Appellants Brief in Arden Van Upp and Sam Sloan vs David Bradlow

[samsloan]

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
BANKRUPTCY APPELLATE PANEL
____________________________________________________
BAP Case No: NC-16-1384
BAP Case No: NC-16-1385
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Arden Van Upp; Bankruptcy Case No.: 09-31932-TC,
Honorable Thomas E. Carlson
BAP Case No: NC-16-1384

David A. Bradlow vs. Samuel H. Sloan; Adversary
Proceeding No.: 10-3040-TC (Bankruptcy Case No. 09-31932 TEC),
Honorable Thomas E. Carlson
BAP Case No: NC-16-1385
____________________________________________________________________________
Appellant's Brief
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Appeals from the decisions and orders of Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson dated October 5, 2016 and October 10, 2016 which denied motions to vacate and set aside the so-called “settlement” dated September 24, 2012, which denied motions to unseal the files and records of this case including the 14 documents ordered sealed in Documents #436 and #548, denied the motions to vacate the appointment of David Bradlow as Trustee, denied the motions to vacate the default judgment entered against Sam Sloan, denied the motions to order the return to Arden Van Upp the fees in excess of $125,000 awarded to the trustee and his counsel for obtaining the default judgment against Sam Sloan, denied the motions to order the return to Arden Van Upp of $1.5 million dollars in attorneys and trustees fees awarded to David Bradlow and his attorneys, denied the motions to remove and disqualify Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson from appearing in this case and denied ordering the final unconditional retroactive dismissal of this case.
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Arden Van Upp, pro se
1019 Ashbury Street, Apt. 3
San Francisco CA 94117

Sam Sloan, pro se
1019 Ashbury Street, Apt. 3
San Francisco CA 94117
Table of Contents
Preliminary Statement 1
Argument 14
There was no oral testimony under oath in this case and no oral decisions and thus no transcripts in this case.
Certification Required by BAP Rule 8015(a)-1(a)
The Undersigned certifies that the following parties have an interest in the outcome of this appeal.
Trustee David A. Bradlow and his attorneys Michael D. Cooper (Bar No. 42761) and WENDEL, ROSEN, BLACK & DEAN LLP
1111 Broadway, 24th Floor, Oakland, California 94607
Certification Required by BAP Rule 8015(a)-1(b)
The undersigned certifies that there are no known related cases and appeals
Table of Cases
Bankruptcy Case No. 92-32965 Arden Van Upp 4, 14
Bankruptcy Case No. 09-31932 Arden Van Upp 6, 13
Bankruptcy Case No. 16-30742 Arden Van Upp 12, 14, 26
Bankruptcy Case No. 01-30233 Tammy Ann VanUpp 14
Bankruptcy Case No. 92-33747 Laurence Eugene Badgley 4
Arden Van Upp vs. Linda Sue Catron for Elder and Adult Dependent Abuse Case Number CCH 16-578600. 13
Arden Van Upp vs. Northern California Mortgage, Case No. 16-553424. 13, 27
Badgley v. Van Upp, 20 Cal. App. 4th 218 - Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 2nd Div. 1993 4
Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990). 4
Bradlow vs. Sloan, Adv. Pro. No. 10-3040 21, 22, 25
City and County of San Francisco v. VAN UPP, Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 3rd Div. 2011 6, 10
Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Bellingham, Chapter 7 Trustee, ___ U.S. ___, No. 12-1200 (June 9, 2014) 24
In re Taub, 441 BR 211 - Bankr. Court, ED New York 2010 9
IN RE VAN UPP, Bankr. Court, ND California 2010 7
IN RE VAN UPP, No. C 11-04408 SI, United States District Court, N.D. California, July 23, 2012. 10
Linda Sue Catron vs. Specialized Lending Services et all, CGC-16-551351, filed April 6, 2016. 28
Noel Weeks v. Linda Catron, Case No. CGC-11-516849 12,28
Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011) 7,17,24
Yin Falk v. Linda S. Catron, et al. No. CGC-09-486921 12,28
“Last Bonanza Kings: The Bourns of San Francisco” by Ferol Egan ISBN 0874177863 21


Arden Van Upp
Samuel H. Sloan
1019 Ashbury Street, Apt. 3
San Francisco CA 94117
415-410-6400
917-659-3397
samh...@gmail.com

United States Bankruptcy Court
Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit

Arden Van Upp; Bankruptcy Case No.: 09-31932-TC,
Honorable Thomas E. Carlson
BAP Case No: NC-16-1384

David A. Bradlow vs. Samuel H. Sloan; Adversary
Proceeding No.: 10-3040-TC (Bankruptcy Case No. 09-31932 TEC),
Honorable Thomas E. Carlson
BAP Case No: NC-16-1385
____________________________________________________________________________

Appellant's Brief
____________________________________________________________________________

