JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU…
Midland Police Detective Kay Therwanger told fellow cops, “FYI DEVELOP YOUR OWN PROBABLE CAUSE” (click for full size image)
Robbie Glossop, Jr. found it hard to believe, much less comprehend.
One moment, he was crossing the street in front of the Midland Police Department in the pre-dawn hours of an April morning in 2013, the next, he was sitting in a cell, trying to arrange bail – for a Class C misdemeanor, jaywalking.
It took twelve hours, but his 83-year-old mother finally arranged bail the following afternoon.
In the ensuing years, he says, he’s gone and figured; now, he thinks he’s got a handle on what happened – and why.
Glossop is the scion of a near-centenary petroleum family business founded by his father.
His divorce from Peggy Summers had just become final, and he was having a lot of trouble getting an explanation from executives at Wells Fargo Bank just why his statements were going to a new address – hers. More about that later. First, why the precipitous police action of clapping him behind bars with a demand for bail, for jaywalking? That’s a matter of history.
Click here to watch a video of the shooting that led to a new statewide police policy on dealing with allegedly angry persons:
The worm turned forever on a blazing hot day in August, 2000 when State Trooper Randall Vetter stopped a 72-year-old man on an I-35 frontage road near San Marcos for not wearing his seat belt. When the man got out of his car, he was holding a Mini-14 rifle at the hip. Despite Vetter’s repeated commands to put the weapon down, the irate little old man took a snap shot from the hip – and scored an accurate hit between the Trooper’s eyes. Then he blithely called dispatchers on the trooper’s own radio, stating his reason as a need for “assistance.”
He died behind bars a number of years later while doing a jolt for murder of a police officer. Vetter died within four days. He had no idea what he was headed for when he flipped on his emergency lights and put his suspect vehicle on the side of the dusty road at Kyle, Texas. Vetter thought he was going to ask an elderly man did he know why he stopped him, check his license and insurance, and make a decision whether to write him a warning ticket, or issue a citation for not wearing a seat belt.
Ever since then, law enforcement agencies have used a device called an “internal service bulletin” to advise fellow officers to watch for certain persons of interest who have indicated they are armed, violent, dangerous, or looking for trouble. Naturally, the cops are advised they should “develop a probable cause” to detain or arrest them – cool them off, slow them down, detain them in order to restore calm, or otherwise keep the peace through filing charges.
How Robbie Glossop reached the point of being a person of interest in a “develop your own probable cause” case of jaywalking is an intricate study in the politics of doing business with too-big-to-fail financial institutions in general, and Wells Fargo in the big middle of the Permian Basin oil patch in particular.
He was angry, and a Midland Police Detective named Kay Therwanger knew it. In her document, she alleged that he was known to be violent, had guns, and had been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
Quite simply, Glossop was pretty sure someone had their hand in his pocket. In the years following, he has gone to elaborate lengths to prove it while the government has frustrated his attorneys’ efforts by withholding vital information that would help cinch his case.
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf apologized before the Senate Finance Committee in September for fraudulent practices discovered in 2013, practices such as opening credit accounts and other services without the knowledge of customers. (Senate press release) But the ranking members – the Democrats – aren’t satisfied. He will be in a January 6 session to answer more and specific questions. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) appears to be determined to show the big shots they may be too big to fail, but not too big to follow the rules while they succeed by using certain – ah, aggressive sales techniques. So far, Wells Fargo’s practices have cost more than 5,000 “team members” their jobs in “community services.”
According to Glossop, “This is about Wells Fargo being used as a pivot point to void (a legal provision known as) arbitration.”
It all started when the Midland cops stopped Glossop for speeding on a trip home from his new address in the DFW Metromess. He was back in town to appear in Municipal Court to answer the summons when someone stole the license plate off his pickup by ripping the bracket and all off the bumper.
Said Glossop, “In that neighborhood where I lived, that kind of thing just doesn’t happen. No one steals peoples’ license plates off their cars – ever.”
