Schack Blisters F'closing Bankster For Invoking "Absurd" "Pontius Pilate/Sgt. Schultz Defense" After Being Nailed For Submitting Robosigned Court Docs
In Brooklyn, New York, the New York Daily News reports:
A Brooklyn judge ridiculed HSBC's "know nothing" defense for filing a false document in a foreclosure case and slapped the bank with the maximum $10,000 penalty. “HSBC sounds like ... Sgt. Schultz in the classic 1960s television comedy, 'Hogan's Heroes,'" Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack wrote in a Dec. 22 decision made public Wednesday.- "The inept Sgt. Hans Schultz ... would feign ignorance about the escapades of his Allied prisoners by telling his commandant, Col. Klink, 'I know nothing! Nothing!'"(1)
- HSBC had incurred Schack's wrath earlier this year when he caught its lawyers submitting documents filed by “robo-signers" purporting to work for the bank who were were actually employed by a loan servicing firm.
- Bank officials and their lawyers are required to review and verify the accuracy of filings in foreclosure cases under regulations issued by state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman. Later, a bank senior vice president submitted a sworn affidavit claiming HSBC had no knowledge of the mortgage in question and blamed the fiasco on the loan servicer.
- But Schack, whose blistering and colorful opinions from the bench have made him a folk hero for financially troubled homeowners — said HSBC is responsible for the actions of its agents. The ticked-off judge also docked the bank's Rochester-based law firm $5,000 for its conduct in the matter, according to court papers.
- The judge had ordered HSBC President and CEO Irene Dorner to appear at a hearing last July, but she blew it off. "She was missing in action, demonstrating her personal contempt for the Supreme Court of the State of New York," Schack fumed.
- A representative for the law firm Shapiro DiCaro & Barak said it is appealing Schack's decision. Bank spokesman Neil Brazil said HSBC neither serviced the loan nor “prepared nor filed any of the underlying legal documents presented to the court.”
- The tumult stemmed from homeowner Ellen Taher's delinquent mortgage on her Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, residence.
For the ruling, see HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v Taher, 2011 NY Slip Op 52317(U) (NY Sup. Ct., Kings County, December 22, 2011, Schack, J.).
(1) In hammering the foreclosing bankster, Justice Schack made these comments:
- Further, as indicated by the Musarra affidavit and the Michael Ware Memorandum of Law, HSBC sounds like a combination of Pontius Pilate and Sergeant Schultz in the classic 1960's television comedy, Hogan's Heroes.
HSBC washes its hands of any responsibility and places any blame upon OCWEN, its servicer for the TAHER mortgage. To paraphrase Matthew 27:24, in the New Testament, "when HSBC saw that it could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, it took water, and washed its hands before the multitude, saying, 'I am innocent of responsibility and should not be sanctioned.'"
John Banner, the actor who played the inept Sergeant Hans Schultz, a guard in World War II's Stalag 13, would feign ignorance about the escapades of his Allied prisoners by telling his commandant, Colonel Klink, "I know nothing! Nothing!"
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- Moreover, HSBC's Pontius Pilate/Sergeant Schultz defense is absurd. The case caption states that HSBC is the plaintiff, not OCWEN. If HSBC has its name on the caption, it can't claim ignorance. HSBC as plaintiff is responsible for the actions of its agents, such as OCWEN.
Mr. Ware's claim that "neither HSBC not Dorner was in any practical position to control the prosecution of this action" is ludicrous. This does not absolve HSBC of its corporate sins. If HSBC is a ship, Ms. Dorner is the Captain and responsible for both the good and the bad. However, in the instant action, HSBC appears to be the RMS Titanic. Ms. Dorner, unlike Captain Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic, did not go down with the ship after it struck an iceberg.
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