Arden Van Upp and Sam
Arden Van Upp and Sam got to know each other at an SFL Party at the
University of California at Berkeley in 1966. They married in October 1967.
Not long thereafter, Sam got in trouble because of his parties and student
club at the University of California at Berkeley and moved to New York. He
got a job working on Wall Street and eventually became a registered
broker-dealer as Samuel H. Sloan & Co.
Meanwhile, they forgot about their marriage and married other people.
Sam did not return to California until 1990, 23 years later. By then,
Arden had become a wealthy real estate mavin. She owned rental properties
plus the 28-room Bourn Mansion, one of the most famous private residences
in San Francisco, located at 2550 Webster Street at the peak of the Pacific
Heights section of San Franciso. Arden and Sam got back together where they
had left off and Sam moved into the Bourn Mansion.
Arden had bought the Bourn Mansion in 1973. It is a 28-room historic
mansion on the national registry. However, soon thereafter she had met a
young doctor named Lawrence Badgley at a party. He wanted in on the deal.
He paid Arden $25,000 and became half owner on the deed. He moved in.
Not long thereafter, the police raided the place and caught Dr. Badgley
just as he was leaving. He claimed that Arden had called the police because
he was smoking marijuana. However, this was not true as Arden would never
call the police. We later learned that another tenant named Judy Lamb had
actually called the police on Dr. Badgley after he had propositioned her
while he was naked.
Dr. Badgley sued Arden in 1974. The case went on for 25 years until 1999.
It was the longest running active case in the history of San Francisco. In
1991 a corrupt judge awarded Dr. Badgley $500,000 damages without ever
hearing the testimony, even though Badgley had paid nothing for the
maintenance and upkeep on the house after his initial $25,000 down payment.
Arden appealed. To stop Dr. Badgley from foreclosing, she filed for
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. She hired a big law firm to represent her. After
several more years of litigation, the law firm got the $500,000 judgment
overturned on appeal, but she had to pay a legal bill of $750,000. She
would have been better off just paying the $500,000 judgment.
Even after the judgment was vacated, Dr. Badgley still owned half the
house. To end all this, Arden Van Upp borrowed three million dollars in a
hard-money loan. Up until this time, she had been virtually debt free. To
secure this loan, she put up her three properties. 1019 Ashbury, 2807
Steiner Street and 2550 Webster Street. This paid off everybody and Judge
Montali let Arden out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
After making this hard-money loan, the lender (actually a group of
lenders) kept raising the interest rate and threatening to foreclose. Arden
often had to sign papers agreeing to an increase in the loan to keep her
properties. The rate of interest was usurious, over 10%. As an elderly
woman, Arden is now 77, she could not read or understand the documents so
she just signed them without reading them.
At the end of 2008, there was the famous financial collapse where many
banks and brokerage firms such as Lehman Brothers went under. Because of
this Arden, could not roll over her loans and could not refinance. She kept
falling further behind in her payments. Finally, in July 2009 her creditors
scheduled a foreclosure auction on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. In
order to stop the foreclosure sale, she had no choice but to file a Chapter
11 bankruptcy reorganization. Case No. 09-31932 TEC
Unlike the previous judge who had allowed Arden to reorganize, borrow new
money, pay off everybody and come out of bankruptcy, this judge would not
let her out. Only three weeks after Arden had filed for Chapter 11, Arden
came up with money from a new lender with enough to pay everybody off. It
should not have been a surprise that Arden would raise the money so
quickly. The three buildings combined had an appraised value of over $12.5
million and she only needed $3 million to pay off the existing loans.
However, the judge, Judge Carlson, would not allow it. Instead he appointed
a trustee, a homosexual by the name of David Bradlow.
Trustees make their money by selling properties and collecting a
commission. If they do not sell anything they do not get any money.
