TOPEKA, Kan. (Legal Newsline) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced May 26 that Jacobs Marsh LLC and owner Joseph Arena of Williamsville, New York, have been banned from the debt collection and debt enforcement business in the state.
Schmidt had accused the defendants, in a lawsuit filed in Shawnee County District Court, of unlawfully pursuing collections. Jacobs Marsh purportedly filed lawsuits against consumers who owed debt, representing itself as having authority it did not, and committed a host of deceptive and unconscionable acts and practices.
Judge Teresa Watson approved a consent judgment that barred the defendants from doing business in Kansas. The judgment additionally dismisses all outstanding lawsuits that Jacobs Marsh filed in the state. For the lawsuits in which judgments had already been issued, the consent order grants satisfactions of judgment that have resulted in judgment in consumers’ favor.
The defendants must also pay full restitution to 13 consumers who had paid the company.