Bored on the Fourth of July
Analyzing Vanessa Sturgeon’s $84,610.30 legal bill
When one of Oregon’s most prominent and powerful real estate developers tried to morph one of her buildings into a publicly funded mental health and drug treatment center, it was big news; and it should be equally big news — if not bigger — when that developer defaulted on her loans for that building.
Sadly, Oregon’s mainstream media disagrees, and continues to be in the thrall of that overly-influential landlord, Vanessa Sturgeon of TMT Development.
So today, as we observe the media’s independence from facts, reality, and important stories, let’s take a quick look at the bank’s itemized attorney fees that Sturgeon et al. now owe (in addition to the $18.2 million general judgment against them) for defaulting on her Premiere Gear Building loan.
Sturgeon defaulted with First Interstate Bank in November 2022. As the bank worked with Sturgeon on revising the terms to give her a second chance, records show that her lawyers began making unspecified “legal threats.”¹
In the following screenshots taken from the bank’s lawyer’s bill, Sturgeon is the “borrower” and the lending bank is the “client”:
Those threats cost the bank $605, which Sturgeon has now been ordered to pay — not to mention what her own lawyers charged her to make the threats.
No big whoop for a bazillionaire, right? Well, let’s put a pin in that.
Records also show Sturgeon’s penchant for contacting the bank’s attorney directly, stepping over her own counsels’ heads:
That’s unwise, and she probably should’ve know that, even though she dropped out of law school.
In 2023, Sturgeon had the absurd idea to wrest millions of dollars in public funds to transform her failed venture into a treatment facility that included housing units. The bank’s lawyer explored that fantasy with Sturgeon extensively — because why not! — and the tab on that fiasco alone is at least $3,200:
*These numbers of course don’t include her own lawyers’ bills, or the cost of whatever everyone was smoking.
In September 2024, there are several redacted entries which could refer to the Freddy Nelson, Jr. wrongful death lawsuit — Sturgeon’s companies were defendants, and the trial was then underway, at which Sturgeon testified extensively. On the 23rd, the jury awarded the family $21.25 million:
Sturgeon also had a PACE “Property Assessed Clean Energy” loan which she also defaulted on. The bank’s attorney had to analyze that situation, and it “required a high level of sophistication” because the PACE program was new to Oregon, and potentially involved public agencies. The bank’s work on that PACE loan will cost Sturgeon more than $13,000:
Perhaps the most interesting information from the bank’s lawyer’s bill is all the entries related to Sturgeon et al.’s unwillingness or inability to pay for basic things related to the property, including utility bills, clean up fees, taxes, insurance, broken windows, etc.:
Further, the bank and its lawyer discussed “issues with the invoices” sent by Sturgeon to cover such expenses, and also issues with the “funds disbursed to Sturgeon[‘s] account”:
Sturgeon and her associate — presumably Nick Fritel — apparently had explanations for the likely outrageously inflated line items.
But, if Sturgeon cannot even pay a water bill for her own building, it calls into question her and her companies’ financial stability. In the alternative, one wonders if she was opportunistically fleecing the bank on her way out their door.
¹ Given Sturgeon’s proclivity of tactically threatening her own tenants with eviction, it’s possible that she momentarily forgot that she was the deadbeat in this transaction.