Preliminary Statement

Arden Van Upp is an elderly woman aged 79. Over the period of the last 50 years starting in 1967 she emassed a considerable real estate empire, by shopping carefully, buying undervalued residential buildings at depressed prices and renting them out to tenants.
In 2009, when this bankruptcy case was filed, Arden Van Upp listed assets of $13 million and liabilities of $4 million for a net worth of $9 million.
Now, because of the actions of the parties to this case including especially the improper actions of the Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson, she has lost everything and is now completely destitute.
This entire matter is now being investigated by San Francisco District Attorney Investigator Vadim Rotberg and by Adult Protective Services Worker of the Adult Protective Services Claudia Sepulveda.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Joseph M. Quinn, who hears elder abuse cases, stated this is the most extreme case of elder abuse he has ever encountered. “I have never seen a case like this of elder abuse. It is obvious and it is dire, really dire.”
After filing this voluntary petition in bankruptcy on July 10, 2009 because she needed time to complete the refinancing of her buildings, Arden Van Upp filed her first motion to dismiss this bankruptcy case on November 4, 2009, Document #119, as she was about to complete the refinancing of her buildings. The judge denied the motion but allowed her leave to renew. Arden Van Upp renewed the motion as filed by competent and experienced counsel Iain MacDonald on December 22, 2009. Document #182. Again it was denied. Arden Van Upp has repeatedly made motions to dismiss this voluntary bankruptcy proceeding a dozen times since. Even when a “settlement” took place on September 24, 2012 that Arden Van Upp thought would finally end this nightmare of a case, it turned out that it did not end this case as Judge Carlson has retained jurisdiction to this day.
It is now apparent that Judge Carlson intends never to let Arden Van Upp out of bankruptcy and will retain jurisdiction over this case for as long as they both shall live. This violates The 13th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.” Accordingly, Arden Van Upp demands all her money back that has been taken from her by the trustee and his attorneys and the restoration to her possession of her house at 2550 Webster Street known as the Bourn Mansion, as well as dismissal of this case retroactive to at least December 22, 2009.
In building her real estate empire, Arden Van Upp followed the example of her mother Doris Loy Rich who gained considerable wealth owning seven houses in Vallejo, and who got most of her wealth by buying houses slated for demolition to make way for a new freeway being built and moving them to empty lots.
Doris Rich loaned Arden Van Upp the money in 1967 to make the initial down payment on her first building which was and is at 1019 Ashbury Street. Sam Sloan who was and is her old friend was present at the closing in 1967, 50 years ago. Another old friend, George Rowan, had found the property and made and closed the deal.
Like almost all people of wealth, Arden Van Upp soon became the target of people who wanted to get her money, including crooked lawyers like those present here.
Arden was married very briefly in 1957 at the age of 19 in Las Vegas to Gail Van Upp, son of a famous movie producer Virginia Van Upp. They have a daughter born of this marriage Tammy Van Upp who is a make-up artist and hair stylist but who is in no way involved in real estate transactions or financial dealings with her mother, Arden Van Upp. Gail Van Upp is deceased now for unknown causes, but he had been separated from Arden Van Upp and had nothing to do with her since at least 1959.
In 1973, George Rowan found another exceptional property for Arden Van Upp to buy. That was the famous 28-room Bourn Mansion at 2550 Webster Street built in 1896 on the pinnacle of Pacific Heights. In spite of being a famous building and an architectural wonder, it was considered to be a white elephant that few wanted. It was to be slated for demolition when George Rowan got Arden to bid on it.
However, about that time, Arden got a new boyfriend Laurence Badgley and as they were having a romantic relationship she included him on the deed, although his financial contribution was minimal.
Badgley was a medical doctor whose claim to fame was being the Dr. Feelgood on the Rolling Stones Tour, supplying prescription drugs to members of the band. More recently, he claims to have discovered a cure for AIDS and makes his living supplying his AIDS cure to terminally ill patients.
Dr. Badgley filed his first of many lawsuits against Arden Van Upp in 1976. He claimed wrongful eviction from the premises at 2550 Webster Street by Arden Van Upp by her calling the police to complain that he had been smoking marijuana on the premises. However, Arden had not called the police. Arden Van Upp does not call the police. The person who actually had called the police on Dr. Badgley was another tenant in the building named Judy Lamb also known as Judy Balistreri who became famous for calling the police repeatedly and for filing pro se cases against the police departments for failing to protect her as in Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990).
The lawsuit or multitude of suits filed by Laurence Badgley against Arden Van Upp lasted 25 years until 2000. It was the longest running active lawsuit in the history of the San Francisco Court System. It had varying decisions including Badgley v. Van Upp, 20 Cal. App. 4th 218 - Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 2nd Div. 1993
Even after these courts decisions, Badgley continued to file new cases against Van Upp. This 25-year litigation put both Badgley and Van Upp into Bankruptcy.
Case No. 92-32965 Arden Van Upp
Case type: bk Chapter: 11 Asset: Yes Vol: v Judge: Dennis Montali
Date filed: 06/18/1992 Date of last filing: 10/26/2000 Date discharged: 08/25/2000
Date terminated: 10/26/2000
Case No. 92-33747 Laurence Eugene Badgley
Case type: bk Chapter: 11 Asset: Yes Vol: v Judge: Dennis Montali
Date filed: 08/04/1992 Date of last filing: 06/22/1999
Date terminated: 06/22/1999
This litigation finally ended only because Judge Montali insisted that Badgley put all his claims into one basket so that he would not be able to file a new case against Arden Van Upp if his current claims were unsuccessful. Judge Montali then conducted a new trial on all of this and ruled substantially in favor of Arden Van Upp. However, he did not award Arden Van Upp attorneys fees which was a major omission because her attorneys fees by then were more than one million dollars. Thus, Arden Van Upp would have been better off just paying the half million dollars Badgley was initially claiming. Badgley appealed without success.
Even though Arden Van Upp won all the cases Badgley had filed against her, he still owned half the Bourn Mansion. Neither side was willing to sell his half to the other. However, Dr. Badgley had no money, as sales for his AIDS Cure were not going well, so by order of Judge Montali Arden Van Upp was able to buy out Badgley by paying him one million dollars which was one million more than Badgley had paid for his half of the building back in 1973.
This left Arden Van Upp owing two million dollars, one million to pay Badgley and the other one million to pay her own law firm. She was able to pay the two million by taking out a hard money mortgage on the Bourn Mansion.
Having accomplished this, therefore Judge Montali dismissed her bankruptcy case.
However, there was a cloud on the horizon because in the meanwhile the City of San Francisco had filed a new suit against Arden Van Upp on January 21, 1999. This suit was for failure to Earthquake Retrofit the Bourn Mansion on time and demanded that she pay $500 per day.
There is doubt that the City had jurisdiction to file this new case since Arden Van Upp was still in bankruptcy. Arden was never served and did not know about it. The bankruptcy court was never notified and did not know about it either.
The City of San Francisco got a default judgment against Arden Van Upp on August 31, 1999 in the amount of civil penalties totaling $614,500. They did not sue Laurence Badgley even though he was still half owner of the Bourn Mansion at the time. By the time Arden Van Upp found out about the case, the default had been entered. She went to many attorneys trying to get the default judgment lifted but none would take her case. Finally in 2008 Attorney Peter Hadiaris agreed to take her case. He filed a motion to vacate the default judgment and amazingly won on October 17, 2008. The judgment was set aside. The City of San Francisco appealed repeatedly up to the Supreme Court of California but lost at every level. Finally, the City of San Francisco was forced to take their lien off the house. This happened in 2011.
During this entire time between 1999 and 2010, the City of San Francisco had a default judgment against Arden Van Upp and the Bourn Mansion located at 2550 Webster Street. Because of additional interest and late fees, the amount of the judgment kept increasing, so it was $950,000 or nearly one million dollars by 2008.
All this is explained in the California Court of Appeals decision in City and County of San Francisco v. VAN UPP, Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 3rd Div. 2011
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9460274017048482124
During this entire time between 1999 and 2008, Arden Van Upp was unable to refinance her property because of the million dollar default judgment against her and the amount kept increasing. However, once the judgment was lifted even though the case was still pending on appeal, the lenders started to foreclose on the loan.
Having no choice, on July 10, 2009, Arden Van Upp filed a new bankruptcy petition because her creditors had scheduled a foreclosure auction to be held on the steps of City Hall that day.
09-31932 Arden Van Upp
Case type: bk Chapter: 11 Asset: Yes Vol: v Judge: Thomas E. Carlson
Date filed: 07/10/2009 Date of last filing: 12/20/2016
Debtor dismissed: 09/24/2012
Date terminated: 11/08/2012
This was filed as a Chapter 11 petition because Arden Van Upp just needed a little bit more time to arrange a refinancing of her building. She was already in contact with a lender. She just needed time to go through the procedures that every borrower has to follow.
Instead, as she found out, she had fallen into a black hole, as Judge Carlson would never let her out and still to this day eight years later has not let her out of bankruptcy as he is still to this day retaining jurisdiction over her and over this case.
It is submitted that almost every act by Judge Carlson over the last eight years has been done without jurisdiction and in violation of the principles set forth in the US Supreme Court decision of Stern v. Marshall, 564 US 462 (2011).
Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson ruled against her in IN RE VAN UPP, Bankr. Court, ND California 2010 in a decision dated January 21, 2010
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13995089036175911144
It is submitted that the bankruptcy judge was without jurisdiction to make this decision under many grounds including Stern v. Marshall, 564 US 462 (2011). In summary, the bankruptcy judge ruled that Arden Van Upp is not allowed to refinance her property even though she had the money to do so. She must sell it, the judge ruled.
All of these statements are conclusory. In this entire case, there has been no fact hearing, so sworn testimony of witnesses. The judge says he based his decision on photographs of the house.
It is submitted that mere photographs are not enough to support such a sweeping conclusion that the owner is required and forced to sell the home she has owned and lived in since 1973.
The photographs were of three of the rooms in the 28-room mansion showing that they were is a state of disarray. It is submitted that even if true that the house was messy, a bankruptcy judge lacks the jurisdiction to rule that the owner must move out and sell the property. Such a ruling would make every residential property owner subject to the whelms of every bankruptcy judge.
