Johnson Law Group Nevada Forced Into Bankruptcy

The Johnson Law Group in Nevada previously was forced into an involuntary bankruptcy on June29, 2010. Just recently they have finally submitted financial statements and details which help to give us a clearer picture of what is going on.

According to a document filed on July of 2010 the story of what happened to the Johnson Law Group is reveled. Apparently Advanced Client Solutions (ACS) and Elimadebt pushed Johnson Law Group (JLG) into bankruptcy.

The court documents say that JLG was a Nevada law firm with approximately 9,000 clients. The firm provided debt renegotiation to clients in 40 states. JLG also provided credit counseling services as well.

ACS was supposed to provide all non-legal functions to support JLG. The attorney running JLG has previously made statements that ACS essentially hijacked his law firm and would not let him in the door or into his email. Read this article for more information. And here was another article about Elimadebt and JLG not playing well together.

So it appears that ACS got fed up with the actions of JLG and pulled the plug and that led to a series of events which wound up stranding 7,500+ consumers in debt relief services. Those consumers are now unsecured creditors in this involuntary bankruptcy.

It looks like JLG had attempted to transfer the clients to Johnson Law Group in Florida but ACS was not going to have any of that.

Since JLG had client trust funds on deposit in banks to the tune of about $2.5 million, ACS pushed JLG into bankruptcy so the bankruptcy trustee would recover some of those funds for ACS. But much of those funds had been sent to Florida.

ACS alleges that” JLG Nevada has already taken its furniture, client files, computers and company manuals, as well as items of professional equipment, including Operating Manuals, from ACS’s office, which are believed to be used in the new Florida law firm set up by JLG.” – Source

Here is a copy of the letter JLG Nevada sent to clients telling them of the move.

What is interesting is the statement that any retained/unspent fees and costs currently held by the firm will be promptly transferred to the Johnson Law Group in Florida.

On October 15, 2010 JLG submitted updated schedules for bankruptcy and statement of financial affairs. Here are some interesting facts from those documents. – Source

• Gross income for JLG was $10,632,165 in 2008 and $11,378,456 in 2009.
• JLG was or is involved in the following cases over the past year:
  • JLG v. Elimadebt – Breach of Contract (CA)
  • Elimadebt v. JLG (FL)
  • JLG v. Elimadebt (NV)
  • JLG v. ACS (NV)
  • ACS v. Ryan Sasson (NY)
  • Colorado AG v. JLG (UDMSA violation – CO)
  • Georgia OCA Investigation (UDMSA violation – GA)
  • Indiana AG Investigation (UDMSA violation – IN)
  • Washington State Consumer Protection (Consumer Complaint)
  • Wisconsin State Consumer Protection (Consumer Complaint)
  • Crossroad Investigation Services v. JLG (NJ)
  • Julio Ariass v. JLG (TN)
  • Discover Bank v. Scarbrough (WV)
• JLG sent $2,182,500.18 of client trust funds to Johnson Law Group of Florida and approximately 7,500 client files. An additional $60,854.75 was sent later.
• The current owners of JLG are Anan Mark Eldredge and Bertrand Bosmans.
• Records show money was paid out by JLG to:
  • Advanced Client Solutions
  • Credit Exchange
  • Debt Remedy
  • Debtwave

Advanced Client Solutions Responds

Steve,

We wanted to point out an inaccuracy in your 10/19 article about the JLG bankruptcy. The article said that ACS “pulled the plug” resulting in the loss of service.

While kindly keeping your source anonymous (if you want to receive further tips from us) you may quote ACS as the source of the following information:

“It is not true that ACS pulled the plug on the customers. Anan Eldredge himself was responsible. ACS was blindsided with a lawsuit in March of 2010 by Anan Eldredge claiming he was not in control of his own firm and that he never knew about the services agreement between the two firms until well after he bought Johnson Law Group from another attorney (Douglas Crowder of California who is currently being sued by the Federal Trade Commission over a load modification scam).

Eldredge lied and needed to “cut” ACS out of the business due to his personal and financial problems. We believe, due to his own statements to us, that Anan Eldredge is a closeted homosexual who has to live a double life due to his family’s strict Mormon teachings. His mental state deteriorated over the course of 2009 and numerous attempts by Eldredge to seek mental health counseling did not work due to his refusal to take prescribed medications due to, again, Mormon teachings. Anan Eldredge has been seen numerous times in local Las Vegas casinos at 6 and 7AM after all night gambling sprees. His father was supposedly “robbed” of over $1Million in uninsured jewelry in late 2009 (what professional jeweler carries over $1MM of jewelery with no insurance?)