On a trip downtown to file a complaint for the theft, he violated the State Traffic Code that prohibits crossing streets in areas other than crosswalks, if designated as such by local authorities. To this day, he and his attorney C. Luke Gunnstaks insist no such crossing zone exists in front of the building, that the cops violate the unwritten rule just as do most visitors because, after all, there is no crosswalk painted on the pavement.
That’s just like, no one gets put in jail for walking across the street from the parking lot to the Midland Police Department – ever.
The Glossops’ d-i-v-o-r-c-e was – ah, sticky, to say the least. Accusations and innuendos flew – back and forth – and when the final decree was due, the divorcée wanted an extension to a protective order, hard fought, lengthy, complete with hearings, depositions and other legalistic falderol.
With the help of Gunnstaks and Odessa divorce attorney Cynthia Clack, Glossop fought the opposition to a standstill – or a draw – with a take nothing judgment. The Judge denied the extension in his final order concerning the post-divorce lititgation. Nevertheless, Glossop still lives out of town.
But the play-by-play in the dispute is interesting in its entanglements with the bank.
According to a legal memorandum generated by the Gunnstaks Law Firm, Glossop’s ex, Peggy Summers, made a sudden career move to working as a member of the Wells Fargo “investment team,” this “despite having no prior work experience in that field.”
In her previous career, Summers had worked in the family business, Glossop Petroleum, and “It is a fact that following his divorce from his ex-wife Margaret Summers (a/k/a Margaret C. Summers, a/k/a Margaret Catherine Glossop, a/k/a Margaret “Peggy” Summers, a/k/a Peggy Glossop), which was rendered on September 13, 2012, and finally signed by the Court on November 7, 2012, Mr. Glossop learned that unbeknownst to him, she had already been hired by Wells Fargo Advisors…”
The family had “for decades” maintained accounts at the bank, according to Gunnstaks, who cited “Glossop’s knowledge of his ex-wife’s ‘character’ and reputation within the family and within the larger community for dishonesty and acts of moral turpitude…”
Due to Glossop’s “knowledge of her personal history of efforts to access the family fortune to the detriment of Mr. Glossop and his sons,” Gunnstaks wrote, Glossop set out to make his concerns known to the management.
What happened next set the tone of all that would follow.
Glossop was at the time wearing black prescription compression socks to keep blood clots from passing to his heart and lungs. Dressed in a black polo shirt and khaki walking shorts, he appeared at the desk of Anthony “Dale” Austin, who was then holding down a position as Vice President, Community Banking District Manager, Concho-Permian Market, at the bank’s high rise location, 500 W. Texas Avenue, in downtown Midland.
Judging from the tone of the questions an answers during depositions, it was the black compression socks, of knee length, that seems to have set the staff in a tizzy. Then, there were the allegations that Glossop strolled around in the hallowed grounds of the “third floor,” picking up cards from peoples’ desks from the little trays where they were displayed for customers to take one.
Since Austin had neglected to return his calls, Glossop reasoned, he would get some cards and phone numbers, titles and names of secretaries, and get back in action on the phones.
But when it comes to allegations of the audacious action of just snatching and grabbing cards out of the little plastic trays used to offer business cards to the customers, Glossop flatly denies that one. He says a secretary furnished the cards upon request.
Gunnstaks notes that “instead of Mr. Austin acting within the scope of his duties to Mr. Glossop as a diligent custodian of Mr. Glossop’s account and the Glossop Family accounts at his banking institution in response to a customer’s serious and immediate concerns about the confidentiality of his accounts within Mr. Austin’s perceived custody, care and control, after Mr. Glossop had spoken to him without incident and had left the premises, Mr. Austin chose to rquest that a “criminal trespass warning” be issued by the Midland Police department in Midland, Texas, on November 12, 2012, which warned Mr. Glossop to not return to the bank at which his family had banked for decades and which held his own accounts and his family accounts which contained no less than hundreds of thousands of dollars in various accounts, and at times tens of millions of dollars, held under the names of his Mother, his Father’s Estate, his son and himself, on some of which accounts Mr. Glossop retained signatory authority.”
