This page is the private journal of Tim Hutchinson
My daughter, Brittany began dating Steven Anderson, director of youth services @ Calvary Church in 2020. Within a few months Brittany came to me and said she was breaking up with him. The reason is because she felt as though she couldn’t be herself around him – almost like he was too controlling. She later said that she had another meeting with him, during which time he “shared his heart” with her. Because of that she decided to again date him.
Shortly thereafter Steven approached myself to help support his ministry – which is his full-time job. He says the church cannot afford to pay him a salary, so he fundraises as a substitute. Since then, my wife and I supported his endeavor financially. Along the way I have even worked with him to improve his presentation to find others who would be supportive.
Within months Steven approached me and asked what it would take to have my blessing for him to marry my daughter. One of the things I mentioned was spending more time with our family – we barely knew him. Afterwards he made an effort to be at our house almost on a weekly basis, and things seemed to be going well.
One day he called to ask if we could hang out sometime. I said yes and we picked a date and time. When that time came, he arrived at our house and we talked for quite a while. I sensed he had something he wanted to say or possibly ask me – maybe even permission to marry Brittany. Finally, after 3 hours I asked him “Is there something you wanted to ask me?” He then asked for my blessing on marrying my daughter, I said there were three things he needed to promise me. He agreed and I gave him the blessing. My wife and I even helped with a temporary ring until he could buy one.
Promise #1: Brittany was involved in an accident and we sued on her behalf. She is getting a structured settlement. My wife and I gave up our right to sue for our pain & suffering in exchange for Brittany to receive a larger settlement. Because of that, she ended up with a settlement 4 times larger than she normally would have. I told Steven to not expect Brittany to use the settlement money for typical household needs – that money was given to her so she could do something special (bucket list!) I said he should respect and encourage that. Though she has the right to do as she wishes with this money, let’s remember we gave it to her to do something special with – anything other than that is not aligned with our original intentions. (Brittany later said she had turned control of this money over to Steven by including it in their budget. Then another time said she hadn’t. She seemed confused.)
Promise #2: He would never do anything to interfere in my relationship with Brittany. (As you’ll find out later, this promise was broken many times!)
Promise #3: He would not be cheap with her. Frugal is OK, cheap is not. We discussed the difference with examples.
First Signs of Trouble
I learned that Brittany and Steven went to pre-marital counseling. During that time they took some tests which showed they were compatible. Things seemed OK. But shortly after they were engaged, things changed. He rarely came to the house and almost never made an effort to be a part of our lives. My son shared with me that one time, before their engagement, at a family bonfire he had tried to start a conversation with him, but Steven only said “whatever”, and brushed past him. My son said that Steven acted rudely towards him the rest of the evening. This was literally the first time those two had been formally introduced. I had several friends there as well who both tried to start a conversation with Steven, and they said he was very unfriendly, almost to the point of being rude.
One day Brittany was speaking to her mom and I about the guest list. It sounded as if Steven had already invited so many people there was barely any room for our side of the family. At least that was the impression I got from that conversation. At one point I heard the number of guests was already at 276. And that was before I was able to invite anyone from my family or friends. (I ended up being able to invite only 3 family members and no friends.) Brittany seemed stressed by this process, so I called Steven and asked the question: “How does the guest list honor the mother and father of the bride?” His reply was all about his family and never directly answered my question. When I brought this to his attention, he stated he would need some time to think about the answer and would let me know.
This to me really was the beginning of where I noticed things going downhill. Tensions began to run high and he avoided talking to me. I also noticed changes in my daughter – she seemed unusually stressed and was smiling less than normal.
One time at the breakfast table she said that she was expected to take on a new attitude and way of thinking. When I asked her what she meant, she got up from the table and walked away, saying she had somewhere to go. Brittany and I have always enjoyed a very close relationship and could talk about literally anything. Her response to me was completely out of the ordinary.
