Crappy Holidays: Court Setbacks and Fighting the Good Fight Against All Odds

 

     It used to be I was always stuck in the middle of family photos like the ones above from the 80s. These were taken during a much happier holiday season than this one is turning out to be. Now, I am locked in a legal battle with these two grown women that is so bitter we can't even talk about it. Everything goes through lawyers for them. I recently volunteered a settlement offer that fell on deaf ears. I was not looking forward to what I would have to do if we couldn't settle.

     The court here in Laconia, New Hampshire gave me a few early victories, but the honeymoon didn't last. I recently had my entire equity case thrown out, and both sisters and the original estate attorney were basically given a pass for all the claims I brought. 

      I was initially disappointed. The more I read the decisions, though, the more I realized I had more reasons to be hopeful for a reversal on appeal. Thanks to one of the most dishonest attorneys I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with, Mr. David Eby, the judge on this case is now aware of this very site. Since the biased decisions came down, I have vehemently protected my rights to due process. 

     I formally protested the favorable treatment granted to the attorneys in this case in three motions to recuse Judge Keating, the presiding decider on all three of our associated cases in probate. I will provide copies of a number of motions and other documents here in the coming weeks. For now, take a gander at this document from a little over a year ago, signed by the former administrator's original attorney: 

      Willis "Slowboat" Sloat strikes again. My sisters filed signed assent forms in the wake of receiving this letter, but they refused to provide the waivers in interest Sloat suggested, so I did not file an assent to that distribution. If I did sign my assent without those waivers in hand, my sisters could get the distribution approved without the waivers in place and then try to re-sell their 1/3 interest to me on top of what I already agreed to pay for it in what was dubbed "the note payable."

      By the way, all those scribbled math problems relate directly to Sloat double-billing me for paying down the mortgage. Instead of taking the death date appraisal of $160,000 and subtracting the remaining mortgage at the time of my father's death from that figure, Sloat tried to pass off numbers that had me both paying down the mortgage and then on top of that having to pay my sisters the difference between the price of the paid-down mortgage and that death date appraisal number. 

      It has been a consistent theme for my sisters as they have tried multiple ways to sell the property again or get me to pay more money than initially agreed for it, all after agreeing to sell it to me for a set price in 2019. The first time they sought and received a license to sell, it was only after Maryjane's attorney (Jeanne Saffan) colluded with Attorney Sloat after she complained to me in emails about how incompetent he was. Sloat even wrote into a pleading that he anticipated having to pay Saffan at least $3,000 in legal fees out of the estate. She went on sabbatical and never returned. She will still be featured in a special installment here in the near future, as she is really the chief legal snake behind the architecture of this double cross: 

    Saffan easily manipulated Sloat and basically started trying to do his work without the authority to do so and against all ethical standards involving estates. While Sloat and my sister Amy were completely silent, Saffan was aggressive and happy to talk to me. She seemed nice enough at the time, but she turned into a cunning cobra so quickly it was shocking. 

     Maryjane, Saffan's client, assured me this woman had her best interests in mind and she wanted to make sure Amy didn't double cross us in the end somehow. Maryjane was always concerned Amy would find a way to use her administrator position to her own personal advantage. She insisted we work together to stop that almost every step of the way until she plunged the knife in my back by actually aligning with Amy and the same lawyer she also called a fool.

      Saffan and Sloat then coordinated on the effort to obtain the license to sell, which failed on pretty elementary grounds after being initially granted under falsely-characterized emergency conditions. It turns out there is plenty of precedent law to disallow any such sale without all three assents when there are three related beneficiaries. Judge Keating also cited the same line of precedent law when I attempted to file for an injunction that would prevent my sisters selling the property out from underneath me. He ordered the request moot based on his reversal of the certificate to sell. 

      Now, my sisters are pursuing a "Petition to Partition" which could either mean we find a way to divide the property in three or... drumroll, please.. we sell the house on the open market. It would seem by sheer logic that due to the prior order, my sisters would not have the option to get the court to force a sale without my consent. Yet that is the stated primary aim of their petition to the court. I filed a motion to dismiss that petition long before my sisters had their attorneys answer my equity complaint. Before I could even get a hearing on my motion to dismiss, the attorneys for my sisters have been given hearings and decisions on their similar motions in my equity case. Judge Keating has shown a clear pattern in all the cases of rewarding parties who file late, accepting false testimony without affidavits or evidence, tolerating perjury, and treating attorneys a whole lot better than me.  

