Dec 7, 2006 By Jennifer Harr 4 min read

Charges of theft, forgery and other related counts lodged against Mark F. Morrison were held for Fayette County Court after a three-hour preliminary hearing on the matter Wednesday. Morrison, 49, was charged with stealing nearly $100,000 from two clients who used his legal services to conduct closings on mortgage loans. Morrison was a longtime attorney in the county until late last month when his resignation from the Pennsylvania Bar Association was accepted.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

George Dextras of Hopwood testified that Morrison conducted a closing for a loan that consolidated separate mortgages for both his double-wide mobile home and the lot upon which it sits. Dextras said he and his wife, Donna, went to Morrison’s Hopwood office in August 2005 to close on the $82,000 loan that was to pay off both.

The lot was paid off, but Dextras testified he realized something was amiss when he continued to get correspondence from the company that held the first mortgage on his mobile home. He said the amount that should have been paid to that first mortgage company was about $46,000 – but testified that balance never was satisfied.

But by July 2006, Dextras testified he found out that the original mortgage had not been satisfied and the loan company was threatening to foreclose on the home he and his wife retired to seven years earlier.

Gloria Rakoczy testified similarly that Morrison was the closing attorney in the consolidated mortgages of the double-wide mobile home and lot where she and her husband, Bernard, live in Hopwood.

They settled in late December 2005, and the lot was paid off. Rakoczy testified that just more than $53,000 should have been paid to satisfy the first mortgage on the home.

Rakoczy testified that because the first mortgage was not paid, she and her husband have been making double mortgage payments to cover both the $53,000 existing loan and the $77,000 consolidation loan.

Both Dextras and Rakoczy testified they tried several times to get in touch with Morrison, but could not. Dextras testified he went to District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon seeking her help, and she referred him to the state Attorney General’s office because Morrison had been employed as a prosecutor.

Both he and the Rakoczys eventually went to Uniontown attorney Wayne Port, who filed civil suits on their behalves trying to recoup the money.

“I want this resolved so I don’t lose my home,” Dextras testified.

They each also testified that several payments were made on their initial home loans before they realized that the entire loan was not paid off. Although they suspected Morrison was responsible, both testified they could not say for certain who made the payments.

Evan Zanic, the regional vice president of First American Title Insurance Co., testified that title insurance documents associated with both closings did not come from First American. Zanic also testified he believed they were forged because the heading was different, the wording was changed and the signature on the bottom belonged to a woman who did not work for the company or its affiliates.

“It is clearly a bad forgery. Not even close,” Zanic testified.

Although First American at one time listed Morrison as an approved attorney, Zanic testified that Morrison never requested title insurance from the company on behalf of either the Dextras or the Rakoczys.

First American also has filed suit against Morrison, his wife and secretary, Deborah Morrison, and their law office.

Agent Gregory Smith, who filed the charges, testified he executed search warrants to access Morrison’s bank records. In examining the records, he testified that there were payments made in the amount of the Dextras’ and the Rakoczys’ loans.

He also testified that agents served a search warrant on Morrison’s law office earlier this year. During that warrant, Smith testified that Morrison was asked to provide handwriting samples. Morrison had provided about 20 exemplars – but none were sent away for testing against the alleged forged documents, according to an anonymous source.

At the close of the hearing, Morrison’s attorney, Bruce Manchester, argued there was no probable cause to show that Morrison committed the alleged thefts.

“These papers (closing documents) pass through multiple hands and multiple places at multiple times,” Manchester argued to Magisterial District Judge Wendy Dennis.

He said that prosecutors’ suspicions do not play into whether criminal charges are warranted.

Deputy Attorney General L. Todd Goodwin, however, argued that connecting the dots brings the buck back to Morrison.

“It’s the defendant’s office, it’s the defendant who is responsible for this,” Goodwin said.

While he acknowledged that there was not admission or confession, Goodwin maintained that the closing documents submitted on behalf of the Dextras and the Rakoczys “are fraudulent the whole way through.”