We’re getting married, and we’re very close. And — and to the extent that this case is very significant for my financial future and present and everything else, it’s also become integral to her financial livelihood.

There is every reason to believe (1,300,000 reasons!) that Rick Gresov — unlike Jordan Zeidman, Steven Miner II, Kathryn Miner, Rachel Canning and Caitlyn Ricci —  was acting for himself and in his own interest. He says so himself. From paragraph 19 of his affidavit:

I did not file this suit as a proxy for my father. Whatever issues exist between them, those issues are their own.

And he really didn’t even want to do it. From paragraph 17:

I did not and do not readily embrace having to sue my mother for what is rightfully mine.

But it turned out that the account hadn’t been funded by Rick’s father or his father’s parents. From page 4 of the judge’s ruling:

Although it is not essential to the outcome of the case, the account was created, I find, with the assets of the Defendant, Catherine Randall, and her parents and did not have as it[s] sources assets that came directly from Winston Gresov or from members of his family.

How’s that? What happened to those significant financial gifts?

Unfortunately for Rick’s strategy, the judge simply did not believe him. From page 22 of  the judge’s ruling:

Although not essential to my conclusions, I do not credit the testimony of Rick Gresov.

And the judge detected bad faith:

His actions in bringing this case coincide with the very bitter dispute between his parents over issues of child support and perhaps other custody issues, I don’t know. … I conclude that his actions were related to and wrapped up with the emotional involvement in his father’s disputes with his mother. Now, those are not essential to my conclusions in this case. Because if the disbursements were in fact inappropriate, the fact that he did not — does not act in good faith [emphasis added] in seeking to enforce them would not matter. He’d be entitled to relief if in fact Ms. Randall had mishandled the account.

Notice the unsubtle shift from past to present tense. He filed suit in bad faith and today he testifies in bad faith.

Thus evaporated $1,300,000. From page 2 of the judge’s final order:

1. Defendant Catherine Randall did not violate the Maryland Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, Maryland Code, §§ 13-301 et seq, of the Estates and Trusts Article, or the Pennsylvania Uniform Transfers to Minors Act in her handling of the Account [alleged “college fund”]; and

2. Defendant Catherine Randall has provided a full and acceptable accounting of her handling of the Account; and

3. Plaintiff Frederick Gresov’s objections to the accounting provided by Defendant Catherine Randall are all overruled[.]

Conclusion

Was this judge correct to issue a finding of bad faith? Consider paragraph 12 of the affidavit where Rick describes a failed attempt to announce the forthcoming birth of a grandchild:

[12.]… I am expecting the birth of my first child on February 13, 2012. I attempted to tell my mother of this fact before a recent hearing in the proceedings in the case between she [sic] and my father in Pennsylvania but was prevented from speaking to her by her long-term companion. My mother and grandmother refused to acknowledge me.

That’s cold: a mother who won’t even allow her own flesh and blood to deliver news of the utmost importance. Maybe that’s evidence of malice! The law requires proof of malice before an award of punitive damages, $1,000,000 here, can be made.

But when was that recent hearing in Pennsylvania? The affidavit omits to mention that the hearing in question was on October 12, 2011 (see hearing record of Docket# 2011-00427 available in clerk’s office, Media, PA), just one day after Rick’s complaint was filed in Baltimore, MD. His mother wasn’t about to speak with her son after that stunt. It’s doubtful she ever spoke to him again.

Consider also that a due date of February 13, 2012 implies that Rick’s fiancée was already more than five months pregnant on October 12, 2011. Whatever else he might’ve been planning to say after the passage of five months, it had nothing to do with the arrival of a grandkid.

From page 3 of Rick’s deposition:

Q. State your name for the record, please.
A. Frederick Randall Gresov.

UPDATE, UPDATE, UPDATE!!!

We (Serpent’s Teeth and spouse) recently attended a destination wedding in South Carolina, where we found ourselves seated at the reception in the midst of a table full of lawyers gossiping and talking shop. Our ears pricked up when we overheard that one of the couples was from Baltimore. So we asked, is there anything you can tell us about the law firm that represented Rick Gresov?

They told us, among other things too libelous to repeat, that Marc Noren, the billing partner in that matter, died in 2014, leaving an estate that owed roughly $750 thousand in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest to the Federal government and State of Maryland, the result of failing both to pay any tax after 2006 and file relevant tax returns. That’s an impressive spree of tax evasion. Even more impressive considering that up until his death Mr. Noren held, along with his position as a law firm partner, an appointment as a judicial officer (“standing auditor”) in the Baltimore court system and in that capacity was bound by the same strict code of ethics, including financial disclosure, that’s supposed to apply to all judges in Maryland.

There were sordid rumors around the time of Mr. Noren’s death, possibly not unrelated to his tax evasion, of several years’ Oxycodone abuse. Were the Maryland courts, his firm and the Bar asleep at the wheel while all this was going on or did they choose to turn a blind eye? Knowing looks exchanged with each other by the Baltimore couple indicated that they suspected the worst.

Another strange circumstance connected with Mr. Noren’s death was his obituary published in the Baltimore Sun, which made no mention of his father, a former Maryland state official convicted of bribery in 1980: “Mr. Noren is survived by his mother, sons, and brother.” Five years later, his father is still alive at age 89 in Melbourne, Florida. If there’s a “flight from self” theory of family estrangement, this would tend to prove it, just as Mr. Noren’s conduct tends to illustrate environmental catalysts linked to the pathology of estrangement and its inducement.