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| Angie Ingram (From styleblueprint.com) |
We're talking about Angie Ingram, the Birmingham debt-collection lawyer whose firm violated federal law in a multitude of ways in their interactions with Carol and me a few years back. (See video at the end of this post.) Ingram got away with it because our own lawyers, Darrell Cartwright and Allan Armstrong, stabbed us in the back -- and federal judge Abdul Kallon, a horrific Obama appointee, is corrupt, incompetent or both.
Court-related news has been out there for about five years, suggesting Ingram has become a bit unstable herself. I had heard about a 2013 case styled Ingram v. Allred, where a Walker County judge found Ingram to be in contempt of court and ordered her jailed for 60 days -- that finding was overturned on appeal -- but I thought Angie Ingram no longer was an issue in my life. A reader, however, alerted me a few weeks back to a nasty exchange on Ingram's Facebook page among participants in TGUBDW
What are the dog wars? Well, I've never been able to figure it out, but it seems certain dog breeders and rescue types disagree about how to conduct such business -- and Angie Ingram is on one side, with a lot of people who disagree with her (hate her?) on the other. I've heard from a number of Ingram's opponents over the years -- and I would love to help anyone who is an enemy of Angie Ingram -- but I haven't posted on the subject because I just can't figure out the convoluted nature of the conflict.
Someone alerted me to a spirited debate that had broken out on Ingram's Facebook page, and my name got in the middle of it. A reader who did not take kindly to Ingram's position on dog-related matters fired back by posting a Legal Schnauzer report about our experiences with Ingram's law firm. That apparently got Ingram riled up, so she decided to take a few shots at me. From an Ingram comment:
As to my "legal" history, do your research and do it properly. I don't post anything but facts and those that have come to a conclusion and I can document. Since you're not a lawyer, you probably wouldn't understand that since you and your friends seem to know and believe everything you can "google". I don't use google for my fact finding.
You idiots posting things about the Legal Schnauzer and me and my being a debt collector make yourself look like fools. Look at this man's blog. He is a conspiracy theorist. Oh yeah, birds of a feather ... I think one of your friends said that.
Then take a look at the the $3.5 million judgment awarded against Roger Shuler aka the Legal Schnauzer. That's what happens to people like him that post defamatory crap. So you think you know it all ... that man sued me twice. Guess what - he lost TWICE. He even threatened to kill me, all the defense attorneys, and the federal judge Abdul Kallon. So go ahead and promote what that man has to say about me. Do a little more research on him ... he has sued probably 10 or more people or companies and LOST EVERY SINGLE CASE. He worked at UAB and was fired for blogging that crap on their time. Oh, he sued them too ... and lost.
Wow, this woman seems to have lost her mind. First, nothing I've written at Legal Schnauzer ever has been proven in court, as a matter of law, to be false or defamatory. Second, it's a matter of public record that I was fired at UAB for writing a blog, on my own time and resources, about the Don Siegelman case. The evidence is tape recorded, just like the violations of the Federal Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) against Ingram's law firm.
Not content with those lies, Ingram really becomes unhinged -- claiming I threatened to kill her, certain defense attorneys, and a federal judge? Where on earth does she get this stuff? In fact, it's like she's begging me to sue her for defamation -- and she might get her wish.
Perhaps this is the kind of behavior that got her in trouble with a Walker County judge. From the opinion in the Allred case:
Ingram's office is in Jefferson County, but she represents creditors in collection actions throughout the state. During the last several years, she has represented creditors in a number of collection actions in the district court. In May 2011, the district-court judge who had been presiding in those actions ("the trial judge") ordered Ingram to appear at a show-cause hearing on May 20, 2011. That show-cause hearing related to actions she was handling in general rather than the underlying action in particular. At that show-cause hearing, the trial judge stated, in pertinent part:
"THE COURT: Over the last two-and-a-half years there's a lot of times that ya'll either haven't had anybody here, or you have local attorneys, for whatever reason, and they don't know what cases they are here on, they don't know what's going on with the cases. And then what I do—well, what I started out doing is continuing those because I figured, well, mistakes happen and somebody got mixed up somewhere. As it continued to happen, I dismissed those cases. If there was a good reason why you missed, I would consider reinstating those cases. Now what I'm seeing is, nobody shows up. I have people that take off work, people that hire lawyers, they're here, and nobody is here on your side. I dismiss them and then I get a slew of motions to reinstate, which is further a waste of my time. You know, I'm ruling on everything two or three times because ya'll can't be bothered to come up here, and I'm very unhappy about that, Ms. Ingram."
