Subpoena was not Meant for Plant Worker

ANDOVER — A subpoena served at the North Andover Water Treatment Plant last week by Andover police was not intended for water operator Shawn Rock, even though the police log said it was handed to him.

The subpoena was addressed to the "keeper of records" at the plant, according to North Andover Assistant Town Manager Ray Santilli. A "keeper of records" is anyone who can access the records, he said.

"It wasn't intended for anyone specifically in North Andover," Santilli said.

Santilli said Rock was the person on duty and accepted the subpoena when Andover Detective Michael Lane dropped it off around 9 a.m. last Wednesday. It was written in Andover's police log that the subpoena was "served in hand to employee Shawn Rock" but it did not say it was addressed to the records keeper.

The subpoena is one of two served last Wednesday by Andover police. The other was served in hand to Cynthia Vaughn, who previously worked as a water compliance specialist in Andover, at her West Newbury home.

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Former Andover Water Employee Served a Subpoena at West Newbury Home

ANDOVER — Police served a subpoena to a former employee of Andover's water treatment plant at her West Newbury home last week.

The subpoena comes after police Chief Brian Pattullo announced in September that the district attorney's office is preparing evidence to present to a grand jury as the result of an investigation into allegations of criminal misconduct involving two former employees at the Lowell Street water treatment plant.

Cynthia Vaughn, who previously worked as a water compliance specialist in Andover, was served the subpoena by Andover Detective Michael Lane at her 1 Dole Place home in West Newbury around 9:45 a.m. Dec. 22.

Lt. James Hashem said the subpoena is part of "an ongoing district attorney investigation" and declined to comment further. He referred all questions to the Essex County District Attorney's office.

Stephen O'Connell, spokesman for the district attorney's office, declined comment on the matter.

Town Manager Reginald "Buzz" Stapczynski said that Vaughn previously worked for the town but was "terminated" from her post in August. She was hired by the town in July 1996, according to the town's Human Resources Department.

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Problems with Foreclosure Notices Loom as Next Flaw in Process

Improperly served foreclosure notices may be the mortgage industry's next roadblock to repossessing homes.

The Florida attorney general's office is investigating two of the state's largest companies that serve court summonses on homeowners, while at the same time judges are throwing out rulings based on faulty deliveries.

This month, appeals courts in Miami and Palm Beach County sided with homeowners in foreclosures where judges agreed their summonses were not appropriately served.

In the Miami case, the homeowner said she was recovering at her mother's home after surgery when the person serving her the summons swore he personally handed it to her at her residence.

But the server's own notes on the file showed he left the documents at the door after seeing curtains move and assuming someone was home. The homeowner later said she had no knowledge of the foreclosure until a final judgment was entered against her.

"Curtains may move because of the wind or curious cats, and not just because some prospective defendant is attempting to avoid service," the appeals decision noted.

Once entrusted only to sheriff's deputies, summonses may now legally be handled by "special process servers" certified by the court. With the crush of foreclosures statewide, process service has become big business.

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Judge Enforces Chevron's Subpoena of Penn. Lawyer

(CN) - A federal judge said Chevron can subpoena a Pennsylvania lawyer and his firm over his role in a $113 billion environmental lawsuit against the oil company in Ecuador. Meanwhile in Ecuador, one day after a judge closed the window to submit new evidence, Chevron tried to invalidate the complaint because it allegedly contains forged signatures.

Joseph Kohn of Kohn, Swift & Graf forfeited his right to attorney-client privilege by letting a documentary crew film strategy sessions, U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois found.

Kohn and another attorney, Steven Donziger, helped Ecuadorians sue Chevron over damage to their community from 30 years of drilling in the country conducted by Texaco, which became a Chevron subsidiary in 2001.

In a bid to draw international attention to the case, and mount pressure on Chevron, they also invited filmmaker Joseph Berlinger to document the rainforest devastation. Berlinger's access gave him an intimate look at the legal strategy adopted by the plaintiffs suing Chevron in Lago Agrio, Ecuador.

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Lawyer's Ties to Convicted Process Server Probed

The Nevada State Bar is investigating whether longtime attorney Lizzie Hatcher was truthful to authorities about her professional dealings with the convicted owner of an unlicensed process serving company.

The owner, former Las Vegas police officer Maurice Carroll, was convicted in October of perjury and submitting false affidavits in court.

Assistant Bar Counsel Phil Pattee said Friday that the investigation is the result of a Sept. 9 Las Vegas Review-Journal article on Hatcher's links to Carroll. The report said Hatcher had made conflicting statements about her relationship with Carroll and his company, On Scene Mediations.

