prosecutors obtained guilty verdicts last November against a foreclosure rescue operator who allegedly deceived homeowners into signing over deeds to their homes on the premise that he would negotiate with their mortgage companies to avoid defaulting on their home debts while collecting rent thereon. He allegedly failed to make the mortgage payments while pocketing the collected rent, allowing homes to go into foreclosure. He was reportedly convicted of nine counts of grand theft, 13 counts of securing writings by deception and four counts of theft. UnauthPractOfLawTheta