      It gets worse. Attorney Jeanne Saffan did not let her sabbatical stop her from influencing Amy and assisting her with the completion of the double cross. Lo and behold, Amy ended up hiring an attorney that used to work very closely with Saffan's ex-husband, the father of her only child. He just happened to be the head of the probate team at one of the largest law firms in New England. 

     This was only after Amy abandoned her administrator post after changing the mortgage bills to go to only her through her husband's email address. The estate subsequently missed three payments on the mortgage thanks to her lack of due diligence. Her initial hire, "Slowboat" Sloat, also did absolutely nothing to ensure those payments were made after he quit his post around the same time. 

      A full review of the record reveals attorneys getting very special treatment. The judge has been provided a long list of their transgressions, chief of which is Sloat's multiple perjured statements made in open court. There are no affidavits in the case on file for any of my sisters. Attorneys cannot typically testify for their clients. Even if they could, there are no affidavits on file for the attorneys in any of the associated probate cases. I have provided each and every affidavit. Many of my sworn statements were ignored by Judge Keating while bare allegations leveled against me were accepted by the judge as if they were backed by affidavits and evidence. 

      All the attorneys have told their own respective lies. Attorney Eby couldn't get through the first page of one of his latest pleadings without presenting a complete lie to the judge. He insisted five paragraphs in that this dispute over the property has been going on since my father died when that is completely false, and Eby is in a position to know it's false. 

      What's most disturbing to me beyond Eby's connection to Saffan is that he passes himself off as a man dedicated to the better part of the legal community. He claims to be devoutly religious and does very important child advocacy work when he is not lying through his teeth in written pleadings. He's the kind of attorney who is so high and mighty, it seems that even judges are afraid to rule against him. His image taking a hit would be like the whole system sporting a black eye as a result. If even this guy is corrupt, who among the lawyers who secretly run this whole circus can be trusted? His spit and polished record and resume hides the charlatan attorney within his soul who will happily ruin someone's American Dream to advance the goals of a lying client.

     I do not fear a man like David Eby, though he may be talented and slick, because I know his type. I've worked closely around lawyers of all stripes. Sometimes against them, and a few times with them. I worked with the lawyer who sued the owners of the UFC for destroying the PRIDE league after acquiring it from Japanese owners rumored to have Yakuza connections. I worked with the bankruptcy trustee in the Xyience case (see www.xyiencesucks.com) at the end of the situation that first brought me into the legal realm of self-representation. 

      The main casino baron lawyer I faced in the Xyience case even brought me into his office once for a formal conference to try to explain his clients were good and decent human beings. The ambiance in the conference room was like a Vampire's lair. Not too many years after that meeting, the entire firm dissolved in the wake of a major scandal. The moral of the story here is: "Don't Seek revenge. The rotten fruits will fall by themselves." 

      David Eby is not the most formidable attorney I faced in all my unsolicited legal experience. I've fought through multiple major cases across the country on my own dime with a very limited budget. I've worked against the anti-pro-se current every step of the way, sometimes spending years trying to get respect from biased judges. Like it did in my very first case, one principle stands true through all of them. "The truth shines through in the end." David Eby will come to see that in due time. 

     Unfortunately every legal case I've ever been involved in eventually reveals some corrupt aspect of the legal system that is broken beyond repair. Even in victory, I often fell short of my most sincere goals that could have gone further to help others facing the same situations in the future. Here, the next guy in my shoes is who I'm really fighting for. I don't want what's happening to me to be anyone else's reality, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make precedent law in this area. The fact is, self-represented parties make up a considerable segment of the legal system, and if they are treated so poorly and minimized so easily, there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The scales have to be evened out, and pro-se parties need to have equal access to the process. I will not stop my advocacy and public protests until they do get their equal footing. I will lead the charge, and I will take up the banner. 

     I will be working over the next few weeks on major appeals of decisions I anticipate will be finalized in the near future. This might be my last article for a while, but please be patient. I want to make this site a resource for others, so I ultimately plan to include every digital document I have a copy of that helps define this case. I firmly believe in the concept of sunlight being the best disinfectant.