Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP is a law firm in Minnesota that fought against the Cigarette Company Philip Morris Inc (State of Minnesota and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Minnesota v. Philip Morris Inc. et al., C1-94-8565 (Minn. Ramsey County)). This is the biggest litigation in the history of the world. In that litigation, they exchanged over 80 million pages. In the end, the Cigarette Company were brought down to their knees and forced to settle --they agreed to pay a historic $6.5 billion. These were the lawyers that tried to bring down one black man down to his knees. They, using a woman, fabricated numerous false crimes and reported them to the police and civil courts. They wanted to extort 75,000 dollars from one black man. The lone black man, in front of him are the most powerful enemies, behind him is the Red Sea ocean, on his left and right side are two two big mountains. Does he surrender to his enemies or fight back. He fought back and brought them to their knees. His most powerful and most threatening lawyers were fired from their jobs and the woman now lives in the Ghetto.
When I was a child, I used to see movies how one African American community was once a very rich and prosperous community in a small town --owning and running their own shops, homes, and farm lands. Then some powerful and jealous white men instigate a hoax crime against one black man. A white woman accuses him of raping her. Usually, the targeted black man is the wealthiest from all the black men in town. The white woman lies to the police. The white men tell her, “when the polis ask you to give us the description of the man who raped you, you should tell them its that rich black man.” Then, as a consequence of that, civil disobedience erupts and angry mobs of white men burn down black businesses, ransack their properties, and massacre their men, women, and children.
Never in my wildest dream have I thought something similar scheme would happen to me.
Why do they have to bring a white woman and let her pass through the ordeals of making false police reports and willful perjuries when they could turn a black woman against a black man that could do exactly the same old scheme --especially if that black woman happens to be an ex-wife of the targeted black man? Once they found a determined ex-wife to continuously lie for them, they saw a great potential. They wanted to extort least 75 thousand dollars or destroying the life of a black man. So, they carefully formulated and meticulously executed over 20 different false felony crime reports against me.
At first I hired a lawyer. He wants 200 dollars an hour and 25 dollars minimum. That means, if I call him for direction to his office, he charges me $25. Within a month, he took $10,000. After I quickly learned how the lawyers do their job, I started representing myself. Actually, I had no money. So, I was forced to bring myself up to speed, and represent myself.
After living together with her for about 3 years in St. Paul, MN, on April 29, 2005, I filed for a divorce due to her infidelities. At that time, she already had gotten her green-card and there was a valid prenuptial agreement between us. Therefore, since there was nothing that could make it complicated, I was hoping that the divorce was going to be short, simple, and easy.
However, soon after I filed for a divorce, she immediately filed for, and was granted, an Order for Protection (also referred as an “OFP”), that is, a restraining order against me. I knew that a restraining order is nothing but a piece of paper --unless you violate it. Therefore, I did not appeal it.
Little did I know, in less than two weeks after the judge had granted the ex-wife a restraining order, starting on July 25, 2005 until Jan. 25, 2009, for 4 years in a row, she filed over 20 counts of false police reports and baseless violations of the restraining order against me. [5] The violations range from gross misdemeanor to serious felony charges. Consequently, I have been interrogated, indicted, arrested and incarcerated with robbers, murders, and rapists.
She and her unscrupulous attorneys figured out that the only way they could extort money from me was by continuously fabricating false crimes against me and by threatening me to execute their malicious plots unless I give them 75,000 dollars. That was their best and fantastic idea of these misguided minds.
A mob of vicious enemies, who were lying in ambush, watching for an opportunity to destroy and annihilate another black man, had, at long last, been afforded the pretext for which they were longing. Now they could accomplish their malicious purposes.
Not so with this black man!
Unlike many other victims of false crimes, this time around, those who came to humiliate were humiliated and they were defeated with a crushing defeat. Consequently, two of my most powerful and implacable attorneys, they who assailed me from within and from without, were fired from their respective law firms, and, in the end, they both met their own doom in the most astonishing fashion. [2]
The defeated team of attorneys are from the law firm Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi LLP (https://www.robinskaplan.com/ ) When the litigation became massive and fierce, these lawyers asked for assistance from three other the law firms: Hellmuth & Johnson, PLLC , “Merchant & Gould, PC” and “Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly, LLP “ All attorneys from these law firms teamed up together against one person, pro-se, and in the end, they utterly failed to get a false conviction or extort 75,000 dollars.
It all started when a team of lawyers from Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. agreed to represent the ex-wife for free of charge or, as it is believed, they agreed to share whatever money they could extort from me.
