Wednesday, May 23, 2012

PART ONE, Jerry Moore vs. John Hoff a/k/a Johnny Northside Appeal Argued Today Before Minnesota State Court Of Appeals, As Word Reaches Me Moore Is Back To Being A Defendant In The Civil Suit Over Mortgage Fraud At 1564 Hillside Ave. N., In Which He Was INVOLVED, INVOLVED, INVOLVED...

Photo, Jerry Moore awaits word of his fate the night after he punched a board member of the Jordan Area Community Council, blog post by John Hoff

At about 11:15 AM today, while my lawyer Paul Godfread argued on my behalf at the Minnesota State Court of Appeals in my "tortious truth telling about a public figure" lawsuit, I was doing two of my favorite things at the same time: Blogging (in this case, about a candidate for State Senate named Troy E. Parker) and teasing out juicy info about my NEXT blog post, which is THIS one.

So I wasn't at the Court of Appeals. I wasn't even in the same state. I called to ask my attorney how it went, so I could write it up for my readers.

Write it up I shall, but the info I received late last night and earlier today is far more pressing...

Background, Moore's Involvement In The 1564 Hillside Ave. N. Mortgage Fraud

Many readers will recall that after the mortgage fraud at 1564 Hillside Ave. N., Larry Maxwell was found guilty and sent to prison for quite a while. His appeal was denied back in August of last year, while I was in Afghanistan, here's a link to the decision.

The sad little wreck of a house at 1564 Hillside Ave. N. had been sold by slumlord Keith Reitman to a fellow named John Foster, who had outstanding credit. But it turned out John Foster was actually an "imposter foster," a crackhead named Jerome Kingrussell who had been put up to impersonating John Foster. The sale was a fraud, orchestrated by Larry Maxwell.

So when the house was sold, disbursements were made to various entities. One of the disbursements was a check for $5,000 to J.L. Moore Consulting for "windows." Jerry Moore was the man behind J.L. Moore consulting. At that time, Moore was a sheer force-of-personality in North Minneapolis politics, a divisive power to be reckoned with in the entity known as the Jordan Area Community Council, known as JACC.

But when the criminal indictment was made against Larry Maxwell, the role of Jerry Moore was mentioned in the complaint. Click here to view the actual criminal complaint in PDF form. Somehow (I myself am not sure how this happened) copies of the criminal complaint began to circulate among "movers and shakers" as well as "concerned citizens" in the neighborhood, which is not to say there's always a bright line between the two groups. It's fair to say people in the Jordan neighborhood were GOING NUTS over this info. Councilman Don Samuels questioned Moore about it. Moore tried to turn the tables, like, why was Samuels bringing this up?

But I wasn't even in the picture when any of this was happening.

Leaving My Hawthorne Neighborhood Comfort Zone 

At some point, I received a phone call from Megan Goodmundson of the Jordan Neighborhood, who I had never met before. She referenced some positive mentions I had made of Jerry Moore on my blog. This might have been one of the articles referenced, click here. Goodmundson told me there were things I needed to know about Moore, and began dishing up interesting dirt like it was 32 flavors of Baskin Robbins ice cream.

At the time, I lived in the Hawthorne Neighborhood and I'd heard about the intense, bare knuckle politics in the Jordan Neighborhood. And I had met Jerry Moore a couple times. As I testified in court, when I was first looking for a house in North Minneapolis, and talking about my house search in a very public way as an (award winning) columnist in the Minnesota Daily, I met Jerry Moore and he talked to me for hours about neighborhood politics. He seemed likable and smart. And powerful. The little king of Jordan Neighborhood politics. I ended up moving to Hawthorne, however, so my association with Moore never became especially close or frequent.

But even in my first meeting with Moore, there were dark hints of conflict in the Jordan Neighborhood. I asked Moore a casual question about his qualifications for his position, and the only way I can describe it would be "he got all weird." He wanted to know what made me ask that question. "Who I had been talking to." And then he apologized and explained how a certain small faction of people on the JACC board made his life difficult with, for example, constant burdensome and picky requests for info.

