Harrisburg, VA – September 3, 2021 – This is exactly why I always declined to accept private party repossessions. The ex-wife of former Virginia District Republican Congressman Tom Garrett has filed a lawsuit against him and a city towing company over a pair of run ins with a repossession company. Flanna Sheridan, Garret’s ex, is accusing one of JL Towing and Recovery’s employees of false imprisonment, emotional distress, trespassing and civil assault, according to Rockingham County Circuit Court documents. Sheridan is seeking for $450,000 for two unrelated incidents involving the agent.
According to court documents, Sheridan alleges harm from two instances, one in 2019 and another in 2020, that involved JL Towing and Recovery Corp. employee Charles Robert Joseph Jr. The towing company has denied any wrongdoing by itself or Joseph.
Let’s get back to Congressman Tom Garrett. Garrett was elected twice, in 2011 and 2015, to the General Assembly as a Senator for the 22nd District. In 2018 Garrett declined to run for reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives with the intention of seeking treatment for his alcoholism. According to the New York Times, Garret and Sheridan had been accused of forcing his Congressional staffers to do duties outside of their positions like picking up groceries, dry cleaning and scooping up dog piles. Garret’s decision to seek rehab came after these allegations went public.
Sheridan left Garrett taking their 18-month-old daughter and moving to her mother’s house in Keezletown when the first incident allegedly occurred in April of 2019. Garrett and Sheridan are still married but separated.
The lawsuit alleges that was Sheridan was using a 2005 Honda CRV minivan that was titled to Garrett and it was her only and primary means of transportation. Sheridan claims that Joseph or JL Towing were hired by Garrett to repossess the vehicle during the day of July 23, 2019, with instructions to do so in the daytime and not night so as to cause a confrontation. Yes, assuming the source of this is correct, it said he wanted confrontation. That’s red flag number one.
Documents allege that Joseph backed his wrecker into driveway after Sheridan had buckled her daughter into the van and was backing up. Sheridan then reportedly exited the vehicle out of fear the tow truck would crash into the minivan. Sheridan then claims that she jumped back in out of fear that Joseph would kidnap her and her daughter, according to court documents. Reportedly, at this time, Joseph stopped his truck.
Allegedly, a driveway joust of vehicles took place until Sheridan managed to get out of the driveway, blaring her horn repeatedly hoping to attract help from neighbors and opening the automatic side door revealing her screaming 18-month-old daughter while franticly dialing 911.
Sheridan’s lawsuit alleges that Joseph then approached the minivan without identifying himself and waved a document at her too fast to read and demanded that she exit the vehicle. She then claims that she demanded that he leave, but he didn’t. Joseph then allegedly waited five minutes before reapproaching her with the document which she claims she still did not have time to read.
Deputies soon arrived and Sheridan claims that she was finally able to read the documents. Sheridan took her child and their belongings from the vehicle and Joseph repossessed the minivan. Sheridan’s complaint called Joseph’s conduct “outrageous and intolerable.”
Apparently unrelated and unassigned by Garrett, a second encounter occurred at the Sharp Shopper in Harrisonburg on Sept. 4, 2020.
Sheridan claims that she had left the store after shopping and found Joseph examining a Subaru Forester that was loaned to her by one of her mother’s friends. Sheridan then concluded that Joseph was stalking her and called the police.
Jamie Lam, owner of JL Towing and Recovery said that he can understand to some extent why Sheridan feels the way she does, but also that Joseph was just doing his job both times and never did anything to threaten, intimidate or harm Sheridan. “I think that whole thing has been blown out of proportion,”
Lam reports that Garrett approached them to repossess the minivan in 2019 and that was it. The 2020 incident was a simple coincidence in which Joseph just happened to be searching for the same type of vehicle Sheridan was driving and was not stalking her.
“I wish we’d never taken on the repossession, but we didn’t know any of this at the time,” Lam said of the situation between Garrett and Sheridan. “If we had any inclination there was a nasty divorce going on, we wouldn’t be involved,”
Lam is seeking legal counsel and claims to have video of the first repossession of the minivan to dispute the allegations.
Quite a mess. This again serves as a cautionary tale against accepting private party repossessions. They can get really messy. Best of wishes to JL Towing and Recovery, we hope they come through all of this with little or no damage.
Source: DNROnline
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