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Questions over judge's land deal

Jun 18, 2007 | Nancy Phillips | Philly News

After she slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk in North Philadelphia, Denise Jackson pocketed a modest sum: $1,500.

Her lawyer did much better.

Following a dizzying whirl of legal filings and real estate transactions, lawyer Willis W. Berry Jr. ended up owning the vacant lot where Jackson fell - a property now worth more than $100,000.

Jackson now says she was cheated. So does the family who once owned the property. They say Berry and a friend used the courts to swindle them out of the land. The FBI is now interviewing key players in the deal.

The saga, which began in the early 1990s, is full of odd twists and turns.

Real estate records show that Jackson at one point briefly owned the property on West Girard Avenue, then sold it two months later for the bargain price of $1,500. She insisted she never knew this until she was recently shown documents by The Inquirer.

"This is a shock," said Jackson, 54, of North Philadelphia. "How could this happen?"

The buyer - ReddBerry Development Corp. - owned by Berry, now a Philadelphia judge who ran unsuccessfully in May for nomination to the state Supreme Court. The Inquirer reported in April that Berry owns a string of derelict, trash-strewn properties in North Philadelphia that he managed out of his judicial office.

ReddBerry's treasurer is Henry Reddy, the judge's longtime friend and aide.

At one time, Reddy had yet another role: Because the owner of the Girard Avenue lot had died, he was appointed to look out for the interests of the heirs.

Instead, ReddBerry Development ended up with the land. The family got nothing.

Reddy did not respond to a half-dozen phone calls and a letter requesting an interview.

Legal experts said Berry's actions were problematic. A lawyer isn't supposed to benefit from a deal with a client, they said.

Berry's lawyer insisted that Berry acted in Jackson's best interests. He acknowledged there were legal missteps but said Berry was guilty of nothing more than "sloppy lawyering."

"I'm not giving him the attorney-of-the-year award on this," said lawyer Samuel C. Stretton. "There's a lot of problems here, but I don't think any of them are criminal or malicious."

Regardless, Stretton said, "all statutes of limitations have passed - whether they're disciplinary, criminal, state, federal." It's also too late for anyone to sue, he said: "It's ancient history."

The tangled tale of the lot came to light as The Inquirer began investigating Berry's long-neglected properties, which neighbors said are a blight on their neighborhoods.

A spot-check on Friday found that Berry had begun promised repairs. Debris had been cleared from the yard of a boarded-up rowhouse on Erie Avenue, and a crew was working inside a four-story building on Poplar Street that the city recently declared "imminently dangerous."

A long-coveted property

He'd tried many times to buy it. But its owner, Andre Hines, wasn't selling.

Hines, who rehabbed houses for a living, bought the property for $25,000 in 1988 and demolished two dilapidated buildings, clearing the land for development.

In 1992, Hines died in a car accident at age 31, leaving behind no will. His only heir was his 7-year-old daughter, Zina.

Berry had been "trying to buy the property for years, no dispute about that," said Stretton, who allowed a reporter to view selected documents from Berry's legal file.

In 1994, those documents show, Berry pitched a deal to Paris Hines, Andre Hines' brother and Zina's guardian: Berry offered to pay $5,000 in back taxes on the property if Hines would sell it to him for "$1,500 cash."

That was a fair offer, Stretton said: "It was a run-down neighborhood. Nobody anticipated these properties would eventually be worth six figures."

Paris Hines said that he did not remember that offer, but that he would not have sold the land in any case.

"Who wants to give something up for $1,500 that you paid 25 grand for?" he asked. "That's crap."

Paris Hines said he viewed what happened next as thievery - "a swindle."

"They stole that property," he said. "It's crazy."

A slip and fall

Then known by her maiden name, Denise Cleveland, she said, she and her husband-to-be were heading to Berry's office for a visit one icy March morning in 1993 when she slipped in front of the lot.

"I took a pretty good fall that day," said Jackson, who says she hurt her neck, wrist and shoulder. "My feet went right out from under me."

In 1995, Berry sued Hines' estate for damages.

By his account, Hines' relatives were nowhere to be found and ignored numerous letters and legal filings.

So Berry went to the register of wills and had Reddy named administrator of the Hines estate, with authority to deal with the lawsuit. The law allows that in cases where heirs do not come forward to claim an estate and there is a pending lawsuit.

