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HomeNewsArchivesU.S. Marshals Ordered to Evict Prossers from Palm Beach Mansion

U.S. Marshals Ordered to Evict Prossers from Palm Beach Mansion

After years of delaying tactics, bankrupt Jeffrey Prosser is being kicked out of his onetime Palm Beach palace. Jeffrey Prosser and his wife, Dawn, were ordered Friday to be evicted from the mansion they have been occupying rent-free for years in Palm Beach, Fla. They must be off the premises by noon Monday.

Prosser, former CEO and owner of Innovative Telephone, has been using legal maneuvers to avoid this prospect for five years. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Judith Fitzgerald, who has been presiding over the protracted bankruptcy proceedings of Prosser and his onetime corporate empire, finally ruled that the U.S. Marshals Service are to evict the Prossers and should be “held harmless against any liabilities, losses or damages that might be sustained in connection with this action.”

While Fitzgerald’s rulings have occasionally been stayed or reversed, the timing of this one is such that the mansion may, in fact, be sold on Monday, as the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Fitzgerald had previously ordered the house sold; that order had been stayed (put in limbo) by U.S. District Court Judge Curtis Gomez without demanding the Prossers put up a $7.71 million bond; and that order had been appealed to the Third Circuit, sitting in Philadelphia by court-appointed trustee James Carroll.

On Thursday, the Third Circuit ruled that unless the Prossers put up the multimillion-dollar bond — roughly equal to the value of the mansion — by noon on Friday, the house should be sold in keeping with the Bankruptcy Court order. In its ruling, the Circuit Court noted that the Gomez stay “did not state any reasons justifying the imposition of a stay of this sale…”

The Prossers, according to Fitzgerald, failed to meet the Friday deadline for posting the bond, so she ordered them evicted, and the house sale to be consummated. The price is to be $6.9 million, but most of that will be used to pay off the mortgage on the property.

Prosser’s lawyers on Friday filed an appeal with Gomez that may or may not change matters. That appeal is against the proposed sale of the house; the eviction order, which was handed down later, was not mentioned. A revised appeal, also dealing with the eviction, could be filed on Monday morning.

The two sides, among other things, disagree on whether the Prossers have, in fact, filed an appropriate bond; Carroll’s lawyers say that the bond filed by the Prossers was of no value, consisting as it did of liens on the couple’s Palm Beach and St. Croix properties, which the lawyers said were of no real value. Prosser’s lawyers say it is a valid supersedeas bond (an order from a higher court commanding a lower court to suspend a particular proceeding) that meets the court’s requirements.

The court documents do not make it clear exactly when the Prossers filed the disputed bond.

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