I had no other alternative than to defend myself from their vicious attacks and face this grievous situation alone. I am not a lawyer and I have never studied the law. An average lawyer charges 200 dollars an hour. When I asked many lawyers, they all refused to represent me pro-bono (for free, for human rights purposes). That’s when I was force to represent myself throughout all these endless litigations.
Many people have been asking: “why did she have to do all these malicious actions against you after you have done so much for her?” There is a short answer and there is a long answer. The short answer is “money”.
There isn't a summary answer. To make the short story long, in 1998, when the war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Ethiopians immediately deported about 80,000 Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean origins to Eritrea and to other neighboring countries confiscating all their personal properties. These people were running enormously successful businesses. You can only imagine the devastations and the hardships that they were forced to endure. When they deported them, they froze their bank accounts and forced them to hand over all their money. The men, women and children who were leading a very prosperous life, when the night fell, they found themselves stripped of all their wealth and with only the clothes on their back, they were deported. A day before, they were the first classes and royal families living the life of affluence, luxury, and comfort, and, a day after, they were forced to become refugees, homelessness, and beggars in foreign countries where they could not even speak the language. At that time, since there was no money wiring service to Eritrea, many Eritreans in the U.S. were looking for the cheapest way of sending money to their devastated families that had been deported. As many had come and consistently testified in the courts, I offered a free way of money sending ideas and services in the Twin Cities areas and I advertised it on different Eritrean Internet groups. Starting in 1999, I helped many families by providing them the means of sending money to their Eritrean families.
From the ex-wife, these cunning and unscrupulous lawyers found out the copies of the receipts of the money that I had helped the families to send money . They shamelessly asked me to bring all the money back from the mouths of the poor Eritreans and give them 75,000 dollars out of that. That started this whole messy litigation in civil, criminal, and appellate courts.
In each court hearing, a team of at least 5 lawyers, armed to their teeth with massive pages of false police reports, were coming trying to bring me down to my knees. But, I still refused to settle. When they knew that I was not going to give them the 75 thousand dollars from the mouths of the poor Eritreans, they asked me if I could pay them the 75 thousand dollars over time by arranged monthly payments. I still refused to settle. Finally, in order to show me how powerful they are, they secretly met with the judge (Referee Earl Beddow) and conspired with him to pass an ex-parte judgment against me --and he did. This is called an ex-parte meeting and an ex-parte judgment in the judiciary jargon. It simply means meeting the judge outside of the court. Before, that ex-parte order against me, that same judge had threatened me, thundering from his bench that I was facing at least 6 months incarceration if he believes the 11 counts of criminal allegations she had filed at his court on July 25, 2005. After that hearing, she had added another 9 counts of new and old violations. This was a civil trial where, I could neither have an option of a trial by jury nor an attorney when I could not afford one despite the fact that I was facing incarceration. That same judge also had refused discovery. When they secretly met to pass an ex-parte judgment against me, the attorneys and the judge knew exactly what they were doing. In that circumstance, without any kind of discovery, without an option for a trial by jury, and without an attorney to defend me, when they passed an ex-parte judgment against me, the message they were sending was: 'no matter what you do, we will convict you at the hearing with all these false crimes'.
When I reported these secret ex-pare communications between the judge and my opposing lawyers to the Judicial Misconduct Board, they refused to investigate the judge**
The first thing my enemies targeted was my bank account. This unscrupulous judge ordered me to pay her $1000 a month alimony for 4 months. He also ordered that I leave my own house. She refused to pay mortgage or any of its utilities. Since the house is only in my name, it did not affect her credit. So, she didn’t care. Then when I wanted to sell my own house, the judge met secretly with her lawyers and passed an ex-parte judgement against me. Ex-parte means, by only taking one side of the story. He also ordered that no motion should be filed for a year. That means, I cannot file any motion to oppose his order. Then, I lost my job at the airport. The judge refused to reduce or stop the alimony.
It was on that very critical situation that they asked the district judge to pass an ex-parte judgment against me without any kind of hearing. Did they meet the judge at a cocktail bar? Did the judge take some kind of bribery from them? It is unknown. What is known is that I only received a judgment against me without any trial or without any hearing. How strange...how very strange? Is this the United States of America or some corrupt country where you can easily bribe judges and manipulate the system? The answer is my friends, anything is possible. After all, these are the lawyers that won 6.13 billion dollars from just one lawsuit.[3] In other words, they have the means and the skills to do anything, let alone manipulate unscrupulous judges.[4]
At the first court hearing, she admitted of lying under oath that she had lied about her income when she said she had no income and 0 in her bank account while in fact she had a lot of money she accumulated illegally. Moreover, she had made it obvious that she was lying when she claimed that I allegedly had stolen her clothes and jewelries worth $10,000 that she allegedly had brought them with her when she escaped from Eritrea and traveled via refugee camp of the Sudan to Kenya and to U.S.A... But, even though, from early on, from a number of instances, and from a number of affidavits of her own friends* the courts have found that the woman was a pathological liar, all they needed for their proof to convict me was nothing but a 'she said!'.
