A real estate company run by a Republican candidate for Moorestown Township Council entered into a $1.6 million settlement with the Justice Department in 2019 for allegedly obtaining illegal court judgments against actively U.S. military service members who were his tenants and charging indecorous lease termination fees.
Samuel Foster, the CEO of PRG Real Estate Management, was one of the signers of the settlement, which came after the Justice Department initially filed a complaint against the firm.
The settlement required Foster’s company to compensate 127 servicemembers who faced 152 unlawful court judgments for violating the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and ordered them to repair their credit.
The investigation came after legal assistance attorneys for the U.S. Navy reported that Foster’s company had won eviction and financial judgment. Foster’s firm failed to disclose to the court that the tenants were on active duty.
“The incredible sacrifices our servicemembers make when they deploy and move frequently should never create financial or legal hardships for them,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, at the time. “This settlement helps ensure that these men and women are honored for, not disadvantaged by, their military service and that servicemembers’ rights are protected going forward.”
Foster told the New Jersey Globe that the issue has “been discharged, and there’s no further obligation.”
“I’m not worried about that,” he said. “We did right by them. We enhanced our training methods and are in compliance with the SCRA.”
The Justice Department said it was the largest settlement ever received against a landlord or property management company at the time.
Foster explained that his company owns no buildings in New Jersey and that the mistake affected less than 150 of his 30,000 tenants. The decision to file eviction proceedings was made by a property manager in Virginia Beach, not be Foster.
Foster is running on the GOP slate with Nicole MacHenry and Gary Morris in a bid to take control of Moorestown, which now has a 5-0 Democratic majority. They face incumbents Susan Mammarella and Christopher Keating; James Barry is seeking the open seat of David Zipin.
Moorestown was once a Republican stronghold, but has shifted toward the Democrats in recent years. Phil Murphy won the township by ten points in 2021, and Joe Biden carried it by 23 points in 2020. Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-Toms River) won Moorestown by eighteen points in 2016; two years later, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown), a first-time candidate, beat MacArthur in Moorestown by seventeen points.