Do You Play With Cheaters?
I finally have a good excuse to write about my passion: Poker.
What does poker have to do with court corruption?
Simple. Sometimes players cheat at poker. Sometimes litigants cheat at litigation.
Sadly, sometimes “the house” (the court) is complicit.
For instance, an attorney named William Z. White maliciously filed a lawsuit against me to benefit my former romantic and business partner, Micheal “Mike” Pietrczak. (Micheal is the correct spelling of his name, though even the Federal Court got it wrong when he was convicted of using a false i.d. at the U.S.-Mexico border.)
Mike was committing fraud on me. Mr. White had a suicide note written by Mike to his father that described the fraud. He proceeded against me anyhow, claiming I was defrauding Mike.
Eventually the suit against me was dismissed twice. The second dismissal was voluntary, instigated by Mr. White after the suicide note was sent to me in a production of documents. The big box of documents looked like someone peed and pooped on some papers, then shuffled them together. I put on gloves and looked through each page.
Still, I had a common defense doctrine co-defendant, a trust. I was trustee and beneficiary of that trust. I was not allowed to advocate for the trust because I am not licensed to practice law.
Judge Susan Kaye Weaver granted default judgment against the trust. She transferred all the assets I intended to use for retirement to a brand-new trust that will fund Mike Pietrczak’s drug and alcohol abuse and the trauma’s he causes to his own body. He was paralyzed in one of his accidents, after I broke up with him. (Mike told me his medical bills cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. His lawsuit probably cost the taxpayers quite a bit more.)
Early in the second case Mr. White filed in the Searcy County Arkansas Circuit Court, 65-CV-21-20, the Court Reporter Jana Perry deliberately falsified what was said in a hearing. Even though I threw a tizzy, filing motions to settle, civil rights lawsuits and complaints to administrative agencies, Ms. Perry repeated her dishonest services by falsifying a second hearing transcript.
You may notice that I am not using my usual cautionary words, such as “allegedly”. That is because truth is a defense against defamation, and I know what I am saying is true. If any of the conspirators who cheated at court sues me for defamation, the tape of the hearing will be exculpatory evidence and Ms. Perry will be required to play it in open court with a copy of the transcript on a screen for all to see. (Unless that court cheats, too.)
I have begged Judge Weaver and the Justices at the Court of Appeals to play the tape, with no success.
My 1983 suit in Federal District Court against Ms. Perry, Judge Weaver and Mr. White was dismissed without reaching discovery by Judge Billy Roy Wilson. (I call him “Billy Bob”.)
I was going to use the tape as evidence in an FDCPA case against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC. But Judge Rudofsky is leaning towards ending that case before allowing Ms. Perry to comply with my subpoena.
Judge Weaver and her good ol’ peeps are definitely cheating.
Judge Rudofsky, if he is cheating, is much smarter and more subtle. He allows for Portfolio Recovery to file everything it wants under seal, even forms it has published to the public numerous times in other cases, with just different data. They are able to avoid scrutiny.
This is where law feels like a poker game. There is collusion going on. meaning two or more people at the table are working together. Collusion is a form of cheating.
For instance, I have watched a couple sitting next to each other. The woman was on the man’s right. Every time she played a hand, so did he. This is called “protection”. It is subtle and may happen unintentionally, as well.
I know that when I am at a table with my son, I am more likely to call a hand he is in. I know that if I lose, the money will probably go to him. He wins more hands than he loses. I would give him all my money and my right arm if he needed it. So, what’s an extra ten bucks? I should learn from the experience, because every time I play at a table with my son, I come out ahead. I should probably loosen up even when my son is not at the table.
The difference between how I play when my son is there and how the couple was playing is that I don’t play my crap hands when my son is next to me. I fold 7-2 off suit. I noticed the couple’s gambit when all other players folded and both had to expose their hands for the show down. They both had Jack-shit. (Not literally a jack and a shitty kicker. That is a colloquialism for “nothing” that was taken from poker, because a jack with a low off suit kicker is not likely to be a winning hand.) The woman had a good opening hand, but the flop made it unplayable. The man had nothing to start and nothing to finish. They both bluffed the other players out together. After that hand I paid close attention to their pattern. It defied statistical probability, so I got up and found other kids to play with.
I do not play with cheaters. Collusion is cheating.
My son, on the other hand, will. He once told me there were cheaters at the game he played the night before. I asked why he continued to play. He said “if they have to cheat to win, they are not good players. They might win a few hands against me, but I will win more. Eventually I will leave with their money.”
I don’t think my son’s theory works at law.
I took the case Billy Bob presided over to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and those Justices dismissed my appeal summarily. That means they did not allow me to write a brief. I didn’t know the appellate court could do that. Maybe I should have brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I made two bids on a case in California to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Both petitions for writ of cert were denied. That is not unusual. A miniscule percentage of petitions are granted for discretionary review by SCOTUS.
On the California case I was able to have a judge admonished for his unethical behavior. That was a slap on the wrist. I believe the presiding family law judge took early retirement in part because of my complaints about her. But there was no dramatic improvement in the court.
It is too easy for judges to show a bias toward favored litigants or to outright cheat for them. They can easily collude.
Unlike at a poker game, the players are not allowed to just get up and leave without leaving all their money on the table.
Since the unethical judges will eventually transfer all the marks’ money to the opponent, is it wiser for the mark to hand her money over? I don’t think so.
Because unlike at poker, the opponent is allowed to force the mark to bring more money to the table, by filing another bullshit lawsuit or getting an impermissible order for attorney fees. Portfolio Recovery Associates and the William Zac Whites of the world make billions of dollars a year doing just that.
Punctuation Matters. Period. End of Story.
If this conduct by Goliath debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC and Trump appointed Judge Lee P. Rudofsky was not so evil, it would be humorous.
So, I’ll start with one of my dearly departed father, Dr. Norman H. Kramer’s favorite jokes.
He wrote words on a piece of paper exactly like this:
Sex Sex Sex
Worry Worry Worry
Then he told his audience to punctuate the words correctly.
You try.
Sex Sex Sex
Worry Worry Worry
Should I help you?
Sex. Sex. Sex
Worry Worry Worry
Speak the punctuation outloud.
Sex, period, Sex, period, Sex, no period. Worry Worry Worry. lol
Seriously, the placement of a single period or comma can change the meaning of a sentence completely.
For example, there is a case Portfolio Recovery loves called Facebook, Inc. v Duguid. The U.S. Supreme Court decided that dialing systems like those used by Portfolio Recovery are not an “auto dialer” subjecting their obnoxious calls to the TCPA. The decision is 13 pages long, focused primarily on the placement of a comma in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act statute.
“When interpreting a statute, a qualifying phrase separated from antecedents by a comma is evidence that the qualifier is supposed to apply to all the antecedents instead of only to the immediately preceding one.” Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 209 L. Ed. 2d 272, 141 S. Ct. 1163 (2021)
If you don’t fear death by boredom, read this entire paragraph: “(a) This case turns on whether the clause ‘using a random or sequential number generator’ in § 227(a)(1)(A) modifies both of the two verbs that precede it (‘store’ and ‘produce’), as Facebook contends, or only the closest one (‘produce’), as maintained by Duguid. The most natural reading of the text and other aspects of § 227(a)(1)(A) confirm Facebook’s view. First, in an ordinary case, the ‘series-qualifier canon’ instructs that a modifier at the end of a series of nouns or verbs applies to the entire series. Here, that canon indicates that the modifying phrase ‘using a random or sequential number generator’ qualifies both antecedent verbs, ‘store’ and ‘produce.’ Second, the modifying phrase immediately follows a concise, integrated clause (‘store or produce telephone numbers to be called’), which uses the word ‘or’ to connect two verbs that share a common direct object (‘telephone numbers to be called’). Given this structure, it would be odd to apply the modifier to just one part of the cohesive clause. Third, the comma in § 227(a)(1)(A) separating the modifying phrase from the antecedents suggests that the qualifier applies to all of the antecedents, instead of just the nearest one. Pp. 1168 – 1170.” Ok, WAKE UP!
Judge Rudofsky created a “fact” in my litigation against Portfolio Recovery Associates by claiming that I admitted to owing a debt to PRA. He based that “fact” in major part on a sentence he claimed I wrote.
