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by Becky Cole (Author)
After a string of bad experiences with landlords, I thought I had finally found a stable home in Minnesota - a brand-new apartment advertised as a 55+ community. The promise of peace and quiet quickly unraveled. The advertising turned out to be misleading, and the constant noise inside and outside the building began taking a serious toll on my health.
Other residents told me that one man in the building had successfully received a settlement from the landlord after hiring an attorney. With hope and without details of the other situation, I contacted the same lawyer. Unfortunately, this attorney proved to be another disappointment. He never intended to do anything meaningful with my case - his only goal was to take my money. Court records show he did the same thing to the other resident, despite the abundance of evidence he had, as well.
When I asked for the $3,000 I had paid to be returned, it triggered a four-year ordeal of retaliation where he was allowed to use the court as his playground. He never denied what he had done to me. He just didn't want it to be called wrong. Fortunately for him, we had a judge who was more afraid of hurting his feelings than holding him accountable. Each time I asked the judge why he was allowed to continue without providing evidence, all I got was ignored.
But there were others, too, who cheered him on. He was on probation when he filed his suit against me that started with how he was "irreparably harmed" for "forcing" him to take cash as part of his retainer, and included how he was allowed to file false claims in court because OLPR didn't say it was wrong to do so. None of it was a probation violation.
Despite my efforts to seek justice, I was repeatedly misled, manipulated and abused by those who were supposed to protect me and the integrity of the legal system. When I challenged these irregularities, they didn't deny any of it happened. They just didn't want it to be called wrong.
