Prosecutors reviewed evidence. Charges were filed. My attorney drafted a civil claim alongside the criminal case—restitution for stolen property, damages for unlawful entry, costs associated with security upgrades and cleaning. My father and Kristen, in their arrogance, had created a perfect storm of recorded intent: audio of premeditation, video of actions, logs of entry.
They had planned to trap me with “facts on the ground.”
Instead, they had trapped themselves with facts on the record.
When court dates approached, my mother tried to send messages through relatives. Apologies, half-pleas, insistence that “this has gone too far,” that “people will talk,” that “Kristen is scared,” that “your father is humiliated.”
Humiliated.
As if humiliation, not theft, were the greatest crime.
I didn’t respond.
My father tried another tactic through his attorney—an aggressive letter threatening to sue me for “emotional distress” and “family abandonment,” claims so absurd my lawyer laughed when he read them. But the threats were a dying animal’s thrash. Once the criminal charges existed, once the evidence was public record, intimidation became nothing more than noise.