I asked for an answer about the guest list a 2nd time, but he did not have an answer. Then, within days they came up the “Rules of Engagement” which they presented to my wife and I at a meeting. In one section it says; “Our desire in those disagreements is to maintain, and even deepen our relationships with out stakeholders, in particular our parents.” As you read this blog it will become clearly obvious this is not the truth.
The question about the guest list ended up being asked 3 times. I never received an answer.
During one of my (few) phone conversations with Steven, I offered some friendly advice from future father-in-law to future son-in-law, the same as my father-in-law did 30-years ago. He became agitated and said things such as, “I don’t need to listen to you”, and “I’m going to tell Brittany what you’re doing”, and “I don’t need this advice”. Due to his rude behavior I ended the call.
Another time I called just to ask if he wanted to get together and hang-out. He replied “No”, then said he had to go and hung up.
Fast-forward 30-days. During that time, Steven has made no efforts to be a part of our family or join any activities. Since I gave my blessing for him to marry our daughter, it’s like a switch was flipped and he became cold towards us. He has spoken rudely to myself, guests at our house and has acted this ways towards my other children. It seems as though he was only being nice to obtain my blessing, then his real personality came out. Had I known any of this I would have never said yes to him marrying our daughter.
I have tried 7 times to make peace and preserve a relationship with my daughter. Each time has been met with either stonewalling (ignoring) and/or false accusations on the part of Steven. This period of time has been and continues to be emotionally traumatizing for myself. The ripple effect for my family has been noticeable. The pain and suffering have taken their toll. I’ve gone from being a normally peaceful loving person who has done a tremendous amount of volunteer work (hospice and preventing teen suicides @ schools), to becoming withdrawn and even crying at times.
Dad Tries to Make Peace 7 Times
(ATTEMPT #1) Before being presented with rules of engagement, (which I did not know they were going to do), in an effort to make peace, I offered an apology for any of my wrongdoings. I truly did not feel as though I had actually done anything wrong, but rather have always put my family first, and am willing to swallow my pride and apologize, even when not necessary or when I feel as though I’ve not done anything wrong, in order for my family to be happy. I grew up in unfortunate situations, devoid of any love. I lived that way for many years until I met an amazing lady. We married and extended our love into having children, whom I love and cherish more than life itself. I have always put my family first. Always. I challenge anyone to tell of a time when I have not done this 100%.
Steven never clearly accepted the apology, and never showed any appreciation or gratitude. Basically, he ignored it and stonewalled me.
The “Rules of Engagement” seemed to contradict each other. When I emailed to ask for clarification Steven’s response did not clearly answer my question. In that email he referenced “triangulating” without realizing that I studied psychology and know that word infers manipulation. I wasn’t sure if he was attempting to insult my intelligence, insinuate I was being manipulative, or he really doesn’t understand what the word triangulation means when used in the realm of psychology.
My email response was short and a bit pointed; however, by now I am agitated the guest list question had not been answered and it seems all efforts to resolve things have been met with him stonewalling me, ignoring us and being rude.
(ATTEMPT #2) Phone call; shortly afterwards I called Steven and told him that I do not hate him nor am I trying to stop the wedding. I have a good relationship with my other daughters’ boyfriends and hoped to have the same with him. His only response was; “thank you for sharing that” in a monotone voice. There was no appreciation or gratitude – no saying anything like, wow I’m hoping for that too. Nothing. Just another stonewall.
Later I was talking with Brittany and my frustration boiled over, and I raised my voice about how Steven would not answer this seemly simple question and has made no effort to be a part of our family. I was also terribly upset that Brittany is showing signs of stress and I haven’t seen her smile in days. I am very concerned and even heartbroken that she should have to go through this during a time when she should be celebrating. My being agitated certainly did not help matters and I felt truly awful afterwards.
A few hours later she came to me and we discussed the guest list. I accepted her explanation, apologized for raising my voice, and asked that we move forward.
The following day I went to her and asked if we could do a reset, one where we could together enjoy the journey of her getting married. She agreed and we spent some enjoyable time together.
(ATTEMPT # 3) I knew there was still some healing that needed to take place between Steven and I. Though previous attempts had been met with no response, I decided to try again. I suggested mediation to Brittany and she said she would talk to Steven about it.
