The Court and Big Business Billionaire Defendant Allowed to Discuss Sealed Documents on Public Record: Mums the Word for Pro Se Plaintiff

In a case against the most annoying and offensive debt collector, Portfolio Recovery Associates, Judge Lee P. Rudofsky made it clear that the pro se plaintiff, me, was not allowed to discuss sealed documents on the public record.

After Judge Rudofsky finally recused himself, the fresh judge reiterated the threat of sanctions for disclosure of sealed evidence.

But Judge Rudofsky and Portfolio Recovery Associates repeatedly violated their own call for the cone of silence.

Here is a copy (that you can download for free) of plaintiff’s deposition redacted by Portfolio Recovery Associates. They were supposed to redact mentions of the sealed documents – but they didn’t.

For example, look at page 77, line 7. PRA attorney James Trefil of huge defense firm Troutman Pepper starts discussing Exhibits 9, 10 and 11. PRA marked those “CONFIDENTIAL” and filed under seal. There is one short redacted section, then Mr. Trefil asks about the specific data from Exhibit 9.

That is not keeping sealed documents confidential.

Worse, Portfolio Recovery disclosed what was supposedly on a document I designated as “CONFIDENTIAL”. On page 116, line 17. Mr. Trefil: “For the record, this is a confidential document.
This is plaintiff’s credit report. Are you familiar with this document?” His next sentence: “Do you see where says it Midland Credit [?]”

Wow! That is not keeping it confidential. And without seeing the entire document, it is misleading. But Mr. Trefil on behalf of Portfolio Recovery Associates did not stop at just insinuating there were debts showing on my credit report.

“So what debt of yours does Midland Credit Management hold?”

“None [!]”

“It’s showing up on your credit report.”

Liar! “It says, ‘The listing of a company’s inquiry in this section means that they obtained information from your credit file in connection with an account review or other business transaction with you. These inquiries are not seen by anyone but you. They will not be used in scoring your credit file except insurance companies may have access,’ blah, blah, blah about the insurance companies. So I don’t know why they made a soft inquiry, but Portfolio Recovery also made a soft inquiry and it’s on the same report, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see Portfolio on this report. I might just be missing it.”

“Did I give you both? I got two — I contacted all three credit agencies, but I only got two reports back and I don’t think this is the one that has Portfolio Recovery on it. I think it’s the other one. Yeah, Portfolio Recovery made a soft inquiry on November 1, 2019. So Midland just is like Portfolio, a –“

“My question is what debt of yours does Midland hold?”

“None that I’m aware of.”

“All right. But you acknowledge they are showing up on your credit report?”

“As a soft inquiry.”

“Understood.”

“They’re allowed to — anybody can look me up. In fact, that might be the way that companies like Portfolio Recovery find their marks is they go in and they look at people’s credit reports and then they contact them and say, hey, you owe us $2,297.63. How do you want to pay for that? And they have — because they have access to these credit reports, they have a whole mess of information about you, so they’re –“

Trefil interrupted my lecture. “What about Enhanced Recovery Company?”

“Same thing. I have no clue who they are. I don’t have any debt, and so they could look.”

“So it’s your sworn testimony here today under oath that you currently have no delinquent debt?”

“I am not aware of any delinquent debt. I have found out –” Another interesting topic comes up from this statement, which will be discussed in a later post. For now it segues into more of the defense divulging what was in its own confidential documents.

“You sound an awful lot like the Capital One representative who wasn’t aware of any mistakes.”

“That what?”

“In the affidavit of sale, [Exhibit 11] you were complaining that the Capital One representative was saying he wasn’t aware of any mistakes in the records that they were giving.”

So here, PRA is telling the public what was said in the “CONFIDENTIAL” affidavit of sale.

In a bigger picture, Judge Rudofsky told the public what was supposedly said in the confidential, sealed documents. He represented that I agreed to owing the debt. He represented that there was accurate records that showed PRA did not call an annoying or harassing number of times. He said that the evidence under seal was so strong, no reasonable juror could disagree with him.

If we were playing poker, I would say PRA bluffed, then Judge Rudofsky as the casino forced me to fold my hand for a manufactured reason, allowing PRA to avoid showing its hand.

The Eighth Circuit upheld that dishonest service and the United States Supreme Court denied my petition for writ of cert and did not mention my motion to unseal the documents on the docket. 24M44.

Here is the motion that was labeled a motion to seal and was “granted”. Despite the record appearing to grant the motion in full, SCOTUS did not unseal the documents. The highest court in the country behaved as if the motion did not request unsealing and ignored the request.