Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in New York

Re: contempt

Assuming that the contempt motion was prepared and served properly, if you ignore it, the court might very well issue a warrant for your arrest. You normally would not go to jail IF you purge yourself of the contempt by obeying the subpoena that was originally served on you. There is a risk that you might be charged with criminal contempt, which would mean that even if you purged yourself of the contempt, you might still be sent to jail, but that is rare in these cases. Do not miss the court date. Do not go in with attitude. Be sincerely repentant, tell the court (if it is true) that you had no idea that the document you reutned to sender was a subpooena, and of course you know better than to ignore or defy a subpoena and you wish to make this right but you have no money (if that is true).

You should also consider whether you have any defense to the underlying lawsuit and, if so, whether to make a motion to vacate the judgment. This would not be a substitute for going to court and responding to the motion to punish for contempt by declaring your readiness, willingness and ability to purge yourself of the inadvertent contempt.

This post is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. It is a comment on the legal question posed by the poster and should not be relied upon unless and until an attorney-client relationship is entered into. Doing so would require signing an engagement letter and depositing a retainer to secure payment of legal fees.

Re: contempt

Technically, yes you can be jailed for contempt. But in this type of matter, that is wildly unikely. Jail should not be on your list of things to worry about.

What concerns me is that this document suggests that a judgment for the debt has been secured by the creditor. You need to check for that. A judgment can be ordered by 'default'.

Without a judgment, you cannot be found in contempt in this case.