A Buffalo, N.Y. law firm specializing in facilitating foreclosure proceedings for large banks received some of the worst PR imaginable over the weekend, when the New York Times ran office Halloween-party photos featuring the firm's staff seeming to mock the homeless and displaced.
According to Times columnis Joe Nocera, the photos of the Steven J. Baum firm bash were actually from a Halloween party last year and were provided by a former employee.
In one photo, a woman wears a sign around her neck that reads, "3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served."
According to Nocera's anonymous source, that statement is meant to mock "the typical excuse of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure."
Another picture shows a coffin with a picture of woman with her eyes cut out. A sign reads, "Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie." That's allegedly a reference to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum.
According to the Times, the firm is already under investigation by the New York attorney general, and it recently agreeed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether it had "filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts of New York."
Here are the photos:
