While I have been sharing the records of a decade-long litigation, the “machinery” of the law continues to grind in the present. The past few weeks have provided a vivid example of the disconnect between a court order and real-world results.
Before we dive into the current update, here is a quick recap of how we got here:
The Claim: Valeo sued me for $33,627.75 over “sub-target” clients they didn’t even want .
The Ghost Contract: They litigated for years on an “Entire Agreement” that their own lead counsel eventually admitted was never signed.
The Blindfold: The court used a “lost” affidavit to bar my evidence and secure a $180,432.71 judgment.
The April 11th freeze of Ethan’s bank accounts is what finally pushed me to give into God’s prompting to document the entire facts of what has transpired for the last 11 years. From Part 1: A Matter of Record:
That restriction included funds earned by my son this past summer for college, because I was apparently a co-owner on his accounts from before he turned 18.
The same court has also ruled that I am not allowed to pay his tuition.
Here’s what it took to restore Ethan’s accounts.
The April 22 Hearing: A Simple Request
On Wednesday, April 22, I attended a hearing before the Magistrate Judge regarding my emergency motion to exempt my son Ethan’s checking and savings accounts from Valeo’s collection efforts. I had included his W2 and a sworn affidavit by Ethan that the funds were all his. Valeo still objected to the motion, so the court set a hearing, but never informed us. Kim saw it when she happened to check the court calendar. Events that will be detailed in Part 14 are relevant here.
The judge asked if Ethan would be attending. I informed him that we were never informed or asked about scheduling a hearing and happened to notice the hearing on the court calendar. We had no knowledge of the court’s expectation for the hearing. At that moment Ethan was in a class taking a quiz. I also reminded the judge that an affidavit was already filed by Ethan swearing that all the funds in his bank accounts were his and not mine.
Valeo’s attorney was present and was clearly prepared for this hearing.
The issue was straightforward: Ethan’s accounts had been caught in the crossfire. The Magistrate asked Valeo’s attorney a direct question: If I produced account statements proving these finances belonged solely to Ethan and were not related to me, would she agree to release them? She agreed. I produced those statements just a few hours after the hearing ended. Here’s an excerpt of what she saw:
The Friday Scramble
The judge set a follow-up hearing for Friday morning, April 24, at 10:30 AM in case Valeo still objected and Ethan needed to testify to the exact same facts in his affidavit.
Despite having the records for nearly two days, the opposing attorney waited until the last possible minute to communicate. At 10:10 AM on Friday—twenty minutes before the scheduled hearing—I received an email from the judge forwarding a message from Valeo’s attorney and saying that the 11:30 AM hearing is cancelled. She had notified the court at 9:50 AM that the hearing would not be necessary because she was filing a motion to release ALL accounts.
Crucially, the attorney did not include me in her original email to the judge. I informed the Magistrate at 10:15 AM that I would notify Ethan that the hearing he scheduled for 10:30 AM was no longer necessary. Instead of preparing for Mechanical Engineering Technology finals at Purdue, Ethan had been preparing to appear virtually and testify in court. Because I failed to prepare him in advance, he was researching.
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The Enforcement Gap
Following that April 24th exchange, Valeo filed a motion to release all the accounts—Ethan’s, my personal accounts, and the business accounts, and the court immediately issued an order. Having seen no urgency from Valeo’s attorney or the court, the following Wednesday, April 29th, I contacted the bank to direct them to the online public court filings to download the order and unfreeze Ethan’s accounts. They instructed me to take the order to a local branch and have them fax it to their department, which I did immediately.
The branch staff faxed the order to their legal department. The result? On Friday, May 1st, the bank released only the business accounts—which we hadn’t even specifically requested—but Ethan’s accounts remain locked. I had been telling Ethan for weeks that I would get it corrected. Now with a court order, it was hung up. The bank assured me that they were “escalating it” and it would be “one to two business days.”
Kim advised patience, unlike my daily calls and branch visits. By Wednesday, May 6th, she suggested I contact them. Ethan had only one final left. The representative allowed me to direct her to the public Indiana court website to download the court order. They were unable to find it attached to the prior account they unfroze.
Another hour long phone call, but this time the bank released his account.
Nearly an entire month without his savings while at college.
I immediately went down to the branch to remove my name. You may recall that the court has already ordered that I am prohibited from paying tuition for Ethan. So it is somewhat amazing that they required so much effort for him to access his own funds earned unloading UPS trucks in the hot afternoons last summer. This whole episode took well more than 40 hours just to get Ethan’s funds back to him.
Still, with all that going on, Ethan did really well on his finals, and we are extremely proud of how he overcame all of it.
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Before we return to the “matter of record series,” tomorrow I will share the surprising escalation that happened following what appeared to be a goodwill act of unfreezing all our bank accounts and one other interesting development.
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