Judge Carlson also complains that Arden Van Upp fired her lawyer. It is true that Arden Van Upp fired her lawyer, Mitchell Hadler, and replaced him with another lawyer. She had every right to do that. This was one of several lawyers she has had during this case. The reason she fired her lawyer is he was insisting that she sell her house. She wanted to keep her house. If she had been willing to sell her house, she could have simply listed it for sale with any real estate agent. She could probably have gotten the $8.5 million that was the appraised value of the house. Her lawyer wanted her to sell the house for the ridiculously low amount of $2.9 million, the price that mere apartments are going for nowadays.
On the very same day that Arden Van Upp fired her lawyer and replaced him with another lawyer, Judge Carlson appointed a trustee.
It is submitted that this too was without jurisdiction. The law requires that for a trustee to be appointed there must be a motion made by one of the parties and there must be adequate grounds. Here a check of the record shows that nobody made a motion for the appointment of a trustee. The judge acted sua sponte. In addition, the only grounds Judge Carlson has ever given for his actions was that Arden Van Upp had fired her lawyer. A party has a right to fire a lawyer and parties often do so without recrimination.
The Trustee that was appointed, David Bradlow, proceeded to eat up all of the assets of the estate until nothing was left. That is the primary reason but not the entire reason that Arden Van Upp who had a net worth of $9 million dollars when this case started has lost all of her buildings is now penniless and destitute.
Several of the attorneys who have represented Arden Van Upp have filed vehement objections to the actions of the trustee and the judge. These objections by counsel for Arden Van Upp have been sealed by the court so nobody can read them. It seems that the bankruptcy judge is trying to protect his own reputation, so that the general public will never know what a terrible, awful, horrible judge he is. These attorneys whose objections have been sealed are Peter Hadiaris, Iain MacDonald and Richard Sinclair.
That decision not to let her out of bankruptcy has been cited in other cases such as In re Taub, 441 BR 211 - Bankr. Court, ED New York 2010 where “the court denied the debtor's application to remove a trustee where the debtor did 'not establish that [she was] any more likely to manage the bankruptcy estate properly at this date' than when the trustee was appointed. In re Van Upp, 2010 WL 2901634, at *2.” However, in the case presented here, the only reason Bankruptcy Judge Carlson has ever given for the appointment of a trustee was that Arden Van Upp had fired her attorney in open court.
In the case presented here, Arden Van Upp did not merely ask for the removal of the Trustee. She asked repeatedly for the entire case to be dismissed. She did not want the so-called “protection” of the bankruptcy court any more. The judge refused to let her out of bankruptcy. It is submitted that this violated the Constitutional provision against Slavery or Involuntary Servitude.
The judge states that there have been “declarations” supporting his actions. However, no declarations are to be found in the court files. All there are in the files are unsworn statements by counsel for the trustee. This is clearly insufficient. There must be sworn testimony by live witnesses and there have been none in the eight years that this case has been pending.
For example, the court states the debtor “(5) authorized a man (Petrizze) to live on the Webster property without a lease and defended him at eviction proceedings after having told the Trustee that Petrizze had no authority to live on the property”.
In fact, Arden Van Upp has never authorized Petrizze to live on the property. Petrizze was a homeless schizophrenic man who used to climb the walls to get into the building. Arden Van Upp had had him arrested several times. Petrizze had been given the keys to the building by “Sam” Osama bin Freej, the real estate agent hired by David Bradlow, not by Arden Van Upp.
The standard to be applied here is the standard set forth in the previously cited case that Arden Van Upp won: "A number of decisions carrying out this idea say that the test of the sufficiency of the affidavit is whether it could be the foundation of an indictment for perjury if false.” Cited in California Court of Appeals decision in City and County of San Francisco v. VAN UPP, Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 3rd Div. 2011
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9460274017048482124
Here, there have been no affidavits at all, just unsworn statements by the attorneys for the trustee. The trustee himself has never taken the stand to testify.
Many of the points made by Arden Van Upp here have been made previously. For example, her next attorney Richard Sinclair tried by suing the Trustee in federal district court in 2012. Richard Sinclair filed a suit against the trustee David Bradlow.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14874684986096517270
IN RE VAN UPP, Dist. Court, ND California 2012
No. C 11-04408 SI. United States District Court, N.D. California. July 23, 2012.
District Judge Susan Illston ruled that Arden Van Upp cannot sue the trustee without leave of the bankruptcy judge. The attorney had requested leave but leave had been denied.
Now the current situation is the Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson clearly intends to keep her case under his jurisdiction for the rest of her life or the rest of his life which ever ends first. For the last eight years, Arden Van Upp has been trying in every possible way to remove both the judge and the trustee and to have this case dismissed but they refuse to relinquish their control over her and over this case.
A new development in this case involves Linda Catron. Linda Catron has had her fingers in this case from the beginning. It was she who introduced Arden to Mitchell Hadler who filed this case. It is now apparent that the plan from the beginning of Linda Catron has been to get the property of Arden Van Upp. She has been pretending to be Arden's friend but in reality she is Arden's worst enemy. She has forged Arden's signature at least 14 times in documents filed in state and federal courts.
In August 2016, Arden was contacted by George Rowan, the man who had arranged in 1967-1969 for her to buy both the Ashbury Street property and the Webster Street property. Knowing that Arden was far behind in her mortgage payments, Rowan had arranged for Reid Settlemier to buy both the 1019 Ashbury Street Property and the 2807-2809 Steiner Street Property for $6.6 million.
Because George Rowan was an old friend and Arden tends to rely on old friends, she had signed the agreement to sell the two buildings together for $6.6 Million. As by then the mortgage on the two buildings was $6 million, this would leave Arden with $600,000 in cash.
All this time, Linda Catron has been trying to get the buildings for herself by pretending to be Arden's friend. Upon hearing that Arden had agreed to sell the buildings, Linda had moved to stop the sale from happening. Linda Catron has a friend named Joe Kan or Khan in Calistoga who pretends to be a lawyer and who draws up quasi legal proceedings and files them in court. Linda had Joe Kan draw up a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition and Linda took it down to the federal courthouse and filed it in San Francisco Bankruptcy Court. We know that Arden Van Upp did not file this because she never left her apartment at 2807 Steiner Street Apartment 3 on that day or the day before after the date in question. However, this bankruptcy petition appears as though it had been filed by Arden Van Upp.
16-30742 Arden Van Upp
Case type: bk Chapter: 13 Asset: Yes Vol: v Judge: Dennis Montali
Date filed: 07/01/2016 Date of last filing: 09/25/2016
Debtor dismissed: 07/28/2016
Date terminated: 09/23/2016
Linda Catron has her own case in federal bankruptcy court. In addition, she has filed 27 cases in San Francisco Superior Court as can be seen from the San Francisco Superior Court Website and she has also filed cases in Reno and Placer County in Tahoe as well, where she operating.
Her modus operandi is to borrow money at excessively high rates of interest such as 100% per month, to claim that the loan would be secured by her buildings and then when she does not pay back the loan she sues the lender claiming that he is a predatory lender so she does not have to pay him back. Most of the 27 cases Linda Catron has filed in San Francisco Superior Court follow this pattern.
Even though Judge Montali promptly dismissed the Chapter 13 case filed by Linda Catron in the name of Arden Van Upp, the effect was to render null and void the contract Arden Van Upp had signed to sell her two remaining buildings to Reid Settlemier for $6.6 million. With the foreclosure auction scheduled for the next day, George Rowan brought a new contract for Arden to sign agreeing to sell the buildings for the same price. Linda Catron contacted Arden and tried to convince her by telephone not to sign. At a meeting in Arden's apartment on August 1, 2016, Linda on the phone tried to convince Arden not to sign.
However, George Rowan prevailed by showing Arden two of the civil judgments against Linda Catron for fraud: Noel Weeks v. Linda Catron, Case No. CGC-11-516849 in which she has a non-dischargable judgment in the amount of 1.4 Million and Yin Falk v. Linda S. Catron, et al. No. CGC-09-486921, in which the judgment against her is $1.09 Million dollars.
This signing took place at 8:00 PM on August 1, 2016. However, the foreclosure sale was scheduled for 11:00 AM the following morning.
Reid Settlemier still wanted to buy the property directly from Arden and he did not want to risk being outbid at the auction so he tried to prevail on the lender to postpone the foreclosure sale. However, when the lender found out that Linda Catron was still involved and knowing her proclivity for filing lawsuits, he was unwilling to postpone. So Reid Settlemier made the winning bid at the auction and bought the buildings for $6 million, which was $600,000 less than he had been willing to pay Arden Van Upp. So Arden Van Upp lost $600,000 because of Linda Catron.
Then, on the same day but after the foreclosure Auction, Linda filed a new case in San Francisco Superior Court in the name of Arden Van Upp but did not tell Arden about it. The Case is Arden Van Upp vs. Northern California Mortgage, Case No. 16-553424. In this case, Linda Catron has forged the signature of Arden Van Upp at least 14 different times. The cause of action is to stop the foreclosure sale on the grounds of predatory lending, even though the foreclosure sale had already taken place. Linda Catron renewed the motion with new forged signatures ever week for the next seven weeks.
When Arden finally found out that Linda was doing this, Arden filed a civil action against Linda Catron, Arden Van Upp vs. Linda Sue Catron for Elder and Adult Dependent Abuse Case Number CCH 16-578600. At a hearing before Judge Joseph M. Quinn, Linda Catron claimed that Arden had given her permission to sign her name whenever she wanted and produced a letter she claimed Arden had signed giving Linda permission to sign her name. Arden vehemently denied she had given any such permission. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Quinn ordered that for the next five years, “Respondent is not allowed to sign petitioner's name to anything, any time, any where” and must stay at least 100 yards away from Arden Van Upp.
A mystery concerns the question of why Bankruptcy Case 09-31932 was given to Judge Carlson, whereas bankruptcy cases Cases No. 92-32965 Arden Van Upp and 16-30742 and were given to Judge Montali.
A likely reason is a simple mistake. Arden's daughter Tammy Van Upp had filed for bankrupcy Case No. 01-30233 Tammy Ann VanUpp
