668 - Neighbor of the Beast

The good news is we think that it's finally starting to wind its way to the conclusion.

The bad news (besides the fact it's still ongoing) is we've added on $2000 since then.

A few other BLers have gotten in touch with me since my first post on this flaming clusterfuck of a disaster, and have very generously helped us out. Therefore, for the sake of those people (as well as anyone else who is considering helping), I will fill you in on the details.

1. We've since gotten a new lawyer. The one mentioned in my original post, due to the death of his mother, was forced to move off the case and it got reassigned (after costing my co-worker $300 - but she did not borrow this from me), and will soon be leaving town apparently. This lady is on top of her game - I wish we had her from the start. We'd probably have had the check by now if we had... especially with what the second one wound up doing to us. I'll get to that in a bit.
2. The person who got the old lawyer to sign the agreement then, for some incredibly stupid reason, began to harass that lawyer. He wound up in jail. Along with that, that lawyer got a lawyer of his own - and thanks to this, he began accusing my co-worker's daughter of stuff like harassment, vandalizing his car, and breaking his windows. Cue more false reports that we've had to pay off. We have an order of protection against him now, after his lawyer called our lawyer and said "I hope your client likes being in prison." They said they would drop all charges (of course) if we signed the check over to them, confirming he's total fucking scum and after our money.
3. He began fighting with our new lawyer to prevent us from getting the checks, especially after we sued him for $5000 for harrassment. We won the case, and he appealed, which he lost, then appealed losing the appeal, which he also lost. That check got combined into our main one, but it got split off due to the suit and appeal, and then re-merged due to winning it, each step costing us money, to the tune of $80 a pop, so $240 alone on merging, un-merging, and re-merging a $5000 judgment.
4. Just a few days ago (last Tuesday), we thought we'd have the check. At this point, our lawyer got the District Attorney involved. They went through and systematically began tracking down everything still owed, put the check through paperwork (several judges, court seals, no less than four different courts). Then charges popped up. And more charges. The city clerk looked it over, saw that payments were pending... and then that someone had withdrawn the money, leaving it "pending" in the system, and forcing us to double-pay those charges that were around to clear them. This lawyer took the money we'd been giving him, withdrew the cash once it was pending, and pocketed it, trying to maximize the interest that he'd get on the check, with seemingly no intention of actually letting us obtain it. The city clerk said we have grounds for a lawsuit. We're suing the old lawyer for whatever we can get. Hopefully lots, since this fucker drives around in a Mercedes-Benz and lives in a very nice neighborhood.
5. My co-worker's landlord tried to cash her rent check; it bounced due to all of these problems. Combined with half of last month's rent, it's the first time in the eight years she's lived there that she's been late on the rent, but he went off on her. Told her she had until the end of the week or he was going to try to evict her. If he does things by the book, serving her with a notice on Monday, that gives her a deadline to pay it all ($800 - $500 for this month, $300 missing from last month) by Thursday - which may not be in time for the check to clear, assuming we get it (worst-case scenario for the check to clear would be Friday, assuming Monday is the first clearing day and they don't allow her to withdraw a small chunk of it). She's actually told me not to worry about this - "If I get evicted, I get evicted" - but realistically if I at all can somehow get enough to do this for her, I want to. She doesn't deserve this. She's said she will be 100% fine once we begin getting checks from work again in this sense, but again, that's not until the 28th - about three weeks from now.
6. Just these last few days, the DA said that we'd paid off pretty much everything that had been pending. One or two more snuck by last night; $80 (the last $80 I could give, and technically $20 UNDER what I need to cover most of my bills on the 10th) was all that was left (because they said we'd paid enough they could take the remainder out of the check), and we were finally - FINALLY - supposed to get it last night. I went to bed, feeling hopeful this saga would finally end.
7. I woke up a few hours later, saw the light on my phone blinking, and checked, expecting to finally hear good news. Somehow, the old lawyer was able to get a new harassment charge on my co-worker's daughter (yes, despite the order of protection), claiming she was calling him up and bothering him (they haven't spoken since he stopped being on our case, and again, considering he's trying to fuck us and we have an order of protection against him, calling him is the last thing we'd do). We've got until 9 AM Eastern Monday (about 45 hours from the time of this blog post) to pay up $120 for her charges, or she's forced to turn herself in. If she turns herself in, we lose the check. Our lawyer is fuming, and investigating just how he was able to put one in despite all this.