“I am a consumer in respect to any debt incurred by me on
a credit card issued by Capital One Bank (USA) in or about 2001.” – see footnote 463 on the consolidated order granting PRA’s motion for summary judgment.
The actual sentence I wrote: “I am a consumer in respect to any debt incurred by me on a credit card issued by Capital One Bank (USA) in or about 2001, as I used any credit card to purchase household items, food and other consumer items.”
I could have said “I am a consumer in respect to any debt incurred by me on a credit card issued by Capital One Bank (USA) in or about 2001, as I had not borrowed money for business prior to 2013 when PRA allegedly bought the alleged debt.” Still, Judge Rudofsky would still truncate the sentence without indicating the clause removed.
I explained this in a later document, my opposition to PRA’s supplemental motion for summary judgment. I accidentally attributed the misquotation to the defendant instead of the judge. It is so difficult to remember who said something when the judge is creating arguments for a favored litigant.
Yesterday, PRA filed an opposition to my motion for reconsideration or alternatively to compel production of the credit card agreement that was necessary to create an obligation to pay. PRA admitted there is no record of an agreement, written or oral.
Unbelievable as it may seem, PRA repeated Judge Rudofsky’s misquotation of the sentence. But, like a child who looks around furtively and then interjects another lie to try to cover-up for its previous lie, PRA added two characters around the period. “[.]” Here is PRA’s version of the sentence:
“I am a consumer in respect to any debt incurred by me on a credit card issued by Capital One Bank (USA) in or about 2001[.]”
OOOOhhh… Lawyers James Trefil of Troutman Pepper and David Mitchell of Rose Law Firm were trying to not lie. The straight parentheses mean something was changed. They changed the comma to a period. But a person filing documents is subject to Rule 11, that they reasonably believe what they write is accurate. The change PRA made by straight parentheses is not accurate.
For instance, if quoting case law that says “Facebook, inc. is right” the filer writes “[Duguid] is right”, the filer has made a statement he knows is false. Otherwise, lawyers would riddle their points and authorities with straight parentheses that change the meaning of the caselaw completely. Don’t like caselaw? Just change “shall” to “[may]”.
Clever, clever children.
If you had a period after the last “sex”, you might not need the worry, worry, worry, either.
Why Did Judge Rudofsky Allow A Debt Buyer to Turn an FDCPA Case Into a Star Chamber?
I can only speculate based on the evidence I have.
Trump appointee Judge Lee P. Rudofsky allowed Goliath debt buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC to redact and file under seal anything it wanted. I cannot give particulars, because they are under seal.
An example is that PRA filed several forms under seal in my case against the company, but forms almost identical, with different data, were filed in the public record of other cases.
I am pro se and modest means.
Portfolio Recovery Associates has an army of lawyers. It has an inhouse legal department 400+ strong. It hired Rose Law Firm of Hillary Clinton fame. Co-counsel is the big defense firm, Troutman Pepper.
PRA is a billion dollar company.
Judge Rudofsky denied my request to file electronically. Portfolio Recovery Associate’s attorneys all file electronically. The rule against non-attorneys filing electronically cited by the judge gives the judge discretion to allow a pro se litigant equal access to the court.
I have filed almost 90 documents. That means that I have paid for four copies of 90 documents at roughly 10 pages each, at 10 cents per page minimum. That is $360.
I had to drive to the courthouse in Little Rock to file the documents. That is about $30 at the standard mileage rate for about 40 trips. $1,200. That gives me nothing for my time driving.
When information is redacted, the filer must also file a copy of the unredacted document under seal. That jacks up the printing costs and the amount of work. I didn’t know how to redact until recently. I think it is easy. You would make two copies of the document, then highlight the background in the same color (black) as the text for the information to be redacted.
One important document I filed was about 250 pages. If I redacted everything the defendant called “confidential” and filed one unredacted copy under seal, that would add a bunch of time to the project and about $100. I had not figured out how to redact yet. So, I filed the entire document under seal.
This gave Judge Rudofsky the opportunity to misstate what was said in the document.
I will use an example of the judge’s misstatement of facts from a document that was not under seal. In his Consolidated Order dated August 16, 2022, the Court wrote: “Ms. Hammett admits that she made purchases on the Capital One account. Aff. in Supp. of Pl.’s Mot. for Partial Summ. J. (Doc. 39) ¶ 3.”
