http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_19444703?source=rssReligious slurs in lawyer's memo have court up in arms
By David Hanners
Updated: 11/30/2011 10:37:03 PM CST
In the sedate and sober world of bankruptcy law, one lawyer's memorandum sticks out like a sore loser.
"Across the country the court systems and particularly the Bankruptcy Court in Minnesota, are composed of a bunch of ignoramus, bigoted Catholic beasts that carry the sword of the church," the Nov. 25 filing said.
It went on to call one bankruptcy judge "a Catholic Knight Witch Hunter," said one trustee was "a priest's boy" and claimed another trustee is a "Jesuitess."
It got worse from there.
Hastings lawyer Rebekah Nett also called U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Nancy Dreher and other court personnel "dirty Catholics." Then she expressed concerns over what might transpire at a hearing docketed for next week, writing, "Catholic deeds throughout the history have been bloody and murderous."
People who spend their time writing and reading legal docuмents were stunned.
"I've never seen anything in 30 years of practicing law like this," said Brian Leonard, a bankruptcy trustee. "This is so far over the line, it's in another world."
Nett got her law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1999 and is licensed to practice in Minnesota and Wisconsin. There is no record of any disciplinary action against her in either state.
Nett said she didn't want to talk about the memo, but did allow that Dreher "yelled at" her about it Tuesday. She wouldn't elaborate, and Dreher's office declined to comment.
Nett also said the views expressed in the filing - which
carries her signature - were those of her client. "Did I write what was in that paper? No," she said.
That itself could create problems for the lawyer. Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure says that when a lawyer signs a submission to the court, she is attesting that she believes the submission is supported by evidence or legal argument.
"The lawyer who signs a docuмent is adopting it as her own, and I don't believe that she can avoid responsibility by saying that the client drafted it," said Douglas Heidenreich, who teaches professional responsibility at William Mitchell College of Law.
Heidenreich, who has been a lawyer for 50 years, said the memo's tone and language were "shocking, unprofessional, and go far beyond the bounds of zealous advocacy."
Nett's client is Yehud-Monosson USA Inc., which owned several properties in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It and related ventures, including Midwest Oil of Minnesota, have a bankruptcy history best described as tortuous and frequent, with five cases filed in three states dating back to March 2009.
The filings became so numerous that in March, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel in Minneapolis dismissed Midwest Oil's bankruptcy filing and barred it from filing another bankruptcy for a year.
"The debtor's history of repeated filings in the face of pending foreclosures demonstrates clearly and unequivocally that this case was filed in bad faith," Kressel wrote in a March 9 order dismissing the case.
The judge wrote that without the yearlong ban, "the debtor would simply file another case in this district or in another district. The time has come to put a stop to the debtor's abuse of the system...."
Yehud-Monosson, which appears to be named after a joint municipality in Israel, ran a handful of gas stations and convenience stores, including a Mobil station at Grand and Smith avenues in St. Paul.
The company is itself a subsidiary of the Dr. R.C. Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology Inc., of Shawano, Wis. The institute is named after its spiritual leader, an Indian immigrant who used to be known as R.C. Samanta Roy but now goes by the name Avraham Cohen.
The institute has gained some media attention from people who say they are former members of the group and who call it a cult. The organization denies the claims.
Nett's memo is the latest in a string of legal filings that have become increasingly testy and contentious. After a bankruptcy trustee in New York filed a motion saying Yehud-Monosson's case should be transferred to Minnesota, Nett filed an objection in which she wrote that, "Sending this Debtor back to Minnesota is like sending the Jєωs back to Germany during the h0Ɩ0cαųst."
A New York judge didn't agree, and transferred the case to Minnesota.
The company's original bankruptcy filing had been in Delaware and listed assets of $6.9 million and liabilities of $6.2 million. But in an affidavit, the company's president, Naomi Isaacson, claimed the company was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of "a mass conspiratorial campaign of aggressive discrimination, predatorial activities of lenders, and invasion of the privacy of the business affairs of this Debtor."
Isaacson is a Minneapolis lawyer. In one court filing, she said she was also chief executive officer and in-house counsel for the institute. She blamed the alleged conspiracy on city officials in Shawano, claiming they dislike Cohen because he is from India.
Isaacson could not be reached for comment.
Although many of the company's filings in the bankruptcy cases were filled with the dry language of applicable law, they seemed to take on a darker tone as the case dragged on.
It appears the last straw came Nov. 17, at a hearing before Dreher in Minneapolis. The trustee, Nauni Manty, had filed a motion for contempt, complaining that the company had failed to turn over all its business records as Dreher had ordered.
The court's calendar clerk had scheduled the hearing for 1 p.m., but the notice the trustee sent to Nett listed the time as 1:30 p.m., Dreher later wrote. By the time Nett showed up, court had recessed.
Nett claimed in her filing that Manty deliberately told her the wrong time so that she could meet alone with "the Catholic judge."
"Was it to make the job of the black-robed bigot that much easier? So, rather than forcing the Court to hear the case on its merits, the matter can just go by default?" Nett's later memo said.
She wrote that Manty and Dreher "are of the same race and religion and their track record demonstrates their conspiracy and deceitful practices to hurt the Debtor. Even though all docuмents have been produced, Jesuitess Nauni Manty keeps repeating the same lie that records are missing."
Manty did not return a call for comment.
A Jesuitess is a member of an order of nuns established by the Jesuits but suppressed by Pope Urban VIII in 1633.
On Nov. 18, Dreher issued an order continuing the previous day's hearing to Dec. 6.
In the Nov. 25 memo carrying her signature, Nett complained about what might happen at that hearing.
"Given what these dirty Catholics are capable of and particularly since there is no law to protect the minority, Debtor is concerned about what their secret plans are for the Dec. 6, 2011, hearing," the memo said. "Catholic deeds throughout the [CQ] history have been bloody and murderous."
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