A noted Philadelphia lawyer known for his aggressive style defending alleged criminals in court has taken that strategy to the streets in a fight against a bank he claims cheated him.
Chuck Peruto, the contrabass-voiced criminal defense attorney, handed out flyers that read “Do Not Bank at Santander” while a group of friends marched outside the bank's branch under the Clothespin by City Hall.
They carried placards bearing messages such as “Santander steals more than inmates!” and “Don’t bank here. Give your money to the thief with the gun!”
“Wanna read about the protest?” Peruto, barely recognizable out of a suit and in casual clothes, asked passersby while pushing his flyers into their hands, which declaimed in bold, “This bank steals more from people than any thief or robber across the street at the Criminal Justice Center.”
Most took it, while a few said they already read it. After all, he said he handed out 500 of these on his first day of protest earlier this week. And he doesn’t plan to stop until he gets his way.
Peruto is currently suing Santander Bank, and he’s so steaming mad about the fight that he wants to spread the word about his sour experience.
Peruto’s suit focuses on a pre-payment penalty he was ordered to pay after paying off a 10-year loan six years early.
He insists the bank’s representatives told him he faced a maximum of a one percent of the principal penalty for early repayment, roughly $19,000.
Instead he was hit with a $267,400 penalty, which apparently drove the barrister to the streets.
Peruto claims that on the $1.9 million loan he got in 2012 for a real estate purchase, the bank got approximately 25 percent back in interest, fees, and the allegedly unexpected penalty.
Peruto acknowledged he signed a contract binding him to pay the fee – but argues the bank engaged in “predatory lending “ and violated good faith.
One page of his loan stated that he would face a prepayment penalty of one percent or a product obtained by one-page complex algebraic formula that might give Stephen Hawking pause – whichever is greater. Wasn’t that last phrase a red flag?
“You ask what that means, and they tell you, “It’s gonna be one percent. It’s a good deal,’” Peruto said Thursday. “One [said it] for sure, and three others said, ‘Whatever he said.’”
Santander declined to comment on Peruto’s claims.
“Santander cannot comment on pending litigation, however, the Bank is fully committed to transparent lending practices and always treating our customers fairly,” a spokeswoman said. 
In the meantime, Peruto plans to keep protesting while waiting to tell his story to a jury. He wants the penalty, which he already paid, back, as well as any accompanying pees. 

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News

 

— Stu Bykofsky


Who's that picketing Santander Bank? Why it's lawyer Chuck Peruto

ORIES
Dec. 16, 2015.    by Stu Bykofsky, Daily News Columnist @StuBykofsky

LET'S SAY YOU are a customer having trouble with your bank. What do you do?

You get a lawyer.

What if you are a lawyer?

If you are criminal defense attorney Chuck Peruto Jr., you file suit against the bank and then picket its branch offices.

That's where I saw the celebrity barrister Friday, outside the Santander Bank branch at 1500 Market St., supervising pickets and handing out leaflets, almost like a Local 98 electrician. All he was missing was the giant inflatable rat.

"What's going on?" I ask him in the shadow of the Clothespin.
"These people are thieves," Peruto replies, jerking a thumb in the direction of the bank storefront.

Thieves are usually his clients, but this case is different. He is the victim, he says.

The facts, as laid out in a civil suit he filed against the bank (and in leaflets he periodically distributes outside its branches), say that in 2012, Peruto took out a $1.9 million, 10-year loan from the bank.

The loan was to purchase the 43-unit Drexelbriar Apartments in Havertown, which he planned to hold for a while and sell.

Four years later, he had an agreement of sale from a buyer and notified Santander that he wanted to pay off the loan early.

The bank demanded a $267,440 prepayment penalty.

"Plaintiff Peruto nearly lost his mind," according to the complaint. He had been told to expect a 1 percent penalty, in the neighborhood of $19,000.

I ask if he had read the fine print.
"I never had time to read the fine print. It was furnished at settlement with 40 other papers that had to be signed, and they slide them over to you for signature," says Peruto.

"You try not to hold anybody up. When you act in good faith and are told it is 1 percent, you don't sit there and take an algebra class."

The prepayment schedule says "the prepayment premium shall be the greater of" either 1 percent of the principal or "the product obtained by" a truly incomprehensible formula so complex, it would baffle Stephen Hawking. To me, a red flag would have been the words "greater of."

Peruto went to closing without a realtor or a broker, saying he has bought and sold properties many times before without incident: "Everything is straightforward, and when people tell you something, you seem to take their word for it."

It is not a mistake he will repeat, he says.

He tried to get the bank to accept less, he says, and when it refused, he filed suit.

There are two sides, at least, to every story, so I contacted the bank.
"Santander cannot comment on pending litigation, however, the bank is fully committed to transparent lending practices and always treating our customers fairly," says spokeswoman Ann Davis.

"We've gone through a couple of pretrial hearings," says Peruto, with "the bank saying it's there in writing and I say it's not in English."

Peruto is acting as his own attorney and has requested a jury trial. He has decades of experience in seducing juries to view his clients with favor. This time he is his own home team.

"Their eyeballs will grow bigger than their ears when they hear the numbers," says Peruto.

"I could call Joey Merlino to testify I could get the money cheaper from him," says Peruto of the one-time alleged head of organized crime in Philadelphia.
As this case meanders through the courts, Peruto goes out once or twice a week to picket various Santander offices, such as the one where I found him.
So here's this famous, rich attorney standing outside a branch handing out leaflets like a union schlepper.

Why?

"The reason for the protest is to make others aware of what they do, with the hidden charges they slap on you," says the aggrieved attorney. "They should have the decency and the morality, not just the legality, to point that out to you.".

In his filing, Peruto claims he has paid $700,000 on that $1.9 million loan in four years.

He is asking for the return of the $267,440 prepayment plus interest, costs and attorney's fees.

Barring a settlement, the courts will decide who is right. Meanwhile, the famous barrister and friends will keep picketing.