Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Process Server Pleads Guilty to Fraud, Faces 1-Year Prison Term

The owner of a Long Island process serving business that put thousands of New Yorkers at risk of default by failing to notify them that they had been sued pleaded guilty Friday to felony fraud, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Friday.

William Singler, the president of Lynbrook, N.Y.-based American Legal Process, will receive a jail term of one year for the Class E felony of first-degree scheme to defraud. [Read the criminal complaint (pdf).]

When Singler was arrested in April, his attorney, Corey Winograd of Winograd & Winograd in Manhattan, told the New York Law Journal that his client acknowledged that some of his process servers had not done their job, but claimed his client had not been aware of what was happening.

"He trusted those process servers," Winograd said last spring. "We now know today that some process servers breached that trust."


But in an appearance Friday before Acting Supreme Court Justice Alan L. Honorof of Nassau County, Singler admitted he had signed phony affidavits of service, swearing that court papers had been served on defendants in debt collection suits even though he knew many of his employees had broken the law.

Winograd, in an interview after the plea, said his client is
"taking responsibility for what occurred at his company and the actions of the many process servers who worked for American Legal Process, and he's looking forward to putting this episode behind him and moving on with his life."


As a result of Singler's fraud, many defendants had costly judgments entered against them, according to a statement by Cuomo.

Cuomo said Singler's crime
"impacted lives and caused financial hardship for thousands of New Yorkers,"
many of whom had their bank accounts frozen, their wages garnished and liens put on their homes.

Still pending is a civil action in Erie County against Singler and American Legal Process.

Filed in April, the suit, Cuomo v. Zmod Process Corp., dba American Legal Process, 4228-09, contends that between January 2007 and October 2008, Singler and American Legal Process
"persistently and repeatedly failed to serve New Yorkers in the manner prescribed by law, and have filed, or caused to be filed, thousands of false affidavits of service representing that service was proper."


During this time, there were 13,040 instances in which 55 servers reported they had attempted to deliver papers to a defendant before receiving the documents, according to the felony complaint against Singler.

And on 3,512 occasions, employees of American Legal Process claimed they tried to serve documents, but in fact they would have to have served different defendants in separate locations at the same time, Cuomo said.

Employees also claimed to have made process-serving attempts that would have required them to drive more than 10,000 miles in a single day.

In addition to the civil and criminal actions against Singler, Cuomo brought suit in July against dozens of law firms and two debt collectors seeking to vacate 100,000 defaults throughout New York.

Filed in Erie County Supreme Court on behalf of Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau, the suit seeks to vacate all default judgments where the only evidence that a defendant received service notifying him of being sued was based on an affidavit from American Legal Process, Pfau v. Foster & Garbus (pdf), 2009-8236.

The parties are working to resolve the case, according to a spokesman for the Unified Court System.

Under CPLR §308, servers must try to deliver papers three times before being allowed to mail a copy of the suit or "nail" a copy to a defendant's door.

Singler is due to be sentenced on March 24.

Meanwhile, in a separate federal case filed at the end of December, a group of civil rights advocates accused a network of debt collectors, including the law firm of Mel S. Harris and Associates, of civil racketeering, deceptive business practices, and violating federal debt collection law.

Sykes v. Harris and Associates, LLC, 09-civ-8486, was filed on behalf of a class of defaulting lawsuit defendants by the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, MFY Legal Services Inc. and the law firm of Emery Celi Brinckerhoff & Abady. The suit claims the defendants used fraudulent debt collection practices to obtain tens of thousands of default judgments against New York residents.

The defendants in the case could not be reached for comment.


Republished with License 01-20-2010 - ALM - Noeleen G.Walder

Monday, January 18, 2010

Electronic Service of Process - Much a-do about nothing?

Recently Robin Mullin's wrote a three part series on Electronic Service of Process. The series is well written and is a look at what electronic service of process is, the challenges that electronic service of process presents, as well as an in-depth view of how electronic service of process might impact our profession.

I strongly encourage anyone interested in the topic to visit his Blog. I am happy to see others who are passionate about the profession taking the time and effort to share their thoughts and concerns in an educational and meaningful way.

This issue is NOT "much a-do about nothing" like some within the process serving community would have you believe. It deserves our attention and it is my hope that articles like Robin's encourage and open, honest and robust discussion that has been missing for too long.

I really enjoyed Robin writing and observations and opinions. Keep up the good work Robin.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

William Singler Owner of American Legal Process Guilty of Fraud

Singler plead guilty 1-15-10 in Nassau County Supreme Court to one count of first degree scheme to defraud, a class E felony. He is expected to be sentenced on March 24.

Singler admitted that he knew some of his employees didn't properly serve court papers the company was hired to deliver.


Singler broke the law and then lied to cover it up,” said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. “It is not a victimless crime, but one that impacted lives and caused financial hardship for thousands of New Yorkers. Many had their bank accounts frozen, their wages garnished, and liens put on their homes, all because they were denied their day in court.”

It is being reported that he may get one year in jail. If true, I for one am outraged that someone that is responsible for such a terrible crime committed against thousands of people would only get a year in jail.

He single handedly tarnished the image of professional process servers around the world. I believe that the private process serving community needs to speak up and demand that he and all those that helped perpetrate the alledged crimes be held to account for their actions.  That includes the collection law firms that are alleged to have looked the other way when ALP claimed to have had such a high successful service rate.

Anyone in the collection food chain knows the type of results that ALP claimed to be achieving was impossible.

Full story http://bit.ly/5KSarS