(ATTEMPT #4) I saw increased sadness and pain in my daughter’s eyes and felt incredibly horrible for her. So, I told Brittany and her mom that I would speak with Steven and offer to let bygones be bygones and to set simple expectations of how we communicate. He refused to meet and asked for mediation, which I had previously suggested. I asked if he was sure he wanted to do that and said we could work things out. He said no, that our next talk should be mediated. I suggested he take a screenshot of that comment as a reminder that he asked for this – meaning that mediation would include going over past hurt and painful events.
Mediation was set for Saturday, Feb. 20th. Steven insisted we not talk about the past and only focus on how my wife and I were to speak to him and Brittany. I insisted we bring everything out in the open and resolve matters. For that reason, (according to Brittany), Steven canceled mediation.
(ATTEMPT #5) Brittany does Stevens laundry at our house, which I honestly don’t mind. He makes it clear that he is concerned about Covid, so when I discovered some information about that virus and fabric, I wanted to share this with him. Soon afterwards as Brittany was leaving the house, she said Stevens laundry was in the dryer and asked that once done I place it outside the front door for him to pick up. I figured this was out of concern for Covid, so decided to write him the following letter, and placed in in the laundry basket along with his clean clothes.
Hi Steven,
I did some research and was surprised to learn the Covid virus can live for up to 48-hours on our clothing. I can understand your concern over this virus, so much so that Brittany asked me to leave your clothes outside the front door for you to pick up. I can fully appreciate that. When one considers how long the virus can live on clothing, and the fact they are inside our house – a place you’re concerned about being exposed to, perhaps it would be a safer option for you to wash your own clothes at home. Something to think about.
Would have been nice to see you today – it’s been a while. We could have safely visited for a few minutes, especially since I tested Negative just yesterday for Covid. But, we can’t be too careful! Well, perhaps another time.
Hope you have a wonderful day.
Mr. Hutchinson
He has never said anything about this letter. Nothing. No thank you for your concern, maybe we can meet up another time, etc.
When he came to pick up the laundry, he stopped and read the letter while standing at the front door to our house. He then carried the laundry basket back to his car, put it into the back seat, slammed the car door, and stood there glaring at our house. Then then get into the car and backed out of the driveway. From there he ran a stop sign and sped away at a high rate of speed.
Then just two days later I came home from work to discover he was hanging out at our house with Brittany, for an extended period. (He can’t come inside to pick up the laundry, or even ring the doorbell, yet two days later he can spend hours inside our home?)
The following day his laundry was again being done at our house – all without any acknowledgment of the letter. Nothing. Crickets. This to me was yet another stonewall, and quite honestly, seemed very disrespectful.
Several hours later my wife came home and I was admittedly fuming about this and even a bit emotionally charged. After all, he had a history of being rude to my family and myself. I spoke loudly about how upset I was. Brittany was in her bedroom and overheard what I said. This upset her so she went to stay at a friend’s place for a few days.
Brittany later cancelled a lunch date we had set for that week. This is the first time in her life she has ever cancelled anything with me because of how she felt. We’ve always had an amazing, open, honest and loving father-daughter relationship. Since the engagement I’ve seen that erode away, and I am honestly extremely hurt by this.
I texted Steven to let him know that he was not welcome in our home and could not do laundry there until mediation. [I later discovered that Brittany had requested his laundry be put outside due to her concern there might be a conflict between he and I, and not because of Covid. But it is still concerning that he never made any comment about the letter nor showed any appreciation.]
To make things a bit worse on my end is the fact that cancer runs strong in my family; my grandmother, mom and 2 older brothers all died from it. I am now the eldest living male – my brothers died at an age younger than I currently am. Recently I’ve been experiencing some very familiar and concerning symptoms and my bloodwork is not normal. I have several upcoming tests to verify what I already believe to be true. To avoid undue stress on my family I’ve not shared this information, until now.