Reddy was certainly easier to find: At the time, he worked in Berry's law office. Berry and Reddy had been friends for years, and had once worked together in the office of Cecil B. Moore, the lawyer and civil-rights leader.

Reddy didn't contest the lawsuit. Instead, he and Berry agreed to a settlement: To resolve Denise Cleveland's slip-and-fall claim, the estate would give her the property for $1.

She, in turn, sold the property to ReddBerry for $1,500.

Jackson and her husband now say they were used.

"We were bamboozled and hoodwinked," Khalid Jackson said.

At the time, city officials say, the land was worth more than the $25,000 Andre Hines paid for it seven years earlier. It's easily worth more than $100,000 today, said Eugene Davey, director of assessments at the city's Board of Revision of Taxes.

The judge's account is disputed by both Denise Jackson and the Hines family.

"All of this is news to us," Jackson said in an interview. "Nobody told us we owned the land. As far as selling it, how could I sell something that I didn't even know I owned?"

Jackson said she had never even heard of ReddBerry Development.

"I did sign some things," said Jackson, a retired food-service worker. "But it was not explained to me. I didn't know what it entailed."

She said she didn't remember seeing the deeds, and noted that her name is spelled wrong on the documents: "Deniese" instead of "Denise." She said she doubted that she would have signed her name without correcting the spelling.

Moreover, she said, documents dated 1995 are signed "Denise Cleveland." A year earlier, she said, she was married and began using the name Denise Jackson.

"I wouldn't have signed Cleveland after that," she said.

When The Inquirer - and the FBI - began asking questions last month, the couple said, Berry called to talk about the land deal.

"Berry, I never saw these papers" until shown them by an Inquirer reporter, Khalid Jackson said he told the judge. Berry did not dispute that, said the Jacksons, who were both on the call.

"I should have told y'all," they quoted him as saying.

Through his lawyer, Berry denied that account.

"He never admitted he did anything wrong and never thought he did anything wrong," Stretton said.

Instead, Berry called to offer to go over documents in his case file, Stretton said.

As for the Hines family, Stretton said family members knew about the suit and never responded.

Berry's legal file bulges with letters and unopened envelopes to the Hines family. Some of the letters were returned as undeliverable and others were marked "delivery refused."

One letter from Reddy to Paris Hines warned that the family might lose the property "unless I can settle this suit with Mr. Berry."

Paris Hines said he doesn't remember seeing such a letter. "I would have at least done something about it - at least some attempt," he said.

A cousin of Hines' first complained to the FBI about Berry and the land deal in 2003. Agents recently began interviewing key participants, including Paris Hines and the Jacksons, according to people familiar with the inquiry. Berry also was contacted, said Stretton, who said he would share the judge's documents with the FBI.

Flawed legal work

First, Berry should not have profited from the settlement. There are legal rules against "self-dealing," said lawyer Daniel B. Evans, an expert in estate law who dubbed the handling of the case "very manipulative."

Berry, once he stood to benefit from the land deal, should have bowed out as Jackson's lawyer, experts said.

"It shouldn't have happened that way," Stretton said. "He should have said, 'You get your own independent lawyer.' That's clear as a bell."

Stretton added: "This would not have gotten an A for ethics."

As for Reddy, experts said he had a duty to protect the interests of the Hines family. He betrayed that when he did not respond to the lawsuit - and when he settled the case to benefit Berry at the expense of the heirs, they said.

"An administrator's primary responsibility is to preserve the estate," said Philadelphia Orphans' Court Judge Anne E. Lazarus, who was asked to comment generally on legal procedure.

Reddy should have sold the land to the highest bidder and, after paying estate taxes and any other debts, set aside the balance for the heirs, experts said.

Any settlement should have been approved by a judge, Lazarus said. "They can't settle it themselves," she said.

Paris Hines said he didn't learn the full story about the lot until 2002, when he began looking into his brother's estate. He hired a lawyer, Kevin J. Murphy, and had Reddy removed as administrator.

Stretton said the Hines family, and Jackson, had years to complain that they were wronged and did not do so.

"She's an adult," Stretton said of Jackson. "No one took her to a torture chamber and made her sign anything."

He suggested the Hines family is only complaining now because of rising real estate values.

"Back then it was not worth anything, and the Hines family treated it like that. Now, they care."

Stretton conceded that Berry cut corners - "not every T is crossed and every I is dotted" - but said he was merely careless, not corrupt.

"I don't think he's done anything terribly wrong here," he said.