Yesterday, I wrote a diary about how disgusted I was with the press release issued by the Herman Cain campaign, attempting to rip Sharon Bialek to shreds. Listing court cases in which someone was involved doesn't really give us very much information. Cases get filed for many reasons, some frivolous, and one can become involved in court actions through no real fault of their own, as either plaintiff or defendant.
So I decided to look at little more closely at Sharon Bialek's legal troubles. I am not trying to pile on; actually, when you examine the record, it looks increasingly unlikely that she subjected herself to national scrutiny just to get paid. All of them were for small amounts (under $10,000), and several were actually dismissed.
I have some experience in how bizarre, various, and unexpected lawsuits can be-- I was sued for $9000 a few years ago because a crazy guy said I dinged his car door in a parking lot, and he claimed it did $900 of damage to his car; he was also asking for 'punitive damages' because he claimed that the door ding was malicious. It was dismissed, since I know more lawyers than I do people (I work in litigation support, i.e. expert witnessing). Hope that suit never keeps me from running for office.
But back to the real matter: Cook County lists six civil lawsuits against Sharon Bialek. The way that the original press release discussed the lawsuits, it made it seem as if Bialek was NOT the lead defendant. That press release misspoke; she was the lead defendant in all the cases, the first which occurred in 2000, and the most recent which was filed in 2009.
There was also a typo in the press release; it said that three 2000 cases were filed by 'Broadcare Management', which in fact it was 'Broadacre Management.' They all appear to be one case; Broadacre filed suit twice, and twice then asked for the case to be dismissed; they finally filed in May of 2000, 4 months after the first case that was dismissed, and asked for $6750. They later got a judgment for $4500, and it appears they tried to garnish wages from WGN. Everything was settled with this case 10 years ago. Sharon never hired a lawyer.
In 2005, Mark Beatovic, a 51 year old Chicago police officer, sued Bialek seeking $3000. He represented himself, she didn't hire a lawyer. He won that case.
In 2007, Midland Funding LLC sued her for $1000.27. They are a debt scavenging company, which finds ancient debts and buys them for pennies on the dollar. Some valid and some not; the majority of them are past the statute of limitations, if they were ever valid to begin with. As is often the case with these debt scavengers, they had no current address for her, and so their little suit died on the vine. (They'll probably be able to find her now, although they've probably moved on from this particular $1000.27).
In 2009, the largest of the suits was filed, for 3539.58, by Illinois Lending. Illinois Lending was represented by a David Axelrod. No freepers, NOT that David Axelrod, a totally different one. They won a judgement last March for the full amount they were asking for.
So in the end, we have a more than ten year old, long settled suit for a relatively small amount. A 6 year old case for a smaller amount. A debt scavenger lawsuit that probably emanated from troubled times before her 2001 bankruptcy, that isn't worth the paper it's printed on. and one recent case for about $3500.
This is not major financial troubles. This is someone with some persistent but never huge debt problems. All of these judgements added up don't even come close to one of the settlements paid out to Herman Cain's women, an amount he said was barely anything at all. Shoot, they hardly exceed the lawsuit filed against me for a door ding. I don't think these suits at all indicate someone who is unbalanced, has serious financial problems, or is not credible. It's not like she's had to pay out $10.5 million to people she's screwed.