Florida, 22 July 2021- The top verdict obtained in Florida in 2019 is now facing fraud and deliberate and intentional perjury allegations in Tatlıcı Brothers case.

The $740 million jury verdict is “the biggest Fraud on the Court, in dollar terms, ever to have occurred in … the whole State of Florida,” claimed Ugur Tatlici’s lawyer Steven G. Goerke in the forty-four-page long filing. Evidence is “clear and convincing.”

According to international lawyer and expert Alper Tunga Çevik “Mehmet Tatlici and his lawyers have remained silent on the fraud and perjury allegations amid the heated controversy over the top verdict’s validity due to the improper service of papers and the Palm Beach Courts’ lack of authority over Ugur Tatlıcı. At first, Mehmet claimed he was ready to give up pursuing all actions when he asked Ugur to pay him $740 million in cash through an official settlement offer in 2010—the amount Mehmet believed it’s his rightful share of the inheritance.

Unable to settle then, the half-brother’s bitter inheritance fight has eventually led to more than a hundred criminal complaints and lawsuits in the last twelve years. In 2018, Mehmet Tatlıcı asked the Palm Beach jury something different than the inheritance— to award him hundreds of millions of dollars on his defamation and alleged business losses claims due to some websites allegedly linked to his brother Ugur Tatlici.  Mehmet argued that the defamatory websites caused him to lose his alleged real estate project in Turkey’s major city Istanbul— the “Coexist Project.”

 Alper Tunga Çevik said, ‘’The jury, who listened to how Mehmet was allegedly wronged, came to a $740 million, five-line verdict in about thirty minutes in Ugur’s absence. Interestingly, the verdict is the same amount to the penny as in Mehmet’s settlement offer 11 years ago. The verdict gave our client Ugur Tatlici food for thought once he learned. We believe that Mehmet engaged in forum shopping because of sympathetic juries, the availability of contingency fees, and the tendency of American juries to award high damages. We know Florida is a very popular destination among forum shoppers. With that in mind, the lawyers began to investigate whether Mehmet and his lawyers improperly influenced the Florida court and jury to make them award the false damages claimed in this case.’’

Fraud on the Court, Perjury, False Documents, and the Fabrication of Damages

International lawyer and expert Alper Tunga Çevik added ‘’Elliot Zimmerman of Fort Lauderdale, a board-certified IP expert in website development, provided that the websites mentioned in the letters allegedly destroying Mehmet’s very lucrative contract in 2014 did not even exist at the time. Among the other overwhelming evidence, these fabricated and backdated letters come to the forefront in arguing that Mehmet perjured himself and caused fraudulent documents to be created and introduced into Florida courts. We have also questioned Mehmet’s alleged project in Turkey, only to find out that the alleged development was impossible to realize under Istanbul’s zoning rules. The properties at the alleged project site have never been acquired, either. Besides, Mehmet Tatlıcı was previously detained by law enforcement officers for the crime of forgery of documents in Turkey, three months before the jury trial in Florida.’’

Fraud Allegations Reaching Mehmet Tatlıcı’s Lawyers

“Ugur’s lawyer maintained that Jeremy Friedman, Esq. and the Downs Law Group, PA, aided in the fraud on [the] court by admitting into evidence false documents in support of a huge but fictitious damage request. This is not the first time Friedman has found himself facing serious legal problems. Two Louisiana law firms sued Friedman and his law firm Downs Law, saying the Miami firm falsely induced their mutual clients to enter into new agreements with Downs Law alone and attempted to strip them of earnings for work on multidistrict litigation regarding Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.” said Alper Tunga Çevik .

What happens in Turkey?

Although it is nearing two years since obtaining, Mehmet, for some reason, hasn’t sought to enforce the $740 million jury verdict in Turkey, where all of the Ugur’s assets are located.

Ugur Tatlici’s Turkish lawyers noted that they oddly started facing headwinds far more often than tailwinds in Turkish proceedings despite Mehmet’s no attempts to enforce the Florida judgment.

“It’s legally impossible for this verdict to be enforced in Turkey. Yet, we think this judgment is being used by Mehmet for other questionable purposes, which I cannot explain here. Indeed, even a Turkish judge ended up filing a criminal complaint against Ugur. But he later withdrew it once Ugur successfully convinced that a mind-blowing scheme was set up against him— a conspiracy calculated to get Mehmet his piece of the pie with fabricated websites and evidences” added Alper Tunga Çevik.

In Depth Look to Tatlıcı Brothers’ disputes

Their father, M. Salih Tatlici, was born in a medieval city in Southeastern Turkey, began his professional career at an early age at his father’s dessert shop. Building his wealth from scratch, Salih became a real estate mogul, and Forbes Magazine reported him as one of Turkey’s richest before he died in 2009.

It all started long before the lawsuit leading to the record-setting 740.000.000 US$ verdict, when Mehmet, Ugur’s half-brother, believed he deserved to get much more from his father’s inheritance.

Contact Details:

Alper Tunga Çevik

Attorney At Law

+90 212 347 46 51