Wells Fargo Typo Victim Dies in Court

[frigidmagi]

LAweekly

On the morning of Dec. 19, 2012, in a Torrance courtroom, Larry Delassus' heart stopped as he watched his attorney argue his negligence and discrimination case against banking behemoth Wells Fargo.

His death came more than two years after Wells Fargo mistakenly mixed up his Hermosa Beach address with that of a neighbor in the same condo complex. The bank's typo led Wells Fargo to demand that Delassus pay $13,361.90 ­— two years of late property taxes the bank said it had paid on his behalf in order to keep his Wells Fargo mortgage afloat.

But Delassus, a quiet man who suffered from the rare blood-clot disorder Budd-Chiari syndrome and was often hospitalized, didn't owe a penny in taxes.

One of his neighbors, whose condo "parcel number" was two digits different from Delassus', owed the back taxes.

In a series of painfully tragic events, Wells Fargo relied on its typographical error to double Delassus' mortgage — from $1,237.69 to $2,429.13 — as its way of recouping the $13,361.90 in taxes Delassus didn't owe. Delassus, a retiree living on a $1,655 check, couldn't meet the mysteriously increased mortgage. He stopped paying, and soon was far behind on his mortgage.

Delassus and his attorney did not discover until May 2010 that a mis-entered number had dragged Delassus into this spiral. As court documents obtained by L.A. Weekly show, after admitting its error, Wells Fargo foreclosed on Delassus anyway and sold his condo.

Delassus had to move to a tiny apartment in an assisted-living home in Carson.

Friends say he didn't die of heart disease that day in court, as the coroner found. He was, they believe, killed by a system so inhumane that it could not undo a devastating piece of red tape the system itself created.

"He was very sensitive," says close friend Debbie Popovich, 59. "He was a very good person. He was kind of shy, and he had a really good sense of humor — really, he was a very simple guy who just liked to work and do his thing."

In 1995, Delassus bought condo No. 105 at 320 Hermosa Beach Ave. The building, a white-stucco affair with blue trim, on a busy road with a grassy divider, is unremarkable, but a view of the Pacific glints in through the beach-facing windows.

A neighbor, who gave her name only as Kelly, says Delassus participated in the homeowners association and helped around the complex. But the Navy veteran from St. Louis often was sick from Budd-Chiari syndrome, which made simple tasks difficult and could cause mental confusion.

"Larry loved his home," Kelly says. "He wanted to die in that house."

Delassus got the first odd letter from Wells Fargo on Jan. 29, 2009. It informed him that Wells' tax service provider, First American Real Estate Tax Service, "reported delinquent taxes for the property located at: 320 Hermosa Beach Avenue 105."

Delassus, told that he owed taxes of $13,361.90 for 2007 and '08, was baffled. His attorney Anthony Trujillo, a friend and next-door neighbor, says Delassus was actually six months ahead on his taxes, which he paid directly to L.A. County.

On March 9, 2009, according to court documents, the bank informed Delassus that it was doubling his monthly mortgage payment to $2,429.13 to recoup the $13,361.90 in taxes.

"He came to me and told me what was going on" a couple of months later, Trujillo says. At that point, neither man knew that a bank typo was to blame. In December 2009, Wells Fargo notified Delassus that it intended to foreclose.

Then in May 2010, Trujillo discovered the erroneous fine print in Wells Fargo's original 2009 letter to Delassus — the "parcel number" off by two digits and belonging to somebody else.

In court documents later, Wells Fargo attorney Robert Bailey of Anglin Flewelling Rasmussen Campbell & Trytten LLP admitted the bank's mistake: "Wells Fargo paid the amount it determined was owed to the County Assessor: approximately $10,500. This was a mistake. The $10,500 was the tax amount owed on a neighboring property, not Plaintiff's." (Bailey did not address the discrepancy between $13,361 and $10,500.)

Bailey added: "In September, 2010 Wells Fargo acknowledged its error in paying the taxes on Plaintiff's neighbor's property and corrected it." By then, however, Delassus was so far behind on his mortgage payments wrongly doubled by Wells Fargo that the bank refused to let him resume his $1,237.69 installments, Trujillo says. He faced a sizable "reinstatement" cost — which is often the past due amount plus fees.

In an unsettling new twist, Delassus couldn't get Wells Fargo to tell him how much his reinstatement cost was. Later, in a videotaped deposition, Trujillo asks Michael Dolan, a litigation-support manager for Wells Fargo: "So Plaintiff was never provided with the reinstatement amount after the bank discovered its error, correct?"

Dolan responds, "That is correct."

Delassus and Trujillo — who is a business litigator but not a mortgage attorney — could have sought help from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or from the Comptroller of the Currency in Washington, D.C., says Brian Hubbard, spokesman for the comptroller's office. But neither man knew about this outside help.