I'm not normally the type to do this, but I've put over $3700 of my own money in, and the rest of it has been from some very generous BLers. I'm very well tapped out, and the only way that I can fight this with her anymore is through the generosity of others. All I can say is that I hope this is over really soon, but if you want to help me and her out, I will gladly accept anything you feel comfortable with sending - and please, only whatever you can spare; do not mess up your own finances to help us (I've already done that to mine, and that's enough people in my book). I will not mandate amounts, I will not demand specific levels of contribution, nothing - I'm in no position to demand that, and I do not want to inconvenience people and make them give more than they can give. All I can do is promise that I will pay each and every person back once this is all over and I begin getting paid from work again (first paycheck is in three weeks).

Even if we lose this check, I will pay everyone back every dollar... but it might be some time before you get repaid; of the five people I've gotten help from, I owe three of them at least a thousand dollars. Especially if we don't get this check after all for whatever reason, as I only make perhaps $13,000 a year give or take, and obviously I have bills to pay out of that as well so I can't just keep all of it. While I'm hopeful that this check is nearly ours, and according to our lawyer and the DA it actually should be now, there is a very real possibility that it might be some time before you're repaid, so if you can't afford to wait possibly some months or longer, I can't promise I can repay you in that time - only that, come Hell or high water, you will be repaid at some point as soon as I possibly can. Please consider that before you send me anything - so far, only one person has stated they'd like to be paid back relatively soon (by Christmas if possible) and I'm going to do everything I can to pay that person off first.

If you're willing to help, you can send it through PayPal or Google Payments. Either PM me on #notes, or get in touch with me on Skype (dark.pulseman) or Discord (Dark Pulse#7622) and I'll give you my PayPal/Google Payments address. Make sure you let me know who you are and why you're messaging me, so that I know you're not some random person trying to talk to me. You can also PM me on the site, but those are much more reliable ways to get in touch with me.

If we're lucky, $120 is all we need to get the check - the lawyer has said if that gets cleared, then we've paid everything else we need to pay and should be able to get it... assuming nothing else is still hiding, which it sure fucking seems to be lately, thanks to the bastard lawyer we had. But considering how many twists and turns this saga has taken... it might be more than that still despite all this. If we wind up not needing whatever you send me, I will refund whatever isn't needed once the check clears and I get repaid by my co-worker.

Otherwise, assuming that the DA and lawyer are right, once they have this $120, the check will be delivered and we can deposit the check, and it will clear sometime next week - 3-5 business days. We won't know for sure until we deposit it.

That's the long and short of it. Thus concludes this chapter of "Darples begs people for money." If you can help us financially, you have me and my co-worker's deepest gratitude; she might not ever know of you guys, but she knows I'm getting help from friends online, and I will thank you in her stead.

If you can't, thanks for at least reading this, and say a prayer for me or whatever you feel will send us good luck. I appreciate it.

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EDIT (4:09 PM EDT): The immediate debt of $120 has been covered, and according to my co-worker, she and her landlord have had a bit of a discussion and detente. She let him know that he will be getting some of that money at the end of the month (once we get paid), and he likewise will get her help in sprucing up the attic before it gets inspected by the housing authority. So it seems like that for now, the crisis is averted.

Unfortunately, we can't collect the check until Monday, because the guy who'd process it does not work on the weekends. That's still a good ~36-40 hours where that lawyer can try anything else, and if my co-worker's daughter gets arrested, even if falsely, at any time, his lawyer can reopen each and every thing he'd closed for her if they want to, and at that point we're totally screwed.

So even though the crisis is over for now, having more of a cushion would really help. This isn't over until we get the check, or we wind up being unable to pay to close out charges/she gets arrested - whatever comes first.

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EDIT #2 (9/9, 3:15 AM EDT): The bitch who began the initial fucking with us (an aspect of the story I haven't really mentioned, all predating the check bullshit) has somehow also found a way to press charges despite her own order of protection, and has cost us $140 tonight on three separate false warrants. The lawyer is also looking into how she did that to close that loophole and to see if charges can be pressed. A friendly sheriff (related to the person who's been bringing money downtown for us) is getting my co-worker's daughter out of the house for the rest of the night, to give her a tighter alibi, since they attempted an alibi with people there and the cops refused to accept it. At least we found out the former inside help she'd had is no longer a detective, so that's good. Also means we have no idea how she's doing it though.

