When Truth Is Moot

When Truth Is Moot

Should a person’s conflicting testimony under oath be scrutinized by a District Court?

That question shouldn’t be controversial. And yet, in our case, the judge chose to look away.

This isn’t theoretical. We have watched a pattern play out in real time: when key evidence becomes inconvenient – when it matters most – it gets ignored, minimized, or brushed aside. If courts can do that with sworn testimony, we all need to ask what “truth” even means inside a courtroom.

The Back Story: Skeletons in the Closet

In the early 1990’s, I was newly married to Craig.  One day, his sister Lisa Stevenson-Allen – one of the defendants in our civil case – stood in our living room and told Craig and I about one of the skeletons in their family closet.

Lisa recounted how she had recently experienced a flashback to her childhood, claiming that she recalled being molested by her maternal grandfather.  (He was alive at the time, but has since passed away.)

Lisa told us the memory shook her so badly that she confronted one of her uncles. According to Lisa, he left the room to vomit. She said he then confirmed the grandfather had also molested him and his four siblings as children.

It was a shocking conversation – one I honestly didn’t want to hear.  But it didn’t stop there.  Lisa went into detail about the instances of abuse, much of it in the distant past.  But some instances, she claimed, were more recent as well.

Craig and I hoped to have children someday, and that changed how we heard everything. Our job, as future parents, was simple: protect our children. The moment you believe there could be a predator in the family orbit, you don’t “assume things will be fine.” You become vigilant.

After talking with Craig, we agreed: our children’s safety would be our top priority.  There wasn’t an inch of daylight between us on this issue.  When our daughters came along, we were extremely careful.

State of Minnesota vs. Mervin Leroy Kelley

Fast forward 11 years.

In May 2001, Lisa was called as the key witness in a high-profile criminal trial against her former pastor, Mervin Kelley, on charges of criminal sexual conduct.  Lisa testified that she was receiving counseling from him, in part, due to the childhood abuse she had described years earlier.  The counseling relationship was central to the State’s case. Mr. Kelley was convicted of two felony counts and sentenced to jail.

Lisa’s 2022 Deposition

Craig and I knew about Lisa’s 2001 testimony because Craig had purchased a transcript shortly after the trial.  However, the transcript had been shredded and we did not have it when we later deposed Lisa in our civil case.

We assumed that her deposition testimony would be consistent.  Facts are facts.  Truth doesn’t change depending on the audience – or the risk.

We were wrong.

During Lisa’s July 22, 2022 deposition, we listened in disbelief as she denied core parts of what she had told us decades earlier. She denied being abused by her grandfather. She denied being angry with her mother for not protecting her. She denied telling family members about it – including us.

Confirming the Conflict

Craig and I didn’t understand the full scope of Lisa’s contradictions until we uncovered two articles from WORLD Magazine several months later.  The first, published in March 2002 entitled Breaking Faith, referred to her as “a female parishioner who came to [Mr. Kelley] suffering from clinical depression related to childhood incest.”   The second articled, published in November 2002 entitled Hunting Predators, reaffirmed the “childhood incest” allegation.

Both articles were authored by Lynn Vincent.  At the conclusion of the second article, Ms. Vincent stated:

“The woman last year filed a civil suit against Mr. Kelley, the local church, and district and national levels of the Nazarene church. Last month, the local congregation issued a written apology to the woman, and the church’s insurance company paid a financial settlement of an undisclosed amount.”

Once we found these articles, we requested the full 2001 trial transcript from the Otter Tail County District Court, where the trial was held. Armed with that record, our attorneys wrote Judge Kevin M. Miller to point out the discrepancies between Lisa’s sworn testimony at trial in 2001, and her sworn 2022 deposition testimony in our case.

Sworn Testimony, Then and Now

Lisa’s Quotes from State of Minnesota vs Mervin Leroy Kelley, May 2001 (emphasis added)

• “I remembered [my grandfather] holding me and molesting me.”
• “I told some family members what I remembered.”
• “And I found out that he had abused all of his –“
• “I told [Pastor Kelley] some of the things that went on when I was a child; for example, my anger at my mom. It was her father.  My anger that she did not protect us as kids. And they had known because he had done this for two generations.”
• “I felt like [my mother] didn’t protect me as a child.”
• “I was angry at her for — … I felt like she should have protected me like I would protect my son.”
• “My father … was difficult to live with. … when I was little, he was abusive.”
• “[the counselor] got into — into my past, the abuses that I suffered as a child that were kind of weighing on me with — in regards to my father and my grandfather.”

Lisa’s testimony from 2001 was not vague.  It was unequivocal.  And it was used to help convict a man of felony sexual misconduct. Further, it was consistent with what was reported in WORLD Magazine.

Now in 2022, however, Lisa was being accused of civil conspiracy as part of an effort to defame Craig, with her co-defendants making numerous false claims about him.  Her testimony appeared to be tailored to support their narrative.

Portions of Lisa’s sworn deposition testimony in Stevenson v. Stevenson (July 22, 2022) (emphasis added):

• “[Craig] talked about all the dangerous people in our family that I don’t feel is true, that he just seems to exaggerate…. And he mentioned that, you know, they were a danger to his family. I have no idea who he’s talking about. I would think I should know.”

• Q. Were you ever abused by a member of your extended family?
• A. No.
• Q. Did you ever tell Craig that you were abused by [your grandfather]?
• A. No.
• Q. You never told him that?
• A. No.

• “When [Craig] references as I was expecting my mom to do years ago, I don’t know what he’s referring to. I wasn’t — I wasn’t abused by my parents.”