These sinister forces that have combined their team of lawyers, with all their might, declared war against me and they pledged that they would execute their malicious plots unless I settle for 75,000 dollars. They came up with over 20 counts of false and malicious criminal allegations against me and charged me with them in both the civil and criminal courts. If it was not for the forensic tests and my Eritrean friends and families who came rushing to my aid, and testified as my witnesses, I would have been incarcerated for at least 10 years for crimes that I did not commit.
After she came from Africa, I bought her a car and I bought a house. After I filed for a divorce, however, the court ordered me to stay away of my own house, despite the fact that there was a prenuptial agreement. He ordered me to surrender my keys. He said, this is not the court to hear about the prenuptial agreement. I could not come to my house within 2 blocks. Shortly after that, “she said” I came to the house while she was watching TV with her white boyfriend. She said, they both called the police because I broke into the house while they were in the living room. She said, I pushed both of them and escaped. In that false police report, it is written that I was trying to break into the home of the ex-wife and, as she later had testified in the courts, 'I was attempting to kill her'. After they took my fingerprints and my mugshot, they jailed me with robbers, murderers, and violent drug dealers. At the court, 10 Eritrean friends and families came and testified that I was with them at a cafeteria playing billiards with them the whole time. All of them, one by one, passed through complex cross examinations and none of them lied. But, when she was asked what I was wearing, she said “white shirt”; and when the white man was asked, he said I was wearing “red shirt”. The white man was so scared when he saw my 10 witnesses at the court, he said, “I only saw him from behind…I’m not sure if that was him.” When she was asked why she doesn’t want to sign the divorce paper, she said, “I want 50 thousand dollars to settle”. The judge knew they were lying and found me not guilty.
Next, she brought another white man to lie against me. He wrote in a piece of paper (an affidavit) that I was threatening him and his daughter. Four of her closest friends wrote an affidavit and came to testify at the court that he and she were taking drugs and having a sexual relationship. But, Referee Earl Beddow took the affidavit of the white man and refused to take the affidavit of my 4 witnesses. On the top of that, he made them sit outside of the court for 4 hours in order to frustrate them so that they may not come again to testify.
Then again, sometimes around December 2005, a computer generated death threat letter with full of vulgarities was sent to the ex-wife. The ex-wife and her pro-bono (i.e. free) attorneys accused me of writing it at both criminal and civil courts, simultaneously. The St. Paul police took me to their station and interrogated me for hours at ends, trying to convince me to admit to the charges and to enter into some kind of a plea bargain for a lesser charges. They pleaded with me, ”Please tell us that you lost it and you wrote that letter... and you will not face incarceration and will leave you with a probation or just a warning.” Their intention was after long and intensive interrogations, they would eventually frighten me or deceive me or break my will to the point where I would admit to the terrible crime that I did not commit. False confessions are heavily concentrated among the most vulnerable groups of innocent defendants. Well, they did not succeed this time. I knew, once I admits to the crime, it can negatively affect my record for 15 years. That means, when or if an employer tries to hire me, they will immediately find out that I had admitted of such a terrible crime of writing a death threat letter with full of vulgarities in order to terrorize. I was ahead of that game. They could not fool me by such plea offers. When I refused to enter into any kind of a plea bargain, their final threat was that if they find out that I was the one who wrote that letter, I could be charged with a third degree felony, and, if convicted, I could face at least 10 years in jail and a fine of 20,000 dollars. But I still refused to enter into any kind of a plea bargain. I told them they could do whatever they want, but I was not the one who has written that letter. So, they took my finger prints and my saliva to check it against the seal of the envelope for forensic tests for DNA. After more than a year of delays and threats, they finally called me and told me that the DNA they found on the letter and the envelope was not mine. For lack of evidence, they dropped the felony charges against me. On the other hand, when they asked the ex-wife to give them her DNA, with the advice of her attorneys, she found out that ”she has the right to remain silent” and thus, she refused to give them her DNA . Therefore, the police never charged her for reporting false crimes pursuant with MN Statutes 609.505 Sub. 1 . When I asked the county prosecutor if he is ever going to charge her with making over 20 false crime reports against me, his answer was “you should be happy that we did not arrest you.” Of course, as you may have guessed it by now, these kinds of laws are written especially to be fully enforced when they are against black men.