It is important to read the paragraph before the cited paragraph first. “I am a consumer in respect to any debt incurred by me on a credit card issued by Capital One Bank (USA) in or about 2001, as I used any credit card to purchase household items, food and other consumer items.”
The cited paragraph says in full, “I have no documentary evidence because the purchases were made 10 to 20 years ago. I remember and it was my practice not to borrow money for business ventures. The first time I borrowed money to invest was in 2017 and that was a financial disaster.”
My statements were meant to say I was a consumer in regard to any debt I incurred on any credit card; that I never had a business credit card. I did not admit to making purchases on the alleged account.
Judge Rudofsky is infamous for pursuing an agenda from the bench that does not include finding the truth or providing justice to individuals. That is not a fault I usually discuss. I focus on overtly corrupt acts, like Judge Susan Weaver and Court Reporter Jana Perry altering records of hearings.
If Judge Rudofsky was not so darn brilliant, I would consider his claimed misunderstanding of my meaning as just that, a misunderstanding.
But he is brilliant. Cornell. Harvard. Position as Solicitor General created for him to fill. Appointed to a lifetime position as a District Court Judge in his late 30s or early 40s.
We the People should expect more from Judge Rudofsky than allegedly misunderstanding the focal point of a case.
More importantly, when the judge is up for promotion, it should be easy for his detractors to find the examples of the judge’s errors. By allowing big-business to litigate in a cone of silence, the somewhat honorable judge provides protection for his own career.
Shabbat Shalom! Judge Rudofsky’s Demeanor
I am slammed with legal work. I have to write an appellate brief, maybe a petition for writ of certiorari to the Arkansas Supreme Court and an opposition to a motion for summary judgment.
My doctor just gave me the news that I have Hoshimoto’s Disease. We caught it early and I probably don’t have thyroid cancer. That is the good news.
The bad news is that I need to go on a gluten free, dairy free diet. No more (real) pizza. I’m not a fan of fake foods, like imitation cheese.
The other good news is that I ate this way for a four-year period and a two-year period, and those were the most energetic, pain free six years of my life. Maybe I’ll get back that vigor it takes to take down bad judges.
You know I am still a wobbler on Judge Lee P. Rudofsky.
Today he used a word that tips my judgment of him a bit back in the happy direction.
He granted me an extension of time to write an important and challenging document as a “courtesy”.
If Judge Susan Weaver knows that word, the only time she uses it is to demand that other people treat her with courtesy.
Portfolio Recovery Associates’ attorneys at the Rose Law Firm and Troutman Pepper will probably whine about me writing a blog post today, after asking for a weeklong extension.
Writing is therapy for me. Legal writing is no fun. For every one page I file, I rip up 10 more. (Now you know I’m old, because I still equate writing with papyrus.)
Plus, this informal, brainstorming helps my thoughts gel.
Today I am thinking about a concept that I think Judge R. got wrong. He said a plaintiff in an FDCPA case based on 15 U.S.C. 1692(e)(2)(A) has the burden of proving that the alleged debt was not owed. I said I believed that I did not owe the alleged debt, and if the defendant could show me credible evidence such as where I shopped and when, I might be swayed to thinking I did incur a debt to PRA’s predecessor that did not get paid.
My reasons for thinking there was no debt are many. Not in detail, here are a few. PRA’s documentation shows I made a last payment of $0.00. I usually paid off the entire balance of my credit cards in full. PRA’s documentation shows that two months after I made my last payment, I made my last purchase. Then, for the first time in ten years, according to PRA’s records, I went delinquent.