Which, I should point out, is just the kind of thing I've done most of my life. Requested info from powerful people, info that was only going to shake stuff up, and THEY KNOW IT.

So...filed. Filed in the back of my mind. But when Megan Goodmundson called me, the feeling in the Hawthorne Neighborhood was "stay out of Jordan's politics. Those folks are CRAZY over there and you don't want to get dragged into the conflict."

Goodmundson mentioned the criminal complaint. I should take a look at this document, she said, and know the hidden facts about Moore, before I wrote things and held Moore up through my writing as a positive force in the community. Well, I had to agree "knowing facts" was good for a news writer. I said something offhand about how "I happen to like the guy," a sentence that Megan (who ultimately became my steady girlfriend) would jokingly throw in my face, from time to time, when Moore was later suing me.

The politics in Jordan, already rough, got rougher. An election for board members of JACC elected enough individuals to tip the balance against Jerry Moore, and the writing was upon the wall come election night. There was an altercation and Jerry Moore hit board member P.J. Hubbard in the face. A meeting of the newly-composed board was scheduled for the following night. But information was already flying through the neighborhood rumor mill. THERE WAS AN ACTUAL PHYSICAL ALTERCATION FOLLOWING THE ELECTION BETWEEN MEMBERS OF JACC.

I published what details I had about the altercation, click here and also here, though I was miffed to realize my attempts to get BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY INCLUDING JERRY MOORE'S had caused Don Allen's IBNN blog to beat me to the bloggy punch with news of the altercation.

There was going to be a board meeting of the new board following the tumultuous election. First item on the agenda might well turn out to be Jerry Moore's fate. Megan called me on the phone and urged me to be there. All I really needed was the exact time and place, I didn't really need much urging.

There was a bruising and complicated Roberts Rules of Order battle over board officers. And then the board with its new officers fired Jerry Moore. Months, years of battles followed as the "Old Majority" on the board scrapped with the "New Majority" over who were the legitimate JACC officers. Jill Clark represented the losers of that board battle. The matter is still in court, click here for recent coverage.

Following his ouster from being the executive director of JACC, Jerry Moore found a job doing mortgage research at the University of Minnesota. I wrote an article about Moore's new job and, it would be fair to say, expressed outrage the University had hired him. (HELLO!!! He was researching mortgages and the man had been involved with a mortgage fraud. Admittedly, he was not as big a fish as Larry Maxwell who went to prison, but Moore was swimming in the same school of sharks)

The Blogosphere Trial Of The Century Begins, Click Here For Theme Music

The lawsuit against me is a result of what I wrote and, to some extent, what I allowed to be published in the "comments" section. Click here for the article which "started the whole thing." Click here for a follow up article about Moore's termination.

So I didn't win at the lower court level, and I could go into detail about how flukey that was, and how confident I am of winning on appeal, and describe how the proceeding went today, but developments in ANOTHER civil suit are more urgent.

Melony Michaels, John Foster Sue Jerry Moore, Describe His Purported Role In The Fraud

After Larry Maxwell was convicted, John Foster (the real John Foster) filed a civil suit along with his wife, Melony Michaels. The use of Foster's identity had destroyed his once phenomenal credit rating. I mean, seriously, this guy pumped up his credit rating the way some people pump up their abdominal muscles. Do people NEED such perfect abdominal muscles? The question seems irrelevant to those who seek washboard abs. It's what they DO. Well, this is what John Foster DID. He pumped up his credit rating. And inadvertently made himself a prime target for identity theft at the hands of Larry Maxwell.

So Foster and Michaels sued a bevy of individuals alleged to be involved in the mortgage fraud at 1564 Hillside Ave. N.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

So if you had never met Megan, you would never have been sued. Never have lost, never of had to appeal, never of had to miss your COA hearing to avoid process servers.
Sounds like Megan used you to solve her problems, and walk away almost Scott free.
Hope you get to read this before she deletes it to hide it from you.

Johnny Northside! said...

