Mark Stanley
WHITE CO. – A party in a civil action in White County has asked for sanctions to be leveled against a local judge for getting involved in a relative’s case.
Grand Rivers Community Bank (GRCB), having filed suit last year (2017) in an action brought against Carmi resident Gary Evans and one of his companies, Evergreen Energy, had, early on in the case, took steps to ensure that White County associate judge Mark Stanley be recused from any involvement in the case, since Stanley’s wife, Rebecca, is a sister to Gary Evans; as well, another party, Abbey Evans (Gary’s daughter), is involved and as a relative to the judge by marriage, GRCB ensured that this was duly-noted when filing.
However, according to a July 10, 2018 filing, that was allegedly circumvented early on.
Effectively, it appears that GRCB is asserting that Stanley stepped in on a case between his brother-in-law and Peoples National Bank (PNB), signing off on a judgment that awarded a substantial sum of money to PNB.
This is a problem, not just because of the Stanley-Evans connection, but because GRCB and PNB have been feuding for a couple of years, and have only recently settled a massive lawsuit in federal court concerning a merger that was supposed to take place between the two banks, but which merger was alleged to have been sabotaged by William Frank Bonan II (“Lil Bill” Bonan) when GRCB pointed out that he had made a number of extremely bad loans to businesses and individuals.
These bad loans put GRCB on the hot seat…and because one of them was made to the Evans/Evergreen combine, and Evans defaulted, GRCB filed suit against him a year ago.
It’s GRCB’s assertion, in the July 10 filing, that Stanley stepped in to the case and signed off on the PNB loan, which meant PNB could collect from Evans before Grand Rivers does…which doesn’t hurt Evans one iota, because his daughter, Abbey, is hooked up with the still-married Lil Bill Bonan, and is in fact getting ready to produce another illegitimate offspring with him, since she’s not married to him yet and can’t be (Lil Bill’s Franklin County divorce is still laboring through the system after two years).
Any judgment granted in favor of PNB can simply be ignored by PNB, and the Evans/Evergreen combine gets out of a multi-million-dollar repayment for what was undoubtedly a bad loan, made by PNB under the auspices that they knew it was a bad loan and would never be repaid, this according to multiple filings in the federal case which assert this exact premise.
The filings made by GRCB on July 10, however, show much more than that.
If GRCB is correct in its assessment of how the mid-June incident took place, there appeared to have been machinations designed to ensure that Stanley was the one on the bench when papers were brought before him…which is why GRCB is asking for sanctions against Stanley.
Foreclosures and quit-claims
By way of background, GRCB explained that in their 2017 Chancery filing (foreclosure), a June 7, 2016, transfer of real property from Evans to his daughter Abbey was fraudulent, and they sought to declare it as such.
A real estate transfer from Evans’ mother, Janice Frashier, that Frashier and Evans had transferred to Abbey in 2016, in a “Do Not Publish” quit-claim deed is on file at the White County Clerk’s office. Despite the transfer, however, a homestead exemption (tax exemption) continued on the real estate all the way through this year’s (2018’s) tax assessment, meaning that for all intents and purposes, Frashier did not really transfer ownership of the real estate; it was just an “on-paper” transfer, and she retained ownership.
This was discovered when GRCB asked, as a matter of attempting to confirm assets of the Evanses including business ownership and personal real estate, did their due diligence in attempting to locate said assets.
GRCB had asked the court to declare that transfer as “fraudulent,” according to court documents.
Then GRCB declared in their July 10 filing that they may be “seriously prejudiced and preference bound by three court orders surreptitiously entered in this cause on June 14, 2018.”
They stated that it’s their belief those orders, entered by Stanley, need vacated. And so GRCB filed a petition to intervene in the case between PNB and Evans, creating yet another case on file in White County, an “L” (Law) case, under which they are seeking relief.
Thorough investigative work
The outline GRCB, through their attorney, Melissa Sims of Johnston City, gave of how the sign-off by Stanley went down is an exercise in extremely thorough investigative work.
GRCB discovered that on June 14 of this year, Stanley entered judgment at an unscheduled appearance by one or more attorneys for PNB for $7,893,462.23.
On that same day, two memoranda of judgment were also signed by Stanley, with those being recorded at the White County Recorder’s office at 1:51:35 p.m. and 1:51:36 p.m.
GRCB points out that this was done while Stanley was conducting the criminal call in White. They also point out that this case – 2017CH29 – was not on the docket for the day…and they took the opportunity to provide the court docket as proof.
Regardless of the fact that it wasn’t on the docket, Stanley signed off on the order of judgment against Evans and in favor of PNB at approximately 1:30 p.m. that day.
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Going into great lengths about the relationship between Stanley and the parties named (as outlined earlier in the article), GRCB followed up the family lineage by pointing out the Illinois Supreme Court Code of Judicial Conduct Canon of Ethics, which, under Rule 63, states that a judge shall disqualify himself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonable be questioned, including but not limited to instances where the judge or judge’s spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them or the spouse of such a person, is involved.
GRCB noted that Gary Evans has a one-degree familiar relationship from Stanley, being a relative of one’s offspring, sibling or parent (Rebecca Evans Stanley’s brother.)
This, GRCB declares in filings, renders the signed-off judgment for PNB void.
“Stanley should never have heard the matter, and should have disqualified himself from signing the orders pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 63,” GRCB said.
Because they state that the judgment is void, GRCB asserts that it can never be executed, and further, they note that the court now has a duty to vacate void judgments.
The importance of this cannot be understated: Because PNB got the judgment first, that leaves GRCB fighting for their own judgment against Evans. By signing off on the judgment (which GRCB calls “bum-rushed” through the court system by Stanley), Stanley gave preference to PNB as the first creditor in any collection attempts.