Judge Rudofsky’s rendition of the events that followed is this:
“On March 10, 2021, Ms. Hammett filed the instant lawsuit.[fn] On March 11, 2021, PRA,
LLC closed Ms. Hammett’s account and waived it ‘in light of the ongoing litigation’ brought by
Ms. Hammett.[fn] On April 1, 2021, Ms. Hammett received a letter from PRA, LLC dated March 18, 2021.[fn] The letter was addressed to a Laura Lyman (not Laura Lynn).[fn] The letter referenced
Lyman’s account number and said that PRA, LLC had ‘completed the investigation into your
dispute and your account has been closed.'”[fn]
Judge Rudofsky is a brilliant writer. He does tend to lose the details into the footnotes, which are profuse. For example, after stating that PRA sent the first closure letter “in light of the ongoing litigation”, as if it was the God given truth, Judge Rudofsky gave a footnote that said, “Ms. Hammett denies this but fails to offer any evidence to raise a genuine dispute of material fact on whether PRA, LLC waived the debt.”
Not true. First, the meaning of the letter to any reasonable person (other than Judge Rudofsky, of course) would be that PRA discovered it was wrong about the debt and closed the account. PRA did not say anything about waiving a debt. PRA waited about 20 days before posting the letter. PRA did not make an offer to waive the debt as partial settlement of the suit. The original creditor did not send a Form 1099-C, which is required when a bank forgives a debt.
What I just did is the same thing I did in my opposition papers to PRA and my deposition. I keep open to the opposition’s point of view. I hope they will prove me wrong or admit to their errors, settle or let a jury decide the value of the damages and move on.
If there is a remote chance the opposition is right, I don’t make absolute statements about my perspective of the events. I give the other side a chance to produce its best evidence. If they have no evidence, to me, they have no case.
Judge Rudofsky called it “trying to turn the tables”. I think a debt collector must have a reasonable expectation that a debt is valid before trying to collect, even through non-judicial means.
I think it is impossible to prove a negative. “You have a debt.” “Do not.” “Do too.”
Maybe, if it was not a 10-year-old debt, I would have documentation of my payments. I don’t even remember all the banks I used back then and don’t know if they are in business. If they still exist, their 10-year-old records probably do not. Do you think proving that there was no debt, more probably than not, meets the burden for a plaintiff in an FDCPA claim? Judge Rudofsky does not.
Back in the day, in California, writing about Commissioner Alan Friedenthal, his wife Stef Padilla and the gang of black robed thugs in L.A., readers reached out to me a lot more than they do here in Arkansas. I even had people typewrite tips and mail them to me.
If you are an attorney who is secretly rooting for me, or even a regular person who has intel, please send an email to bohemian_books@yahoo.com, or send snail mail to 16 Gold Lake Club Road, Conway, Arkansas, 72032.
I would never have ex parte communications with a judge, but today I am sending good vibes out to Judge Rudofsky.
Shabbat Shalom.
The Problem is…No One Gives a Fuck
No, I’m not drunk. Just pissed.
Do you know how brave a person needs to be to say, “um, excuse me Your Honor, but you just lied”?
She would need to be as brave as me.
Or stupid.
I went to the Court of Appeals here in the Great State of Arkansas and asked the inaptly named Justices to let the People hear the tape of a hearing that was fictionalized by court reporter Jana Perry in a transcript that is one part imagination and two parts greed.
They said “no”.
Not one of them was brave or stupid enough to put his name on the order, either. It was rubber stamped by the clerk.
I give up. For tonight. That doesn’t mean you need to.
Judge with an Agenda v. Criminal Conduct
Let’s not put Judge Lee P. Rudofsky in the same category as Judge Susan K. Weaver.
The former has a bias that is anti-populist, and he may overlook things for a blue-collar litigant and treat big businesspeople like they would never think to lie.
The latter is outright criminal (allegedly, of course).
So, why would I write about the Judge Rudofskys of the world? And should I be dropping the “y” and adding “ies” to make Rudofsky plural?
Well, one of his rulings hit me hard and contradicts what I believe to be true, based on facts. When I wrote about him here, my Search Engine Optimization spiked like COVID in February 2020.
Give the People what the people want. Right now, they want to rail on Judge Rudofsky.
A Corrupt Court is Akin to Slavery
The corruption in our courts is so pervasive, it seems impossible to find a judge who bases decisions on facts instead of politics and pure greed.
Don’t the judges who transfer property from poor and modest means people to big businesses and the monied elite know they are turning their victims into slaves? Or do they just not care?
Let’s pray today for good people from all political persuasions to go to law school and when they succeed, to not sell out.