Case type: bk Chapter: 7 Asset: No Vol: v Judge: Thomas E. Carlson
Date filed: 01/31/2001 Date of last filing: 05/14/2001 Date discharged: 05/08/2001
Date terminated: 05/14/2001
This was a simple credit card case. Since Judge Carlson had that case, perhaps they thought that the next case should be given to Judge Carlson too, even though Tammy Van Upp is involved solely with beauty products such as hair and make-up and has no connection with the financial dealings of her mother, Arden Van Upp.
Other actions by Judge Carlson are absurd and ridiculous. The trustee David Bradlow requested and received $200,000 to file suit against Sam Sloan. The trustee alleged he was in fear of his life from Sloan because Sloan had said he was homosexual. Actually, Sloan had no such statement and even if he had why does that make Bradlow entitled to receive $200,000 in money belonging to Arden Van Upp? Sloan had never met, seen, spoken with, written a letter to, seen a picture of or talked with David Bradlow. All he knows about David Bradlow is the reputation Bradlow has in the Castro District of San Francisco where Bradlow reputedly lives. Why does that entitle Bradlow to receive such a huge amount of money belonging to Arden Van Upp?
ARGUMENT
The undersigned jointly appeal from the decisions and orders of Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson dated October 5, 2016 and October 10, 2016 which among other things denied motions to vacate and set aside the so-called “settlement” dated September 24, 2012, which denied motions to unseal the files and records of this case including the 14 documents ordered sealed by Bankruptcy Judge Carlson in Documents #436 and #548, denied the motions to vacate the appointment of David Bradlow as Trustee of the Estate, denied the motions to vacate the default judgment entered against Sam Sloan, denied the motions to order the return to Arden Van Upp the attorney fees of the amount in excess of $125,000 awarded to the trustee and his counsel for obtaining the default judgment against Sam Sloan, denied the motions to order the return to Arden Van Upp of $1.5 million dollars in attorneys and trustees fees awarded to David Bradlow and his attorneys in that no legal work or other work was done in this case that benefited the debtor or her estate, and denied the motions to remove and disqualify Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson from acting and appearing in this case and denied ordering the final unconditional dismissal of this case.
By these Notices of Appeals, the undersigned hereby reinstate 13 notices of appeals previously timely filed but never acted upon or heard in this case plus several motions to withdraw the reference and motions to disqualify Judge Carlson previously made.
The grounds of these appeals include among others that although Arden Van Upp has been debt free since early 2010, Judge Thomas E. Carlson repeatedly refuses to release Arden Van Upp from bankruptcy and has retained jurisdiction over her and over this case for the last seven years until today. Although Judge Thomas E. Carlson officially retired several years ago, he insists on retaining jurisdiction over this case. Although Arden Van Upp is entitled to an income tax refund in the amount in excess of $110,000 from the IRS based on income tax returns filed by the tax preparer hired by the trustee, the trustee David Bradlow has blocked and refused for four years to cooperate in obtaining the return of these funds to Arden Van Upp, apparently because the Trustee wants the money for himself as his fees. The Homestead Exemption that Arden Van Upp was entitled to receive in the amount of $75,000 was exempt funds but nevertheless Arden Van Upp never got the money because the attorneys illegally took the money as their fees. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson is guilty of Elder Abuse and Sexual Abuse because the debtor Arden Van Upp is an elderly woman and Judge Carlson dismissed the charges of Elder Abuse made against himself. The Trustee and the Bankruptcy Judge illegally sold the Bourn Mansion located at 2550 Webster Street, a historic 28-room mansion, for the ridiculously low amount of $2.79 million when the appraised value was then $8.5 million (it is worth much more now) and then paid almost the entire proceeds of $2.79 million to themselves and their attorneys as fees, with the debtor and/or her estate receiving none of this money.
The debtor Arden Van Upp is a successful real estate investor far more qualified than the trustee, his attorneys or the bankruptcy judge. Due to her financial acumen, the debtor Arden Van Upp had assembled a financial real estate empire through her own talents and abilities and had a net worth in excess of $9 million dollars. She had the funds in hand to refinance all of her own buildings by September 2009 and accordingly made a motion to dismiss her own Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. Instead, the Bankruptcy Judge violated the debtor's legal and constitutional rights to dismiss her own voluntary bankruptcy petition and denied several motions made then and since that time to dismiss her own petition thereby making the debtor essentially a financial prisoner subject to his control of Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson even to this day, eight years later.
Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson issued an order to Sam Sloan “which required him to remove certain libelous statements from various internet sites” that the judge considered derogatory with reference to the Trustee and to the Judge himself, although Sam Sloan had no power to remove these statements from the Internet as most of the websites were owned by Google and none of them were owned by Sam Sloan. Judge Carlson then ordered the amount of $127,000 paid to the Trustee and his attorneys from the Estate of Arden Van Upp for “legal work” done to obtain a default judgment against Sam Sloan, although no legal work was done.
Judge Carlson ordered $250,000 paid to the Trustee and $1.5 million dollars paid to Counsel for the Trustee, all from the funds belonging to Arden Van Upp, although the trustee and his attorneys did no work that benefited the debtor or her estate. Neither Sam Sloan nor Arden Van Upp were personally served with any of these motions or orders.
Judge Carlson states that Sam Sloan was served in Document #264 at 2550 Webster Street. However, Document #264 was filed by Iain MacDonald, not by the trustee or his attorney. Both Arden Van Upp and Sam Sloan had been evicted from 2550 Webster Street by the Trustee by the time of Document #264 as the judge was well aware and had never received them. Then Judge Carlson states that Sam Sloan was served by simple first class mail at an address in the unrelated litigation in Texas in which Sam Sloan was a defendant, in the suit brought by Susan Polgar against the United States Chess Federation in her unsuccessful takeover attempt where Sam Sloan was a member of that board of directors. Apparently Judge Carlson does not realize that service by first class mail especially out of state is not valid legal process.
The document allegedly served states that the complaint is attached but no complaint was attached and Sam Sloan has never received nor seen the complaint since it has been sealed. Bankruptcy Judge Carlson and the Trustee and his attorneys threatened Arden Van Upp that if she objected too strongly to all of this he would convert this case to Chapter 7 and sell her two remaining buildings located at 2807 & 2809 Steiner Street and at 1019 Ashbury Street that had a combined appraised value of $6 million and pay the entire $6 million to themselves as fees. They had a motion pending to do exactly this, Docket #533, when Judge Carlson finally conditionally dismissed this bankruptcy.
Substantially because of all these improper if not illegal acts by Bankruptcy Judge Carlson and the Trustee and his attorneys, although Arden Van Upp had a net worth of nine million dollars when she filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in July 2009, she is now left with nothing, zero, and is destitute. In all or almost all of the events enumerated above, Bankruptcy Judge Thomas E. Carlson far exceed the jurisdiction of a Bankruptcy Judge as set forth and explained by the United States Supreme Court in Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011) and thus all of this is null and void as without jurisdiction and her house at 2550 Webster Street and her money must be returned to her.
Arden Van Upp never agreed and would never agree to any aspect of the so-called settlement of this case. Her residence located at 2550 Webster Street, the Bourn Mansion, was stolen from her. The house had an appraised value of $8.5 million. She had on hand the money needed to refinance the mortgage to the houses. Saxe Mortgage Company, the previous lender, had agreed to refinance the properties and accordingly her attorney had filed a motion to dismiss this case. This all happened in 2009 just a few weeks after she had filed this Chapter 11 Bankruptcy case.
Instead, the trustee and his attorneys wanted to steal her money so they sold the house for the ridiculously low amount of $2.79 million or $6 million less than what it was worth.
She filed a notice of appeal and has filed a notices of appeal from virtually every order entered in this case. Altogether 13 notices of appeal were filed. None of her notices of appeal have ever been heard. The bankruptcy judge simply ignored them and proceeded as though nothing had been filed.
She also filed numerous motions to disqualify and remove Judge Thomas E. Carlson from this case. Under California Law, she had the right to remove one judge from a case and she has attempted to exercise this right many times. Judge Carlson ignored her motions to remove him and just proceeded as though nothing had been filed.
She made motions to withdraw the reference so as to put this case under the jurisdiction of a district court judge. These motions were also ignored by Judge Carlson.
The sale of her personal residence at 2550 Webster Street was completely illegal. No auction was held. No newspaper notices were made or published of the impending sale. If an public auction had been held, the same would have drawn at least the appraised value of $8.5 million and probably much higher.
The so-called settlement also settles claims of “Elder Abuse” made in her behalf. Obviously, she could never agree to “settle” that claim.
She understands that under the famous Marshall Case, a Bankruptcy Judge is essentially a magistrate and has no jurisdiction to do anything more than make routine rulings of the sort made in a normal bankruptcy case. There is nothing routine about this case. Thus the bankruptcy judge had NO JURISDICTION to do any of the things he did.
The bankruptcy judge authorized a suit against her friend Sam Sloan and authorized the payment of $125,000 in legal fees to the attorney for the trustee to sue Sam Sloan. This money was taken out of her estate from the proceeds of the sale of 2550 Webster Street. This is ridiculous. Why should she be forced to pay $125,000 to bring a suit against her friend of many years who is trying to help her?
Two of her former attorneys objected to the payment of these outrageous fees but their objections were sealed by Judge Carlson. She is demanding a full reimbursement of the $125,000 paid to the crooked attorney for the trustee.
She is also being held liable for the damage to the house caused by Jeffrey Petrizze. In no way is she responsible for that. Jeffrey Petrizze was given the keys to the house by Osama “Sam” bin Friej, the real estate agent hired by the trustee. Arden Van Upp had Jeffrey Petrizze arrested many times and took out orders of protection against him.
Recently, Jeffrey Petrizze got out of jail or mental hospital and once again he has been seen perched on the top of 2550 Webster Street like “the fool on the hill”. She is in no way responsible for that.
