When Craig and I filed our civil lawsuit in November 2020, we brought claims against three defendants. Craig asserted claims for defamation and conspiracy. I brought a claim for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED).
We did not arrive at litigation lightly. After four cease-and-desist letters were ignored, we felt we had no choice.
At the time, we included a conspiracy claim tied to the defamation. What we failed to consider—at least initially—was the possibility that there was also a coordinated effort to inflict emotional distress on me. Honestly, I did not believe that was likely.
One of the defendants, Lisa Stevenson-Allen, was a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC). I could not imagine that someone with her training would align herself with Craig’s estranged son, Sean Stevenson, to repeatedly contact my estranged father. Craig had told Lisa years earlier that I had left my childhood home while still in high school.
What I did know was that the stress they were inflicting was devastating. My health was deteriorating. I needed an outlet—something constructive—to try to stop what was happening.
Building the Evidence
As discovery began, I started thinking about what it would take to prove a conspiracy. We would need to show the flow of communications—emails, texts, letters, phone calls—across key dates. That meant organizing communications from at least three individuals over an eighteen-month period.
That task was daunting, but I had a background as a database architect. I decided to use it.
I built a custom database using FileMaker Pro. Every email, text, phone call, letter, and event was entered with a precise date and time, allowing everything to be sorted chronologically.
We began with the data already in our possession. Then we waited.
When the defendants finally produced documents during discovery, I was shocked. One email revealed that Lisa had given initial approval for Sean to contact my father. Yet across all defendants, there were only two sentences of commentary—and no inter-defendant text messages at all.
It was immediately clear that something was missing.
What the Records Revealed
We sent deficiency letters. Very little additional material was produced.
Eventually, we subpoenaed AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. To capture the full scope of communications, we requested twenty months of records. AT&T alone produced over 4,400 pages—none of it OCR-readable.
Craig worked tirelessly to convert the data into a usable format. I developed formulas to normalize timestamps and account for UTC time conversions. The reports included phone calls, texts, and geolocation data—but not the content of texts or the subject of calls.
Even with those limitations, the patterns were unmistakable.
Craig focused on phone calls. Just days before a district court hearing, he identified three-way conference calls, flagged as multi-party calls in the AT&T data. These calls clustered around key events.
One defamatory email sent in July 2019 was transmitted during a 60–90 minute three-way conference call involving the three defendants. The call ended three minutes after the email was sent.
I focused on text messages. I identified hundreds of texts that were never produced—many clustered around the exact dates when Sean and Lisa were contacting my father.
Key Dates, Missing Evidence
May 25, 2020
A 43-minute phone call. An email to my father. A bounce report. Then a missing text. Two more emails approving the initial letter to my father—followed by four more missing texts. (The red fields in these database tables show the deleted texts from both phones.)
June 5, 2020
Craig emailed three defendants explaining that I had suffered a panic attack and had been abused by my father as a child. No response.
I emailed them directly, telling them I was afraid of my father. No response.
Instead:
A missing text. A call attempt. Eight more missing texts between Sean and Lisa.
Craig followed up, explaining that he had created a safe house to protect me and that we considered my father a threat.
Another missing text. Two phone calls among the defendants.
June 7, 2020
Craig sent additional emails, pleading for the harassment to stop. I was experiencing chest pains and was near a psychological breakdown.
No response.
Instead:
Sean and Lisa exchanged 29 texts—all missing.
Phone records showed nine calls totaling over 100 minutes.
June 10, 2020
Sean printed 25 pages of our emails and spoke with Lisa for 37 minutes.
June 13, 2020
Sean mailed those emails directly to my father. He then spoke with Lisa for 41 minutes.
August 3, 2020
Sean received a cease-and-desist letter. Within five minutes, he texted Lisa.
Eight texts were exchanged that day—none produced.
August 2020
Forty-two texts between Sean and Lisa while coordinating a joint legal response.
All 42 texts were missing.
The pattern was undeniable.
The Court Turns Away
We demanded production of the missing texts. The defendants and their attorneys stonewalled.
We filed a motion to compel.
Despite sworn declarations and third-party records from AT&T proving that the texts existed, Judge Kevin Miller denied our motion. He wrote:
“Plaintiffs’ only evidence of Defendants’ insufficient responses to discovery requests are Plaintiffs’ own beliefs and assertions…”
That statement was demonstrably false. Our evidence came from AT&T, not from speculation.
Judge Miller went further, threatening sanctions against us if we continued seeking what he characterized as “privileged or fictional” information.
Despite definitive proof of hundreds of missing texts, the court used the power of the bench to silence our discovery efforts.
In the same order, Judge Miller cited the “common interest doctrine” and quoted case law that did not exist, referencing In re Lawrence. Although the case itself existed, the quotation used by Judge Miller did not. It was an entirely fabricated quote, taken instead from Defendants’ Answers to Interrogatories.
In subsequent months, Sean testified during his deposition that the texts were gone but denied deleting them. He later admitted to his attorney that he had lied under oath and deleted relevant texts following the start of litigation.
Armed with these admissions, we petitioned Judge Miller to reconsider the denial of our motions to compel. He flatly denied our request – without giving any valid reason or justification for his denial. (Doc. 266)
This Is Not Discretion
This was only the first of many rulings that defied logic, evidence, and the rule of law.
This is not about judicial discretion.
It is about abuse of judicial power.
When a party proves—through third-party records—that evidence exists and is missing, it is the court’s duty to investigate, not to threaten the party seeking the truth.
Denying access to proven evidence is not neutrality. It is not fairness. It is not justice.
The residents of the Minnesota Seventh Judicial District, Otter Tail County, and the State of Minnesota, deserve better.
🔗 For more on judicial ethics and court reform in Minnesota, visit https://justice-denied.org.