The Madness Of Jill Clark, PART FORTY-THREE, So Much Madness Happening I Won't Get All Of It Into One Blog Post...

Photo, near Justice Center right before Clark's hearing, blog post by John Hoff

Here is your "mad minute" summary for those who need to know the scoop quickly. First, Attorney Jill Clark is blogging again on her "Jill Clark Speaks" site, going after recently retired Judge Robert Blaeser and printing metaphorical comparisons and insinuations so unjust, so foul, this blog simply refuses to repeat what she's saying even in summary. Clark is racking up legal karma debts the lifetime careers of a dozen lawyers won't be able to repay. The end will be horrible to watch but I can't tear my eyes away.

Second, the lawsuit by Level Three Sex Offender Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer continues to take bizarre bounces and head south. Rickmyer recently wrote an email to the court system USING JILL CLARK'S EMAIL ACCOUNT, with Rickmyer's name appearing right above Clark's signature line. This is, to say the least, bizarre.

In correspondence to the state court, Rickmyer states he wants to be in federal court; so it appears the state court judge will follow through on a dismissal with prejudice as promised and defendants won't even need to show up to make their arguments for it. As for Peter's pipe dream of being in federal court, well, that's not going to actually HAPPEN.

Third, Jill Clark's cases continue to head south. For example, the day before her October 17 disciplinary hearing I have it on good authority Clark didn't even bother to show up for a hearing in Michelle Gathje v. City of Richfield, et al, but there's more, so much more...


Zombie Freaks And Other Blogging Hazards 

The October 17 hearing regarding whether to place Clark on "disability inactive" status is available on the State Supreme Court's website, click here, including the glorious 9-minute rant by Clark, which I put on YouTube, click here. But the video doesn't show everything. I was there, taking copious notes. Clark supporters packed one side of the room, as somber as attendees at a funeral, many of them literally dressed in black. At one point, Clark verbally laid into a member of the Lawyers Board of Professional Responsibility.

At about 8 am, I parked my car and realized I've become so dependent on my laptop that I didn't bring a notebook. With an hour to go before the hearing I began looking around, hoping for a well stocked gas station or a convenience store with a few dusty office supplies. I found an open doorway; the atrium of some kind of organization trying to help alcoholics. There were piles of yellow forms in a brochure rack, 8 and 1/2 by 11, blank on one side.

Perfect for a Jill Clark hearing, I thought, grabbing a stack. To provide a hard surface to write upon, I had a copy of Lost States, a tongue-in-cheek book about the State of Franklin and statehood dreams that never became reality. I didn't pick this stuff on purpose for symbolic effect. It just all fell together like that.

Over the skylight on the third floor of the Minnesota Judicial Center, there is an artsy conglomeration of what appears to be repurposed glass windows. I thought it was a fine representation of the messiness of real life, and yet the light of unshakable facts, of orderly justice and real equity can shine through the mess.

There were also two little "lawyer rooms" provided for the convenience of counsel appearing before the court, one of which is pictured below.

The upholstery on the chair was a fairly close match to the jacket Clark wore to the hearing.

When you're waiting for a Clark hearing to begin, there are odd and specific things you have to worry about. How to get in and out of the men's bathroom quickly to minimize "alone time" with Spanky Pete. Where the security cameras are positioned in the building so the crowd of legally desperate freaks who follow Clark around won't be able to manufacture some kind of "incident." And how to make a quick exit once the hearing is over so the aforementioned crowd of freaks won't be upon you like a zombie horde.

I sat upon a stone bench near the open window of the Clerk's office, admiring the artsy skylight. At about 8:30 AM Clark arrived with a person I believe to be Julie Delgado-ONiel, glancing my way but showing no reaction and quickly going into one of the lawyer offices. The courtroom was now open so I went inside, finding a seat near the front of the "groom's side" where it appeared the Lawyers' Board attorney would be sitting. Instead of an entire pitcher of water at each lawyer desk, there was a single glass of ice water. Would it be enough, I wondered, for all the dry, nervous throats on the defendant's side?