Current cushion is sixty bucks. We need to hope nothing else comes up until Monday, or that that sixty can cover what does come up, or that other people step up and are willing to give me money.

Otherwise, goodbye check, and if it's a warrant, goodbye co-worker's daughter (to jail, because the old lawyer will be able to open up everything that he closed via his lawyer, and she's convinced that will put her in the pen for ten years somehow), and goodbye co-worker from my job - it'll be time to start taking the shuttle to work.

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EDIT #3 (9/9, 11:39 AM EDT): The good news is, the sheriff did find that loophole, and told us he could close it for sure.

Bad news is 1) It cost $100 to do so, eradicating the cushion yet again, and 2) he couldn't tell us what/how it existed for legal reasons, which means it's likely she had the inside help that caused this all to blow the fuck up in the first place. So she bled us of like $300 tonight - the $140 I mentioned, $85 for an old warrant she'd filed BEFORE the order of protection went into effect (which we'd suspected was how she did it), and then this $100, for a grand total of $325 tonight alone.

Me and my co-worker's hunch is that the "old" warrant that suddenly appeared was entered by the inside help she has - if he can't tell us why for legal reasons, after all, that's a pretty good indication that she and her help are in some deep shit legally. Good. That's what they deserve for fucking with innocent people.

So we're hoping that's it, again, but now I've got nothing left once again to protect my co-worker with if something else does come up. I know at least one or two other BLers have offered to help out, so I'm waiting to hear from them.

I'm just hoping it's not too late before they respond.

Mini-Edit: Yes, they did. Cushion re-established... and hopefully not fucking needed. We'll see.

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EDIT #4 (9/10, 10:28 AM): Shit went really downhill, really fast. The truth on the warrant situation is worse than we thought: The old lawyer cancelled all the orders of protection just before he transferred the case over to the new one. This means that basically, not only can they resume doing anything (and one has), but so could he - at least, until we got the orders reinstated.

Now we're playing whack-a-charge. We've killed five false warrants in the last 12 hours, I think. There are hopefully not that many more, but a few are still popping up here and there. Until they do, we cannot get the check. He can't file any NEW charges past when the orders were reinstated, but any that were filed before then are legal, valid, enforceable - and we have to pay to quash them, or she gets arrested.

Now we've got some good news... for once. One, if these warrants do stop, the lawyer has said that we can get the check. (We tried to do this on Sunday - even paying a little extra to do so - but then these warrants began popping up.) If no more come up today, we can get the check tonight.

Two... I really don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out and say it.

A BLer sent me a PM awhile ago - September 1st, in fact, but it was only on the 8th that I checked the site again. He said:

I don't ever really do anything but lurk here since the 1st iteration, but seeing as you've put a lot of time into the place over the years I wouldn't mind donating $5k if you give me a paypal/address/bank account to send/mail a check/wire money to.

To which, I replied (again, a week later):

$5k is an awful lot of money, assuming you are even serious about it. I don't think we'd realistically need that much, not to mention there is the little fact that I'd be paying people back as well, once this check situation settles and my co-worker repays me. (She's currently up to $7200 or so she owes me.) I'm about to make an update on that.

So while the figure is probably hyperbole, if you're genuinely interested in helping, my paypal is <xxx>. I will pay everyone who loans me money back, although that might take me some time if this check situation keeps on dragging itself out. It may be nearly over at last though.

And today, I get one last message:

Good night, and God bless.

Along with a picture that shows a $5000 transfer to my account.

And my paypal is showing that transfer as pending, to clear on the 13th.

I won't say this BLers name out of respect for his anonymity... but he wasn't joking at all. I'm at a complete and total loss for words. How do I ever thank him enough? How do I ever begin to repay him? That's nearly what I make in half a year, for fuck's sake! People don't just DO that... right?!

I sat and cried my eyes out for a good ten minutes when I saw that.

The only downside is we have to make it to the 13th. It should clear no later than that day. If we do... that should be more than enough to let us actually fight this fucker - and win our check, assuming we haven't gotten it by then.

But until then... I do still need help, guys. I'm going to presume this transaction is legit, so if any of you were considering helping but wavering on that, I can easily pay you back out of that once it clears.

Please let's just hope we make it until then. If we haven't gotten the check by the 13th, that will almost certainly let us have the amount we need to get it.