Chapter 11 - like restructuring and assets sold to a new company led by Peter and outside investor. Employees offered roles. Franklin lost ownership after creditor settlement. This can happen.
Mercer Freight name disappeared.
New company:
Harding Logistics Cooperative.
Peter and employee investors.
No Franklin.
I declined ownership.
Then truck.
The Ford Ranger Franklin had charged me for?
Business asset sold.
I let it go.
Bought a used Honda with my own money.
Paid cash.
$12,000.
Nothing impressive.
Mine.
Then education.
I enrolled at Ivy Tech for spring semester.
Automotive systems.
Accounting elective.
Martin laughed.
“Accounting?”
“I’m never signing something I don’t understand.”
“Excellent motivation.”
Then Franklin’s criminal case.
Grand jury charges? We can say prosecutors filed formal charges:
Battery causing injury.
Interfering with medical care.
Forgery.
Identity deception.
Attempted bank fraud.
Criminal exploitation related to trust/property.
Payroll theft counts possibly.
He pleaded not guilty.
Trial scheduled.
I would testify.
Dana too.
Caleb.
Vanessa.
Martin.
Carla.
Officer Ruiz.
Then Franklin’s lawyer offered another narrative.
He claimed my father’s trust had made me “entitled and unmanageable.”
That phrase reached me through filing.
I laughed.
He had called me parasite when he thought I was broke.
Now entitled because I was not.
There was no version of me that satisfied him unless obedient.
Then one more discovery before trial.
The $43,100 fake family debt spreadsheet was not just planning.
Franklin had already entered it into Mercer Walker Logistics books as:
MEMBER CONTRIBUTION RECEIVABLE: ETHAN WALKER.
He had turned imaginary household debt into company accounting.
If refinance closed, my supposed $43,100 debt would reduce my equity credit.
I would contribute over a million dollars of property and still begin owing him money.
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That was the heart of Franklin’s system.
Whatever I gave became proof I owed more.
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