Then again, she and her attorneys charged me of violation of the restraining order by terrorizing the ex-wife with a gun at around 8 P.M. on a labor-day Monday of 2005. When she made this false and malicious crime report against me, her chief witness was her newly found white boyfriend. By promising him a lion's share of the 75,000 dollars she sought to extort from me using this and other kinds of threats, she made him to agree to conspire and report false crimes against me. In any event, that is what is believed. Nobody knows what kind of agreement she made with him. Not only did she betray her own black brother, who brought her out of refugee camps, wars, and poverty; she even attempted to get me arrested by conspiring with her white boyfriend with false and malicious crimes. Consequently, my full name was published on the neighborhood crime watch newspaper and its website together with the news of car thieves, burglars, and sexual predators.
I was indicted with that crime and was scheduled both at the criminal and civil courts more than 10 times. In order to get a false conviction, there is nothing that they have not done in their powers. The prosecutors at the criminal courts rescheduled the hearing 4 times. The attorneys at the civil courts, by communicating with the district court ex-parte, scheduled and rescheduled the hearing date 7 times. Each time the 15 witnesses come to testify, they would tell them to go home and schedule the hearing to another date. Their intention was, obviously, to frustrate my 15 witnesses, so that, on the day they don't show up, they would have the hearing take place and get their false conviction. But, without giving up, my 15 witnesses showed up at the courts tirelessly for 11 times. Finally, after the 7 of the 15 witnesses testified and established my firm alibi, that is, after testifying that I was with them at a cafeteria playing billiards for at least 4 hours before 8 P.M. and 2 hours after 8 P.M., I was acquitted of the crime and the false charges against me were dismissed. Luckily, that false crime was reported on a labor-day and my 7 friends were not working that date and time when the alleged crime took place. Because it was a labor-day, when they testified and cross examined, they all vividly remembered what we were doing on that day at the cafeteria. Again, after I was found not guilty and acquitted of the crimes, neither the police nor the prosecutors charged the ex-wife for filing false police reports.
At another time she, by conspiring with one Eritrean guy, charged me with a felony crime. That dirty dog was pretending as a friend of the ex-wife and me, by conniving between the two of us unnoticed like a snake and passing information. On her behalf, he called the police and told them that “her ex-husband was chasing the car that we were driving, with a gun in his hand.” The police indicted me for making a “terroristic threats”, that is, a third degree felony. The name of that dirty dog and his telephone number was published on the police report. Perhaps he did not know that when he called the police, his number shows up on their display even if the number is blocked. When I confronted him, his reply was: “I was only translating what she was telling me to say to the police.” You should see his face how terrified he was when he said that. I could have charged him with defamation. But, I simply ignored him.
Then again, she charged me that I was taking pictures of her when she was in a restaurant, wining and dining, with one fat Arab merchant. It is beyond belief how a fat Arab merchant, who could be thrice her age, got involved into this. When she found an opportunity, in the thick of the battle, to attack a black man, she used the fat Arab merchant to assail me from his hidden place and disappear. When I subpoenaed him to appear in the court, in order to ask him about the charges that he helped to instigate (“she said”), he refused to obey the subpoena by totally ignoring it. I wrote him two letters warning him that he could face a contempt of court charges if he doesn't reply. But, he simply ignored all my warnings. Since I was overwhelmed with all these massive litigations in different courts, at different dates, and different places, I simply did not have the time or the energy to charge him with the contempt of the court.
These are just few of the 20 counts of criminal allegations that my relentless ex-wife and her insidious attorneys launched against me for 4 years in a row. I like to limit myself with the summary of just these few examples. A simple mention of the most main features of one malicious charge that I was facing would suffice to fill a volume and empty the pen.
The attacks by ambushes which these implacable enemies launched, the indignities they inflicted, the campaigns of harassment they formulated, the investigations they conducted, the threats they pronounced, the false incarcerations they were prepared to commit, the plotting and the wickedness to which they, their false witnesses, and their unscrupulous judges had stooped, constitute a record which can hardly find any parallel in recent history. God only knows how lonely I felt and to what state of helplessness that I was reduced.
That people who had been attracted with each other should later for one reason or another become alienated is the way of the world. However, perhaps only psychoanalysis could explain why someone's attraction should be transformed into unquenchable hatred and why, driven by a 'road to Damascus experience' in reverse, she should relentlessly attack the man, who brought her out of poverty and the miseries of wars in Africa to the U.S.A. and with whom she had lived for two and half years, subjecting him to all these humiliations with her bitter and deep-seated ill will, lashing out at him by carrying out all her threats with all possible means at every opportunity.
