The onetime home of Lawrence and Delois Braggs at 15621 Sorrells Road.
Two long-running foreclosure actions involving the west Little Rock homes of similarly named brothers are winding down as their legal maneuverings are playing out.
The 5,608-SF home of Lawrence and Delois Braggs in the Sorrells Road neighborhood appears to be vacated, with a lockbox on the front door.
The 4,402-SF home of Larry and Angela Braggs in The Villages of Wellington neighborhood looks to be largely empty as well, but no lockbox is visible. A cardboard U-Haul moving box is the only furnishing in two rooms visible from the front door.
Both properties were tied up in the legal system for several years by revolving trips to bankruptcy court and “sovereign” actions supported by documents copied or purchased over the Internet.
The two couples tapped into the “sovereign citizen” movement, whose adherents, in general, believe they aren’t necessarily subject to the bounds of federal, state and local law.
However, two Pulaski County Circuit Court judges confirmed the respective lenders’ secured interests in the properties and recognized the foreclosure sales that removed both couples from the ownership picture.
During a brief afternoon hearing on Dec. 4, Lawrence Braggs alleged fraudulent activity connected with his loan but didn’t offer any specifics. Braggs said the discovery of fraud led him to dismiss U.S. Bank as the trustee overseeing the mortgage.
Judge Mackie Pierce questioned what legal authority enabled Braggs to make this dismissal claim and negate the $635,000 foreclosure sale on June 2, 2014.
Braggs indicated that power resided with him as a free man, a status he asked the court to recognize.
“Every person in this courtroom is a free man,” Pierce said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
The judge issued a writ of possession on Dec. 12 granting U.S. Bank the right to take possession of the Sorrells Road property. The bank waited to execute the writ until after the holidays.
The financial travails of Lawrence and Delois Braggs and their Awareness International Ministries were detailed in an article in the Nov. 3 issue of Arkansas Business.
Larry and Angela Braggs have similarly lost their home. Judge Chris Piazza issued a writ of possession on Jan. 15 granting HSBC Bank USA of McLean, Virginia, the right to take possession of the 42 Longwell Loop home. The bank had filed its eviction lawsuit last August.
“Technically the case is closed, but if [the bank is] unable to take possession of the property, there could be another hearing,” a source familiar with the case said.
Larry and Angela Braggs purchased their newly built home in February 2007 for $480,000. Fremont Investment & Loan of Brea, California, provided 100 percent financing in the form of two loans for $408,000 and $72,000.
Fremont is the same national subprime lender, now defunct, that refinanced Lawrence Braggs’ Sorrells Road home in December 2005. The funding for the Longwell Loop home was approved 20 months after Angela Braggs emerged from Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
A year after she and Larry Braggs bought the house, the first notice of default was filed. During the next six years, 17 more such notices were filed.
Along the way, the couple filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy twice. Their October 2011 and February 2014 cases were dismissed three months after filing for failure to submit required information.
HSBC Bank USA entered the ownership picture in a $425,504 foreclosure action the same day the couple made their trip to bankruptcy court in February 2014.
However, the transfer of the home was challenged two months later with the filing of a curious document dubbed an “affidavit of acknowledgment for the acceptance of the warranty deed.”
Larry and Angela Braggs made the sovereign filing as “a living man” and “a living woman” and included copies of their February 2007 deed documenting their original purchase of the property and the February 2014 foreclosure deed that removed them from ownership.
The couple additionally filed another piece of sovereign paperwork labeled an affidavit and notice of revocation of power of attorney and secured deed.
In the four-page document, Larry and Angela Braggs refused to participate in any fraud associated with any deeds, mortgages or other filings associated with the home.
Their affidavit professed to unilaterally terminate all signatures and rescind all documents associated with the residence starting with the original mortgages.
The sovereign documents and claims, like those of Lawrence and Delois Braggs, didn’t hold up in court.
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