Among the allegations of criminal violations, Gunnstaks includes:
18 USC §1344 – Bank Fraud;
18 USC §1341 – Frauds and swindles;
18 USC §1342 – Fictitious name or address;
V.T.C.A., Texas Penal Code §32.51 – Fraudulent Use or Possession of Indentifying Information; and
V.T.C.A., Texas Penal Code §31.17 – Unauthorized Acquisition of Transfer of Certain Financial Information.
Please note that some of the above statutes provide for fines of ‘not more than $1,000,000.00’ or imprisonment for not more than 30 years, or both.
To say the least, questions and answers about the allegations of mail fraud and fictitious address federal violations became testy, when asked of Dale Austin, who was reportedly transferred to a branch bank in Idaho following his problems at Odessa.
“Q. Are you familiar with 18 USC 1342 Fictitious Address…Although it’s not 30 years or a million dollars, you would still want to know if that was happening at your branch under your watch, wouldn’t you sir?
“A. I would not condone activity that would be in violation of the laws or not in the best interests of our customers…”
In the questions, it developed that the information needed to change the addresses on the personal statements of Glossop’s accounts wasn’t available to the Advisors’ department. Someone in the retail banking department would have to have supplied it.
Asked about violation of the Texas Penal Code, Austin replied:
“A. Yes. As I stated, I would be concerned about any violation of our laws or activity that would not be in the best interest of our customers.
“Q. So are you saying that Ms. Summers is not authorized to even have access to that information?
“A. It’s my understanding that the systems that Wells Fargo advisors use do not have access to our retail account information…”
“Q. Right. And that would be a conspiracy, wouldn’t it, a combination of two or more people to achieve an unlawful object?”
At that point, Max Wright, the attorney representing both Wells Fargo and Dale Austin objected, saying “MR. WRIGHT: Objection. That calls for a legal conclusion.”
Gunnstaks said, “You may answer,” and Austin replied, “Again, I don’t know the specifics of the law, but it sounds like it, yes.”
In the aftermath, Gunnstaks recalls that the score is about even. No funds ever changed hands in the admittedly fraudulent raid on Glossop’s personal banking records. As to the Glossop family’s corporate accounts, the answer to that question is “Unknown.”
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal to the Federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) turned up empty because the bureaucrats on the Potomac concluded that “All of the responsive information is related to the OCC’s examination of the Bank, and is, therefore, exempt from disclosure under the FOIA pursuant to exemptions…” The OCC further denied discretionary disclosure.
Peggy Summers lost her job at Wells Fargo. She’s not employed in the Midland office of Cambridge Investment Research, a Fairfield, Iowa outfit though a FINR “Broker Check” showed she was “terminated” in January, 2016 under the allegation that “Employee viewed a client’s account info without authorization.”
Is there a City Hall conspiracy to violate Glossop’s privacy?
He insists there is.
“This was a group of actors who were coming after us.”
Detective Kay Therwanger testified that during the 23 years she worked crimes against persons prior to November of 2012, she had never heard of any complaints against Robbie Glossop made by his former wife Peggy Glossop
Records of those complaints had been subpoenaed for her appearance as a witness. Attorney Cynthia Clack asked her:
“Q. You’ve brought a whole bunch of records with you today in your hands. Are these all the records that you’ve accumulated since November 2012?
“A. Yes, it is…
“Q. Okay. So – and I just want to make sure I understand. The reason you first became aware of Peggy Glossop Summers was because of some voice mail messages that Robert Glossop, Jr., had left with – for Dale Austin (Vice President of Wells Fargo, Midland) to call him.
“A. That is correct.”
The gist of what was established by that line of questions had come earlier. The detective admitted she had never met Amy Bracken previous to that day, that her husband Steven Bracken was employed at the Midland Police Department up until a few weeks prior to that date, and that she had “no idea” why he left the department.
Amy Bracken worked with Peggy Summers at Wells Fargo.
According to Glossop, “It all scared mother so badly, she signed over the mineral rights to 2,000 acres of oil and gas property for twenty cents on the dollar – approximately $38 million.
What is so scary about a bank’s admitted fraudulent practices?
– TO BE CONTINUED –