You Heard Me, Mr. Cole

Out in the hallway, I heard a female voice which I thought to be Clark's say, in a falsely jovial tone, "The three defendants!" I wasn't sure who was in the little office at that point in time, or what was meant by the phrase "the three defendants."

Clark was wearing a purple dress coat with metal (or metal-colored) buttons, making comments in a jovial and assertive tone which, for all its bravado, was just north of nervous. Sometimes she'd whisper. Whisper, whisper, whisper so The Hoff couldn't hear. Her husband came up after a while and sat to Clark's right. Then sex offender Peter Rickmyer appeared and sat to her left side. Loyal and long suffering paralegal Peggy Katch sat in front of Clark.

Then Diana Longrie showed up, and Clark rose up to meet Longrie in the lawyer office. Spanky Pete came along like he was co-counsel or something, entering the special room. Ah, the heady feeling of rarified courthouse air, and Spanky appeared to be breathing it all in, savoring the moment.

After several minutes Clark came out and started to situate herself in a pew on the "bride's side" of the court chamber, but then Clark appeared to suddenly remember something and came striding over in my direction.

Oh, hell, I thought. What is Clark going to say to me? I have a lawyer, she's not even supposed to TALK to me. 

But Clark wasn't zeroing in upon Johnny Northside. (Wait for her oral argument for THAT to happen) She was focused on the two individuals seated directly behind me, a young blonde woman and a distinguished looking older man with white hair.

"Ms. Hanson," Clark said. "I'd like you to preserve the electronic record from your 2006 file...I didn't get (something, I couldn't write fast enough)." Clark then turned toward the older gentleman seated next to "Ms. Hanson" and said, "You heard me, Mr. Cole, you're a witness."

WTF? I thought. Later, I determined these were officials from the Lawyers Board of Professional Responsibility. Picture Clark's law license as a small white bird with little black markings, taking flight and flying away through an opening in the pretty skylight pictured above. But it hovers for just a moment in front of Clark's face.

She puts her lips to the beak of the bird and makes a smooching sound, KISSING HER LAW LICENSE GOODBYE.

Sad, Bitter End Of "Two Jills Of A Kind"?

Jill M. Waite entered the room, looked around nervously, and took a seat on Jill Clark's side of the room. When Clark and Waite were flying high a few years they were "Two Jills of a Kind," featured in a positive Star Tribune article about how they were "taking on the system." But Jill M. Waite had her own lawyer discipline problems for, um, not filing taxes for a ridiculously long time. As of today, the website of the Minnesota Lawyers Board of Professional Responsibility shows her as not authorized to practice in the State of Minnesota. But I wasn't just searching Minnesota when that information popped up in the little search tool. I was trying to perform a search for "any state."

Make of this what you will.

Spanky Pete went right up to Waite to chat. Pete had his cell phone out and I could hear it making noise in the court chambers.

Waite and Clark whispered intently for about 20 seconds over "the rail" but the conversation was incredibly short. The woman I believe to be Julie Delgado-ONeil sat very close to the front.

One of the court clerks, a well-dressed young man, stood to remind the gallery that eating, drinking, chewing gum or cell phone usage would result in immediate ejection. At that point, Peter Rickmyer (who had his legs crossed) put his phone on his ankle. He actually balanced the phone on his ankle for a moment. It was odd. Make of it what you will.

People were still coming into the court gallery, sorting themselves out where they should sit. Clark's side was almost full and my side was about half full. There was at least one woman on Clark's side of the room taking notes intensely. She looked like a journalist but I didn't see any press coverage of the hearing. A somber mood hung over Clark's side of the room.

Many were literally wearing black.

