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When we published our investigation in August into the controversial law firms that often use dubious—and sometimes allegedly illegal—practices to foreclose on homeowners, at least one member of Congress was reading.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl.), the brash congressman from central Florida, has asked Florida’s Supreme Court to halt all foreclosures by three of the state’s most powerful law firms. The firms, also known as “foreclosure mills,” are under investigation by state attorney general Bill McCollum. In his letter to the court, sent Monday, Grayson highlighted Mother Jones’ reporting on the firms under investigation: the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, Shapiro and Fishman, and the Law Offices of David J. Stern.
The Stern law firm was the focus of a Mother Jones investigation published online in early August. Not long after that story came out, the attorney general’s office announced its probe of the three firms Grayson mentioned. Since then, the scrutiny of these firms’ practices has only increased—and hasn’t gone unnoticed in Congress. In his letter, Grayson wrote, “This is lawlessness. I respectfully request that you abate all foreclosures involving these firms until the Attorney General of the state of Florida has finished his investigations of those firms for document fraud.”
Here’s the letter from Grayson:
