M.W. vs. J.L. – Barnstable District Court

HARASSMENT ORDER: VACATED

In 2006, Plaintiff and his business partner formed several Florida entities for the purpose of buying, syndicating and managing a multi-million dollar commercial office building in Miami (referred to as “Property.”) In connection with buying the Property, Plaintiff issued a private (unregistered) securities offering a tenant-in-common (TIC) interests to 27 investors. 95% of the TIC owners are elderly and used their retirement monies to buy TIC interests in the Property based on the representations of Plaintiff made in the offering documents. Plaintiff’s offering promised the TIC investors fractional ownership in the Property as well as the right to receive distributions of the Property’s income. In 2007, Defendant paid $2 million to invest in the Property and became the largest of all TIC owners with an 18.67% TIC interest in the Property. Plaintiff controlled the Property’s bank accounts and handled all aspects of the Property’s financial management, including what was disclosed to the TIC’s. By the end of 2010, most of the TIC owners, including Defendant, became suspicious of Plaintiff’s management of the Property. On December 31, 2010, the TIC’s terminated Plaintiff. By March 2011, the Property was delinquent on its mortgage, owing more than $453,000 and the Property was on the verge of foreclosure. In April 2011, another company began managing the property.

The TIC’s and Defendant retained an Attorney to investigate the Plaintiff. The Law Firm demanded production of information and cooperation from Plaintiff. In response to the Law Firm’s demands, Plaintiff’s attorney claimed that Defendant and another TIC owner were “making threats” against Plaintiff. Through its investigation, the Law Firm discovered that Plaintiff stole from the Property’s bank accounts and rents and defrauded the TIC’s in several ways that were designed to conceal the nature of the payments.

On June 24, 2014, Plaintiff obtained a Harassment Order against the Defendant alleging that the Defendant had threatened him numerous times. Specifically, Defendant sent him a threatening letter via mail, sent him many threatening e-mails, threatened him with bodily harm on the telephone, and publically defamed and slandered him on the internet. Attorney Gerald J. Noonan was hired to represent the Defendant and after a hearing the Harassment Order was vacated. Attorney Noonan established that Plaintiff’s harassment order was sought as part of an ulterior motive, such as retaliation against the Defendant, to deflect his own civil and criminal liability in the five ongoing lawsuits, to poison the ongoing civil suits against him, or to gain some sort of tactical advantage against Defendant in the civil lawsuits.

Result: Attorney Gerald J. Noonan gets Harassment Order vacated against businessman.