The house located at 2550 Webster Street has remained unoccupied ever since it was resold by Judge Carlson in 2010. Nobody is living there. She is demanding the restoration of the house at 2550 Webster Street as her personal property. She is also demanding reimbursement of all fees including attorneys fees and trustees fees paid to the trustee and his attorney.
Since the entire amount of $2.79 million was paid as attorneys and trustees fees and none of it was paid to her, she is demanding all of it back.
She was told that if she did not agree to the so-called settlement of September 24, 2012, then the trustee would convert this case to Chapter 7 and sell her two remaining properties located at 2807 and 2809 Steiner Street and at 1019 Ashbury Street and take the entire amount of $6 million which would be the proceeds from the sale of the two remaining buildings and pay it to themselves as fees. This was extortion on their part for which they should be disbarred.
The appointment of a trustee was illegal and wrong. A trustee is to be appointed only if the debtor is doing something wrong. She was doing nothing wrong.
She was previously in bankruptcy from 1992 to 2000 and a trustee was never appointed. She got back into bankruptcy after her previous bankruptcy had been dismissed in 2000 because the City of San Francisco got a default judgment against her in the amount of $950,000 (nearly one million dollars) for failure to earthquake retrofit her house on time. Because of this default judgment, she could not get refinancing on her house because her house was not worth that much in excess of the mortgage. However, once that default judgment was lifted, she was able to refinance her properties without difficulty.
However, once a trustee was appointed she could not refinance her house without his permission and he was unwilling to give that permission because he wanted to sell her house and get the money for himself and for his attorneys.
At that time her assets were $13 million and her liabilities were $4 million so her net worth was $9 million. The trustee saw an opportunity to take the whole $9 million for himself and did so.
The Bourn Mansion is a 28 room mansion that has been designated as a historical landmark. There is a book written about it: “Last Bonanza Kings: The Bourns of San Francisco” by Ferol Egan ISBN 0874177863. To sell it for the paltry sum of $2.79 million is ridiculous. On 20 September 2009, the SF Examiner called the sale “a steal”.
Judge Carlson was corrupt and unfair. He wanted to sell her house at Christmas time. The bidders wanted him to wait until after Christmas but he insisted on selling it quickly before Christmas.
Judge Carlson was horrible, terrible. People think the bankruptcy courts are there to help them. Instead, as she tells everybody, the bankruptcy courts are there to help themselves to your money.
When she went to her house after the sale, the police were there and they would not even allow her to go in to get her toothbrush. They threatened her that if she made any objection to the so-called settlement they would take away her two remaining properties. However, they cannot threaten her like that any more because her two remaining properties are now gone. All she has left is a shopping cart they gave her to push down the street.
Samuel H. Sloan moves to vacate the default judgment entered against him in this case as Bradlow vs. Sloan, Adv. Pro. No. 10-3040, which labeled him as a “vexatious litigant” and authorized the use of the debtors funds to file suit against him, on the grounds there was no service of the summons and complaint, or of the judgment or any other papers and pleadings in this case and he has never been notified and still cannot find out what this case is all about. It is unfair and prejudicial and harmful to him to call him a vexatious litigant with no reason and without giving him an opportunity to defend myself and to file a counterclaim if so advised. The statement that he is a “vexatious litigant” shows up in his credit reports and makes it difficult or impossible to find a suitable place for him and his family to live.
Sam Sloan has a legitimate interest in this case because he has been a long time resident of 2550 Webster Street and he hired and paid Iain MacDonald $15,000 or $20,000 to appear in this case. See Document #125
He is also moving to unseal all the PACER files to this case and to vacate the order that required Google to remove all references to this case from the Internet. He knows about that order even though it does not appear in the court record because Google notified him apologetically that it was required by court order to remove his Blog, the Sam Sloan Blog, from Google.
He sees that several files that were previously on PACER are no longer there or are not available. If one tries to read these documents it says, “This document is not available.” This makes it difficult if not impossible to find out what really happened in this case, so these files must be restored.
The debtor and her attorneys and advisers filed 13 notices of appeal in this case. The sealing or removal of these files makes it difficult if not impossible for any appellate judge or judges to review this case and see what happened.
The trustee David Bradlow and his attorneys Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP have claimed and have received more than $125,000 (one hundred twenty five thousand dollars) in attorneys and trustees fees in this case Bradlow vs. Sloan alone and have received total fees in the amount of well over one million dollars in fees. They have paid themselves this money from the proceeds of the sale of residence of the debtor where she resided located at 2550 Webster Street, San Francisco California, that was sold without jurisdiction for $2.79 million whereas the appraised value was $8.5 million.
That entire $2.79 million was gobbled up by the Trustee and his attorneys as fees. The debtor received none of these funds. The winning bidders were Gregory and Gloria McCandless who just happened to be in the court room on that day on another matter.
The Bourn Mansion, 2550 Webster Street
When it later developed that they did not have the money and could not afford to pay $2.79 million, the bankruptcy judge just ordered the Bourn Mansion to be sold to somebody else for same amount without holding another courtroom auction. All this was illegal and improper.
That sale was illegal null and void as in violation of the principles set forth in the United States Supreme Court decisions of Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462, 131 S.Ct. 2594 (2011) and Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Bellingham, Chapter 7 Trustee of Estate of Bellingham Insurance Agency, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, No. 12-1200 (June 9, 2014). Arden is moving for a reimbursement to the debtor of the house and all trustees and attorneys fees in this case.
This should have been a relatively simple Chapter 11 Reorganization that could and should have been wound up in three weeks especially since there was a qualified lender Saxe Mortgage Company ready to loan her the funds necessary to refinance who had also previously financed her properties and who later did again refinance her properties.
Instead, the Trustee and his attorneys wanted to earn big bucks by selling her properties, earning commissions and legal fees, and caused this case to drag on for four years with the last court filing Filed & Entered: 08/02/2013 with 552 docket entries on PACER with the attorneys paying themselves over a million dollars in legal fees and the trustee taking a quarter of a million in trustees fees.
The three Van Upp properties, 2550 Webster Street, 2807-2809 Steiner Street and 1019 Ashbury Street, were all bundled together into one mortgage. Thus they could not be divided. Instead the trustee sold the building on Webster Street and Saxe Mortgage Company refinanced the other two buildings the very next day. Saxe Mortgage Company provided enough money to refinance all three buildings, but the trustee would not allow it. The sale of the one building and not allowing the largest building to be refinanced was criminal theft for which the trustee and his attorneys should be prosecuted, especially since the kept all the money as “fees”. The sale must be reversed and the money returned.
In looking through the case file on PACER she cannot see any evidence of any legal work being done by counsel for the trustee in this entire case. There are no legal briefs, memorandums of law, case citations, affidavits, declarations, findings of fact and conclusions of law found anywhere in this case. There is no evidence of legal work of any kind in the Bradlow vs. Sloan aspect of this case nor in the Arden Van Upp Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Therefore she is demanding full reimbursement of all legal fees paid in this case, which amount to more than one million dollars.
The attorneys for the Trustee stated they were entitled to be paid $125,000 for their “legal work” in removing information about this case from the Internet. They did no legal work. It was clearly illegal and indeed unconstitutional to remove information about this case from the Internet. Remarks were made about this case in which there was widespread public interest in which postings were negative about the Trustees, the attorneys for the trustee and about the Bankruptcy judge.
Since the Bankruptcy judge has since retired there is nobody around who remembers what really happened in this case, so these files and internet postings must be restored.
She is aware that the Bankruptcy judge entered an order prohibiting the debtor from filing a bankruptcy case for five years and that five years has not expired. However, she needs to explain that the debtor is suffering from a case of senile dementia. Her mind was not clear. She has been unable to recognize who her real friends are. She had allowed two fraudster persons to take over her affairs. They are Linda Catron and Mike Ragland, whom we call “Motorcycle Mike”, to distinguish him from other persons named Mike. Arden Van Upp defended them both and said they were just wonderful.
The Bankruptcy judge entered an order that if the Debtor should sue the Trustee or his attorneys or file for another Bankruptcy again within five years, this case could be reopened and the Trustee could go after and sell her two remain properties and take them as fees as they have done for the 2550 Webster Street property.
That order is now moot because the two remaining properties of the debtor Arden Van Upp were sold at public auction on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on August 2, 2016. As the winning bid of more than six million dollars was exactly one penny more than the amount of the mortgage, the net proceeds of this sale was exactly one penny, so the debtor is now penniless as she does not have two cents to rub together.
The winning bid was $6,061,164.41 and the mortgage plus fees was $6,061,164.40 or one penny less.
Because of the activities of Linda Catron and Motorcycle Mike, the debtor Arden Van Upp has lost her two remaining buildings, the building at 2807-2809 Steiner Street and the building at 1019 Ashbury Street. These were sold at public auction on the steps of city hall on August 2, 2016 for one cent more than the mortgage lien against the houses. Thus, the total proceeds Arden Van Upp will receive from this sale of her two remaining buildings will be one cent.
This happened because of the activities of Linda Catron and Motorcycle Mike. They were fighting each other like two vultures circling over a dying animal.
Arden Van Upp had received a written offer from a qualified buyer to pay $6,600,000 (six million six hundred thousand dollars) which was above and over the mortgage lien of six million. She accepted that offer but when Linda Catron filed a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Petition supposedly in Arden's behalf on July 1, 2016, Case No. 16-30742, this effectively rendered void the offer to buy the Van Upp properties for $6,600,000.
The party that made the offer to buy for $6,600,000 is the same party who submitted the winning bid of $6,061,164.41. Thus the winning bidder paid $539,000 less than he had offered to pay.