We believe all this to be true based on statements Eldredge has made to our staff over they last few years and direct knowledge of his homosexuality and mental illness (bi polar disorder). Mr. Eldredge is a racist and has on numerous occasions expressed dislike for both Jews and African Americans in vile, hate filled diatribes to ACS management.

He hired a Mormon law firm in Las Vegas, Hutchison and Steffen to concoct a scheme to attempt to break the contract with ACS without paying his termination fee due under the contract. Both Eldredge and his lawyers, Joseph Ganley and Cami Perkins have now been the subject of numerous bar complaints due to their creation of this mess and the stranding of thousands of customers, as well as the misappropriation of their funds.

The scariest part is that the $2.1 million dollars that belonged to JLG’s clients was transferred to Enhanced Servicing Solutions, which is a processing company that works for The Johnson Law Group, PLLC Florida.

Mr. Clint Johnson, the owner of the FL JLG was deposed in connection with the bankruptcy. Mr. Johnson admits in his deposition that his company is not even a law firm, just an LLC that happens to be owned by a lawyer.

How awful for all these clients to be cheated like this, we feel they should know the truth.

The principals of ACS have been in the debt negotiation business since 2001 and have operated cleanly and honestly in a sea of bad operators.

It was indeed Anan Eldredge’s decision to dump all his client as ACS was forced, unconstitutionally, to work for them until Eldredge broke in to ACS’s offices on June 12, 2010, conveniently while the owner was on his honeymoon.

Attached is Johnson’s deposition. Every client screwed over by Eldredge and his crooked lawyers should complain loudly. ACS staff worked for free for over a month just answering confused client calls and trying to help the clients get it all sorted out until District Court Judge Jackie Delaney ordered ACS to have no more contact with the abandoned clients in late June 2010.

Sincerely,
Advanced Client Solutions

Additional Advanced Client Solutions sent another statement saying:

Steve,

This is an actual Proof of Claim (public record) filed in the Johnson Law Group BK proceedings. You have a careful eye. What does not make sense here? This client signed here general release on May 12, 2010 for her refund of $1560.

What is ridiculous is the attached letter from Eldredge’s counsel, Joe Ganley of Hutchison and Steffen, a law firm in Las Vegas, NV. This client was kind enough to attach the response letter Eldredge’s lawyers sent to the Nevada Bar in regard to her missing money.

The letter states that ACS refused to make the refund. That is an absurd lie as even you know (https://getoutofdebt.org//18942/johnson-law-group-allegations-client-funds-missing-attorney-not-in-control). Since this lawsuit was filed on March 23rd and ACS was not in control of any JLG bank accounts or funds whatsoever from that day forward, how could it possibly be within ACS’s control that a refund was not given to a client that was due after March 2010.

If anyone is looking for their money, perhaps an inspection of the bankruptcy schedule Eldredge filed showing that he paid Hutchison and Steffen hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few months. Coupled with Eldredge’s pilfering of the JLG bank accounts in June 2010, its hardly surprising that Eldredge and his lawyers just decided to again utter untrue statements about why money is missing.

No wonder they answer his bar complaints with bold faced lies. I would too if I was getting paid 100K a month.

You may attribute these comments to ACS.

Regards,

Advanced Client Solutions, LLC

Sincerely,


You are not alone. I'm here to help. There is no need to suffer in silence. We can get through this. Tomorrow can be better than today. Don't give up.

Do you have a question you'd like to ask me for free? Go ahead and click here.

I can always use your help. If you have a tip or information you want to share, you can get it to me confidentially if you click here.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Follow Me

Steve Rhode

Steve Rhode is the Get Out of Debt Guy and has been helping good people with bad debt problems since 1994. You can learn more about Steve, here.

Follow Me

Latest posts by Steve Rhode (see all)

• Who Knew TitleMax Sucked This Bad? - February 23, 2023
• Litigation Practice Group Lawsuit by Business Partner All Service Financial – We Want Our Money - January 24, 2023
• HomeAdvisor and Angi to Pay Up To $7.2 Million and Stop Deceptively Marketing its Leads for Home Improvement Projects - January 23, 2023