Rate This wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 7:43 pm
...he is accused of paying off a porn star to shut her up while he ran for office...
That's not accurate. There was nothing illegal about paying her off to shut her up. What he's accused of is improperly classifying those payments in his bookkeeping as legal expenses. Which to me seems so ridiculously petty to go after him for that.
Fun little side-story. In 2015, I sued my local school over Open Meetings Act violations. Specifically, I sued the Superintendent and 3 board members for a total of 10 counts - at $500 each, or $5,000 total. The other part of my suit was a request for injunctive relief to overturn the decisions they had illegally made behind closed doors. Rather than risk losing everything at trial, they made me an offer of judgment in the full amount I sued for, plus costs. That offer put me between a rock and a hard place because if you reject an offer of judgment and then fail to win at least that amount plus an additional 10% at trial, you are then liable for the other side's legal fees. I was pro-se, and I wasn't entirely sure how that would have worked since I had injunctive relief tied to it (ie, I thought I probably had to win the full amount plus the injunctive relief to avoid having to pay legal fees), so I took the money. That's actually what I started my business with.
Why am I bringing up that story? When I got the check, it came from the school board, and in the memo line, it was itemized as a "settlement." Legally speaking, settlements and judgments are two totally different things. An offer of judgment has the same effect as a judgment won at trial, just that it was voluntarily entered into by the other side. Why is this discrepancy a big deal? Because pursuant to Michigan's Open Meetings Act, EACH INDIVIDUAL DEFENDANT is PERSONALLY liable for damages. Meaning, had I won a judgment at trial, each individual Defendant would have had to pay me out of their own pockets. Same should have applied for a voluntary judgment. Instead, the Board paid it and book-kept it as a "settlement."
Having been in court for over 2 years, I was just ready to be done, so I didn't make a fuss over it. But I could have, and I think there could have been big trouble for them had I pursued it because that was possibly blatant fraud. That is an example where mis-classification in the books has a fraudulent impact.
