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After an eight-year battle with Whitefish Credit Union (WCU) and its attorneys to recover property he claims was stolen from his company, landowner Dennis Thornton received a long-awaited victory Tuesday when District Court Judge Dan Wilson granted his request for discovery and authorized the issuance of subpoenas in the highly publicized case.
Wilson’s decision was particularly noteworthy given the contentious history of the case and this publication’s previous criticism of the court’s handling of Thornton’s claims. Thornton, acting as a pro se litigant, has spent years seeking access to records and testimony he argues are essential to proving his case.
At the heart of the dispute is a simple question: if Thornton owes more than $4 million as reflected in court records, exactly how much is owed and where should the funds be sent to satisfy the debt? Thornton says he has been asking that question for eight years without receiving a clear answer.
You can learn all you need to know regarding the ongoing Thornton\WCU land dispute by visiting the Save Our Credit Union page on Northwest Liberty News by clicking here.
The challenge facing WCU and its attorneys is the apparent lack of documentation supporting their claim of ownership or their entitlement to repayment of the alleged debt. In a parallel bankruptcy proceeding involving the same parties, WCU was ordered to produce the loan file. According to court records, the file they produced contained no entries after 2014, despite legal actions against Thornton beginning in 2018.
The absence of records covering that period has become a central issue in the dispute, raising questions about what documentation exists to support WCU’s claims.
To further illustrate the conundrum facing WCU and its attorneys, WCU’s attorneys swore under oath in the bankruptcy case that no other records of any kind existed in WCU’s possession. If they now produce post-2014 records, they will confront an unavoidable problem: either the records did not exist when they testified under oath, or the testimony was false.
A knowingly false statement made under oath is called perjury.
Investigative reporter Casey Whalen of North Idaho Exposed was once again in the courtroom, camera rolling, to capture every moment of the proceeding. Whalen’s video clip of the hearing can be viewed below.
Northwest Liberty News will continue following this case wherever the facts lead and will report on future developments as they occur.
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