UPDATE, MAY 31, 2:40 P.M.: San Diego attorney Michael T. Pines, who advised a 72-year-old client to break into a Newport Coast home he had been foreclosed out of–and invited the media and the bank trustee to watch the spectacle– faces charges that could have him spending a year behind bars.
The same counts and possible sentence face the former homeowner, who joined Pines in surrendering to the court on arrest warrants this morning.
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Pines, 59, and Rene Hector Zepeda of Newport Beach face one misdemeanor count each of vandalism,
second degree burglary, and the unauthorized entry of a dwelling. Pines
faces an additional misdemeanor count for resisting and obstructing an
officer.
Besides jail time, each defendant could be slapped with up to $10,000 in fines.
Zepeda lost his home at 19 Coral Cay, Newport Coast, to foreclosure in July 2009.
“Without making any attempt to undo the foreclosure or file any case to
prove the foreclosure was defective, Pines is accused of incorrectly
advising Zepeda that the foreclosure was illegal,” reads a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA). “Pines is accused of
instructing Zepeda to break in and physically repossess the home.
“Pines is accused of then contacting the media and a real estate agent
hired by the bank as trustee for the foreclosed home and informing them
that Pines and Zepeda would be taking possession of the home on Oct. 13,
2010. The agent contacted the Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD),
who investigated this case.”
Pines, Zepeda and a locksmith arrived at the home that day, as did Newport Beach cops, who advised the trio they would be arrested if they illegally entered the property. With reporters watching, Pines told Zepeda to
ignore the officers' warning and break into the home. Zepeda then broke a window to gain entry before he and Pines were arrested, cited and
released.
Pines, whose license to practice law was suspended earlier this month, also
faces criminal charges in separate cases in Ventura and San Diego
counties.
ORIGINAL POST, MARCH 16, 8:59 A.M.: My colleague R. Scott Moxley in November shared the story of “The Real Squatters of OC,” a couple who moved into a foreclosed, gate-guarded Newport Coast home without permission. The Duncans worked through a Newport Beach attorney to stay inside as long as they could–before eventually getting arrested, as an update to that cover feature disclosed.
Now, a different attorney is facing disbarment proceedings for advising clients to break into foreclosed homes and start living there again, including a 72-year-old man who was arrested in October after using a hammer to smash a window of his former five-bedroom, 4,400-square-foot home in Crystal Cove.
Metropolitan News Service has the scoop.
Attorney Michael T. Pines, 59, of Carlsbad, “has shown
complete disrespect for the law, the courts and especially the best interests
of his clients,” which necessitates his removal from active practice, according to the State Bar's Chief Trial Counsel
James Towery.
Pines has maintained foreclosures are illegal, so his clients have a
right to repossession since they are still the legal owners of the homes. But, after reviewing their cases, the bar's Deputy Trial Counsel Brooke Schafer concluded Pines' clients in Corona del Mar, Carlsbad and Simi Valley did not have a legal right to move back into their foreclosed homes.
“He is harming both his
clients and the public by advising clients to take the law into their own
hands, and he uses his law license as a weapon,” Schafer wrote in documents supporting disbarment. “By his behavior, actions and
freely offered statements, he is a clear–and ongoing–danger both to his clients
and to the public.”
Pines gave police warning of what his client was about to do outside the Crystal Cove abode before spending five hours keeping “approximately seven police officers and an assistant city attorney wrapped up
in his media circus,” Schafer added.
The attorney was cited for contempt as well as criminally cited three times in
less than a week, according to the bar.
This is, of course, unfamiliar territory for the State Bar, which generally protects its own. But in this instance, just think of how many of its attorneys own properties and represent those doing the foreclosing.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.