On Jan. 19, 2011, Trujillo videotaped Delassus on the phone, quietly speaking to a Wells Fargo representative. (Wachovia merged with Wells Fargo in December of 2008.) "Wachovia's never sent me how much my monthly payments would be, if that includes escrow or anything," Delassus says to the bank. "I'm kind of in the dark here. Reinstatement ... what would that be?"

After being transferred to another representative, Delassus says to Trujillo, "The music's gone, but nobody answers. I think we're disconnected. Shit. Hello? Hello? Dial tone. Fuckers." Six days later, on Jan. 25, 2011, Delassus did hear, clearly, from Wells Fargo: It wanted the total payoff amount on the condo, $337,250.40. (Wells Fargo refused to comment on specifics of the case.)

The huge sum was due the very next day, Trujillo says. Instead, he sued the bank on Jan. 26, claiming negligence and discrimination against a disabled person.

On May 13, 2011, shortly after another bad bout of illness, Delassus' condo was sold by the bank. In a videotaped court deposition later, Delassus breaks down crying. "I came back from the hospital, and that very day, they sold the son of a bitch," he says. "I'm homeless. I did not have a home. My condo — 16 years, gone. Gone."

At Carson Senior Assisted Living, to which Delassus moved, he became good friends with Popovich, who had lost her home as well. The duo planted flowers and trees in a small area behind the apartment, complete with a scarecrow and an ornamental owl, where they would talk late into the night.

"He really thought he was gonna get his place back," Popovich says. "He thought if he told the truth, they could do something for him." Instead Delassus grew sicker and moved to Tender Liv-in Care in Torrance, owned by Michelle Rogers.

Rogers was in court last December when Delassus, listening to Trujillo arguing his case, slumped over and later died. "It was the most shocking thing I've been through in a long time," she says.

The night before, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Laura Ellison had indicated that she intended to side with Wells Fargo in a summary judgment. Delassus had been very sick, and his speech was slurred — his illness, acting up. But he wanted his day in court, especially since the judge was considering a guardianship request. Instead, as his attorney spoke, somebody yelled, "Call 911!"

His friends and neighbors believe his war with Wells Fargo killed Larry Delassus. Says Trujillo, "The stress just completely messed him up. Once you get in that state, this world is tough on you."

In a statement to the Weekly, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Vickee J. Adams expressed sympathy over his death. However, she added that, in light of Judge Ellison's indication that she planned to rule for Wells Fargo, "Given that there was no testimony or evidence to be presented at the hearing, there was no reason for Mr. Delassus to attend, and it is truly unfortunate that he was brought there."

Damn

[B4UTRUST]

I'm afraid that 'damn' just isn't enough here. I'm reminded of the movie Good fellas. Fuck you, pay me. Oh, your health is bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, we fucked up and caused you to lose your house? Fuck you, pay me. It's our fault your in this mess? Fuck you, pay me. And when it's all over and you can't borrow another dime, just go ahead and fucking die.

Even the damned court is backing the bank on this one. Disgusting. Fucking disgusting.

I keep waiting for the day I read news articles about someone saying fuck it and firebombing banks and shooting its higher ups.

[General Havoc]

So if it's as cut and dried as the article makes it out to be, may I ask why the judge indicated she was about to rule in favor of Wells Fargo?

[B4UTRUST]

My guess is that it's based on the technicalities of the case and how it was presented. Most likely I'm guessing the victim here wanted his house back from the bank but lost on the point that the loan contract has lots of bank benefiting legalese regarding non-payment. Yes, the bank screwed up and completely ruined this guy's life. However he stopped making the payments and became behind on the mortgage. The bank took possession on the house based on non-payment. Didn't matter if it was their mistake that caused it to begin with, he had the option of continuing to pay the bank the increased amount until the matter was sorted out. Yes, that is a shitty leg to stand on and the banking system as a whole should be ashamed of itself for that sort of practice, but legally speaking it really didn't do anything wrong there as far as the system is concerned. And yes, I'm aware that he couldn't meet the new increased payments, living on a fixed income, but again that's not technically the bank's problem. Their only fault was the initial point of incorrectly identifying the account and adjusting the charges. That is a shitty and related but still a separate issue from them taking his house due to non-payment of his loan. So yes, this was more or less a no-win for the guy because he either begged borrowed and stole to make he extra money for these wrongly inflated new payments or he stopped paying and lost his house because he defaulted on his mortgage.

Which is why I keep hoping to read headlines that say 'Unknown Persons Blow Up Bank of America Building,' or 'Bank President Dead Following Fatal Shooting.'

[General Havoc]

So we should kill bank presidents and blow buildings up because you "guess" this is how it went down?

How about I send you my address, and you can come kill me in person. I do work in that industry after all.

[B4UTRUST]

So we should kill bank presidents and blow buildings up because you "guess" this is how it went down?

