My court sketch because cameras are not allowed.
Once upon a time I went to court.
Well, actually, it was July 31, 2017, in the Michigan Easter District Court in front of Judge Avern Cohn in the case of Beverly Tran et al v. Detroit Land Bank Authority, et al.
See, what had happened was...
I was so excited, the mystery, the intrigue, the comedy, the justice, the romance!
So, in my favorite summer big black hat and in my prescient, soothsaying mood, I played out the scene in my dreams.
I did an early creep, to sit in the back of the courtroom, by the door of course for easy access of exit, to sit incognito, to listen to what people had to say before the hearing commenced.
Everyone always ignores my presence and intelligence, which is a really great thing because you can just sit there, looking dead in their faces, and listen to every single word they have to say about you.
Well, lo and behold, five power attorneys walk into a courtroom, go to the attorney table, and commence to talk about their legal technical procedural game plan of how they are going to take me to a full, blown out trial, complete with sanctions, because....hold on a second, this is really funny... (personal lol) to litigate against me, using the full, multi-million dollar collective resources of their clients and their firms, because I exercised my legal right to report federal fraud, perpetrated upon the people of Detroit, mainly for speaking out for the children of "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth).
Then enters a gentleman.
He smiled at me.
He was the only one who smiled at me which made my mind start to reel. "Who was this strange man, why is he smiling at me, and do I already know the answers to my own questions?"
The gentleman gingerly inquired, "Are you here for the Tran case?
I responded, "I am just here to take notes." showing him my blank sheets of paper.
He was adorable. He was playing with me.
Anyway, now comes the attorney of record in my case. Crystal Hopkins.
Then, I heard the gentleman introduce himself to the five power defendant attorneys. "Hi, I am the U.S. Attorney who declined intervention. I am just here to witness."
I knew he had hidden in his hands the denoument of the hearing, but I kept my cool, as hard as it was to do.
(This is the part of the story where the comedy comes in.)
Crystal Hopkins walks in with her faithful sister, dumps mounds of files on her attorney table, then asks if I had 'checked in'.
I simply said, "This is your motion, not mine."
Then she got snotty, "Well, you have to check in."
I just stared at her, fully aware that she had lost her mind quite some time ago.
She is still attorney of record. She is supposed to check in for me.
"Did you get the notice of appearance I sent you?" she quipped.
"Nope." and I made the gentleman across from me heard it, too. I wanted to share a chuckle with him.
Besides, I was a bit disappointed that the Ypsilanti Police had not arrested her prior to walking into the courtroom, as rumor on the streets had it there was an active warrant out for her arrest, but hey, what do I know.
And then Judge Avern Cohn walks in.
Avern Cohn & Damon Keith
"The Old School Civil Rights Soldiers"
He was sooooooo cute because he had that "old soldier" kind of walk that I know so well, but I could not readily confirm my train of thought right then because I may have broken out into a high pitched squeal, like a giddy little school girl.
The five defendant attorneys all gave greetings and introductions to the Judge.
Then, Cohn asks, "Where is the attorney representing Hopkins & Associates?" which would be the time for Crystal Hopkins to respond.
Instead, she sat at her lil attorney table, with big stacks of files, shuffling paper back and forth, open file, close file, open file, close file, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle...hehehehe, even the mysterious gentleman sitting across from me was smirking as he would look over his shoulder to observe my reaction, of smirking right in synch with him.
It was a hearing at her request, so there was no need for any documents and that is why it was so funny.
Then she finally responds to the Judge, "Your honor, Beverly Tran did not check in,"
The second heralding for the attorney representing Hopkins & Associates came from the Judge.
Crystal responded, in the whine of a kindergartner."Your honor, Beverly Tran is in the courtroom."
A clerk of the court who, benignly enough, quickly guided Crystal to respond to the judge by making a a comment for her to speak up because the judge was hard of hearing, which I did not witness when the other attorneys spoke to the court.
Thrice, the Judge asked, "Where is the attorney for Hopkins & Associates? Is he here?"
"Oh, I am the attorney representing Hopkins & Associates, I am a she. Beverly Tran is in the courtroom, your honor."
Judge Cohn calls out to me, mind you, besides there was only the other gentleman and Crystal's sister in the gallery.
I raised my hand, high over my head and waved, "Hiya!"
"Beverly Tran, you should be up here. Why don't you come up here." invited Cohn.
I felt as if the trumpeters were heralding the celestial announcement that I had finally been summoned to enter the magical kingdom, to be conferred with the powers to take out the Meanies.
The gentleman opening the door
to the magic kingdom for me.
As I was about to walk through the court partition to take my throne at the attorney's table, the gentleman from across the aisle, had leapt to his feet, and, in some sense, to me, genuflected, lowering his head in honor, as he opened and held the partition door for me.
I heard the angels herald my entrance.
Taking a dramatic pause to absorb the illumination of my romantic fairy tale, I graced my gentleman with a simple, "Merci."
Judge Cohn proceeded with the quickness. "Ms Hopkins, you filed a motion to remove yourself as attorney of the case."
"Yes, your honor"
"Granted, goodbye." Crystal scuttled herself out the courtroom as fast as possible.
"Beverly Tran, do you have anything to say?"
"Not at this time."
"Beverly Tran, will you be representing yourself?"
