Debunking Mr. Flanary’s False Claims, Again

At the October 20, 2022 Special Meeting to remove me, he made a false claim that I had made an insurance claim to American Family Insurance for “defamation”.

Mr. Flanary chose to frame the issue as follows: “I am not the guy, who as a sitting board member, on this present board who filed a claim with our insurance company for defamation against Lora Baldwin (sic)”

The claim with American Family Insurance, however, arose from Director Ballweber’s actions at the 8/1/22 Meeting where she decided to announce that she had to contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center (which is the FBI), accusing me of a crime: “impersonation”.

Director Ballweber stated at 22:34 in the video: “I will tell you my issue with trust. You created an account that I didn’t know was being created. I reported it to the Interstate Crimes Commission [sic] cause I didn’t know where it came from until 2 weeks later.”

So, let’s examine the claim of that timeline. On June 18, I began a 2-day process of importing the emails from poudreoverlookhoa@gmail.com into the 2 delegate accounts. It takes “up to 2 days”, per Google’s notification. Early on a Sunday Morning, June 19, Director Ballweber sent an email to me asking if I had created the new gmail account for her pohoalora@gmail.com.

It is important context that for the prior 2 years, all Directors had email addresses with Gmail that began with “pohoa” and then their first name. So, of course, if Director Ballweber sees a message saying that pohoalora@gmail.com was created “with her name”, it would be pretty likely that one of the other 2 Directors would be the one who did it.

Here is what she sent:

But, Director Ballweber goes on to give an account that she did not know “for 2 weeks” the origin of this new account, thereby justifying the report to the FBI. Unfortunately, the evidence doesn’t support that claim, as she was informed the following day not only that the account was set up to create Gmail delegate accounts, but it also included step-by-step instructions to complete the process – along with the PASSWORD for her to access the account (and delete it, which she complains about later).

She wasn’t left hanging in fear of identity theft for 2 weeks. She got a response THE NEXT DAY.

At the bottom of the response is some pretty clear language explaining why it took at day – because I’m a volunteer who is busy with other things, and the write-up, which included screen shots to make the instructions clear to a technophobe, took a while to compose.

“PS This setup takes about 2 days, so I apologize for not writing back sooner. The import/export I began on Saturday took until earlier today to complete, and I didn’t have time to write up these instructions until this evening. Going forward, everything should be synchronized and update nearly instantly (small delays if there are slow internet connections). What you see in the inbox should be the current inbox.”

So, in spite of KNOWING within a day that the account was set up AND having the password to do with it as she pleased (including deleting the account), she CHOSE to report it/me to the FBI. When that occurred appears to a slippery fact – as she’s trying to claim she got no response, and then because of the non-response “had” to report it.

But, the meeting on 8/1 is 6 weeks later. She has known all that time that it wasn’t an impersonation because she has the explanation AND full control of the newly created account. This indicates that she used this basis to create a narrative for the purpose of creating basis for my removal as a Director. There’s no reason to announce even suspicion of a crime on 8/1 – because she KNOWS it was not. A false accusation of a crime is per se defamation, and

The actual contact with American Family Insurance was to inquire about whether or not I would be covered if Director Ballweber chose to continue pursue a criminal case – in other words, provide an attorney to defend against her false claims of a crime. In order to get an answer to that question, they required that a claim be filed.

The response from American Family Insurance was that they were denying the claim because, at the time, there was no court case, and therefore no legal expenses. However, in follow up with the Adjustor, she said that should that change, the claim could be reconsidered.

The fact that if the claim of publicly accusing someone of a crime is per se defamation is simply – a fact. And, since Director Ballweber did this 6 weeks after knowing why the gmail account (pohoalora@gmail.com) was created, it at least has the appearance of attempting to project that allegation into the minds of the audience. There’s no good reason to bring it up after the fact – and she lied on 8/1 about not knowing the origin for 2 weeks. The facts are clear as day on this matter.

So, why is Mr. Flanary involved?

Well, it appears that this matter was something Director Ballweber took to Mr. Flanary, which would be a violation of the Code of Confidentiality. And, for him to raise it at the 10/20 removal meeting, without disclosing in advance it was the basis for a Petition did not offer me the opportunity to present this evidence at the meeting – which is why the process is patently unfair.

Furthermore, it is then a question as to whether Mr. Flanary used this false narrative not only to get Petitioner signatures, but also to get his 17 proxies. He presented no facts at the meeting, and clearly he operated based upon hearsay from Director Ballweber.

I stand behind my actions: If, while acting as a volunteer for the HOA, another Board Member falsely claims and reports that I have committed a crime, I expect the insurance company to provide a legal defense. And, the actual denial of the claim made no determination of facts about whether the defamation did or did not occur. In fact, anyone viewing the documents and/or video should be able to determine that for themselves.

As you can see, however, justice in these matters is very difficult to obtain, and because this type of thing is happening in HOAs across Colorado, there’s a very pervasive problem with getting volunteers to offer their time and put themselves in such positions to endure such harassment.

What legislators need to do is establish anti-retaliation statutes to shut down people like Mr. Flanary. If we had statutes like Nevada, he would be facing actions by the State Ombudsman’s Office. So, just because he can get away with this in Colorado doesn’t mean he should.