Steve Quest (p/k/a Montagraph) vs. Nicholas Robert Rekieta & Rekieta Law, LLC (2023)

[teriyakiburns]

what's the judge going to do, force the prosecution to bring a case on charges that they don't want to bring, when the defendant was willing to enter a guilty plea for the other charges?

Only in DC.

 

[Himedall All-seeing Waifu]

The legal community (courts and attorneys) in Wilmar & the county its in is tiny. In a place like that, they all know each other and they all gossip about each other. Its the nature of small-town rural minnesota. The population of the entire county is only 40,000 people. I mean Nick himself knew and had met Schneider before all this as he has said. They inevitably all met each other. The number of people with wealth and status in these places is correspondingly small. The guy at the gas station will not know who Nick is, but every attorney and every judge will. So will most of the educated people in the area inevitably.
Nick represented one of the worst people in the area in court, led his client into an absolute legal disaster and then Nick told off the main judge in the area after the case. That itself will get someone lots of attention locally and not good attention.
Schneider has been around a long time in the law and has a successful practice in the area. He doesn't need monty's money and there isn't alot of evidence of him being insane. There are two likely reasons he took the case. (1) With the rumble contract, Nick has lots of cash on hand is very sue-able at the moment. (2) Its about making some sort of point about Nick. If its (2) and because this is small-town legal stuff, it becomes a question of if Schneider is making a point himself or if the community is making a point. And by community, I mean the people who run the area. Not the people who work at Wal-Mart.

I think you are over estimating the Machiavellianism going on here... There is no reason for people to know Nick from lawyering except when he had to respond to other counsel. It is well documented here that Nick only had about 30-something cases in his time as a lawyer that were petty criminal, family, civil, or traffic related. All the rest was transactional, so he never worked with another attorney or judge. With a high probability they would be different people at least some of the time, you have to imagine they remembered him froma handful of time from years prior.

There is also not reason to think that Schneider knows Nick has money. Unless you think Melon-luvin-Man cackled his scheme to soak DRUNKEITA for all he is worth and enlisted Schneider as an accomplice...

As for anyone else. There is NO ONE who cares about Nick enough locally to fuck with him. Even that article written about him and the Weeb Wars GFM and hate mob, got almost 0 traction.

Back off, you are too emotionally invested in the fantasy.

He got her a plea deal that involved to fessing to significantly less than the entire amount that she was facing. That's what the judge was so pissed off about... she thought the thieving bitch should've got nailed way harder than the plea deal that Nick got her.

"Oh he represented a terrible person and got them a good plea deal!"

Yeah, that's called being a FUCKING LAWYER, that's what they're SUPPOSED TO DO, and the rest of the lawyers would understand this.

I 100% put the shenanigans that Schneider's been pulling (including the frivolous ethics complaint) on him trying to play the game to every advantage that he can get... which is exactly what you'd expect him to do. I seriously doubt he's personally offended while he's pretending to clutch his pearls and muh scruples about Nick saying that he was being a cunt.

You had me until that last paragraph. I think it is just more likely Boomer butthurt.

Well a bunch of the charges were dropped in exchange for the plea, and while technically the prosecution can only drop the charges with the court's permission, that is more or less a formality... what's the judge going to do, force the prosecution to bring a case on charges that they don't want to bring, when the defendant was willing to enter a guilty plea for the other charges?

Then once the charges are dropped, the judge is kinda limited on the sentencing by the charges that actually remain.

What I meant is that after the state has brought some charges (filed them), they have to file a motion to dismiss in order to drop them... technically the court could deny this motion, but then nobody would be happy.

If the charges haven't been filed yet, though, then sure, the state could abandon them without the court having any say in the matter.

Nah... A prosecutor can usually choose to drop charges at any time. DA's are ETHICALLY obligated to drop cases they do not feel pursue justice. Of course you do not always (or mostly) see that, but it is allowed.

A judge messing with that would be weird, and it has happened, but typically the defense would file a motion to dismiss for lack of claim or charge. If the judge ignored THAT too, it would be a shit show. It HAS happened, and it got mandamus'd the FUCK back down after a conviction (I have to find the case)

 

[Terrifik]

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[mindlessobserver]

Rackets no! What are you doing? You are admitting to saying all the things, AND giving the context of your intent! Why?! You may be completely in the right, but the judge could still look at it and say "well, it's a question for the jury". Why you do this? The entire reason Defamation torts are so easy to defeat is because unless you actually provide the context, the court will always go with the most 1st amendment safe explanation for the words!

Holy shit, shut up!

 

[Phony Chicken]

Rackets no! What are you doing? You are admitting to saying all the things, AND giving the context of your intent! Why?! You may be completely in the right, but the judge could still look at it and say "well, it's a question for the jury". Why you do this? The entire reason Defamation torts are so easy to defeat is because unless you actually provide the context, the court will always go with the most 1st amendment safe explanation for the words!

Holy shit, shut up!

Because he's an arrogant jackass.

 

[Kosher Salt]

That also only applies if there has been a felony indictment. If the charges were misdemeanors, the judge has no discretion to deny.

You can't get 49 months in Minnesota for misdemeanor charges. Not even if they're gross misdemeanors and sentenced consecutively, 48 months would've been the statutory maximum.

Nah... A prosecutor can usually choose to drop charges at any time. DA's are ETHICALLY obligated to drop cases they do not feel pursue justice. Of course you do not always (or mostly) see that, but it is allowed.