Therefore Bradlow would not allow Arden Van Upp to refinance even though
she had the money in hand. At this point, Arden and Sam Sloan were still
living together in the Bourn Mansion at 2550 Webster Street. Bradlow
appointed a real estate agent named Osama bin Freij to handle the sales of
the three buildings. When Osama bin Freij came to the Bourn Mansion to take
possession of the property, Arden and Sam were not at home but a
schizophrenic homeless man named Jeffrey Porteze happened to be in front of
the building. Jeffrey Porteze had been in and out of mental hospitals for
years. He would go around looking for houses that seemed to be empty, often
because the owners were away on vacation, break in and settle down there
until the real owners came back. In a recent case when the owners of a home
in Marin got home from vacation, they had found Jeffrey Porteze sitting in
the living room, his feet on a table, casually watching TV. He seemed not
at all concerned when the real owners arrived. He said hello to them and he
continued to watch the TV as though nothing had happened. Naturally the
police were called and when they arrived they quickly determined that
Jeffrey Porteze was insane and thus could not be charged with any crime.
They let him go and Jeffrey Porteze therefore went about looking for other
homes to break into.
Jeffrey Porteze had a history of breaking into the Bourn Mansion and Arden
Van Upp had called the police and had him arrested there several times.
Because of the way that the Bourn Mansion is constructed, it is almost
impossible to stop break-ins. There are cubby holes in the bricks along the
sides. A person athletic enough and brave enough can climb up the walls or
go around the landing and get in through the roof or the windows. So, it
happened when Osama bin Freij came to secure the building, Jeffrey Porteze
had just walked by. He followed Osama bin Freij in the front door. Osama
bin Freij changed the locks on the doors and, assuming that Jeffrey Porteze
was a legal tenant, gave him the new key to the Bourn Mansion. As a result,
only Jeffrey Porteze had the key and nether of the real owners had the key
to the building.
Jeffrey Porteze continued to live there for several months. He climbed on
the roof and made roof repairs. When David Bradlow had tarps placed on the
roof (unnecessary because Arden Van Upp had spent several hundred thousand
dollars repairing the roof) Jeffrey Porteze tore off the tarps. They were
not replaced.
Without the usual public notices, Judge Carlson abruptly held a courtroom
auction of the property on Webster Street. Normally such auctions are held
on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. The only bidders at the courtroom
auction were those who happened to be in the courtroom on that day who were
there for cases that happened to be on the calender for that day. The
winning bidder was somebody who just happened to be there for another case
and had no prior familiarity with the property. The winning bid was $2.79
million for a property appraised at over $8 million. A few days later the
winning bidder informed the court that he did not have the money to pay.
Instead of holding a new auction, Judge Carlson just awarded the property
to another entity for the same price.
However, neither Arden Van Upp nor her creditors nor her estate received
any of the $2.79 million. All of the proceeds went to David Bradlow and his
attorneys, the law firm of Wendel, Rosen, Black and Dean. They claimed high
legal expenses of more than two million dollars for several reasons, such
as the need to evict Jeffrey Porteze, even though it was their agent Osama
bin Freij who had let Jeffrey in the building and given him the key and
even though Arden Van Upp had called the police on Jeffrey Porteze and had
him arrested several times. They also called Sam Sloan a "vexatious
litigant" because by changing the locks on the doors they had effectively
evicted him. They filed an "adversary proceeding" against him. They charged
the Arden Van Upp bankruptcy estate a legal fee of several hundred thousand
dollars to file this adversary proceeding against Sloan and got a default
judgment against him even thought Sloan had never been served nor had he
appeared or responded. As Sloan had made derogatory remarks about David
Bradlow and posted them on the Internet, they charged the Van Upp Estate
several hundred thousand dollars so as get those derogatory remarks removed
from the Internet. They got Google to remove a blog on which derogatory
statements had been posted. Under court order from Judge Carlson, Google
removed the blog. There were also remarks made by unknown persons on the
Internet that David Bradlow was a "flaming faggot". They also got Google to
remove those remarks and charged Van Upp more hundreds of thousands of
dollars in legal fees for their removal.
All this time, Arden Van Upp had raised the $3 million to pay off the
creditors. So she paid everybody. With everybody paid and no debts owing,
she moved to dismiss the bankruptcy proceeding. However, Bradlow and his
attorneys cross moved to convert to a Chapter 7 proceeding so that they
could get her two remaining buildings, 1019 Ashbury and 2807 Steiner, and
steal that money too.
