Complaint Review: SEAN MICHAEL RYAN Miller-Ryan Real Estate Investments - Yorba Linda California

My name is Sean Ryan, and I am the unfortunate subject of this fraudulently filed report, but I hope you will read on--I think you will find the background story interesting.  

This report filed has my name and company name in it, but save for that, it doesn't have any actual facts in it at all.  Consequently, it is hard to figure out where to start in "rebutting" it.  Over the last 10 years, my files indicate that I have worked with five clients with the last name "Hernandez," but none of those clients was assisted during the three year period preceding this report.  I have never had a specialty of working with any kind of investor, let alone “Canadian Investors,” and in fact, I am not aware that I have ever had a client who was Canadian.  I work in Orange County, so in my 10 year career, I have sold only one property in San Diego, which was a small condo owned by a person who is not named Hernandez.  I did not represent the Buyer in that transaction, but they were not named Hernandez either.  I have never defrauded any person, and in fact, have assisted more than 180 (and counting) homeowners into a permanent loan modification without charging any one of them a single dollar for my help.  By licensure, I am a real estate broker who works in this field, so there is no doubt that I have done lots of short sales--however, most of the people who reach out to me for free assistance don't leave their homes at all, due to my expertise in helping them effectively communicate with their lenders in pursuit of a solution that allows them to keep their home.  Anyone that does leave their home does so only after exhausting every possible alternative that might be more beneficial to them--even if they just come to me asking for a short sale right off the bat.  Obviously, if all of that is true, it would be surprising that any customer would have something bad to say at all, let alone the message entered here by the "Hernandez" family.

I don't check my online reputation normally, as I would never have occasion to worry that anyone I worked with would ever feel disappointed--let alone angry or defrauded.  As such, I didn't find out this report had been filed until a client who had seen it, asked me about it this past Friday.  When I referenced the date it was filed, my confusion was quickly clarified, as I saw that it was filed about two hours after I walked out of the last of a series of meetings in the offices of a "foreclosure rescue" law office formerly called Brookstone Law (look them up on this site, or by their new name of Advantis Law Group).

During this meeting, as had been my routine for a few months, I met with the head of this firm, Damian Kutzner, and spoke by conference call with Anthony Stout, an unlicensed "Senior Banking Analyst" about one of my clients who had previously been in their grasp.  This client was told he would pay $3500 down and about $200 per month to "litigate" his mortgage with Chase, even though that person might have simply benefited from a free loan modification at that time.  He signed a retainer, paid his upfont fee, and was billed to death for three years and more than $11,000, even though he never even met with a single attorney--remarkably, at Brookstone/Advantis, legal strategies and engagements are performed by non-lawyer sales office closers.  Damian Kutzner directs the activities of this law firm, even though he is not a lawyer, and was removed from real estate licensure, under penalties imposed following a consent order by the FTC from 2009, which was supposed to restrict his activities in protection of the public.  This consent order doesn't seem to have been very effective, as he is now part of a team of mostly unlicensed individuals who prey on desperate homeowners who don't want to lose their homes to foreclosure.  Previously, the figurehead attorney who was the face of Brookstone was Vito Torchio, but he was recently removed from the practice of law, at which point the fresh-faced Jonathan Tarkowski stepped into the figurehead role of Brookstone/Advantis attorney (not like they actually need attorneys there).  There are several other attorneys that wander the halls there, including Charles T Marshall (who is presently eligible to practice law in CA, but was previously removed for a disciplinary process related to advance fee loan modification), and James L. Macklin, who doesn't appear to be a member of the CA bar.

Over the course of several months, I took several clients back to Brookstone's office repeatedly, trying to help them gather information for State Bar complaints, and seek refunds of ill-gotten upfront foreclosure rescue fees.  During these meetings, Damian Kutzner repeatedly threatened to harm me if I continued to bring his actions to the light, and on one occasion, he provided to my client a batch of internet complaints about other people who had the same or similar names as me.  As we looked through them, my client quickly observed that these reports were about other people, including the most famous Sean Ryan, who set a fire at Seton Hall that killed several people.  When he didn't get a rise of of them with the fake reports, he promised to damage my reputation online.  Specifically, he said, "In this other operation I am a part of, called "VoteManagers," that is what we do--we destroy political reputations for our clients.  Keep pushing, and I can do the same to you."

I didn't take him seriously, because the fact is that I have nothing, and no actual client, to hide from the world.  If he spent his life looking, he wouldn't find any professional activity on my part that would be embarassing or unethical.  As such, the only way he could try to do my reputation harm is with the report you have just read.

Hopefully, law enforcement will finally catch up with Kutzner and whatever newly-minted attoreney he is using as a figurehead for his foreclosure relief fraud.  As for me, if any person wants to know my real story, they are welcome to contact me by email or phone--I am easy to find at (714) 306-8151, or by email at [email protected] // .  I welcome any response to my rebuttal to this fake complaint--if one comes, I can assure you that it won't be from anyone named Hernandez.