And because Abbey Evans, a party to the GRCB filing, is breeding with Bonan – who, for all intents and purposes, is PNB – there exists the possibility that PNB will never bother to collect on the $7.8 million judgment, putting GRCB in a very bad position when it comes to trying to get judgment in their case executed, all because a judge stepped in, on a day when the case wasn’t on the docket, and signed something he wasn’t supposed to be signing.
“The judgment and memoranda were obviously only facilitated to block Grand Rivers Community Bank from seeking collection action against the real estate conveyed from Gary Evans to Lauren Abbey Evans – including the property located at 901 W. Main Street, Carmi, Illinois, for which the mother-in-law of Judge Stanley claimed as homestead property and also conveyed her interest to Lauren Abbey Evans,” GRCB wrote.
Waiting on judges
But there ended up being even more egregious – and concerning – incidents in the handling of the matter.
GRCB stated in filings that “it is glaringly apparent that Peoples National Bank moved quickly to shield the future personal assets of its director from a creditor not under its control, and involved a family member on the bench to pull off this stratagem.”
They outlined out they appeared before the original judge in the case, Tom Dinn, and moved for a summary judgment in their $596,030.72 bad loan case against Evans/Evergreen, this on April 27, 2018.
Dinn, they noted, reserved ruling until June 15. On that day, Dinn entered the judgment in favor of GRCB.
Both Dinn and White’s other judge, T. Scott Webb, were on the bench the day Stanley signed off on the judgment. Both of those judges, at the behest of keeping Stanley off the case, had made entries in the GRCB case up to this point. Hence GRCB’s assertion that there was “no legitimate reason for the parties to enter a judgment and memorandum without presenting the same to either Judge Webb or Judge Dinn on June 15, 2018.
“Had the parties waited, however, preference could not be guaranteed,” documents show.
Then something odd appeared on the judici docket entry for the incident: The entry for June 14, 2018, specifically stated that the order was filed “in error.” GRCB stated that they have no idea what this means.
However, conspicuously absent on the docket were the two memoranda signed by Stanley.
GRCB said that on June 29, 2018, they discovered why.
While Illinois is now requiring e-filing in all civil cases (filing by computer, thus avoiding paperwork and the hassles it creates), and GRCB duly did their e-filing, they didn’t receive their memorandum of judgment in the case against Evans/Evergreen until June 22, when Dinn signed off on it.
GRCB believe that the judgment would be signed off on on June 15, so they called the circuit clerk’s office on June 18, inquiring if the memorandum e-filed in the chancery case had been entered. They were advised that the judgment couldn’t be entered by any other judge, and that the sitting White County judge that week refused to sign the memorandum of judgment (which is described as merely entering a judgment, and doesn’t have anything to do with the merits of the case.)
Two dockets
As it turned out, there have been two sets of docket sheets for the June 14, 2018 event. One docket sheet reflects Stanley’s signature, the other makes no such reference.
The docket for the PNB cause reflects “June 14, judgment filed (Judge Stanley’s signature) Judgment filed (not signed. Filed in error)” then “June 14 Plaintiff appears. Agreed judgment entered.”
Then on June 29, 2018, the docket read “June 14 Plaintiff appears. Agreed judgment entered” and “June 14 Judgment filed” (see attendant screencap of actual filing by GRCB.)
The physical docket makes no mention of Stanley’s participation, GRCB pointed out, while the judici docket specifically names the judge who signed the order.
“The signature on the three orders is indecipherable,” GRCB notes; however, those who have had Stanley as judge in the past can clearly see that this is his slash-and-curve “signature” that doesn’t look a thing like “Mark Stanley” under any circumstances.
GRCB, on June 29, pointed out the discrepancy to the circuit clerk’s office, which asserted at first they were the same. Then, the deputy clerk speaking with GRCB’s counsel “checked and confirmed that there were, in fact, different dockets.
“The physical docket in the court file was then removed by the deputy clerk, thrown in the trash, and replaced with the judici docket in the presence of (the attorney),” GRCB wrote in their filing. “No explanation was given as to why the dockets were different.”
When the attorney questioned the deputy clerk why the judge’s initial didn’t appear on either the judici docket or the physical docket, she was advised that the judge “wrote it that way and that it could not be changed by the clerk.”
However, “every other docket entry for orders or judgments in the two cases have the judges initials listed,” GRCB noted, in effect claiming that surreptitious activity had prompted the absence of Stanley’s initials on the sign-off, perhaps in an effort to further hide what had occurred.
What GRCB wants
Citing suspect timing and violation of Illinois Supreme Court Rules requiring e-filing, GRCB is asking that they be allowed intervening petitioner status in the case between PNB and Evans/Evergreen; a vacating of the June 14 order; an imposing of sanctions against the parties, including both indirect and direct criminal contempt of court; an investigation into the facts and circumstances of the matter; rendering a judgment in favor of GRCB for attorney fees and costs; and any other relief the court deems just and equitable.
At this point it is unclear which judge will hear this matter.
This is not the first time Stanley has been accused of corruption on the bench; other decisions he’s made in the past that favor members of his family have been noted by citizens who have been in front of him, but thus far, there have been no Judicial Inquiry Board (JIB) complaints filed to that effect.
Whether this one will go to a JIB complaint is unknown; Disclosure is making inquiries of GRCB’s attorney and will follow up with reports in upcoming issues.
A screencap of Grand Rivers Community Bank shows the two docket entries as they appeared, one on judici, one the physical entry. The physical entry, GRCB claims in their recent filing, was tossed in the trash but was retrieved thanks to a keen-eyed attorney who knew that the judici docket entry couldn’t be correct under the circumstances.