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Ex-clients recount mortgage issues

By Jennifer Harr 5 min read

In mid-2006, George Dextras testified that he and his wife were served papers saying that their mortgage company, Vanderbilt, intended to foreclose on their Hopwood mobile home.

The problem was, Dextras testified Wednesday, the company was supposed to have been paid off to the tune of about $46,000 when he and his wife refinanced their home the year before.

The Dextras’ neighbors in the Hopwood Village development, Gloria and Bernard Rakoczy, refinanced their mobile home, too. And when they realized their old mortgage, about $53,000, hadn’t been paid off, Gloria Rakoczy testified she and her husband struggled to make two mortgage payments for several months to avoid the threat of foreclosure.

The state Attorney General’s office has charged that former attorney Mark F. Morrison, who handled closings for both couples, never satisfied their existing mortgages, instead keeping the money he was entrusted to disperse.

Morrison, who voluntarily resigned his law license after he was charged in 2006, is on trial this week in Fayette County Court on theft and related charges. The 53-year-old Hopwood man, a former district attorney and assistant prosecutor, has been brought to court by ambulance, and is in the courtroom on a gurney.

He has numerous medical problems that have left him bed-ridden, including an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection.

Both of the couples were made whole by the Client Security Fund, which all attorneys pay into. The fund is used in instances where there is alleged fraud.

George Dextras and Gloria Rakoczy, who testified on behalf of their spouses, each told jurors that their old mortgage companies reported that – after their settlement was complete and they started making payments to the new company – there were monthly payments made on the old mortgage.

Only both old mortgages for their mobile homes were to have been paid off when they refinanced their home and their land. The existing loan for the land was paid off in both cases, according to testimony.

George Dextras testified he and his wife, Donna, closed on their new mortgage in August 2005, and Gloria Rakoczy testified she and her husband closed on their new mortgage in December 2005.

But while George Dextras was able to get hold of Morrison when he discovered there were issues, Gloria Rakoczy testified she and her husband left messages, sent letters and stopped by his former law office on Route 40, but were unable to contact Morrison.

In early 2006, Gloria Rakoczy testified that she did speak to Morrison’s wife, Deborah.

“She said she was working on it that day and she’d take care of it,” Gloria Rakoczy testified.

In February 2006, Gloria Rakoczy testified she and her husband got a letter from Greentree, their former lender, confirming verbal authorization to debit a mortgage payment from a National City bank account. Gloria Rakoczy told jurors it wasn’t their account, and she believed Greentree had been paid off.

Gloria Rakoczy testified calls and voicemails went unanswered and unreturned. A certified letter to Morrison was never claimed, she testified.

A letter she sent by regular mail was never sent back, Gloria Rakoczy said.

In it, she wrote to Morrison that she and her husband had “trusted you completely to complete this transaction.”

As a result of his mortgage going unpaid, George Dextras testified he had American Express and Sears credit cards cancelled. When he bought a new vehicle, it also impacted him because his bad credit garnered him a higher interest rate, he testified.

Jurors also heard testimony from Elizabeth Collins, who formerly worked for Creative Homes, a third-party mortgage broker who matched the Dextras and the Rakoczys up with lenders for their refinanced loans.

Collins said that Creative Homes usually used a specific settlement agent, but in both cases, could not.

George Dextras, she testified, suggested Morrison.

“He said he knew of Mark Morrison, he was a pillar of the community and in the (district attorney’s) office,” Collins testified.

She testified that the Rakoczys followed suit, using Morrison’s services.

Collins testified that she became concerned when it too a long time – more than two months in the Rakoczys’ case – for Morrison’s office to release funds to Creative Homes for their part in brokering the loan.

State Deputy Attorney L. Todd Goodwin asked Collins who she talked to when she questioned where the money was. Collins testified she talked to both Morrison and his wife, but said it was clear that Mark Morrison was in charge.

“(Deborah Morrison) would say ‘I have to ask Mark.’ We knew Mark was the brain, the mind master of the operation. He was a (district attorney),” Collins testified.

Evan Zanic, senior vice president for First American Title Insurance Co., testified the company never issued title insurance for either couple – though there were documents that indicated the company had.

Zanic testified that the company’s letterhead was wrong, and the address listed was wrong as well.

Title insurance ensures that a property is free and clear of liens or loans – aside from the mortgage for which it is needed.

When he ran the Dextras’ policy number, Zanic testified he saw that it was associated with another case in which Morrison was involved.

Tracy Chipoletti, vice president and operations manager of First American Co., testified that signatures on the title insurance bore the name “Shirley Chipoletti,” and there was no one in the company by that name.

Under questioning from Morrison’s attorney, R. Bruce Manchester of Centre County, Chipoletti testified that she did not know who signed the name.

Jurors will return this morning to hear additional testimony in the case before Judge Steve P. Leskinen.

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