Fidelity Bank collection and foreclosure chronology
One dispute over a December 2022 commercial mortgage produced four Lackawanna dockets in eight months - two brought by Tufano against the bank (C009, C026) and two brought by the bank against his companies (C103 foreclosure, C022 confession of judgment) - and all four ended within five days of one another in February 2026. The two creditor actions were invisible to this project until 2026-08-30 because they name FRM LLC and Free Range Meat LLC rather than Frank Tufano.
The C103 Complaint in Mortgage Foreclosure, its clerk-entered judgment, both of Tufano's pro se motions and the Praecipe for Discontinuance with Prejudice were all retrieved and read directly from the Lackawanna Prothonotary's document server.
Research assessment
This sequence documents a two-sided dispute, not a repeat-filing pattern. Tufano did file twice against the same bank on the same underlying dispute (C009 then C026), which is recorded on those cases; but neither creditor action, and neither clerk-entered judgment, is a judicial decision against him, so no filing-restriction indicator is recorded here.
Important caveat
No judge was ever assigned to either creditor action and no court ruled on anything in them: both judgments were entered administratively by the Clerk of Judicial Records on the bank's praecipe, and neither of Tufano's motions was ever decided. No settlement document appears on any of the four dockets, so the February 2026 clustering of discontinuances is a documented coincidence of timing, not a proven settlement. Tufano's account of the disputed $230,000 payoff is his own allegation; the bank's position on it is not in any document read.
Cases in this sequence
Timeline
FRM LLC, with Frank Tufano and Free Range Meat LLC as co-borrowers, executed a $246,000 commercial promissory note payable to Fidelity Deposit & Discount Bank, secured by a first mortgage from FRM LLC on 25-31 Dundaff Street, Carbondale, recorded the following day at Instrument Number 202225275.
Source — ic-access.com ↗FRM LLC filed two Stipulations Against Liens with the Lackawanna Prothonotary the day the mortgage was recorded - 2022-30178 with Wallis Electric Construction Co. and 2022-30179 with Crispino's Refrigeration & Air Conditioning, Inc. - both covering 25-31 Dundaff Street and both signed 'Owner: FRM, LLC - By: Frank Tufano, Sole Member'.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano says he sent Fidelity Bank two payments of $115,000, totalling $230,000, intending to close the mortgage and avoid a roughly $14,000-a-year flood-insurance requirement, and that no agreement governed how the money was to be applied.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano filed C009 in Lackawanna County against Fidelity Bank over the disputed payoff and flood-insurance charge.
Source — lpa-homes.org ↗Fidelity Deposit & Discount Bank filed C103, a commercial mortgage foreclosure against FRM LLC, seeking $12,934.80 and judicial sale of the business premises.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Two days later the same bank filed C022, a Complaint in Confession of Judgment against Free Range Meat LLC, FRM LLC and Frank Tufano individually, with $14,228.28 entered against all three on filing.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano, pro se, moved to consolidate the foreclosure with his own earlier suit C009, arguing FRM LLC is only a holding company with no cause of action against it and calling the foreclosure a 'frivolous and vexatious lawsuit' brought to 'drain his already abysmal financial resources'.
Source — ic-access.com ↗The Clerk of Judicial Records entered judgment in mortgage foreclosure for $12,934.80 against FRM LLC on the bank's praecipe.
Source — ic-access.com ↗The bank filed a Praecipe for Writ of Execution for $20,651.00 together with an affidavit under Pa.R.C.P. 3129.1, beginning the sheriff's-sale process against the property.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano filed C026, a second Lackawanna action against Fidelity Bank over the same December 2022 purchase and flood-insurance payoff dispute.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano filed a Motion to Stay Sheriff's Sale and Rule to Show Cause in C009. The sale being stayed is the one begun in C103 on 2025-12-01 - a link the tracker had recorded as an unidentified 'related foreclosure/sheriff's-sale proceeding' until this pass.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Tufano discontinued both of his own suits against the bank, C009 and C026, with prejudice, before any ruling on the merits in either.
Source — lpa-homes.org ↗Four days later the bank's counsel, Cipriani & Werner, filed Praecipes for Discontinuance with Prejudice in both C103 and C022 - the same day, by the same firm, with consecutive document keys on the Prothonotary's document server.
Source — ic-access.com ↗Primary source
Open primary source — ic-access.com ↗Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Fidelity Bank collection and foreclosure chronology". Research last verified August 30, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/research/fidelity-bank-collection-and-foreclosure-chronology/