At the time I married her, I was a citizen of USA. I married this woman in Asmara, Eritrea, on Feb 2001. In order to bring her to the U.S., I first went to Asmara; then, since she already had gone out of Asmara, I went to the refugee camps in the Sudan; from there, I took her to Kenya because there was no American embassy in the Sudan. When she was living in the refugee camps of the Sudan, my friends and relatives had advised me to leave her right there and then. But, I just did not want to leave her in a strange country where she could not even speak their language. Instead, I told her, and she agreed, that “if you want to live with me, you can live with me and if you don't, you can peacefully leave. . . Therefore, you must sign a prenuptial agreement”, that is, an agreement that she must not come after my property if we decide to split. After spending thousands of dollars to bring her through all these countries, on Nov. 2002, she came to the U.S. and we renewed the prenuptial agreement according to the laws of MN.
After living together for about 2 years and half, I filed for a divorce. Ever since I have filed divorce, for 4 years in a row, she progressively launched, relentlessly pursued, and meticulously executed all her false and malicious charges against me, both at the criminal courts and the civil courts, simultaneously. Consequently, there were multiple court hearings in both criminal and civil courts, one overlapping the other, and, after 4 years of massive litigation, all of them were dismissed and I was acquitted of all the crimes, both at the criminal courts and the civil courts, except with one count. Then, finally, on Feb 5, 2009, the MN Courts of Appeals has reversed the last resort to extort $750 from me with lies that I contacted her families back in Eritrea and, in its opinion, the upper court found that the unscrupulous district judge had abused his discretion for convicting me with that meritless charge and ordered them to pay me $300 .[5]
Consequently, for the past 4 years since I have filed for a divorce, in order to defend myself from all these baseless accusations and intense hostilities, I was subjected to numerous criminal and civil court hearings, police interrogations, indictments, false incarcerations, mugshots, fingerprints, and forensic tests. Throughout this period, I went through the emotions and turmoil of being falsely accused of crimes. I was unable to focus my attention on anything but the false accusations and their emotional and financial ramifications.
Despite of all their calculating and malicious schemes of hostile actions against me, I remained extremely patient. But my forbearance and patience that I have been showing to all her insidious actions, the St. Paul police's lack of prosecuting her for making numerous false police reports, the unscrupulous district referee, Earl Beddow's, extreme tolerance of all her lies, and his violations of my constitutional rights, had served only to inflame her animosity and reinforce her determination to execute her malicious plots against me.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that I was made an object of such monstrous betrayals, and a target for such vicious assaults, I have been resisting the attacks vigorously, I was forging ahead from strength to strength, undaunted and my spirit unbroken by the injuries that I have received. In the midst of all these cataclysmic tribulations, I have been reinforced with a tenacity that no assailant, however vicious, could weaken. These experiences had lighted in my heart a confidence that no adversity, however dark, could extinguish. It had infused in myself an immense courage and boundless resoluteness that no force, however determined, could shatter. Admittedly, it has been an uphill battle to counteract the machinations of such an implacable and vigilant enemy and her unscrupulous attorneys who once dreamt of extorting 75 thousand dollars from me by their empty threats.
Even though the task had been long and arduous, yet the prize of learning to defend myself has been priceless. Even though I have been alone and limited in my powers, experiences, and resources, yet, with the help of God, I was able to bring these most powerful lawyers to their knees until at least two of my most threatening and antagonistic lawyers were fired from their respective law firms.[2] Even though the combined forces of the enemies that I was fighting were fierce, numerous, and unrelenting, yet with perseverance, I was able to vanquish their hopes and annihilate their forces. The utmost of my open and secret enemies could hope to achieve was to retard my growth and obscure momentarily my enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The aim of these ruthless enemies was to get me convicted of crimes that I have never committed and to permanently destroy my record, so that I may get fired from my current job, and never be able to find another job in the U.S. again for at least 15 years. Yes, it takes 15 years for such records to expire. The 75 thousand dollars they dreamt to collect from me, by threatening me to execute their false and malicious charges, was irretrievably shattered, and they were never able to attain it. Moreover, their most heinous felony charges they secretly plotted and the subsequent false incarceration of at least 10 years of what these treacherous enemies had carefully devised and meticulously executed, were thrown into a yet more lurid light by further acts of perpetrations of more unspeakably and more repugnant false accusations --all these were added up to further expose their lies and thus permanently sealing their own doom with their own hands.
Salutations!
Barnabas A. Yohannes.