Legal Question

[rapture]

I recently recieved a letter from the Essex County Department Division of Civil Process stating that their office holds a "Warrant" for my "Arrest" (bold letters). Apparently I am being charged with contempt for not showing up to a court hearing in which a credit card company, who has been continually harrassing me, set up to try to sue me. I never recieved any papers stating anything about having to go to court, or that they had filed any lawsuit against me. The letter states I have "48 Hours" to call this number and "set up a surrender date to appear in court and answer the contempt charges brought against you".
Is this a real warrant? and if so, if I get stopped during a routine traffic stop, can I get arrested? Also, will this hinder me from being able to purchace any firearms? I would like to go to Four Seasons and peruse their merchandise and possibly make a purchase, however when they do the background check will this get me denied? Any help would be apprecieated.

 

[FPrice]

You say that you "recently" received this letter. Did you call the number? Did they tell you anything?

 

[blindndead]

that sucks

When I bought my home my credit report said I have a outstanding payment for a cell phone from at&t since 1996 for 400 bucks I never recived a single piece of paper saying I owe this amount to the phone company. I called the collection agency and they stated they have been trying to contact me for years wich was total bullshit ther is no sence trying to talk to them a**h***s. The only papper I got was a week later after trying to get all of this settled. they really know how to ruin peoples credit. If I had never bought my house I prob be in the same boat as you. Good luck with that I hope you make out ok.

 

[rapture]

You say that you "recently" received this letter. Did you call the number? Did they tell you anything?

I haven't called the number yet considering it's the weekend and I want to speak to my uncle first, who owns a law firm, about it to see what my rights are and how I should proceed.

 

[Scrivener]

Your uncle "owns a law firm" and you're looking for free legal advice on a firearms forum? Oookaaaaaaaay...

It sounds as if the hearing was held, you didn't appear, you were defaulted and a capias warrant issued.

 

[rapture]

My uncle deals with real estate law. My family and I don't get along very well, so I really don't like to go to them with things of this nature unless I absolutely have to. I'd much rather deal with it on my own. Also, I highly doubt he'd have any experience dealing with issues facing firearms purchases.

 

[Scrivener]

My uncle deals with real estate law. My family and I don't get along very well, so I really don't like to go to them with things of this nature unless I absolutely have to. I'd much rather deal with it on my own. Also, I highly doubt he'd have any experience dealing with issues facing firearms purchases.

This isn't about "firearms purchases;" this issue is not about firearms at all. It is about an apparently outstanding warrant for your arrest, with or without quotation marks.

You would do well to address it accordingly - that means forthwith.

 

[JonJ]

Those types of warrants are not entered into the Warrant Management System (WMS). So if you are stopped by the police or if they run your reg, it will not show up.
There is nothing stopping a Constable or Deputy Sheriff who has that warrant in hand to seek you out and arrest you though.
Seeing as how you received a "courtesy call" informing you, you should heed Scriv's advice.

Is that Len I hear coming down the hallway?

 

[Len-2A Training]

Jon, did you call?

This is a Civil Arrest Warrant and the police only care about Criminal Arrest Warrants . . . however on your next (and forever) LTC applications (and 4473s) be VERY CAREFUL how you answer the questions about courts and arrests because unless it says "criminal" (only) a wrong answer is perjury.

This is indeed how many of these warrants are handled, and it is something that I have refused to get involved with (small claims capiases) . . . I'll only do the probate court capiases (usually deadbeat dads). It's a business decision that I have made for numerous reasons.

There was a Globe Spotlight series some months ago, tarring and feathering Constables for these sort of arrests, but they are perfectly legal from the court's point of view. A collection agency buys "the paper" (old debts) for pennies on the dollar (at this point the original vendor is TOTALLY OUT OF THE PICTURE and the collection agency couldn't care if you already paid it). They file court cases and INTENTIONALLY do NOT notify the defendant, get the default judgment, again INTENTIONALLY do NOT notify the defendant, and get an arrest warrant (civil capias) . . . at which time the Sheriff's Dept (or some Constables) find the defendant (who usually lives at the same address as the original bill) and haul their ass into court. Usually this works to extort some money from them, even in not due. [My suspicion as to why they do not actually notify you of the initial court actions (even though this is illegal) is so you won't have time to actually refute the bill and convince the judge that you don't owe the money. By the time the capias is issued, the judge no longer cares whether or not you actually owe the money . . . he's finding you in "contempt of court" for not showing up!]

Please read the following article (all parts) and you will have a good understanding of "where you are today" and how you got there.

http://www.boston.com/news/special/spotlight_debt/part1/page1.html

You need to deal with this NOW!!


The bill collection business is largely unregulated and a very seedy operation.

 

[RKG]

Obviously this is just a guess, but as a guess, I'd speculate that someone sued you in the Small Claims session and, for whatever reason, you did not show and were defaulted. As a result, a judgment entered. Now the judgment creditor has initiated "Supplementary Process," which is a proceeding in which the judgment debtor is summoned into Court, his finances examined, and the Court enters an order for payment terms. Failure to appear results in the warrant.

If, in fact, you never either received the Small Claims summons and were not otherwise aware of the proceeding, you should definitely consult a lawyer who is familiar with collection procedures. This is so because, in the Supplementary Process action, the only issue will be a payment order; a review of the underlying merits is not open for discussion. Rather, to escape the underlying judgment, a lawyer is going to have to try to get the judgment vacated and the default removed, and as a practical matter, the only way this is going to happen is if the lawyer can prove -- and I said prove, not allege -- that service of process in the first action was defective.

Win or lose, this is going to be expensive.

The biggest mistake that people can make is ignoring court papers.

 

[FPrice]

Very informative thread! It seems like this is another way you can get screwed without getting kissed.

rapture - I hope that you get this settled in your favor.

 

[ajw45]

Sounds like a mistake or identity theft. This just happened to a friend of mine recently. She was contacted by a law firm about a huge at&t cell phone bill outstanding in her name from 4 years ago. Apparently one of her "friends" had stolen her id and opened a cell account in her name. The reason why she had never heard of this before is that all bills, past due, and other legal notices had been going to whatever address was on the cell account until finally the debt was undertaken by a collection agency that decided to try a different address. She has to go to court now but since she was out of the country when the account was established, everything should work out fine....

good luck