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NJ Attorney General Paula Dow
“By making misrepresentations and engaging in such unconscionable commercial practices and deception,” Bruce Buccolo and his group “repeatedly violated” the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and the state Regulations Governing General Advertising Practices, says a lawsuit brought directly by state Attorney General Paula Dow and Thomas Calcagni, the director of the Division of Consumer Affairs.
In addition to filing the civil suit, Dow’s attorneys asked a judge for an injunction to stop the Project Freedom Fund’s operations immediately so that no one else is victimized. They also want the judge to order that PFF refund the alleged victims’ money. They’re seeking hefty fines, as well.
The Better Business Bureau reports 9 complaints against the PFF since 2008, all involving service. Three were resolved through BBB intervention; the agency “did not find [the PFF] made a good faith effort” to resolve two others — and received no response from the organization on four more, according to records obtained by CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
The DCA said it began investigating the organization after receiving complaints from no fewer than 18 people that the PFF ripped them off.
Buccolo gave a deposition during the investigation in which he testified that he prepared legal documents despite not being an attorney and used some of the money to pay his home utility bill, court papers reveal.
People may not be sympathetic to inmates and prisoners, the state’s complaint says, but “[m]ost are desperate to regain their freedom and are also in dire financial [straits]. Family members are also deeply impacted. Many will do whatever they can to free their relatives. These factors make inmates and their families particularly vulnerable to exploitation by deceptive business practices.”
Buccolo and his group “misrepresented themselves as a non-profit legal services organization when, in fact, they operated primarily for their own financial benefit,” the suit says. Through misleading advertisements, the PFF “induced inmates, or their relatives, into paying” the $350 fee “and then generally performed no work for them.”
On the “rare occasions” when services were provided, it says, “the work was often done by a disbarred attorney – or worse, someone who wasn’t even a lawyer.
“Thus, the victimized consumers and their families did not receive any of the promised benefits, but paid fees that caused their financial circumstances to become ever more dire,” says the civil suit, filed in Superior Court in Newark.
Also included in the complaint are unnamed owners, officers, directors, founders, managers and employees of the center, as well as various independent contractors.
Driving home the complaint, state authorities quote from the PFF’s literature:
“Though the cost we pass on to you is truly minimal, we understand that you may not even have these minor funds available to you and therefore, if it is at all possible, we do suggest and urge you to ask friends and family members to help by contributing a share and bearing some of the financial bwden thus making it easier by spreading it out among a number of persons.
“Try calling a parent, a brother, as sister, a son, a daughter, an aunt, an uncle or a cousin. If you like, you can send us their names, addresses and telephone numbers and we will contact them ourselves on your behalf.”
Calling itself a “Pit Bull Dog Service,” the PFF has promised potential clients that it would “make sure that your Public Defender/Pool Attorney is not selling you out and forcing you into a bad plea/ a ridiculous sentence.”
“[W]e make your attorney do his job and fly right whether he likes it or not and we do it by taking on the responsibility of becoming his supervisor and overseeing his work.”
“With Project Freedom Fund guiding you every step of the way,” the come-on says, “you always win.”
Established in Delaware nearly six year ago, the PFF lists its in Newark, although the suit says Buccolo conducted the organization’s business from his West Orange home as the executive director.
Five years ago, it says, he filed a Legal Services Plan with the Administrative Offices of the Courts saying the organization “brings legal aid to jailed and imprisoned inmates too poor to obtain legal representation and who have little or no other recourse.” It also billed itself as a non-profit, public interest law firm.
That plan was revoked in January 2010 after state authorities learned that one of the PFF’s practicing lawyers, Mark Bendet, was disbarred by the state Supreme Court in March 1997 after admitting his involvement in a bogus insurance claim, the suit says.
Attorneys for the PFF couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The various counts outlined in the state complaint include:
- Preparing legal documents when not authorized to do so;
- Charging for services they aren’t legally authorized to proivide;
- Having a non-attorney prepare legal documents;
- Having a disbarred attorney prepare legal documents;
- Using a disbarred attorney to provide legal counsel;
- Using money paid to a purported non-profit organization for personal use;
- Failing to provide contracted for legal services to consumers;
- Failing to provide refunds to consumers who did not receive contracted services;
- Enticing incarcerated individuals and/or their family members to pay fees to PFF by guaranteeing legal results that they could not provide.
“Each unconscionable commercial practice … constitutes a separate violation” under state law, the suit says. So do a host of separate charges of misrepresentations, false promises and/or deception:
- Misrepresenting the PFF as a non-profit public interest law firm;
- Claiming that the PFF exercised an “oversight” role over the Public Defender’s office;
- Promising legal services it wasn’t authorized or capable of providing;Promising to provide legal services to inmates but failing to do so;
- Promising to provide refunds to consumers but failing to do so.
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