Opinion

As you’re about halfway done, an issue arises.  Your builder has staffing issues.  You decide that you need to replace them. You inform the lender who tells you that they agree with you.  But secretly your lender smells blood. They covertly do a market analysis and determine that your property is going to be a lot more valuable than projected. They are secretly ecstatic and quickly enlist their attorneys to scour the loan documents to figure out how to default you and take control of your project.  

They also secretly ask their construction consultant to lie and say that you abandoned the project and left it in shambles. The construction consultant refuses so the lender gets an ex-employee, who has no licenses, to swear to the lies that the actual construction consultant refused to tell. 

Then the lender ignores responding to you when you seek their required approval of your replacement contractor yet blames you for the construction delays associated with replacing the contractor. 

The lender then sends letters telling you that you’re in default and that the interest rate now being charged is 60% higher. 

When you send them construction draws to approve, which have been approved by the original, honest construction consultant, the lender intentionally withholds payments to wreak havoc and cause construction liens.

While you’re traveling back from their office, they secretly file suit, alleging that you “literally left the site in shambles” when there were actually no building violations and of course you or your representative have been there every day checking on the construction like it’s your baby.  

The lender files the lawsuit on an alleged emergency basis and asks the court to appoint their receiver “ex parte” without you even getting a chance to be informed of the lawsuit, hire a lawyer or respond. They attach to their complaint a false affidavit from their former employee and blame you for the construction liens caused by their refusal to release construction draws, while still charging interest on the unreleased money.

The judge, who is buddies with the owners of the receiver, sets a hearing in just 72 hours.  Once you learn about the lawsuit, you quickly hire an attorney and file an answer. You get to the hearing and the CEO and Chairman of the Board of the receiver are there along with many lawyers for the lender and the receiver.  They premeditated to use their presence in court to telegraph to the judge – their buddy - how badly they want to take control of your construction project.  

Then the lender’s lawyer, Ben Dolan from Dickinson Wright, gets up and tells a litany of lies including:

o  That the receiver has a game plan for completion when in fact they secretly agreed before the hearing to shut down construction for 5-6 months;

o  That the project was in jeopardy of going through the winter in a state of disrepair when it had a roof on and was fully protected from the elements;

o  That you literally left the site in shambles when the project was professionally managed each day, locked up each night, was in excellent condition and had no building violations;

o  Blaming you for construction liens that the lender intentionally refused to fund;

o  That the proposed receiver has an aggressive schedule to finish when they had no schedule at all.

You and your family are at the hearing and are of course freaking out.  You can’t believe this is happening.  You beg to testify but the judge won’t let you.  Minutes later the receiver is appointed and now you can’t step foot back onto your land without an appointment or you’ll be in contempt of court. 

Everybody is against you, the lender, their dozens of attorneys, the receiver, their two law firms, the judge, the receiver’s vastly overpaid contractor, and your own subcontractors who have not been paid. Since the lender is preventing your ability to refinance, you have no choice but to put the project into bankruptcy to try to refinance and regain control.  You line up a new lender and file for a Chapter 11 reorganization.

Unbeknownst to you, the lender, their attorneys, the receiver and their contractor secretly meet before the bankruptcy court hearing to premeditate their lies about the debt balance and remaining costs to complete. 

When you get to the hearing, your subcontractors all align with you and tell the judge that the lender is engaged in a loan-to-own scheme, the receiver is incompetent, and has accomplished very little yet spent exorbitant sums on legal and other fees to themselves and their contractor. 

Still, the bankruptcy judge believes the premeditated lies of the lender, receiver and their contractor and quickly dismisses your bankruptcy petition.  You’re sent back to the original court with the original judge.  

So frustrated, you start doing research on the lender, wondering whether they have ever done this before. You learn of more than a dozen other instances when the lender lied in bankruptcy courts to get other borrowers’ bankruptcies dismissed, put borrowers into default, sent deeds in lieu of foreclosure, foreclosed on people and more. 

In one instance in Palo Alto, that borrower grew skeptical of the lender even before the loan closing and demanded to know the lender’s foreclosure history.  In response, the lender blatantly lied and said they had not foreclosed on anyone.  Their general counsel, Marcus Neupert, was even in on the lie.

Perhaps the most disgusting thing of all is that Mitchell Julis and Joshua Friedman view this story as they were in-the-right because they won in court. They think successfully beating someone out of their money or property in court is a complete vindication. Their audited financial statements even refer to foreclosures as successes.  They have expressed no remorse for their wrongdoings and apparently have no conception of how evil they are.  

Borrowers get loans thinking that the lender will release loan funds in good faith, not that the lender will be making the loan as a weapon to steal.  Mitch Julis and Joshua Friedman think that if they can get a court to let them get away with stealing – no matter how corrupt their tactics may be - then their actions were justified.

To be clear, this story was not an isolated event.  On the home page of www.canyonpartnersnews.com, you can read about Greek Isles, Vallambrosa, Royal Kunia, Hooter’s, Coconut Plantation, Cal Neva, College Terrace, East Coast Fisheries, 5 Franklin Place, South Flower Street, 110 Green Street, Intracoastal Mall, Broadway Trade Center, Fashion Mall… 

These are just some of the other victims uncovered so far.  Undoubtedly there are dozens more where Julis and Friedman have put borrowers into default, charged exorbitant default interest rates, prevented loan repayment, sent deeds in lieu of foreclosure, committed bankruptcy fraud, foreclosed … Often too they coerced borrowers to sign pre-negotiation and forbearance agreements which fully released Canyon Partners and created gag orders.

Unlike Madoff who came clean when he got to court, Mitch Julis and Joshua Friedman have no qualms about regularly lying to courts. Just recently in a Texas court, they both lied in sworn affidavits.

For instance, they lied and said that the Canyon Partners News website “urges discontented members of the public to go to our homes and physically confront my wife and me” and “incite violence against my wife and me at our homes” when in fact, the website simply says “discuss”. There is no telling how many lies Mitch Julis and Joshua Friedman will tell to try to silence Canyon Partners News.

They recently lied to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals too when they were trying to steal $20 million that was not owed to them and nearly got away with it.  But instead were condemned and got zero.

They lied in yet another case recently too where they tried to steal two properties in Birmingham, when they didn’t even have a loan on those properties, and again lost.  

Since they have gotten away with stealing money and properties so many times by lying, withholding and manufacturing evidence, fixing court proceedings, paying countless millions to crooked lawyers … no level of attempted fraud is beneath them.