Strange Filings And Arguments

A security officer walked in and at that moment the clerk banged a gavel hard, three times. All rose for the Honorable Court, which consisted of three white males, one black male, and one black female. The Chief Justice was absent and Judge Alan Page stated she would be taking no part in today's decision. Gildea is the Chief Justice and Clark ran a pointless, just-for-spite campaign against Gildea which, of course, utterly failed. An editorial in today's Star Tribune endorses Gildea for Chief Justice and speaks in favor of the current system of "first you're appointed, then you run for election." Clark's failed election and subsequent lawsuit is notable only for the absence of its mention.

Ouch.

I took extensive notes on the court proceedings, not realizing a tape of the hearing would be available. One thing that catches my interest, though, and I kind of wish the lawyer for the Lawyers' Board would have been allowed to finish his sentence, was mention of a filing by clark with a witness list that had 186 names.

What filing was that, I wonder?

My favorite part of Diana Longrie's argument was when she said she didn't know when asked, directly, what was Clark's supposed "medical condition." And then there was Clark, complaining she's been traumatized because judges are, well, SHOUTY. Why do they have to yell and be so shouty? Then, later in her oral argument, Clark's voice rises to a yell as she says she has a property right in her law license.

A relative of a local lawyer watched the tape of Clark's performance on YouTube and had this to say:

She doesn't really have any self-awareness at all, does she?

When the hearing ended, I knew it was time to run from the zombie hoard. But the inner sleeve of my jacket was messed up and I couldn't drive my arm through it. I was delayed a precious 15 seconds and the mob was filling the corridor to the door, a tide of desperate and downcast faces. I got through the first set of chamber doors, through the second, and then I heard somebody calling out behind me.

"John Hoff--!"

It was Diana Longrie, who must have been really moving at quite a clip to pursue me out of court chambers. She was holding a business card in her hand and trying to offer it to me, saying something about how she wanted to talk to me.

"Talk to my lawyer," I said.

Longrie said something to the effect she wanted to give me an interview. The desperate tide was gathering behind and around Longrie, like zombies who sense there is a live brain among them.

"You represent Jill Clark," I told Longrie. "Clark is suing me. So you can't talk to me, you have to talk to my lawyer."

I hurried down the stairs. A female voice yelled out, "Why are you running so fast, Johnny?" and then a voice (or the same voice) yelled, "Why do you dislike Jill Clark so much?"

Yes, There's Such A Thing As A Stupid Question

There ARE, in fact, such things as stupid questions. And there's also a stupid saying about how there are no stupid questions. Why do I dislike Jill Clark? Let me count the ways. But dislike doesn't get in the way of a need to always speak the truth and to make sure I really believe any opinions I may state, that I'm not just stating them for effect. If I do state an opinion for effect, I may use the "joke font" or the "parody font" or state the opinion is a only a half-believed hypothesis.

But why do I dislike Clark? Let me reduce it to a Top 10 list.

1.) She sued me and my blog for defamation over a truthful statement and tied me up in court for a couple years.

2.) She sued Council Member Don Samuels for assaulting notorious lunatic Al Flowers by "deliberate backwards toe stepping" when, in fact, it was Flowers who shoved Samuels in the back for having the audacity to stand in front of Flowers while he was in full on raging loon mode at a press conference.

3.) After Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer was declared a Rule 9 frivolous litigant, unable to file things in court without an attorney, Jill Clark was all, like, oh sure let me be your attorney and just sign off on your crazy crap. In fact, it's gotten to the point she's literally letting Spanky use her email account.

4.) The "true JACC" case which dragged on for years without once having a glimmer of success for Clark's plaintiffs, who were just as much victims of Clark as the defendants. If you are a neighborhood organization in Minneapolis, it's a whole new post-apocalyptic world as far as obtaining "directors and operators" insurance after Clark dragged the JACC defendants through the ringer. On the basis of the case alone, it would be worth writing all forty-three parts of The Madness of Jill Clark to shine the light of public exposure on this Wicked Witch Of The West, Esquire.

