The judge wasted no time in his response and ruling.
“Objection to the witness is overruled. We will now bring in the jury.”
Once the jury was in place and Aronson was in the witness’s seat, I proceeded with my direct examination, starting with a clarification of why she was the defense expert on the foreclosure of Lisa Trammel’s home.
“Now Ms. Aronson, you were not counsel of record on the Trammel foreclosure, were you?”
“No, I was associate counsel to you.”
I nodded.
“As such, you really did all the work while my name was on the pleadings, correct?”
“Yes, correct. Most of the documents in the foreclosure file were prepared by me. I was intimately involved in the case.”
“Such is the life of a first-year associate, correct?”
“I guess so.”
We shared a smile. From there I walked her step by step through the foreclosure proceedings. I don’t ever say you have to talk down to a jury but you do have to talk in ways that are universally understandable. From stockbrokers to soccer moms, there are twelve minds on the jury and they’ve all been marinated in different life experiences. You have to tell them all the same story. And you only get one chance. That’s the trick. Twelve minds, one story. It’s got to be a story that speaks to each of them.
Once I established the financial and legal issues my client was facing, I moved on to how the game was played by WestLand and its representative, ALOFT.
“So when you were given the file on this matter, what was the first thing you did?”
“Well, you had told me to make a practice of checking all the dates and details. You said to make sure with every case that the petitioner actually has standing, meaning that we needed to make sure that the institution making the claim of foreclosure actually had standing to make such a claim.”
“But wouldn’t that have been obvious in this case since the Trammels had been making mortgage payments to WestLand for almost four years before their financial difficulties changed things?”
“Not necessarily, because what we were finding was that the mortgage business exploded in the middle of the decade. So many mortgages were made and then repackaged and resold that in many instances the conveyances were never completed. It didn’t really matter in this case who the Trammels made their mortgage payments to. What mattered was what entity legitimately held the mortgage.”
“Okay, so what did you find when you checked dates and details on the Trammel foreclosure?”
Freeman objected again on relevance and she was again overruled. I didn’t need to ask Aronson the question again.
“When I reviewed the dates and details I found discrepancies and indications of fraud.”
“Can you describe these indications?”
“Yes. There was irrefutable evidence that conveyance documents were forged, giving WestLand false standing to seek the foreclosure.”
“Do you have those documents, Ms. Aronson?”
“Yes, I do and we are able to display them in our PowerPoint presentation.”
“Please do.”
Aronson opened a laptop on the shelf in front of her and started the program. The document in question appeared on the overhead screens and I sought further explanation from Aronson.
“What are we looking at here, Ms. Aronson?”
“If I could explain, six years ago Lisa and Jeff Trammel bought their house, obtaining a mortgage through a broker called CityPro Home Loans. CityPro then grouped their mortgage in a portfolio with fifty-nine other mortgages of similar value. The entire portfolio was bought by WestLand. It was up to WestLand at that point to make sure the mortgage for each of those properties was properly conveyed through legal documentation to the bank. But that never happened. The assignment of mortgage in the case of the Trammel home was not done.”
“How do you know that? Isn’t this the conveyance right here in front of us?”
I stepped out from behind the lectern and gestured toward the overhead screens.
Aronson continued. “This document purports to be the assignment of mortgage but if you go to the last page…”
She hit the down arrow button on her computer and flipped through the document to the final page. It was the signing page, with the signatures of an officer of the bank and a notary as well as the notary’s required state seal.
“Two things here,” Aronson said. “According to the notarization you see that the document was purportedly signed on March sixth, two thousand seven. This would have been shortly after WestLand bought the mortgage portfolio from CityPro. The signing officer listed here is Michelle Monet. We have so far been unable to find a Michelle Monet who is or was an employee of WestLand National in any capacity at any bank branch or location. The second issue is if you look at the notary seal the expiration date is clearly seen here as two thousand fourteen.”
She stopped there, just as we had rehearsed, as if the fraud involving the notary seal was obvious to all. I held a long moment as if waiting for more.
“Okay, what’s wrong with the expiration being two thousand fourteen?”
“In the state of California notary licenses are awarded for five years. This would mean that this notary’s seal was issued in two thousand nine, yet the date being notarized on this document is March sixth, two thousand seven. This notary seal had not been issued in two thousand seven. This means that this document was created to falsely convey the mortgage note on the Trammel property to WestLand National.”
I stepped back to the lectern to check my notes and let Aronson’s testimony float in front of the jury a little longer. I stole a quick glance at the box and noticed several of the jurors were still staring up at the screens. This was good.
“So what did this tell you when you discovered this fraud?”
“That we could challenge WestLand’s right to foreclose on the Trammel property. WestLand was not the legitimate holder of the mortgage. It still remained with CityPro.”
“Did you inform Lisa Trammel of this discovery?”
“On December seventeenth of last year we had a client meeting which was attended by Lisa, you and myself. She was informed then that we had clear and convincing evidence of fraud in the foreclosure filing. We also told her that we would use the evidence as leverage to negotiate a positive outcome to her situation.”
“How did she react to this?”
Freeman objected, saying I was asking a question requiring a hearsay answer. I argued that I was allowed to establish the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the murder. The judge agreed and Aronson was allowed to answer.
“She was very happy and positive. She said it was an early Christmas present, knowing that she wasn’t going to lose her house anytime soon.”
“Thank you. Now did there come a time when you wrote a letter to WestLand National for my signature?”
“Yes, I wrote a letter for your signature that outlined these findings of fraud. It was addressed to Mitchell Bondurant.”
“And what was the purpose of this letter?”
“This was part of the negotiation we told Lisa Trammel about. The idea was to inform Mr. Bondurant of what ALOFT was doing in the bank’s name. We believed that if Mr. Bondurant was concerned about the bank’s exposure on this, it would help facilitate a negotiation beneficial to our client.”
“When you wrote that letter for my signature, did you know or intend that Mr. Bondurant would forward it to Louis Opparizio at ALOFT?”
“No, I did not.”
“Thank you, Ms. Aronson. I have no further questions.”
The judge called for the morning break and Aronson took the defendant’s seat when Lisa and Herb Dahl left to stretch their legs in the hallway.