Speaking Of Perjury

In a local case, I have come across some nice perjury by the other side.

I represent the co-trustee of her now deceased husband's trust.

The other co-trustee is the daughter of the husband from the prior marriage.

This is really bad planning on the now deceased husband's part, as daughter of the husband from the prior marriage is harassing the widow and trying to get her out of the house that the husband left to her so long as she lives there by making ridiculous demands as co-trustee.

She also has a very aggressive lawyer that is doing her best to make things as difficult and expensive as possible.

Indeed, they keep demanding, among other things, a key so they can access and insect the house whenever they want which is not provided for in the trust nor does my client want that, especially as some of the family are less than savory characters.

Now when the husband died, co-trustee daughter and brother came and picked up his firearms.

Whole the trust says this stuff should be sold (and my client gets 40% of it per the trust) they refused to sell them.

They have also been claiming my client still has the handgun. My client says no it was picked up with the long guns and there's a picture of it on the table with the guns the day they picked them up.

So I do some digging.

1.  We find out the brother is a convicted felon and shouldn't be in possession of the firearms. 

2.  I send the other attorney some discovery and in the answers find that they still claim my client has the handgun, claiming she told them she would keep it, and they sold firearms on November 11 2024 without notice to us - and while claiming they still had them and were refusing to sell them!  They were sold for very low amounts I might add.  But they don't reveal what they actually sold - but they did include a copy of the check showing the store they sold them at.

3. So, I subpoena the store for their records of the transaction, as one does.

Lo and behold, the handgun  --the very one they still claim my client has --  is one of the firearms sold to the store and the Michigan transfer form for the handgun is signed by the co-trustee herself. The same co-trustee who claims that my client still has the handgun.

Oops.

Incidentally, they sold a nice Colt .22 target pistol worth between $500-900 (given the condition of it seen in the picture likely nearer the high end) for $225.00.

Now the co-trustee has clearly lied in her discovery responses, which is likely why, in contravention to the court rules, she did not sign nor swear to their validity as is required.

I've asked her attorney to have her do so (obviously without telling her what I just found), and then we'll have some nice sworn perjury, which should help getting them to stop being such idiots and may help resolve the case.  We will see.