4.) Clark has turned four members of the Yzaguirre family (Terry, Nicole, Eric and Jerome) into her personal lawsuit franchise. In fact, PART ONE of The Madness of Jill Clark started with Eric Yzaguirre's vindictive and wrong-headed lawsuit against numerous individuals including the mother of his own child. The epic tale of the Yzaguirre brood, all the criminal charges and all the Jill Clark lawsuits covers so much ground that I'm going to give them another number in my Top 10 just to cover it all, like so:

5.) The Yzaguirres. Oh, hey, this would be a good time to publish another photo of Nicole, still facing those aiding and abetting check forgery charges.

Photo from Facebook, published under First Amendment Fair Comment and Criticism

5.) Because Clark's recent assertions of PTSD on the basis of the fact judges have shouted at her from time to time is an insult to actual victims of PTSD. Let me phrase that another way, using the "shouty font."

CLARK! YOUR ASSERTIONS OF PTSD BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN SHOUTED AT ARE AN INSULT TO ACTUAL VICTIMS OF PTSD!!!!!!

6.) Because of the long ago case she fought on behalf of Al Flowers, to vindicate his "right" to have a guest on his public access television show say "Kill the house n****r" in the context of a discussion about a black city council member.

Arguably, this was the point where Clark began to spiral out of control and we ended up where we are here today. Al Flowers got a judgment for $3 but Clark got $50,000 in attorney fees. Apparently the lesson learned by Clark was "I can turn what appear to be worthless cases into gold."  Naturally, she began taking on as many worthless cases as possible.

7.) The Trisha Farkarlun case. Farkarlun falsely accuses police officers of rape. So since it was a false accusation, what does Clark do? Sues the officers. There really is no way to quantify all the outrages Clark has committed into a ranking system. This is MY list, where her lawsuit against ME ranks number one. But in the great scheme of things, this case was a bigger outrage.

8.) The "freaky cult guy" Dan Faith Aschemann cases. Just when Dan's ex-wife is trying to get her life together after leaving the cult, what happens? Her ex-husband finds a lawyer whose actually loonier than he is, and the man is IN A RELIGIOUS CULT.

9.) For representing slumlord Keith Reitman in the lawsuit he so richly deserved over the mortgage fraud at 1564 Hillside Ave. N., in which Reitman was the seller. (Oh, poor little babe in the woods, Reitman would have you believe he was a "victim," too, even after walking away with all that money) Whenever there are bad actors in North Minneapolis, Clark seems to end up representing them.

10.) She lives in GOLDEN VALLEY, for crying out loud, but joins the ranks of outsiders determined to interfere in the politics of North Minneapolis, much to the detriment of my neighborhood.

11.) Oh, did I actually SAY I was going to stop at 10? No, I promised AT LEAST 10 things but that doesn't mean I can't deliver MORE. So here's another one: you know those accusations made by judges against Clark which are, as they say at the State Supreme Court, the "underlying" disciplinary case against her? Yeah, all that stuff sounds likely and plausible to me. Shame on you, Jill Clark.

12.) LEARN HOW TO USE SINGLE VERSUS DOUBLE QUOTE MARKS PROPERLY, YOU THREE WHEELED LOON WAGON. Here you call yourself "brilliant," and it's like you just SKIPPED key lessons in your 7th Grade English class. This might not make the "why I dislike Jill Clark" list of most people, but it's MY LIST and I reserve the right to be a grammar Nazi.

13.) You know that crowd of freaks and weirdos that follows Jill Clark into court? She's going to  let all of them down, isn't she? Well, it's wrong to fill people with false hope, even if they're a bunch of freaks and weirdos.

14.) See the 2006 disciplinary case against Clark. Who suffered? Her client. And he was just a messed up little kid who had terrible problems, but he deserved better than Jill Clark.

It's late. That's enough reasons. But suffice to say Jill Clark deserves everything she gets, including a prolific blogger intent on exposing her foibles.

Don't like it?

Maybe Jill Clark shouldn't sue a blogger for telling the truth.