Comment: When Steven learned of this in an email, he never reached out to offer prayer or show any type of concern. Considering that he is a youth pastor, is this really Christian behavior?
Seeing what my daughter is going through is horrible and adds to my desire to fix things so she can be happy. We had mediation scheduled but Steven cancelled it. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about previous events, and only wants to focus on how my wife and I should be talking to him and Brittany. [Seems a bit controlling!]
To date Steven has not suggested even one single thing to help get our relationship back on-track. Thus far I’ve come up with 100% of the idea’s and have offered 100% of the apologies, and have made 100% of the efforts, even though he cannot name one thing that I’ve done to offend him. Not one. I’ve been offering blanket apologies just to have a relationship with my daughter.
Apparently he doesn’t want that? Why??
The day after I was upset about him not responding to the letter, Brittany told her mom that she and Steven were in the process of renting an apartment and would be moving out soon. The plan is for her to live in that apt. with another roommate until after the wedding. This, to me, just seems like another wedge is being unfairly driven between my daughter and myself.
Why did Steven not try to make peace during this time? To me it seems as though he used this as an opportunity to further move Brittany away from our family (both physically and emotionally).
Within a few days Brittany moved out of our house. Supposedly because she is now suddenly afraid of me, because I raised my voice, twice. What’s interesting is very day she moved out, she returned that evening to retrieve something she had left behind. When she saw me, she gave me a hug and said “I love you so much.” I told her it was weird seeing her move and that this was this first time she’s ever moved that I didn’t help. She replied that was true and yes this all seems weird.
Attempt 6: I sent everything listed above in an email to Steven, Brittany and my wife as an attachment, with this in the body of the email on February 20th:
Hello Steven,
Attached is a letter I wrote explaining my perception of how things have been going, my recollection of the events, and where it potentially went off-track. My intention is to reconcile broken relationships. You will notice the letter is addressed to the elders @ Calvary Church. The reason for this is because if we cannot work things out between us, then I will approach church leaders and ask them to intervene.
I have no set preference as to whether we involve a mediator or not. This conversation will be about setting the record straight and moving forward. Any talks about how to communicate, etc. can come after.
I will wait ten (10) days for a meeting. After that time (March 2nd) this letter will be sent to the leadership of Calvary Church.
Sincerely,
Tim Hutchinson
To date I have made 6 attempts at reconciliation – the number of attempts I’ve seen Steven make is exactly zero. My question is how is this acceptable among Christians? Especially with him being a youth pastor. Are they not held to a higher standard as the bible mandates? Aren’t we all supposed to follow Matthew 18:22? Jesus says we should forgive each other “seventy times seven times” a number that symbolizes boundlessness. That clearly is not happening.
I will also add that the past few months for Brittany has been difficult, and is showing signs this has negatively impacted her mental and emotional state, as well as her physical health. This should be obvious to Steven. Turning this around could have been accomplished by accepting one of my numerous attempts to move our relationship in a better direction, or offered an alternative. Why he did not do any of these. Where is the compassion we should have for one another?
Attempt 7: I emailed the above letter to Brittany, Steven and my wife on February 20th. Later that day, feeling so overwhelmed at the diminished relationship with my daughter, I then sent the following email, striving for peace, and once again apologizing for things I haven’t done;
This email is an open apology to my daughter, Brittany. I have failed you. Not just a little, but a lot. During the past weeks I have been so focused on being right, about winning a disagreement, that I lost sight of something far more important; our relationship and your happiness. I have always put you first in my life, and now just months before your wedding I have fallen far short of what I should have been doing. You have every reason to be mad at me, hurt, disappointed and feeling less than loved by me. For that I apologize – profusely. I love you more than life itself and literally live in daily agony over the state of our current relationship. In response I’ll say this:
I resign.
Completely and fully resign.
Not from being your dad of course, but rather from the disagreement that caused this. The [previous] letter I emailed states my position and stands as the truth as I know it. But that’s as far as it goes. I’m done with any disagreement with Steven. My time and energy is now going to be focused on you, Brittany. To work hard restoring our precious relationship and ensuring this never happens again. Ever. And, to help celebrate the upcoming wedding and make these months before the wedding as enjoyable as possible.