How about I send you my address, and you can come kill me in person. I do work in that industry after all.

Which is why I keep hoping to read headlines that say 'Unknown Persons Blow Up Bank of America Building,' or 'Bank President Dead Following Fatal Shooting.'

No, my last part (quoted above) was not intended to reflect that this was because I 'guessed' this is how it went down. I was 'guessing how it went down' based off of my own home loan paperwork and others and a little bit of googling for standard clauses and such concerning non-payments and repossessions.

My statement in regards to my outright loathing of banks and the greedy, self-serving abusive asses who run them was meant to be a bit more separate from my armchair lawyer analysis of the legal case specifics. Tied in with the whole 'yes it's a shitty thing to do and even shittier than it's legal for them to do it bit. Mostly it was suppose to lean more towards my aforementioned outright loathing of the banks and said asses. Note I didn't state that I wanted to see the employees all pulled into the streets and hung or anything similar. I have no issue with you in particular or most of the bank workforce in general. My statement was that I wanted to see them lose their buildings and the people sitting at the top of the corrupt system dealt with in a rather violent, destructive and permanent manner.

So if you tied those two parts together due to the way I wrote it, I apologize for that much. With regards to my happy fantasies of a Fight Club movie ending, I offer no apologies.

Beyond that, I really don't have the time, money or desire to fly out there to try to run some sort of Kevorkian assisted suicide plan with you. Plus I don't really have the medical license to pull the whole 'Dr. Death' thing off. I think I'd be a pretty bad doctor anyway, I don't do well at all with having to look at the insides of people.

[Josh]

That's why his divinations have always sucked.

Worst god damn lottery ticket ever.

[Dark Silver]

I did try to warn you about that Josh.

But no...no.. "He's a fellow member of the Triumviate! He wouldn't screw me over like that!"
-sighs-

[frigidmagi]

But no...no.. "He's a fellow member of the Triumviate! He wouldn't screw me over like that!"

Isn't screwing each other over like that pretty much what you guys do?

[B4UTRUST]

But no...no.. "He's a fellow member of the Triumviate! He wouldn't screw me over like that!"

Isn't screwing each other over like that pretty much what you guys do?

In our defense, none of us ever said we were good at sharing...

[Dark Silver]

And things were......different...back when Josh was still among our august number....

[Josh]

I lowered the level of discourse as best I could and strove for the tackiest, most vulgar air I could contribute.

It's nice to be appreciated. *nods*

[Comrade Tortoise]

So we should kill bank presidents and blow buildings up because you "guess" this is how it went down?

How about I send you my address, and you can come kill me in person. I do work in that industry after all.

I dont think he meant it like that, Havoc. You've gotta imagine, this whole thing is pretty damn frustrating. If he is correct on the legal technicality, if I have a mortgage and someone at the bank transposes a set of numbers somewhere, I can be left on the hook for payments an order of magnitude higher than I should be paying (theoretically), according to my own loan documents. If I cannot pay those new insane payments, even if I prove it was the banks error originally, I still lose my house because the contract specifies non-payment, not non-payment of the correct amounts.

If true, that is fucked up. It makes the ability of the courts to relieve homeowners in cases of actual bank fraud (which has been a thing) pretty limited. It would be one thing if the bank COULD do that due to an oversight in their documents and the law, but a simple phone call would clear the matter up and the bank said "mea culpa", adjusted the payments etc. It is another if they foreclose in full knowledge of their screwup, on account of someone not paying money they didnt contractually agree to pay in the first place.

That is just fucking evil on the part of the people who make decisions, and eventually it probably will boil over into some dude going postal and shooting the president of Goldman Sachs (or whichever bank), and honestly, I wont shed a tear.

[General Havoc]

I dont think he meant it like that, Havoc. You've gotta imagine, this whole thing is pretty damn frustrating. If he is correct on the legal technicality, if I have a mortgage and someone at the bank transposes a set of numbers somewhere, I can be left on the hook for payments an order of magnitude higher than I should be paying (theoretically), according to my own loan documents. If I cannot pay those new insane payments, even if I prove it was the banks error originally, I still lose my house because the contract specifies non-payment, not non-payment of the correct amounts.

If true, that is fucked up. It makes the ability of the courts to relieve homeowners in cases of actual bank fraud (which has been a thing) pretty limited. It would be one thing if the bank COULD do that due to an oversight in their documents and the law, but a simple phone call would clear the matter up and the bank said "mea culpa", adjusted the payments etc. It is another if they foreclose in full knowledge of their screwup, on account of someone not paying money they didnt contractually agree to pay in the first place.

That is just fucking evil on the part of the people who make decisions, and eventually it probably will boil over into some dude going postal and shooting the president of Goldman Sachs (or whichever bank), and honestly, I wont shed a tear.

No, that's pretty much exactly how I assumed he meant it. And my offer still stands.