Another year went by with Arden trying to have the case dismissed and
Bradlow trying to convert to Chapter 7. Finally, Arden hired a new
effective attorney (her previous attorneys having been ineffective) and the
bankruptcy case was dismissed.
However, the Bankruptcy judge would not agree to dismiss the case until
Arden Van Upp agreed to sign a statement that she would not sue Bradlow,
his attorneys and any of the other crooks and criminals who had stolen her
money through these proceedings.
Going back, the reason Arden Van Upp was in bankruptcy in the first place
had to do with earthquake retrofitting. San Francisco is notoriously prone
to earthquakes, such as the famous 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
Therefore, San Francisco required all residential buildings to be
Earthquake retrofitted. This involved essentially lifting the buildings up
on jacks and putting spongy material underneath so they will not fall down
when a earthquake comes. However, Arden's building at 2550 Webster is on a
peak and built on solid rock so it will not shake or fall down when an
earthquake comes. Earthquake retrofitting is a million dollar project
especially on a huge 28 room mansion like the Bourn Mansion. Naturally,
Arden resisted, although she did eventually get the mansion earthquake
retrofitted.
Meanwhile, the City of San Francisco sued and got a $600,000 default
judgment against Arden in 1999. By 2009, after interest and penalties, the
default judgment had increased to $950,000. This was the reason why Arden
had not been able to refinance her properties and had been forced into
bankruptcy.
However, in late 2009 a San Francisco lawyer Peter Hadiaris had performed
a miracle. He filed a proceeding to set aside the $950,000 judgment on the
ground that Arden had never been served with legal process. He was
successful. Naturally, the City of San Francisco was upset that they were
not going to get the million dollars they thought they were getting and
appealed, but in 2010 the California Court of Appeal affirmed so Arden was
free of this debt.
It was only after the $950,000 default judgment was set aside that Bradlow
and the others moved in to get her assets. Prior to the judgment being
vacated, there was not enough money for anybody as the City of San
Francisco had a prior claim. However, with the $950,000 judgment
extinguished there was money for everybody.
David Bradlow claimed that because of derogatory remarks made about him in
court pleadings and on the Internet, he is unable to secure work as nobody
will appoint him as Trustee in Bankruptcy any more. This appears to be
true. He does not seem to have been appointed by any judge or court ever
since.
The question is can Arden sue to recover and of the millions that were
stolen from her by Bradlow and his attorneys and by her creditors who kept
raising the interest rates on her loans.
The obvious problem would be that a lot of the actions were approved by
the bankruptcy court. She filed notices of appeal from all the decisions of
the bankruptcy court but the appeals were all dismissed. She was often
charged for things that had nothing to do with her. The law firm Wendel,
Rosen, Black and Dean charged her for the costs of evicting Jeffrey
Porteze, even though they had let him in and had given him the key. They
charged her for erasing the statement from the Internet that David Bradlow
is a Flaming Faggot from Google, although she had not made that statement.
They charged her for an adversary proceeding against Sam Sloan and for
evicting Sam Sloan from the premises where he had resided since 1990. For
each of these items, they charged her several hundred thousand dollars,
although the normal legal fees for such items would be only a few thousand
dollars. That is how they consumed the entire $2.7 million from the
courtroom bankruptcy sale.
Arden's mother, Doris Rich, had made her living buying and selling houses
in Vallejo. This is how Arden got into that business. Her mother had owned
seven houses in Vallejo. Arden had inherited several of these houses. In
one of these houses, Arden had hired a contractor to renovate the house.
The contractor had needed money to buy building equipment, wood and
construction materials. He made a deal with Arden. She would temporarily
deed the house to him, he would fix it up and then deed it back to her.
However, when the time came, he did not deed it back to her and instead
sold it and kept the money. Arden wants to sue him for this.
All of these claims need to be evaluated to see if Arden can file suits to
recover this money. Could Arden also get the courtroom sale of her mansion
reversed as she says the mansion is now worth $50 million. As an elderly
woman over 70 they were obviously taking advantage of her. Can she recover?
Sam Sloan