With that in mind, I am inviting Steven to neutral ground. A place where we speak and act kindly and respectfully to each other. A place where you are fully welcomed at our house to visit, hang out, do laundry, grab a snack from the kitchen, mi casa es tu casa.
I don’t want battles anymore – I just want to love my family and others with all my heart. To fully enjoy what time I have left on this planet. The past few weeks/months somehow turned ugly and I don’t want that – never did. I ended up feeling ugly inside and that’s not who I am. At all. I repent for my misdeeds and missteps.
Peace,
Tim/Dad
Comment: Even though I felt as though I had done nothing wrong and was apologizing for things Steven did and the stress he caused, I just want a happy relationship with my daughter again.
My wife replied:
Tim,
I want you to know those words really touched my heart. They were absolutely beautiful and honest. I appreciate you putting Britt first and your highest priority. Im proud of you and very hopeful we can begin celebrating this engagement and wedding! This makes me very happy. I love you all so much.
With Love,
Jen
Our daughter replied;
Dad,
Steven and I read your emails. We have found ourselves in the same position that we have felt trapped into for the past few weeks, unsure how to respond. We have set clear boundaries, laid out in our Rules of Engagement, and those have been violated repeatedly. The way Steven and I have been treated by you has been inappropriate and out of line. The last email we received was an apology directed towards me, and while I appreciate that I feel as if it dismissed core issues. This puts us into a difficult position of being perceived as the ones continuing conflict if we don’t accept a “blank slate.”
As Steven and I prepare to start our new life together, we are concerned that these patterns of behavior will continue. We believe that there are significant changes that need to occur in order to move forward in a healthy manner. We desire growing towards healthier relationships with you. Conversations with you have not lead to that thus far, so we believe a mediated conversation is the appropriate next step.
We are confirming with our mediator, but does Saturday at 10 am work for you and mom? It’s important that all 4 of us will be there.
Thanks,
Britt
Comment: I violated the rules of engagement?? Um, no…I asked a simple question of Steven, which he never answered.
Concerned about “patterns” – what patterns? I’ve been apologizing for things I never did!!!
“Significant changes”? Should I then become an uncaring, unloving father? That’s ridiculous and clearly not my daughters voice. That has ‘Steven’ written all over.
“Conversations with you have not lead to that thus far…” What conversations??? I am literally the ONLY person trying to move things forward in a healthy way. This is a problem between Steven and I, and he has not done ANYTHING. Period.
Before meeting Steven, my daughter would never have written an email reply such as this. Never. Clearly he is manipulating her.
My reply;
Yes, mom and I can be available at that time.
I am willing to attend based upon three conditions;
1) This is about moving forward, not digging up the past. There were clearly missteps on the part of several of us, not just myself. Going over those details will serve no useful purpose other than igniting hurt feelings.
2) The meeting will be focused on ways to communicate in both directions; engaged couple to the parents, and vice-versa.
3) No expectations will be made that violate our First Amendment rights. While I agree there are acceptable ways to communicate, anything that prevents one of us from speaking at all to another person is something I won’t consider. This is America – brave heroic people fought for our rights, and that should be respected.
Steven replied;
Hi all,
I agree with everything Britt said. As for your response, Mr. Hutchinson, I don’t believe we can comply with them all of them the way you have requested.
- There are things that have been done and said over the last two weeks that cannot be ignored, and it is not enough to ask for a “blank slate” and move forward. Some of this will be discussed in our conversation.
- We agree that communication moving forward should be an element of this conversation.
- We don’t believe it’s helpful for us to set expectations for the communication plan moving forward before our conversation.
I have to admit, these last few weeks have been incredibly challenging and emotionally draining for Britt and I as we have interacted with you and we desire to move forward in a healthier direction and would appreciate your willingness to enter into that being willing to lay anything down in order to make that happen. You have emphasized how important your relationship with Britt is, and if that is really true, we believe that you will listen to what Britt and I have to say about how we can all move forward in a healthy way, even if that means that interaction with one or both of us moves forward differently than your personal preference.
