Wednesday, February 16, 2011

JPMorgan Faces Texas Sheriff in Showdown Over Eviction Case Fees

A JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch in El Paso, Texas, may have furniture and computers seized by the sheriff unless the bank complies with a judge’s order to pay the legal bills of a single mother whose eviction case he dismissed.


The manager of the Chase branch was served on Jan. 26 with court papers that instructed the New York-based company to pay attorney Richard A. Roman’s $5,000 in fees, according to Detective Hector Lara, an El Paso County sheriff’s officer. The manager, Jose Gomez, told Lara that the branch’s gear is protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and that he would contact the bank’s security staff and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lara said today in a telephone interview.

Lara said he’s waiting for an opinion from the county attorney on whether the bank’s property can be seized.

“They don’t have a problem putting my client out in the street,” Roman said. “But when somebody prevails against a bank, they pull every string in the book to avoid paying.”

Read on.

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