Law-

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Pedro P. Echarte Jr. sanctioned Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s former bank, California-based OneWest Bank, and its law firm for filing a frivolous foreclosure against a widow.

The judge granted sanctions against the bank and its attorneys at Tampa-based Albertelli Law, which serves the financial services and mortgage banking industries from offices in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He found the law firm and its client bank prosecuted a frivolous foreclosure and will set a subsequent hearing to determine the penalty.

“I believe the court should impose sanctions sufficient to deter a company like OneWest Bank with $65 billion in assets and vindicate the integrity of the judiciary,” said homeowner attorney Bruce Jacobs of Jacobs Keeley in Miami. “They came after my client a month after her husband died and relentlessly pursued this foreclosure.”

[LAW]