Comment: “Things have been done and said that cannot be ignored”. Such as?? To date neither of them can name even one single thing. Not one!
“…these past few weeks have been incredible challenging and emotionally draining for Brittany and I as we have interacted with you…” Here again, name one thing, just ONE that I’ve done, other than ask a question, raise my voice (to Brittany once, and to my wife once), apologize for things I never did, and strive for peace. Name one. They literally cannot.
Notice how Steven interjected himself into the equation with his comment? Other than a few emails and a letter trying to make peace, I’ve had ZERO interaction with Steven in the previous few weeks. None. But he’s trying to pretend to be a victim here.
“We desire to move forward in a healthier direction…” How are we going to move forward if Steven puts zero effort into anything and my daughter will not even speak to me??
”….being willing to lay down everything in order to make that happen.” Umm… I have done EXACTLY that, and Steven has done NOTHING.
It seems to me that Steven is manipulating our daughter. Clearly, I am the one trying to make peace and Steven is avoiding that. The question is why?
My reply;
Steven,
Mrs. Hutchinson and I have also been directly/indirectly impacted in a negative way by some of your words & actions. We will also be presenting a list of expectations on how we will be communicated with. We look forward to the meeting. See you then.
Mr. Hutchinson
The second attempt @ mediation was scheduled for Saturday, 2/27/2021 @ 10 AM. The previous weeks mediation was cancelled by Steven (through Brittany) because he did not want to discuss previous events. As you can see in the above emails, this time I agreed to no previous events be discussed, but now suddenly Steven wants them. That’s a 180-degree turn-around.
Days later they cancelled mediation, again, without reason. What is being hidden? Why can we not come together as Christians and discuss things in an open and honest way? Something is very, very wrong here. Steven has somehow convinced my daughter that I have done things that are wrong, without any evidence or proof whatsoever. In fact, it has been Steven who is the one causing problems. Again, how is this Christian behavior? And from a pastor??
In my last phone call with her she said that she shows Steven all the text messages and emails from me and tells him everything we talk about on the phone, because that’s how Steven says the 2 shall become 1.
She also said that she hoped in the future we could go to counseling and figure out how to have a relationship again.
She then whispered, “Dad, I love, love, love, love, love you a lot!”
Since then, my daughter has completely broken off communication with me. No calls, no texts, no visits, nothing. Other than a brief text reply where I invited her to her mom’s birthday party she will not respond to any attempts at contacting her. (She would not come to the party – this is the first time she’s ever missed something like this.) I am concerned about both her mental and physical health. She and I have always had an amazing father-daughter relationship – almost like 2 peas in pod – and now, only weeks after becoming engaged she will not even speak to me, says we need counseling, and I am being repeatedly accused of doing things which they will not specify, speak about, or go to mediation to resolve. Seems this gives Steven plenty of opportunities to make more false accusations about me without my ever having a chance to defend myself. More and deeper wedges being driven between my daughter and I. This, to me, literally sounds like the actions of a narcissist. In what other way can anyone explain how in my daughters eyes I go from being a father she loves and adores, to being treated almost like a monster in only 30-days??
I sent Steven one final email which stated: “No conflict is over until a solution or a side concedes. This is the calm before the storm. I will always fight for my love. I am relentless.”
This was to serve as a reminder that even though he would not discuss the things mentioned above and is now refusing to have any conversation with my wife and I to bring a resolution, there is still a conflict between us. The upcoming “storm” is when I release the truth (this document) about his actions. It is also a reminder that I will never give up on our daughter.
Steven twisted the truth (again) and told Brittany that I was threatening him. The wedge grew deeper due to this lie.
I redacted the names of people and the church, then sent this file over to several mental health professionals, via a trusted 3rd party (to further protect all of our identities.) Their responses were similar: This is clearly a troubling situation and Steven has acted inappropriately. Every one of their responses has encouraged me to continue making this truth known and to never give up on my daughter.