Pattee said the results of the investigation will be turned over to a screening panel of the bar's Southern Nevada Disciplinary Board to decide whether to pursue sanctions.

It is against bar rules of professional conduct for a lawyer to engage in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation," or to make false statements to judicial officers.

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Florida Attorney General Investigating Companies That Serve Foreclosure Papers

The first step in foreclosure process is that the homeowner is supposed to informed that the foreclosure is beginning.

But as millions of Americans face foreclosure, even the process of alerting the homeowner with the serving of a summons has been filled with errors. The Times-Union wrote about some of those problems in October. You can read that story here.

Now the Miami Herald has disclosed that the Florida attorney general is investigating two of the larger companies whose job it is to deliver those papers. The Herald reported that investigation began earlier this month of Gissen & Zawyer Process Service of Miami and ProVest of Tampa.

ProVest is one of the nation's largest process servers. It was also the company involved in several of the cases that the Times-Union wrote about in October. A judge threw out one foreclosure case when he determined that the summons was allegedly served before the case was even filed.

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AccuServe Process Server Seeks Law Firm Clients as Doggedly as Defendants

AccuServe LLC’s daily grind is the stuff of TV movies.

The doorbell rings. The protagonist answers to what he thinks is a flower delivery, but the delivery agent drops the flowers and slaps a thick envelope into his hands instead.

“You’ve been served,” the agent says, then spins on his heels and walks away.

Believe it or not, the cliché is sometimes true, said Kirk Wilhite, co-owner of AccuServe, a Grandview Heights-based process service firm. But it’s not common.

“It’s true, there can be a lot of trickery to it. A lot of people are expecting the complaint or summons, so they try to evade service. It’s not uncommon for them to not answer the door,” Wilhite said.

Not that that helps them. Wilhite said in AccuServe’s eight months in business, he has a 100 percent success rate.

In a nutshell, the business of process serving focuses on a brief and elemental moment in civil cases – the serving of a civil complaint, summons or subpoena. AccuServe is a small but growing firm that wants to make that moment in time big business.

With only $5,000 in start up costs, Wilhite said the company has done $20,000 in its first eight months in business.

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Bill to target process servers

In Mississippi, not much is required to be a process server, and some lawmakers believe that needs to change.

Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, says he'll file a bill in the 2011 Legislature that would require licensing and educational training for process servers. Zuber believes the proposal, which died in the past, will have a chance next session because of the recent scrutiny given process servers handling child support cases for the Mississippi Department of Human Services.

Earlier this year, judges in Hinds and Jackson counties were reviewing hundreds of child support cases to determine whether some process servers had lied about delivering subpoenas.

The process servers worked for subcontractors of YoungWilliams Child Support Division, a Jackson-based company that received a $23 million contract to file about 15,000 cases, manage another 13,000 and operate a call center. Company President Rob Wells has said about 30 of those cases are being reopened because they involved a process server facing the allegations.

Zuber said there have been other instances of process servers failing to properly perform their jobs and it's caused hardships for average citizens. Zuber said the case of Natalie Parker of Ocean Springs is the reason he first filed the bill in 2008.

Parker's driver's license was revoked in 2003 and, because of that, she missed out on job opportunities. She eventually wound up living in her car. Zuber said Parker had told him about how a process server had lied about delivering papers to notify Parker about a lawsuit that had been filed against her.

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U.S. Subpoenas GOP Records

Federal investigators slapped the Republican Party of Florida with a subpoena seeking financial records as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe by the FBI, IRS and U.S. Attorney's Office, the Herald/Times has learned.

The subpoena, delivered Election Day, sought documents related to big spending by top Republican honchos who were given party-paid American Express cards.

Top RPOF officials and investigators declined to comment on the federal probe or the subpoena.

For more than a year, the party has reeled from scandals tied to the credit cards as well as four unrelated state criminal probes into its former chairman, a fundraiser, a former Florida House speaker and a Capitol insider.

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Eddie Montgomery's Wife Tracy Files for Divorce

It's not shaping up to be the most wonderful time of the year for Eddie Montgomery. Just a couple of weeks ago the Montgomery Gentry singer revealed that he's been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Now his publicist has confirmed that his wife of more than two decades, Tracy, has filed for divorce.

According to publicist Kirt Webster, Tracy called Eddie Tuesday night and asked what he was doing. As it happened, he was having dinner at his steakhouse in Kentucky with the couple's 23-year-old daughter Brooke. Shortly after the call, a process server presented him with divorce papers right there at the table in front of his daughter.

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