Due to being senile, Arden Van Upp still did not fully realize that she lost $539,000 because of her “friend” Linda Catron. Indeed, only two days later when she was in the residence, she heard Linda Catron say to her “Joe is working with lawyers in L.A. who will reverse the whole thing.”
Sam Sloan was living in Bronx, New York but as Arden is an old friend since 1966, when he heard about these events he flew out from New York City arriving in the early morning of July 28, 2016, in time for the hearing before Judge Montali on that day. He was present in the courtroom when Arden Van Upp read a script that he had seen Linda Catron write out for her to read. He heard Arden say that she has a lawyer in L.A. named Jeremy Faith. Arden does not know Jeremy Faith but Linda told her to say this. Sloan was present in court when Judge Montali dismissed this latest bankruptcy case.
Since then, Linda Catron has filed in the name of Arden Van Upp a case in San Francisco Superior Court entitled Arden Van Upp vs. Northern California Mortgage, 16-553424. Linda Catron has filed six motions for a Temporary Restraining Order in that case. Arden gave Linda Catron a check for $2300 for “lawyer fees” for this case. Linda Catron is not a lawyer.
These motions for a temporary restraining order asked that the foreclosure auction be stayed and enjoined even though Linda Catron is well aware the foreclosure auction had already taken place and took place on August 2, 2016 before this case was even filed.
Linda Catron has taken a check from Arden Van Upp in the amount $2300 for “legal fees” to be paid to Joe Khan or Kahn who is not a lawyer. Joe Kahn is a man from Pakistan or India who lives in Calistoga California. He has a Russian wife and is said to be involved in intervening in a lot of bankruptcy cases in Los Angeles.
Linda Catron is a known fraudster whose modus operandi is to offer to borrow money as a “bridge loan” on a short term basis such as one month or 90 days at an outrageously high and usurious rates of interest. She claims she needs this bridge loan because she is about to receive through a man in South Dakota $50 million dollars from a man from Nigeria and she need this bridge loan to tide herself over until the money arrives from Nigeria.
Then when Linda Catron does not repay the loan, she claims she does not have to pay because the rate of interest was usurious.
There are two judgments for civil fraud against Linda Catron for doing this, yet she continues to try to borrow money. She even tried to borrow money from Sam Sloan, asking him to loan her $10,000 and offering to pay him 120% or $1,000 per month as interest.
Linda Catron also borrows money from legitimate lenders, does not repay them, and then sues them in San Francisco Superior Court claiming she was tricked into taking the loans. Linda Catron has filed at least three civil cases like this in the last few months and about 40 cases like this over a period of the last several years.
Linda Catron recently filed for bankruptcy in this court attempting to get out of the two civil court judgments for over two million dollars in state court. Her recent bankruptcy case has been dismissed. Case No. 14-30175
Two of the civil judgments against Linda Catron for fraud are Noel Weeks v. Linda Catron, Case No. CGC-11-516849 in which she has a non-dischargable judgment in the amount of 1.4 Million and Yin Falk v. Linda S. Catron, et al. No. CGC-09-486921, in which the judgment against her is $1.09 Million dollars.
Linda Catron has been forging the signature of Arden Van upp in legal documents she has been filing. Sam Sloan knows the signature of Arden Van Upp well as he has known her since 1966 and lived with her for more than ten years. That is definitely not the signature of Arden Van Upp.
Proof that Linda Catron is the forger who filed is the signature on a certificate of service. That is the name and address and signature of Linda Catron on 2614 Sacramento Street, San Francisco CA 94115. Linda Catron has filed similar nearly identical cases in her own behalf as well. An example is Linda Sue Catron vs. Specialized Lending Services et all, CGC-16-551351, filed April 6, 2016. All of these documents are believed to have been prepared by Joe Khan or Kahn who is not a lawyer.
Linda Catron has forged the name of Arden Van Upp on other documents as well. There was a tenant at 2807 Steiner Street Apartment 2 upstairs named Jeffrey Quayle. One year ago, Jeffrey Quayle was evicted from his mother's house located one block away at the NE corner of Broadway and Steiner Street. After Jeffrey Quayle was evicted from his mother's million dollar home, Arden Van Upp took pity on him and let him stay in her apartment 2 on a temporary basis. However, his time was up and he refused to move out. He produced what he claims to be a 6 year lease signed by Arden at a rent of $500 per month.
That apartment normally rents for $3,000 per month. Now Jeffrey Quayle has produced this supposed lease for $500 per month but it contains the name and endorsement of Linda Catron, so this is obviously another Linda Catron forgery.
Jeffrey Quayle had given Linda Catron a key to the front door to Arden's residence at 2807 Steiner Street, so Linda could enter Arden's building without the permission of Arden. All this was happening because Arden Van Upp is senile now. This also explains the Chapter 13 filing in the name of Arden Van Upp on July 1, 2016. When her mind was clear Arden well knew that she was not allowed to file another bankruptcy for five years and she knew the terrible things that happened to her the last time she filed.
Arden Van Upp had been trying to evict Jeffrey Quayle for more than six months especially because Jeffrey Quayle has been going around telling everybody that Arden Van Upp is a drug addict and she has been having sex with Mike Ragland (“Motorcycle Mike”) and Ted Carroll because they have been bringing her drugs.
Now Arden Van Upp has been left destitute and without funds and her daughter Tammy Van Upp has been left without inheritance. We hope this has earned Linda Catron a stiff prison sentence. The upside is Arden Van Upp has the opportunity to get exercise every day by pushing a shopping cart down the street and she does not have to worry about being sued.
Unlike most wealthy women, Arden Van Upp never married a rich man. She made her money herself through real estate investments. Nobody helped her except Sam Sloan helped a little.
Arden followed the example of her mother, Doris Loy Rich, who made more than one and a half million dollars through real estate investments (back when that was real money). However, Doris Rich had all that taken away from her when she was more than 90 years old by corrupt court appointed conservators and she died penniless.
Arden Van Upp bought her first property which was at 1019 Ashbury Street in November 1967. Sam Sloan was with her when she purchased that building. She had asked Sloan for advice on whether she should buy that building or not. George Rowan was the real estate agent.
In 1973, George Rowan found another building suitable for her. That was the Bourn Mansion at 2550 Webster Street. However, prior to the closing when she bought that building, Arden was attracted to a young doctor named Dr. Laurence Badgey. She decided to let in Dr. Badgley as a partner in the deal, although she did not need a partner. Dr. Badgley apparently made a down payment of as much as $25,000 but never paid any more money after that.
Dr. Badgley filed suit against Arden Van Upp in 1976. Each wanted to buy the other out. The case went on for 25 years. It was the longest running active case in San Francisco history. Both Dr. Badgley and Arden Van Upp went into bankruptcy. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali tried the case and ruled substantially in favor of Arden Van Upp. Dr. Badgley appealed but without success.
That bankruptcy case of Arden Van Upp was filed on June 18, 1992 and ended on August 25, 2000. Case No. 92-32965. Although Arden prevailed, she had to pay one million dollars to Dr. Badgley to buy out his half of the house and she had to pay her lawyers Nossaman Guthner Knox & Elliott one million dollars to represent her in the litigation. Arden's mother Doris Rich paid a retainer check to Nossaman, Gunther, Knox and Elliott in the amount of $125,000, but the Nossaman firm lost the check so Arden had to provide another check for that amount.
Although Arden had prevailed and had come out of bankruptcy, she was left with debt of more than two million dollars, so she took out a mortgage secured by the three properties she owned.
One year before coming out of bankruptcy, Arden was sued by the City of San Francisco for failure to earthquake retrofit her house on time. Arden felt she should not be required to earthquake retrofit her house because the house had been built in 1896 and had survived all the earthquakes without difficulty plus it was built on solid rock on the pinnacle of Pacific Heights. Also, Arden did not have the money being in bankruptcy.
When Arden failed to respond to the lawsuit, the City of San Francisco took a default judgment. As the years passed, this default judgment increased because of late charges and attorneys fees until it reached more than nine hundred fifty thousand dollars, nearly one million dollars by 2008.
Sam Sloan was staying in Apartment 2 in Arden's building at 2807 Steiner Street. He was shocked when just then on July 10, 2009 Arden filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy with Mitchell Hadler as her new attorney. The Chapter 11 filing showed that Arden Van Upp had assets of $13 million dollars and liabilities of only $4 million for a net worth of $9 million dollars. See document 47 in the PACER file.
It is unusual for a private person to file for bankruptcy while having a net worth of more than $9 million. It can be seen that the attorneys involved decided to take advantage of this situation by converting these funds for their own personal use. That is how the law firm of Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP has been able to claim and have awarded to them and received more than one million dollars in legal fees without doing any legal work.
In order to cover up and conceal the fact that Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP had more than one million dollars in legal fees awarded to them without doing any legal work at all, Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP had placed under seal all documents in opposition to them. Thus, anybody reading the PACER file can only see one side of the case. They can not see the declarations in opposition to them.
Peter Hadiaris, a well known and well respected San Francisco lawyer, issued a scathing declaration in opposition to the motion by the Trustee and his counsel for fees and for the right to spend the debtors money in a suit against Samuel H. Sloan. Peter Hadiaris stated that the Trustee was a profligate spender who had squandered tens of thousands of dollars of Arden Van Upp's money for no good or valid reason. Hadiaris further stated that seeing what the Trustee had done with Van Upp's money, he would never hire this trustee in any case involving him and he would recommend to anybody else not to use this trustee in any case. He further stated that nothing that Sloan had said about the trustee was defamatory. Although Sloan had stated out of court that the trustee is homosexual, that is not defamatory in the San Francisco environment. Sloan has never met, seen nor spoken to David Bradlow. He was simply reporting that Arden Van Upp repeatedly states that Bradlow is homosexual.
In response, the Bankruptcy judge sealed the opposition by Peter Hadiaris. As a result, this pleading by Peter Hadiaris cannot be found in the PACER file that is normally seen by other attorneys.
Now that the bankruptcy case is terminated, Arden Van Upp is due a federal tax refund in the amount of $110,000 plus interest. Attorney Robert Cross is working on getting the money back. However, David Bradlow and his attorneys are opposed, claiming that the money is supposed to be their fees. This situation has been deadlocked for over three years.
