Travis Hollifield has been selected as one of the Top 50 lawyers in Orlando for the sixth consecutive year.

Lawsuit claims Planet Financial ‘funneled money’ to loan officers

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A whistleblower lawsuit filed against Planet Financial LLC claims the Maitland mortgage lender paid loan officers twice through Home Team Equity, LLC or HTE, a marketing company owned by an executive in Planet Financial’s Maitland office.

Christopher Castoro, a former vice president with Planet who filed the legal action against Planet Financial, told News 6 there is a paper trail that will raise questions about fees, overtime and accounting, some of which will prove the company inflated FHA interest rates.

“This fee was on every single solitary loan that they closed,” Castoro said. “I can’t count how many people didn’t qualify for the home of their dreams because they had that additional margin built in.”

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 5, does not include the FHA loan allegations but does present the alleged payment, scheme, which according to the lawsuit, was built on the “practice of paying additional commissions to loan officers.”

According to the lawsuit, the extra payments “were not reported, revealed, or otherwise made available or discernable (sic) to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) which, in turn, violated laws, rules, and regulations dealing with loan originator compensation.”

Castoro said he believes the alleged scheme was part of the company’s regular practice and estimates at least $120 million in FHA loans may be effected.

“I believe when the forensics accountants get in, there’s going to be a whole bunch of explaining to do,” Castoro said.

Planet Financial has been operating for about seven years in Florida, with offices in Maitland, Orlando, Jacksonville, Gainesville and Tampa.

Castoro, who was based in the company’s Maitland office for a about a year, was fired in March.

According to the lawsuit, he was dismissed after he refused to “go along” with the financial arrangement.

His attorney, Travis R. Hollifield of Hollifield Legal Centre in Winter Park, said he has never “seen another case like it” in more than 28 years of practicing law.

“Many of these practices probably have been going on as long as the company has been in existence,” Hollifield said.

Castor said he discovered the payment system by accident.

According to the lawsuit, Planet “funneled money through Home Team Equity, LLC (‘HTE’) which in turn,” “improperly kicked back monies as additional prohibited compensation (based in part on loan production) to loan officers” employed by Planet.

The company’s attorney, Paul Ranis, denies the loan allegations.

In a statement to News 6, Ranis said: “Planet Financial believes the allegations to be false and completely without merit”

Hollifield said it will take months for the case to go to court.

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A former prosecutor is suing Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala on the grounds of discrimination, alleging she was transferred and then fired after a breakup with Ayala’s second-in-command, Chief Assistant State Attorney Deborah Barra.

Kailey Evans was an assistant state attorney under Ayala’s predecessor, Jeff Ashton, from 2014 to Jan. 2, 2017, four days before Ayala took the oath of office.

The lawsuit was filed Monday. In it, Evans alleges she and Barra broke up in July 2016 when they were both assistant state attorneys in Ashton’s administration. When they were dating, Evans said, she told Barra about her struggles with depression, anxiety and an eating disorder.

“It’s very important for employers to refrain from using private, confidential medical information of their respectful employees as part of any effort to try to discipline, terminate or otherwise take action against their employees. That’s the thing that got my attention,” said Travis Hollifield, Evans’ attorney.

Ayala’s office claimed Evans did not keep her job in the new administration because of misconduct.

“A member of The Florida Bar outside of our office provided reliable information that Ms. Evans intentionally fabricated evidence and lied to the court,” Kamilah Perry, general counsel to Ayala’s office, said in a statement. “The state attorney has zero tolerance for unethical conduct by assistant state attorneys. Therefore Ms. Evans’ claims that her disability had any bearing on her employment are completely unsubstantiated and are without merit.”

Evans’ attorney called Perry’s allegation “false, or at the very least substantially trumped-up to avoid liability.” The Florida Bar Association does not list a public disciplinary history for Evans.

After the breakup, Evans told a few other co-workers about their relationship, records show. One was Assistant State Attorney Kelly Hicks, a homicide prosecutor whom Evans describes in the lawsuit as her mentor and a close friend of Barra’s.

Two days later, Evans’ supervisor and a human resources director called her into a meeting, the lawsuit alleges. They suggested she take leave from her job because she was “mentally and emotionally unfit for duty,” according to the complaint.

They asked Evans to get a health care provider to certify her as fit for duty, according to the complaint. She complied.

“Subsequently, [Evans] was disciplined ostensibly for talking about the relationship with Barra in the office (even though many other employees talked about their personal relationships in the office and were not disciplined), transferred into another division, and then terminated,” Hollifield wrote in the complaint.

Evans filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations on March 9. She did not hear back, Hollifield said, and filed suit.

Evans is now working at a private law firm.

glotan@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5774

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Fired state attorney’s employee considering legal action.

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http://news.wfsu.org/post/pregnancy-discrimination-case-lands-fla-supreme-court

Just a day after a pair of Democratic lawmakers announced they were filing bills to make pregnancy discrimination illegal, Florida’s Supreme Court took up the issue Thursday.

Peguy Delva alleges after returning from maternity leave her the property management group she worked for no longer had a job for her. Although there is currently no Florida statute that makes it illegal to discriminate against pregnant people, Delva’s lawyer Travis Hollifield argued since only women can get pregnant, discrimination based on her condition is effectively sex discrimination, which is illegal in the Sunshine State.

“All of the dictionaries that we typically use including Black’s Law Dictionary, Webster’s Merriam, just about every other dictionary you can open, when you read the definition of sex it includes a discussion of the different physical and physiological characteristics of the two genders and focusing on reproductive functions,” Hollifield told the court.

But Andrew Rodman, a lawyer for Delva’s former employer, says the case hinges on a statutory question: are pregnant women a protected class? According to Florida law they’re not and Rodman said if the Florida Legislature meant to ban discrimination against pregnant women, they would’ve done it by now.

“If you look at the complaint that was filed in the circuit court, the one that resulted in the dismissal order, it is abundantly clear from looking at the complaint that Ms. Delva is trying to create a new protected classification. The complaint clearly states that she believes she was discriminated against because of her pregnancy. She’s trying to create a ninth protected classification,” Rodman argued.

Pregnancy has been a protected class in federal legislation for 35 years. There’s no deadline for a decision in the case.