A judge I Hate to Hate: Judge Lee P. Rudofsky
Most of the time I am railing on buffoons like Commissioner Alan H. Friedenthal (deceased) and plump little piggies like Judge Susan Weaver, who admitted as per a Gazette reporter to loving to play with other people’s money.
Unfortunately, I must turn to a more serious threat to our country and the Republican party. (I am a right leaning Libertarian, registered Republican in 2016 so I could vote for Ben Carson or Rand Paul instead of Donald Trump.)
There is a newish young Federal District Court Judge named Lee P. Rudofsky.
Judge Rudofsky has the right pedigree. He went to Cornell and Harvard.
He is not lazy. He reads documents and makes intelligent commentary in his long hearings.
I agree with some of his views.
But this week I had a rude awakening. Judge Rudofsky misstated facts presented in my opposition to a motion for summary judgment and ruled for the goliath company defending against making obnoxious, intrusive telephone calls to alleged debtors, without verifying the debt first.
I didn’t take the leftist organizations seriously until now. For example, The Alliance for Justice had this to say about Judge Rudofsky when he was a nominee. “Rudofsky’s record paints a clear picture of a partisan warrior bent on curtailing critical rights and protections for everyday people.”
The case I am fighting should carry a jury award for punitive damages in the millions. The defendant, Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC has paid out tens of millions in stipulated agreements already and does not curtail its bad behavior.
I would love to take on an attorney for an appeal of Judge Rudofsky’s orders on contingency. I think my case is a good vehicle to bring together populist Republicans and Libertarians with true Democrats and even socialists.
We all want honest judges who support the individual.
Read more about Defendant Portfolio Recovery Associates Here.
Dishonorable Lee P. Rudofsky: A Dangerous Man
In poker, an effective move is to slow play a monster hand. I once got into a hand with low suited connectors for $2 and flopped a straight flush. I checked and another player raised $10. (Unfortunately, all the other players folded and the pot did not get any higher, but the house paid a $210 bonus.)
A federal district court judge named Lee P. Rudofsky just slow played me.
I was thrilled by Judge Rudofsky’s demeanor. He runs the proceedings well and is patient. He is listening, reads the documents and repeats back important points.
He did not always rule the way I wanted him to rule, but he was within his discretion and made only one misstatement of law. It was about an ancillary issue, whether pro se litigants may be given permission to file electronically.
Until his first substantive decision.
Judge Rudofsky decided a Motion for Summary Judgment in favor of a goliath debt buyer, Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, based on a grossly misstated fact set.
One of the early poor discretionary calls was allowing PRA to keep its filings, including the MSJ, under seal. For fear of being found in contempt of court, I filed my response under seal.
This made it easy for the sneaky judge to misstate what was in the response.
If Judge Lee P. Rudofsky is ever looked at for promotion, please contact me. If I have not been successful at unsealing the telling documents, I will cooperate fully with those who can.
Obstruction of Justice?
obstruction of justice (1854) Interference with the orderly administration of law and justice, as by giving false information to or withholding evidence from a police officer or prosecutor, or by harming or intimidating a witness or juror. • Obstruction of justice is a crime in most jurisdictions. — Also termed obstructing justice; obstructing public justice. See perverting the course of justice.
“The goal, — to proscribe every wilful act of corruption, intimidation or force which tends in any way to distort or impede the administration of law either civil or criminal — has been very largely attained, partly by aid of legislation. And any punishable misdeed of such a nature which is not recognized as a distinct crime, is usually called ‘obstruction of justice,’ or ‘obstructing justice,’ — a common-law misdemeanor.” Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 552 (3d ed. 1982).
OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019)
Does this apply when a court reporter, such as Jana Perry of the Circuit Courts in Arkansas, purposefully makes an inaccurate transcription of a hearing?
What if a judge, such as Susan Kaye Weaver, threatens to refer a person for prosecution of the crime of the unauthorized practice of law if that person argues or testifies on her own behalf, just because the testimony will also benefit another entity?
And what about if an attorney, such as William Zac White of Heber Springs is colluding with the judge and court reporter and threatens to report their victim to a sympathetic good ol’ boy sheriff on trumped up charges?
I prefer the term for Obstruction of Justice used in other countries.
Perverting the Course of Justice.
A Higher Law 