Sam Sloan is in San Francisco now and went to the Bankruptcy Court a few days ago at 450 Golden Gate Avenue on the 18th Floor to try to see if he could see the paper file in this case, as many documents that he remembers being filed cannot be seen on PACER. He was told by the clerk there that this is because many but not all documents have been sealed by the bankruptcy judge. He remembers several Notices of Appeal in pro per being filed by Arden Van Upp herself. Then the next day her lawyer at the time Iain MacDonald would move to dismiss the notice of appeal his own client had filed. See Document #378
During this time Iain MacDonald was in conflict with his own client, Arden Van Upp. She wanted to get this case away from the bankruptcy judge, Judge Carlson, and get it back to Judge Montali, the judge who had handled the prior bankruptcy filed in 1992. Arden Van Upp said many times to Iain MacDonald “You're Fired”, Donald Trump style. Iain MacDonald simply ignored this and refused to be fired.
The reason for this conflict was Arden Van Upp wanted to keep all three of her buildings. She did not want to sell anything. Iain MacDonald and Mitchell Hadler the attorney before him wanted her to sell one of her three buildings and use the proceeds of the sale to pay off her debt entirely and leave her free and clear. We agree that this would have been a good rational thing to do but Arden Van Upp did not want to do this.
In response, the clerk in the bankruptcy court directed Sloan to Document 548. This is an order sealing almost all of the documents in the Bradlow vs. Sloan case. This explains why he never knew about this case because it was never served and now the file is sealed. He is demanding that the file be unsealed and that he be allowed to defend, respond and file a counterclaim.
Arden Van Upp filed this bankruptcy case on July 10, 2009 because her three properties were about to be auctioned off on the steps of city hall. She hired as counsel Mitchell Hadler a lawyer she did not previously know but who had been recommended to her by a friend of Linda Catron. Mitchell Hadler is not licensed to practice law in California but is licensed in Minnesota.
Mitchell Hadler believed she should sell one of the three buildings and use the proceeds to pay off the mortgage on all three. As the mortgage was for less than $3 million and any one of the three buildings was worth more than that, the sale of just one of the buildings would leave the other two free and clear.
However, Arden Van upp did not want to sell and refused to sell. Undaunted, Mitchell Hadler listed one of them as the property to be sold. On the day when the building was to be sold, Arden Van Upp arrived in bankruptcy court with her two friends, Linda Catron and Dr. Ted Carroll, and a lawyer Thomas Swihart and they announced to the court that Mitchell Hadler was fired as her lawyer and Arden Van Upp was now represented by Thomas Swihart.
Hearing this, the Bankruptcy judge canceled the sale of the building and appointed a trustee. This all happened on the same day. Appellants contend that the appointment of the trustee was illegal, null and void and without jurisdiction as Arden Van Upp had done nothing wrong and no party had moved for the appointment of the trustee.
In spite of appearing in court before the bankruptcy judge and stating that he was representing Arden Van Upp and in spite of the fact that Arden Van Upp gave him $5,000 cash money in open court, Thomas Swihart never filed a Notice of Appearance in this case. He later told Sam Sloan that his only job had been to fire Mitchell Hadler and he had done that so he had no further involvement in this case.
After the Trustee had been appointed, Sam Sloan hired Iain MacDonald to represent Arden Van Upp. Sam Sloan believes that Iain MacDonald had originally been found by Patty Barnes, but Sam Sloan was the one who actually hired him. Iain MacDonald states that Sam Sloan paid him $15,000 as a retainer fee but Sloan's recollection is that he paid MacDonald $20,000. See Document #125.
During the initial period after Sloan hired him, Iain MacDonald was doing a good job fighting contentious battles against Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP, counsel for the trustee.
However, not long thereafter, Iain MacDonald called Sloan to state that the money he had paid him as a retainer fee had been used up and he needed another $20,000 to continue the case.
Sloan replied that he had thought that the $15,000 or $20,000 he had paid him would be enough to carry him through to the end of this case and he simply did not have any more money to expend on this case.
After that, Iain MacDonald was less than zealous in representing Arden Van Upp, to put it mildly. He often seemed to be going against her.
In the end, the PACER files show that Iain MacDonald received more than $100,000 representing Arden Van Upp. Most of this money came from the sale of the Bourn Mansion for $2.79 million, plus he received her $75,000 Homestead Exemption as his fee.
Realizing that the judge was against her, Arden Van Upp went to extreme lengths to try to get rid of Judge Carlson and force him off this case. She filed 13 notices of appeals many of which do not appear on PACER and she made numerous motions to Withdraw the Reference and to disqualify Judge Carlson.
All of these notices, motions and appeals were ignored by Judge Carlson and he just proceeded as though nothing had happened or been filed. It is HORNBOOK Law that once a notice of appeal has been filed the action stops in the lower court and moves to the appellate court. However, here Judge Carlson just ignored this rule and proceeded as though nothing had been filed.
Judge Carlson just deemed everything the attorneys Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP, said in unsworn statements to be true. No fact hearing was ever held in this case. There was no testimony of witnesses. No verified declarations of witnesses nor affidavits were filed in this entire case.
Iain MacDonald as counsel for Arden Van Upp made a dozen motions to dismiss this case, starting in November 2009. In one instance the bankruptcy judge denied the motion to dismiss and sold the Webster Street house on the same day. All motions to dismiss were opposed by counsel for the Trustee. Counsel for the Trustee wanted to keep this case going for as long as possible so they could collect more fees.
Even after all the buildings had been sold or refinanced and there was no debt left, counsel for the Trustee moved to convert the case to a Chapter 7 and just so they could sell the two remaining buildings and use the proceeds of the sale which would be about $6 million to sue Sam Sloan.
The Trustee spent huge amounts of the debtors money in wasteful and inappropriate ways. He ordered 24 hour security guards 7 days a week to stand in front of the Webster Street building just to keep Arden Van Upp out of the house even though she still owned the house.
Another series of incidents involved Jeffrey Petrizze. Jeffrey Petrizze was a mentally ill schizophrenic man who often drew crazy pictures and text on boards and slipped them under the gate at 2550 Webster Street. We had no idea who was doing this until Arden Van Upp caught him doing it. Arden Van Upp called the police and had him arrested.
However, the judge ordered him released almost immediately on the ground that he was crazy. Then, Jeffrey Petrizze came back to the house almost immediately. This process was repeated again and again.
Jeffrey Petrizze had the ability to scale the walls at 2550 Webster Street. He could walk around the ledges and get in through the back. He could even climb around the sides, come through the windows and get on the roof.
As long as the judges kept letting him out of jail, there was no way to stop this. Enclosed is a picture of the Bourn Mansion to illustrate the problem. Because of the many handholds and ledges along the sides, any person with athletic ability and brave enough will be able to scale the walls. Sloan's own late daughter Jessica when she was a teenager used to climb the walls and get inside any time she wanted.
Jeffrey Portize did this in other homes as well. One family in Marin County went away for the Summer. When they came home they found Jeffrey Petrizze sitting in their living room casually watching TV. Jeffrey Petrizze invited them to sit down and watch TV with him.
Apparently the judges in Marin County viewed this more seriously and Jeffrey Petrizze was held in jail for some time. When he got out he came back to San Francisco where the judges are more tolerant of crazy people.
When Osama “Sam” bin Freij was sent to the Bourn Mansion by the Trustee to change all the locks on the doors, he found only Jeffrey Petrizze inside the building. Thinking that Jeffrey Petrizze was a tenant and not realizing that he had just broken into the house, Osama “Sam” bin Freij gave Jeffrey Petrizze the new key to the doors. As a result, Arden Van Upp did not have a key to her own house. Sloan did not have a key either. Only Jeffrey Petrizze had a key.
It was Jeffrey Petrizze who climbed to the top of the house and removed the tarps and weights. Arden Van Upp had nothing to do with this. Then the Trustee and his attorneys charged Arden Van Upp for this even though this was the fault of Osama “Sam” bin Freij because he had given Jeffrey Petrizze the keys to the house.
Last we heard that Jeffrey Petrizze is locked up in either jail or mental hospital. He has not been seen around lately.
Trustee and his counsel claims that because of the actions of Arden Van Upp, it was necessary for the Trustee to bring eviction proceedings against Jeffrey Petrizze and she must pay the attorneys fees. In reality, it was because Osama bin Freej gave the key to the house to Jeffrey Petrizze. Arden Van Upp had had Jeffrey Petrizze arrested numerous times and had taken out orders of protection against him.
A civil case against a hopeless schizophrenic such as Jeffrey Petrizze was unlikely to be effective as he will just climb the walls and get in again. To charge the Arden Van Upp a hundred thousand dollars in attorneys fees to bring a case against Jeffrey Petrizze was ridiculous.
In support of claims that Sloan a vexations litigant, the cases they cite are almost all child custody cases involving Sloan's daughters, Shamema, Jessica and Anusha. Any man who has eight children as Sloan does and has been married several times as he has is likely to have court cases. This should not be held against Sloan.
Trustee and his counsel base their claim that the files must be sealed because they were defamatory such that nobody would hire this trustee. They say he could not get any more trustee jobs because his opposing counsel claimed that he had wasted and misappropriated funds of the debtor. However, the Trustee as a government appointed official does not have the right to keep it a secret under seal that he has wasted, squandered and misappropriated the funds of the debtor.
WHEREFORE, for all of the reasons set forth above we request that the
Default Judgment in Bradlow vs. Samuel H. Sloan must be vacated and set aside, the attorneys fees of more than $125,000 awarded to the Trustee and his counsel Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP in Bradlow vs. Samuel H. Sloan must be vacated and returned, all the documents in this case should be unsealed and restored to PACER, all of the proceedings starting with the denial of the first motion to dismiss this bankruptcy back in November 2009 must be declared null, void and without jurisdiction in accordance with the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462, 131 S.Ct. 2594 (2011), all attorneys fees awarded to counsel for the Trustee in the amount of one million dollars and more must be returned to the debtor, the sale of the house at 2550 Webster Street must be declared null and void and without jurisdiction and the house must be returned to the Debtor and such other and further relief as may be deemed just and equitable should be granted.

