Attorney Barry Cohen faces real estate setbacks
22.05.12
It appears Barry Cohen, one of Tampa's permissible giants, hasn't done as well in real estate as in high-profile court cases.
The mobster defense lawyer is facing foreclosure on a Redington Shores condo and has irremediable millions on a Tierra Verde mansion, which he handed back to the bank last year.
Cohen acknowledges his Tampa law unalterable consolidate has hired a financial adviser to tackle some cash flow issues, but he insists it is flying gamy and expects to collect millions in fees from pending cases.
"In a firm like us, you go way up and then you have valleys," Cohen said. "You have to validate yourself during those valleys."
Cohen may be the Tampa Bay area's best-known defense lawyer. His inelastic, Cohen and Foster, represented former University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt, who was fired by the university. It handled the divisive specimen of Jennifer Porter, a former school teacher who fled an accident that left two children inert.
Pinellas County Clerk of Court records show Wells Fargo bank filed a foreclosure for against Cohen in August. The bank is seeking to foreclose a mortgage on a Redington Shores condo appraised at about $387,000.
An attorney representing Cohen, Leon Williamson, suggested the foreclosure is a mix-up. Cohen made mortgage payments, but a throng servicing the mortgage failed to apply them to the account and referred the case to a foreclosure barrister.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman did not have information on Cohen's case Thursday.
Another defendant in the condo foreclosure is Brandon physician Gregory Henderson, who is busy to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Henderson gave Cohen a personal lend of $250,000, and Cohen gave Henderson a lien on the Redington Shores condo, Cohen said.
Adding to his actual estate woes, Pinellas County records show he handed over his beachfront Tierra Verde mansion to an individual affiliated with the Bank of Tampa last December in a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Cohen bought it in 2000 for about $1.7 million, county records show, but said he put as much as $10 million into the quiddity over the years.
He let the property go because he was making $20,000 in monthly payments on a home that had destroyed much in value.
Williamson didn't know whether Cohen's Tierra Verde refuge mortgage was distressed or in default. He said Bank of Tampa made special arrangements with Cohen because it valued him as a character.
The bank agreed to pay off Cohen's first mortgage on the home, take title to it, finish renovations and Stock Exchange it for sale.
Cohen and his wife are entitled to receive surplus proceeds from the knowledgeable in's sale, Williamson said. A Bank of Tampa representative would not comment Thursday.
Cohen suggested his enemies are behind prattle circulating about his law firm.
Cohen said he gets legal fees from settlements and verdicts, rather than hourly billing, which can originate cash flow problems while he waits for payment. In the past, he tapped into loans from banks and investment funds to aid pay bills but some of those sources have stopped lending to lawyers.
Source: Tbo.com
Clearwater attorney is suspended for involvement in agent's dubious real ...
22.05.12
Tampa condo P Alejandro Salazar was surprised to learn that Clearwater lawyer Bruce Harlan was representing him in a foreclosure circumstance.
Surprised because Salazar never met Harlan, didn't hire him and didn't even want the condo. But someone else did — Lori Polin, a intrinsic estate agent with a checkered past who paid Harlan $1,500 to put on ice the foreclosure because she hoped to buy Salazar's condo in a short sale.
Because of Harlan's actions in the dispute, the Florida Supreme Court this month suspended him from practicing law for 90 days starting in mid December.
"Even if Mr. Harlan had large intentions, his clients, Mr. Salazar and Ms. Polin, had adverse interests and Mr. Harlan was representing both of them at the same stretch,'' the Florida Bar said in finding Harlan guilty of a conflict of interest.
The bizarre trammel of events started in 2007 when Salazar's architectural design business foundered and he and his old lady moved to her native Spain, defaulting on their mortgage and condo maintenance fees. The Westchase Community League took title to the condo and deeded the unit to Polin after she paid the back fees.
At the age, Polin was about to go into foreclosure on her own Westchase condo. She moved into the Salazars' unit and rented out hers, collecting more than $14,000 in rip, but not making payments on either property. Instead, Polin hired Harlan to vacillate the foreclosure on the Salazars' condo while she negotiated with the bank to buy it for far less than the $137,000 the couple then owed.
When Salazar returned to Tampa for a descend upon in 2009, he called the bank to see why its foreclosure suit had dragged on for so long with steadily mounting fees.
"Because,'' the bank told him, "your attorney has been fighting us for a year.''
Salazar pieced together what happened and complained to the Bar.
Harlan said Monday that he took the occasion because he thought he was helping both sides. "It seemed like a good deal all the way around,'' he said, because a short sale would have enabled Polin to buy the condo at a reduced price while sparing the Salazars from having a foreclosure on their creditation history.
"The Bar treated me very fairly,'' Harlan said of his three-month denial. A Florida lawyer since 1972, he was put on a year's probation in 2007 for violating Bar rules in another action by failing to keep clients' funds separate from his own.
Salazar could not be reached for comment. Last vault, Deutsche Bank got a final judgment of foreclosure against him that had swelled to nearly $190,000 with interest and judiciary fees.
Polin, a former top-producing agent for Re/Max, became a controversial figure in Tampa Bay real mansion circles in 2007 as the market began to sour. As the St. Petersburg Times reported, an anonymous correspondence literature sent to Re/Max's Denver headquarters alleged that she "artificially inflated" the prices of several homes in Tampa and North Pinellas so the buyers could get larger loans.
Most of the houses were mortgaged for more than the physical sales price, with the buyer or a third party skimming off thousands of dollars in credit proceeds.
In 2008, Polin's name surfaced in a civil suit filed by Florida's attorney across the board against 25 companies and individuals accused of pocketing more than $6 million by fraudulently obtaining mortgages on at least 60 houses, most of which later went into foreclosure.
The lawsuit, said at the then to be the biggest mortgage fraud case ever filed in the United States, remains agape.
Polin was not named as a defendant because real estate agents are exempt from the Untruthful and Unfair Trade Practices Act, under which the others were sued. However, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Modification says it has an "active'' case involving Polin.
Polin, who changed her name to Lori Weber, is now an ingredient in New York City with Rutenberg Realty. Reached by phone Monday, Polin said, "I have no remark on for you'' and hung up.
Susan Taylor Martin can be reached at susan@sptimes.com.
Source: Tampabay.com