Ingram explained that she had arranged for a local attorney to appear on several occasions in the district court but that he had proved unreliable and that she would not be relying on him in the future. Ingram also apologized to the trial judge.
The following colloquy then occurred:
"THE COURT: Well, I'm not necessarily—
"MS. INGRAM: And it's not—
"THE COURT:—casting stones at anybody. And I didn't bring you over here to throw you in jail or anything like that. I don't think that's appropriate. I just want you and I to be on the same page on this.
"MS. INGRAM: I understand.
"THE COURT: If this continues to happen, here's where I am at. I want you to know so there's no misunderstanding.
"Particularly, in cases where I have other attorneys that are here and there's nobody here from your office, I'm going to entertain motions for attorney's fees on those cases. I'm going to start fining you if I feel like somebody has come here. A lot of these people can ill-afford to miss a day of work anyway. And if they take off work and come up here and there's nobody up here to prosecute that case, there's going to be some punitive damages—"
Ingram then failed to appear at another hearing, and she did not give the judge advanced notice. The judge found her in contempt:
Also on March 6, 2012, the trial judge had the Walker County Sheriff's Office send a deputy sheriff to Jefferson County to arrest Ingram. At the March 21, 2012, show-cause hearing, the Walker County deputy sheriff testified as follows. He met a Jefferson County deputy sheriff on the afternoon of March 6, 2012, and the two deputies went to Ingram's office. When the deputies arrived at Ingram's office on the second floor of a building, the receptionist told the deputies that Ingram was in the yogurt shop downstairs. When the deputies went to the yogurt shop, Ingram was not there, and the deputies asked an employee of the yogurt shop where Ingram was. The yogurt-shop employee telephoned an unidentified person. Upon concluding his telephone call, the yogurt-shop employee told the deputies that Ingram would come down to the yogurt shop in a few minutes. The deputies waited, but Ingram did not appear. The deputies asked the yogurt-shop employee if Ingram was coming down, and the yogurt-shop employee made a telephone call to an unidentified person but told the deputies he did not get an answer. The yogurt-shop employee later made another call to an unidentified person and reported to the deputies that Ingram would not be able to meet with them because she was meeting with a client. The deputies then went back upstairs to Ingram's office and told the receptionist that the yogurt-shop employee had told them that Ingram was in her office. The receptionist told the deputies that Ingram had left the office for a meeting. The deputies asked to search Ingram's office to verify that she was not there, and the receptionist allowed them to do so. The deputies did not find Ingram in her office. The deputies then left the building but stopped in the parking lot to have a conversation before getting into their automobiles. While the deputies were conversing in the parking lot, a man who identified himself as Ingram's husband approached them and asked the deputies if they were looking for Ingram. When they responded in the affirmative, the man either said that Ingram knew the deputies were coming or that she knew the deputies were looking for her, that she was not at her office, and that the deputies would not be able to contact her. The Walker County deputy then called the trial judge, who told the deputy to tell the man who had identified himself as Ingram's husband that, if Ingram would come with the deputy, she could get out of jail but, if she did not come with the deputy, the trial judge was going to be gone for a few days and the trial judge did not know when Ingram would get out of jail. The deputy relayed to the man who had identified himself as Ingram's husband what the trial judge had said. The man who had identified himself as Ingram's husband then walked off, and the deputies left.
The opinion indicates the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals let Ingram off the hook on a technicality. But the record indicates she ran into a judge who refused to let her run a debt-collection outfit in a shoddy fashion. That might be why Ingram's current Web site suggests she now is focusing mostly on tenant-landlord law and animal law, not so much on debt collection.
By the way, I'm not the only one to incur Ingram's wrath recently. In a Jan. 3 Facebook post, she attacked Lisa Sharlach, director of women and gender studies at UAB. It appears to have something to do with TGUBDW, but I can't figure out exactly what.
Angie Ingram seems to be engaging in erratic behavior that could lead to the two of us crossing swords in court again. When someone wrongfully accuses you of threatening to kill people, it's serious business.
It appears I might not be the only one who has grounds for doing battle with Ingram.
Below is a video that captures Ingram's debt-collection thugs committing multiple violations of the FDCPA. Having this or a related video thrown in her face probably is what got her pissed off enough to make all kinds of false statements about me.
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