Brain-damaged Army vet tries to block eviction

The family of an elderly Staten Island man with brain damage from an attack by a crack addict 19 years ago is trying to block a California mortgage lender from evicting the Army veteran who they say wasn’t aware of a foreclosure notice on his longtime home.

Joseph Cupo, 75, won a temporary stay through November from a Staten Island judge who is considering whether he is competent to handle his own financial affairs. “I’m still trying to make it work. Here I am, 75 years old, still trying to make it work,” Cupo told The Post at his Stapleton home last week.

Joseph Cupo during his Army days.

Cupo, who was stationed in Germany after World War II, took out a $ 75,000 loan on the unmortgaged property at 550 Bay St. from a local bank in 1997. West Coast-based Velocity Commercial Capital bought the loan in April 2012.

When his New Jersey daughter and son-in-law tried to step in and pay the debt, they were shocked that the amount had ballooned to $ 190,000 in fees and attorney costs from a $ 66,000 balance.

Cupo has been jobless since a felon fractured his skull, eye socket and jaw with a crescent wrench at the Bay Street building on Labor Day weekend in 1994. The thug also stole $ 150 stolen from him.

Doctors have said Cupo has extremely diminished capacity in some brain functions because of the beating, attorney Joseph Sanchez told The Post.

Cupo’s daughter Isabella Giordano said, “This building is his whole life — his blood, sweat and tears. He almost lost his life for it.”

Giordano claimed that Velocity has refused to work out a payment plan.

Sanchez said the bank has an obligation to advise the court that Cupo isn’t mentally competent.

“I’ve given the bank documents from the VA which predate the foreclosure litigation which indicates parts of his mental capacity are less than 1 percent. They seem to be turning a blind eye to them,” Sanchez said.

A lawyer for Velocity, Steven Rand, said, “No one, including Mrs. Giordano, her husband or Mr. Cupo’s counsel in the foreclosure action ever raised an issue about Mr. Cupo’s competence at any time during the foreclosure action, until after the gavel fell at the foreclosure sale on August 28, 2013.”

Yahoo Local News – New York Post

http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=15233

via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info