If the court feels like there is sufficient evidence to warrant a conviction on the charges, it could be really salty about the prosecution dropping charges. And yes, the court would technically have the ability to deny the MTD, but that'd probably happen even less often than you see ethical prosecutors dropping charges that would be unjust.

 

[Rex_857]

Monty has been setup in this shit. LOL. Nick has records of everything this dude ever did or said. LMAO. And there is of course this banger reference.

And this banger....

This shit is too good.

 

[SargonF00t]

Monty has been setup in this shit. LOL. Nick has records of everything this dude ever did or said. LMAO. And there is of course this banger reference.

View attachment 4557721

What does Goatse got to do with Monty?

 

[Rex_857]

What does Goatse got to do with Monty?

Nick made a comment calling him the new Goatse on one of the streams in question.

 

[Kosher Salt]

In reviewing the MTD I think I missed a critical point in Nick's MTD. Monty's a pedophile who had his criminal record of abusing a 9-year-old boy sealed? Judges LOVE pedophiles. I'm afraid Nick's screwed.

 

[dustnight]

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[sneedem&feedem]

Detractors work fast.

 

[Carl Smallwang]

What a joke of a case. I'm ecstatic to see how Nick will fumble this softball.

 

[TJBirish]

Detractors work fast.

He's not your friend anymore. Get the fuck over it.

Geez.

 

[Dyn]

Unless MN rules are very different than my jurisdiction, judges don't have to follow plea deals they don't like. Not doing so can result in more cases before that judge being taken to trial if lawyers/defendants know the judge has a habit of rejecting plea deals, but the judge can hand down anything within the sentencing guidelines after the defendant has entered their guilty plea.

They don't have to, but if they don't they're absolute scum who should be dragged into the street and hanged. Tricking people into waiving their right to a trial is bullshit that should not be allowed in a free society.

 

[Owlbear]

There is also not reason to think that Schneider knows Nick has money. Unless you think Melon-luvin-Man cackled his scheme to soak DRUNKEITA for all he is worth and enlisted Schneider as an accomplice...

I don't think we can impute any level of hatred to this guy. He isn't really playing "hardball" any more than any other attorney would. He knows Nick has the money, he probably took the case on contingency, and he wants to win.

At the beginning of his recent rant, Rekieta mentioned that the opposing firm does a lot of workers comp litigation, which is usually done on contingency. That would mean that this firm is comfortable with that kind of work.

There is some chance that he was also dodging Rekieta's calls for his own good. There are a lot of legal risks involved in talking to the opposing party without your own lawyer, and I think he figured that Rekieta could hire any other lawyer in town without issue (which he could).

 

[Kosher Salt]

There is some chance that he was also dodging Rekieta's calls for his own good. There are a lot of legal risks involved in talking to the opposing party without your own lawyer, and I think he figured that Rekieta could hire any other lawyer in town without issue (which he could).

Nah. I don't buy this. Nick's voicemails and emails said that he was requesting an extension. There's no justification for him to blow Nick off, knowing that what Nick was asking was an entirely reasonable negotiation in the opening stages of a lawsuit. You can't ignore a pro se party's good-faith negotiation attempts because "it's for his own good, he needs to hire a lawyer." That's a bullshit excuse.

 

[Owlbear]

Nah. I don't buy this. Nick's voicemails and emails said that he was requesting an extension. There's no justification for him to blow Nick off, knowing that what Nick was asking was an entirely reasonable negotiation in the opening stages of a lawsuit. You can't ignore a pro se party's good-faith negotiation attempts because "it's for his own good, he needs to hire a lawyer." That's a bullshit excuse.

Let me rephrase: it may be a CYA move by the lawyer. Lawyers will NEVER talk to the opposing party directly without the presence of their own legal counsel - this is a big ethical no-no according to most judges and ethics boards (because it unfairly disadvantages the other party). In this case, Nick didn't have counsel yet, but since he was saying "I'm going to hire someone any day now," you could argue that the proper course of action is to just wait until that happens.

Really, Nick should have tried to contact them 2-3 times with different methods, then filed an official motion for an extension with the court. I assume he wanted to have some other kind of conversation here, too, like "your client is a scumbag and you should probably drop him" or "your client can't pay, why don't you force him into a nice low settlement?"

 

[Kosher Salt]

Let me rephrase: it may be a CYA move by the lawyer. Lawyers will NEVER talk to the opposing party directly without the presence of their own legal counsel - this is a big ethical no-no according to most judges and ethics boards (because it unfairly disadvantages the other party). In this case, Nick didn't have counsel yet, but since he was saying "I'm going to hire someone any day now," you could argue that the proper course of action is to just wait until that happens.

It's not an ethical issue if the opposing party is pro-se, regardless of whether or not they've suggested that they intend to be represented later.

Really, Nick should have tried to contact them 2-3 times with different methods, then filed an official motion for an extension with the court.

This much I agree with completely.

 

[Thomas Talus]

It's not an ethical issue if the opposing party is pro-se,

This is true, otherwise cases with pro-se parties would grind completely to a halt.

regardless of whether or not they've suggested that they intend to be represented later.

This is a bit murkier, but probably could have been resolved by responding with a request for clarification of whether Nick was presently represented.

Generally, if you have reason to think that a party *might* be represented, you should proceed as if they *are* represented until told otherwise.