Lisa’s Concluding Deposition Testimony – “A Great Guy”

Lisa spent a portion of her seven-hour deposition in July 2022 insisting that there was no reason for Craig to be concerned about anyone in their family potentially being a danger to our family.  But the final minutes of Lisa’s deposition destroyed her prior testimony:

Q. What did you tell him [Craig] about [your grandfather]?

A. It was at Christmastime in 1988 when my daughter was a few months old. I came down the stairs, and I had this — my — my grandfather… was holding my… daughter, and I just had this picture in my head of him abusing a child. And I went over, and Craig was there, and I grabbed her from him because I had this — this vision I never thought of before. He was a great guy.

Q. Like a spiritual vision?

A. No. Just like a repressed memory, I guess, would be it. I had three of them of him — of me seeing him holding a child and molesting them, which sounds absolutely crazy; and then I told my uncle and found out that it was true, that he had abused his own kids.

Those statements do not fit neatly together. They can’t all be true in the same way, at the same time.

The Inevitable Questions

So, which is it?

• Was Lisa abused by her grandfather—or not?
• Was Lisa abused by her father—or not?
• Was she angry with her mother for failing to protect her—or not?
• Did she tell Craig and me about the abuse—or not?
• Did she tell the truth about her grandfather’s abuse in 2001 or did she falsely accuse him of molesting her?
• Did she tell the truth about her father being abusive in 2001 or was this a false allegation?

These questions mattered in our case because Lisa’s deposition testimony wasn’t just background. It was used to undermine whether Craig and I had any reason – over many years – to be cautious about protecting our daughters.

And here is the part that is hard to say out loud: if sworn testimony can be reshaped to fit the moment, then “credibility” becomes a costume people put on and take off.

The Court’s Own Precedent

Looking at the Court’s own rulings, we identified another case, Brian Azure v. Jennie Bucholz (56-CV-18-2338), where Judge Miller found that conflicting testimony under oath was enough to justify granting summary judgement against the offending party.

In his January 15, 2019 Order and Memorandum Granting Motion for Summary Judgment in that case, Judge Miller stated:

Defendant’s bankruptcy schedule from June of 2017 fails to disclose ownership of either vehicle that is subject to this action. The Defendant’s current claim that she was in possession of the vehicles in 2016 is clearly inconsistent wither [sic] her previous bankruptcy petition. Further the Bankruptcy Court accepted the Defendant’s petition. Finally, this Court finds that the Defendant would derive an unfair advantage if not estopped from asserting the inconsistent position she now presents, as she would be allowed to argue two different positions, under oath, in two separate legal proceedings. The Court will disregard Defendant’s affidavit, claiming that she has an ownership interest in the cars – since she did not claim she owned the vehicle at the time of the bankruptcy proceeding. Because the Court must disregard the claim that contradicts a previous claim under oath, Defendant has not shown the existence of a material fact in dispute.

Brian Azure vs Jennie Bucholz, (56-CV-18-2338, Doc. 46, at 4.) (emphasis added)

In Azure, Judge Miller ruled that contradictory testimony by the Defendant, under oath, was so serious that it negated the existence of a material fact in dispute and resulted in the granting of Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment.

But that was a different case, as we would soon find out.

The Court’s History With Our Case

The evidence we presented about Lisa’s contradictory testimony was real and strong.  Would the Judge listen this time?

In one of my previous blog posts, “A Judicial Blind Eye”, I documented extensively how we had considerable evidence that hundreds of text messages were exchanged between the defendants in our case – as evidenced by AT&T call and text records – yet the District Court denied our motions to compel discovery.

Additionally, I wrote a blog post whose title quoted Judge Miller.  “I Can Limit Discovery” was a look, based on circumstantial evidence, of how an overburdened Court system can be tempted to overlook justice in order to exercise “judicial triage.”

In another post, “Revenge: What the Judge Refused to Acknowledge, Even in Passing”, I documented the existence of a deleted but recovered text between Sean and Lisa with a recommendation to a book called Revenge.  I pointed out how the Judge ignored this evidence in his Summary Judgment order, despite the fact that the word was used seventeen times in our Summary Judgment opposition memorandum.

The Court Looks Away – Again

Given the seriousness of the contradictions in Lisa’s testimony, you would expect warning flags. You would expect the judge to address it—at least acknowledge it—in a summary judgment order.

That did not happen.

Judge Miller did not even reference the contradictory testimony in his summary judgment order, issued shortly after we provided the court a letter laying out the discrepancies.

Instead, concerns about Lisa’s contradictory statements under oath were swept aside with a single word: moot. (Doc. 429, at 1.)

My message to Judge Miller is simple:  The truth is never moot.

And the inevitable questions from the public are these:

• Why did consistent testimony matter in one case, but not in the other?
• Did the lack of scrutiny about contradictory testimony in our case have anything to do with the fact that two of the Defendants were represented by Attorney Kirsten Hansen, the daughter of retired Otter Tail County Judge Mark F. Hansen?
• Did James Morrison, the law clerk for Judge Mark F. Hansen — and the author of over 12 orders in our case — have anything to do with Judge Miller’s decision not to take action against the Defendants or their Counsel?

Truth and Credibility

We’re taught that telling the truth under oath matters.

That if you don’t, your credibility will be destroyed.
That if you don’t, there will be consequences.
That if you don’t, justice will correct it.

In our lawsuit, none of those assurances were true.

The contradictory statements didn’t matter. They should have.
The credibility of the witnesses didn’t matter. It should have.
The truth didn’t matter. It should have.

And the damage doesn’t stop with the parties. When a court treats truth like a technicality, it doesn’t just make citizens question the witnesses.

It makes them question the court.

And once people stop believing courts care whether sworn testimony is true, the loss of trust isn’t temporary. It becomes the new normal—and that is how a justice system quietly collapses without anyone needing to tear it down.