WHEREFORE, the debtor prays that the courts:
1. Remove Judge Thomas E. Carlson from this case.
2. Restore to her ownership the house located at 2550 Webster Street, the Bourn Mansion.
3. Unseal all the sealed files in this case
4. Reimburse to her the entire $125,000 paid to attorneys for the trustee in the Sam Sloan case and the $100,000 fees paid to evict and to repair damage allegedly caused by Petrizze.
5. Reimburse to Arden Van Upp all fees paid to the trustee in this case.
6. Reimburse to Arden Van Upp all fees paid to the trustees' attorneys in the amount of more than one million dollars in this case
7. And provide such other and further relief as may be deemed by the courts to be just and equitable.
This brief contains 13,384 words

Dated January 3, 2017
_____________________
Arden Van Upp
1019 Ashbury Street, Apt. 3
San Francisco CA 94117

_____________________
Sam Sloan
1019 Ashbury Street, Apt. 3
San Francisco CA 94117
Table of Cases

Bankruptcy Case No. 92-32965 Arden Van Upp 4, 14
Bankruptcy Case No. 09-31932 Arden Van Upp 6, 13
Bankruptcy Case No. 16-30742 Arden Van Upp 12, 14, 26
Bankruptcy Case No. 01-30233 Tammy Ann VanUpp 14
Bankruptcy Case No. 92-33747 Laurence Eugene Badgley 4
Arden Van Upp vs. Linda Sue Catron for Elder and Adult Dependent Abuse Case Number CCH 16-578600. 13
Arden Van Upp vs. Northern California Mortgage, Case No. 16-553424. 13, 27
Badgley v. Van Upp, 20 Cal. App. 4th 218 - Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 2nd Div. 1993 4
Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990). 4
Bradlow vs. Sloan, Adv. Pro. No. 10-3040 21, 22, 25
City and County of San Francisco v. VAN UPP, Cal: Court of Appeal, 1st Appellate Dist., 3rd Div. 2011 6, 10
Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Bellingham, Chapter 7 Trustee of Estate of Bellingham Insurance Agency, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, No. 12-1200 (June 9, 2014) 24
In re Taub, 441 BR 211 - Bankr. Court, ED New York 2010 9
IN RE VAN UPP, Bankr. Court, ND California 2010 7
IN RE VAN UPP, No. C 11-04408 SI, United States District Court, N.D. California, July 23, 2012. 10
Linda Sue Catron vs. Specialized Lending Services et all, CGC-16-551351, filed April 6, 2016. 28
Noel Weeks v. Linda Catron, Case No. CGC-11-516849 12,28
Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011) 7,17,24
Yin Falk v. Linda S. Catron, et al. No. CGC-09-486921 12,28
“Last Bonanza Kings: The Bourns of San Francisco” by Ferol Egan ISBN 0874177863 21

Proof of Service

The within documents have been served on all parties to this case including:
Michael D. Cooper (Bar No. 42761)
WENDEL, ROSEN, BLACK & DEAN LLP
1111 Broadway, 24th Floor
Oakland, California 94607
Telephone: (510) 834-6600
Fax: (510) 834-1928
Attorneys for Trustee, David A. Bradlow


Iain MacDonald
221 Sansome St, Ste 3,
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 362-0449


Robert R. Cross
Skootsky & Der LLP
90 New Montgomery Street, suite 600
San Francisco CA 94105
415-979-9800


______________________
Samuel H. Sloan
1019 Ashbury Street, Apt. 3
San Francisco CA 94117

917-659-3397