Crawford & Sons, Ltd. v. Besser

216 F.R.D. 228, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11725, 2003 WL 21634289
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedJuly 11, 2003
DocketNo. 02 CV 3442(ADS)(ETB)
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 216 F.R.D. 228 (Crawford & Sons, Ltd. v. Besser) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Crawford & Sons, Ltd. v. Besser, 216 F.R.D. 228, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11725, 2003 WL 21634289 (E.D.N.Y. 2003).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

SPATT, District Judge.

Presently before the Court is a motion to dismiss the amended complaint pursuant to Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Fed. R. Civ.P.”).

I. BACKGROUND

The following facts are taken from the amended complaint filed by Crawford & Sons, Ltd. Profit Sharing Plan (“Crawford”), James A. Crawford Profit Sharing Plan, East Prospect State Bank, Equitable Bank, First National Bank (Scott City), First Security State Bank, Northwest Bank (“Northwest”), People’s Bank (“People’s”), Sand Ridge Bank (“Sand Ridge”), Bluestem National Bank (“Bluestem”), First Victoria National Bank (“First Victoria”), FSB, Mutual Federal Savings Bank (“Mutual”), First National Bank (Smith Center), The Dime Savings Bank (“Dime”), Third Federal Savings Bank (“Third Federal”), Fidelity Bank of Florida (“Fidelity”), Citizens National Bank, City National Bank (collectively the “plaintiffs”) against Rochelle Besser, Wallace I. Besser, Barry Drayer (“Drayer”), RW Professional Leasing Services, Inc. (“RW Professional”) (collectively, the “defendants”).

The amended complaint alleges that RW Professional is in the business of longterm leasing of medical, dental, and veterinary equipment to doctors, dentists, veterinarians and other medical providers throughout the country. To finance its business, RW Professional assigned its leases to various institutional lenders, including the plaintiffs. RW Professional secured loans from the plaintiffs pursuant to a series of agreements for each leasing transaction customarily signed on behalf of RW Professional by Rochelle Besser, one of the two shareholders of RW Leasing and its president-treasure.

To induce the plaintiffs to loan them money, the defendants represented, warranted, and agreed by mail and wire communication that: (1) the assigned leases had been executed by the lessee and were valid, binding, and enforceable according to their terms; (2) the assigned leases were in full force and effect; (3) the leased equipment had been delivered to the lessees; (4) the lessees were not in default under the leases; (5) RW Leasing would remit all payments from its leases to the plaintiffs until its borrowings were repaid; (6) RW Leasing would segregate and cause such lease payments to be deposited in a secure escrow account, for the benefit of and transmission to the plaintiffs; (7) if any of its lessees prepaid its lease, such prepayment would be transmitted to the plaintiffs within three days of receipt; (8) if any financed leases were in default, RW Professional would substitute new leases of equal or greater value; (9) RW Leasing owned the leased equipment and the assigned leases were subject only to the rights of the lessees; (10) RW Professional had not assigned, transferred, or otherwise encumbered the assigned interests; and (11) RW Leasing had not conveyed any security interest in the leases. The plaintiffs append to the amended complaint samples of the forms the defendants used to effectuate these transactions.

For each lease financing transaction, RW Leasing executed (1) a promissory note in [230]*230favor of the plaintiff involved; (2) a security agreement and assignment of lease in favor of such plaintiff; and (3) a service agreement in favor of such plaintiff. The plaintiffs claim that in most instances, RW Leasing also executed an escrow agreement with the Bank of New York as escrowee, requiring that all monies received from the plaintiff be deposited with the Bank of New York to be applied to payment of the respective loan obligation.

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs allege that the defendants (1) failed to remit payments received by them from lessees to the plaintiffs; (2) diverted and commingled such lease payments with RW Leasing’s general operating account rather than have them escrowed for transmission to the plaintiffs; (3) failed to notify the plaintiffs of the lessees’ prepayment of certain leases and failed to remit all remaining principal due therein within three days; (4) failed to notify the plaintiffs of leases in default or to replace them with new leases of equal or greater value; (5) failed to deposit or cause the deposit of lease payments received from the lessees with the Bank of New York as escrowee; (6) entered into lease financing transactions with the plaintiffs in which there was no actual underlying lease with a medical provider lessee; and (7) financed the same lease with more than one lender.

To conceal the alleged fraud, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants created fake checks supposedly written by a lessee in payment of his or her lease obligations and then sent photocopies of the fake checks to the lender. The plaintiffs further claim that the defendants altered RW Leasing’s records to make them coincide with the fake checks rather than the actual payments. In addition, the amended complaint states that the defendants created records in the name of Riteway Health Services, Inc. (“Riteway”), a non-existent company supposedly in the medical equipment supply business that purportedly supplied the equipment for non-existent leases presented to the plaintiff to obtain funding.

Furthermore, the defendants rented a number of mailboxes throughout the country supposedly in the name of RW Leasing’s lessees so that RW Leasing could conceal its conversion of lease payments, the lessees’ defaults, the non-existence of the underlying lease transactions, and the financing of the same lease with more than one lender.

On or about June 20, 2002, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York initiated criminal proceedings in this Court for alleged bank fraud against Rochelle Besser, Drayer, and others affiliated with RW Professional. The amended complaint appends the criminal complaint and affidavit in support of arrest, and seizure warrants signed and verified by Rondie Pei-scop-Grau, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The affidavit specifies fraudulent practices and transactions by the defendants uncovered as a result of a criminal investigation.

In particular, the affidavit states that the defendants rented mailboxes from Mail Boxes, Etc. throughout the country in states, including California, Arizona, Colorado, New York, and Ohio. The affidavit also indicates that the applications for some of these mailboxes were signed by Drayer, RW Leasing’s secretary and vice-president, and that the mail was to be received in the name of “Roger Drayer.” The affidavit states that files show RW Leasing sent checks to Mail Boxes Etc. signed by Rochelle Besser. The affidavit asserts that each mailbox was paid for by Drayer or Rochelle Besser.

In addition, the affidavit states that these mailboxes from Mail Boxes, Etc. appear to be connected to former customers of RW Leasing and that the addresses for these mailboxes were the billing addresses for many of RW Leasing’s purported medical provider customers. The affidavit describes that RW Leasing’s files include invoices addressed to these mailboxes and fake checks signed by these medical providers bearing these addresses. The affidavit also states that false documents were generated to enable RW Leasing to conceal the fact it had converted funds from loans that had been prepaid; loan proceeds that were never dispersed to a customer; and deals that had been funded by multiple lenders. The affidavit indicates that there are letters from Rochelle Besser from 1998 and 1999 falsely [231]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
216 F.R.D. 228, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11725, 2003 WL 21634289, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crawford-sons-ltd-v-besser-nyed-2003.