Yeah, there weren't actually any process servers in that court and you know it. Why would you tell a guy you're trying to serve "Hey, we're trying to serve you?"
Particularly when the guy in question is so good at dodging service?

As for the rest of what you're saying...

You seriously think I should blame Megan who told me the ugly truth about Jerry Moore instead of bad actors like Jerry Moore, Jill Clark, Ben Myers, Peter "Spanky" Pete Rickmyer, etc?

(Parody font) If I hadn't learned the truth about Jerry Moore, he might have gotten me drunk and tried to perform a "prostate exam" on me in a bar, late at night. (End parody font)

(To those who aren't in on the joke, late night prostate exams in a bar was the excuse for certain dubious JACC expenditures under Jerry's tenure as JACC executive, I'm not kidding and you can't MAKE this stuff up)

(Back to parody font)

Sure, I got sued, but it's so much better than a non-consensual, dubiously-funded prostate exam from Jerry Moore late at night in Gabby's Bar.

(End parody font)

Thank you, Megan, for saving my prostate from more than any man's prostate should have to endure.

Johnny Northside! said...

Yeah, I think that last part should have been in the parody font, too, but I really am thankful.

Evil, lonely trolls trying to create a rift between me and Megan. Why don't you go read up on what Terry Yzaguirre wrote about TROY PARKER. Oh, there's something you "anti-Johnny" crowd really need to talk out amongst yourselves, that's for sure.

Riley said...

Actually there was a gal there with papers to serve you. I talked to her and told her you were not there, anywhere to be seen. Unless you were dressed as a very attractive college student sitting on the left side - nope, not you.
I did ask what the papers were about. She said she just serves them, doesn't read them. I even looked in the lawyers prep room to see if you were hiding in there to listen.
But I did see Terry in the gallery, didn't talk to her. And Kip was there too. What's his deal? Wonder what his interest in this case is?

You missed some good questions. Guess you were too busy having another "drinkey winkey" to attend.

Johnny Northside! said...

The drinky winky pictured is called OR-G liquor, an "exotic balance of french vodka and persimmon mingling with papaya, mango, and lime."

Riley, you can keep playing your little games of pretend all you like. Like a process server is going to tell some random person what they're doing and tip everybody's hand to their presence. That little detail about "I don't read them" is the nice touch of a practiced liar, but like most lies, it still doesn't hold together.

NoMi Passenger said...

Keep in mind I still had not met John at the point in time I reached out to him to tip him off to the fact that he was mingling with a suspected mortgage fraudster. I actully didn't meet him in person until he took it upon himself to observe the JACC proceedings and follow the soap opera as it unfolded. I'm pretty sure it was less of a case of me imposing my opinion onto John and more of a case of John seeing things for himself.

(John, you forgot to mention the JACC office break in the night that the board voted to terminate Jerry Moore!)

Besides, anyone who knows John - or knows John and me - knows I have about *this much* control/influence on what John does. (holding my thumb and forefinger as close together as possible)

Johnny Northside! said...

Maybe, like, this much.

(Holding hands about six inches apart)

Anonymous said...

How come "Riley" is asking the same questions posed by Terry Yzaguirre?

I work for a living said...

The John Hoff school of parenting.
John would say, "He's a big boy he can handle it".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjGtPiM_iO0

Anonymous said...

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=447930431890370 FIND THIS CHILD ABUSER!!! johnny PLEASE MAKE A FUSS ABOUT THIS MAYBE WE CAN FIND THIS CREEP Beware Johnny this may even make YOU tear up...

Johnny Northside! said...

I am posting your comment solely because the link is actually interesting, though it has nothing whatsoever to do with this topic.

Johnny Northside! said...

To the commenter at 2:11

I couldn't even watch it all the way through. Not sure where this video originates, but I hope its airing online causes the woman to be arrested and charged.

However, it appears to be video from some kind of third world rathole, so who knows if what she did is EVEN AGAINST THE LAW in the place where it was filmed.

Having said all that...

This has nothing, nothing, NOTHING whatsoever to do with the topic at hand.