"Your honor, I am indigent. I cannot afford an attorney. Pursuant to the statute, I would have had to have the attorney of record petition you for grant to lift the seal to speak with another attorney..."
Cohn cut me short, "I asked if you were going to represent yourself."
I looked across the courtroom to the observe the wide-eyed gang of five stare at me in disbelief and stated proudly into the record, "YES!"
The smiling gentleman from across the aisle jumped to attention and interjected into the record, "Your honor, I just want to make sure Beverly Tran knows the seal has been completely lifted on the case. There is no seal."
Allow me to do an aside.
The judge had just allowed a pro se to proceed in a qui tam, which is the first time in the history of the False Claims Act.
The court referred to me by my full name, Beverly Tran, which is a legal move I shall expound upon later.
The U.S. Attorney's Office just gave me the green light to publish all docs and tell my epic, romantic tale.
Wow. Just wow.
"I believe defendants have motions to be heard" stated the judge.
"Your honor, we would like to dismiss our motion for sanctions."
"Motion granted. Next."
"Your honor, we would like to dismiss our pre-trial motion."
"Motion granted. Anything else?"
"Your honor, we would like to motion for another 30 day extension."
"I just gave you 90 days to respond to the complaint. Now you want another 30 days? Fine. Granted, you have 30 days to handle this matter."
It was at this point Cohn went into a court lecture, an historic legal lecture where he went into the story of the "Lawsuit King" named Hazen Pingree.
"Pingree used to file so many lawsuits against these big corporations, they finally erected a statute to him. Do you want another statute to be erected? I strongly encourage you to get together and chose one attorney to deal with Beverly Tran or you it is going to cost your clients thousand and thousands of dollars. If there is nothing else before this court, we are adjourned."
The gang of five attorneys power walked out the court room, with me close behind where I was empowered to confront a Meanie, Reggie Turner, attorney for defendant Title Source, Inc., the same defendant who wanted to impose sanctions on me, a proud member of "The Poors" (clinched teeth), because I snitched to the U.S. DOJ about their fraudulent activities in stealing the Hardest Hit Funds that were originally intended for the victims of Detroit foreclosures.
Oh, you have no idea the lust for retribution I felt coursing through my veins to go off on this, this, this, licensed attorney, biting my tongue for what I really want to say about him.
In front of the other members of the gang of five, I confronted Reggie Turner and told him that he needs to disclose his relationship with me to his colleagues and demand he remove himself from the case.
"I have no relationship with you!" snarled Reggie Turner.
Reggie Turner trying to slide up and ruin our moment, in my photo pretending to be Mr. Conyers' campaign manager
when he was not wanted to even be there, muttering to himself down the hallway, nervously laughing to himself, that I did not know what I was talking about.
I said, "Do you really want me to put your dirt out there because I will and I have no problem doing it. As a matter of fact, I already did. http://beverlytran.com. I do not like the nefarious activities you did to my friend. I do not like what you did to Mr. Conyers."
"Fine, I was his campaign manager. He won, didn't he." as Reggie disappeared like a ghost,
This, "licensed attorney" Reggie Turner, was never the campaign manager for Mr. Conyers.
Ever!!!!
Michigan Senator Bert Johnson was the campaign manager for Mr. Conyers, which is an entirely different tale I shall tell at a later date.
Reggie Turner was working behind Mr. Conyers' back with Cynthia Martin, to take him out of office, at the behest of the "leader" of the Democratic National Committee.
Reggie Turner was going around holding fundraisers, laundering the money back to Cynthia Martin, where it was not reported to FEC, and they more than likely split the kickbacks.
How I felt about calling out Reggie Turner after court.
Reggie Turner was going around telling everyone that, not only was he the campaign manager, he was going to take over Mr. Conyers' seat because [sic] Mr. Conyers was going to hand it to him.
I made sure he would never run for my friend's seat; I bought out the domains.
(Make sure to click the link or you will miss out on the fun!)
So, if Cynthia Martin is under federal investigation, something tells me that Reggie Turner might be, also, as his emails are in that cache of stuff my #Superfans are combing through, because, after all, his colleagues witnessed him state that he was the campaign manager for Mr. Conyers' re-election campaign, right?
How do I know all this information?
Stay tuned.
I have many, many more tales to tell.
It was at this point I felt the love surge in my spirit, extended my arms, and said to the now, gang of four, "Gentlemen, welcome to the annals of history.", and curtsied as glided away on cloud 9.
Then, there was one.
One alpha male in the gang of four swiftly heeded the advice of the court and took it upon himself to represent to gaggle of barristers and ask for my email. Seriously?
These are supposed to be the creme de la creme of seasoned legal experts and they do not know how to vet me, prior to the hearing, for my contact information?
Google, dudes, Google 'Beverly Tran', I did not dedicate the last 10 years of my life optimizing search engines to generate extensive data for the search terms "Beverly Tran", "John Conyers" and a few other key terms, for nothing.
I was nice. He was nice. I gave him my email.
So, the moral of the story is, again,
"Do not be mean to my Sweetie. Period."
On a mission...
Learn more: BEVERLY TRAN: The Magical Doors Of The Kingdom Were Opened: Beverly Tran, et al, v. Detroit Land Bank Authority, et al, 7-31-2017 http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-magical-doors-of-kingdom-were.html#ixzz56Mb6c2GC
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