On March 1st, 2021 I emailed Senior Pastor of Calvary Church (the church Steven and Brittany are involved in), asking for his help in bringing a resolution.
Dear Brother in Christ;
I come to you today seeking help with a troubling situation. My daughter is engaged to your youth pastor, Steven Anderson. He has been, in my opinion, acting very inappropriately and has refused to work towards a resolution. Instead, he has chosen to ruin an otherwise healthy father-daughter relationship, and cause strife in an otherwise loving family. I am a 60-year-old Christian man who has been with his wife for 32 years, lives in White Bear Township and together we have raised 4 beautiful children.
Attached you will find the facts laid out as openly and honestly as I can possibly state them. I ask that you review these and prayerfully consider helping bring resolution to this matter. I would prefer to handle this quietly through the church, rather than publicly and/or through any legal proceedings.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach me at anytime on my cell phone, [redacted] or by emailing [redacted].
I pray for help during these difficult days.
Kind regards,
Timothy Hutchinson
The Senior Pastor did not respond (and never has), so 5-days later I emailed the same to Pastor Peter Morgan. He also did not respond. I then printed all of the above, placed into an envelope addressed to the Senior Pastor, marked it “Confidential”, then hand delivered to the church. I never received a response from that either.
I later heard the senior pastor shared this with the entire admin staff. I had asked in the letter for this to not be made public. I also marked the package confidential, and would not leave it @ the front door to the church – I specifically asked someone to come to the door so I could hand it directly to a person and further explain this was confidential. I literally felt violated by their handling of this information.
In the original document it contained a sentence about the effects this was having on Brittany’s health. She asked that I remove that sentence, which I did. What I was not aware of was the cloud service I use (OneDrive) made a separate file with those changes. The file I printed for the pastor was the original and contained the sentence she asked for me to remove. I apologized for this oversight, and have since deleted that original file. Again, this was not supposed to be seen by anyone other than the Senior Pastor. I’ll also point out that to this very day I’ve kept details of what’s been happening under tight wraps and close scrutiny. As much as I’d like to expose Steven and his terrible (narcissistic) actions, I also do not want to embarrass my daughter.
I prepared an email with an ultimatum of either resolving this matter or I would take certain steps, including; removing my blessing from the engagement, file a lawsuit against Steven seeking damages of more than $50k, go public with the facts surrounding this matter to all family & friends (including spending more than $1k on advertising on social media), have my attorney seek an injunction against his fundraising efforts through Reliant (who he is paid through), and numerous other steps, all of which together would create the epic storm I spoke of.
Before sending this ultimatum I called Steven and left a voicemail inviting him over for a bonfire and cheesesteak sandwiches. My message said that we could talk about what each other would need for peace. I stated that if we want peace, prepare for war (it’s a Latin saying, and I was referring to the upcoming ultimatum), but I much prefer peace. My intentions were pure and honest. He replied by text stating he felt like I was making him an adversary and asked if I was going to be violent with him. I replied that he was again twisting things out of context, and it seems as though he does not want things settled.
I later heard he claims to be so afraid of me that he has someone walk him to his car and is always looking over his shoulder in fear that I might attack him. This is absolutely ridiculous. I have never threatened him. Ever. I think he’s using this as drama to show my daughter that once again he’s somehow a victim and the bad person is her dad (me).
What he doesn’t know is that I’ve had several people offer to “fix things” or “make him see things differently” which I believe implied the use of physical force. I declined those offers. I’m not a violent person, and besides, if anything happened to him I am likely the first person they would suspect was responsible.
What he also does not know is that I pray for him. I don’t know what event(s) in his life causes him to behave in this erratic, hateful, narcissistic manner, but I truly feel sorry for him and pray for the healing of his mind.
The Revelation
On 3/18/21 I had a near meltdown while taking a shower. I had been thinking about a text I sent to Brittany which simply said, “I love you. Always.”. She never responded to that text. Had our relationship gotten so bad that she literally could not say ‘I love you’ back to her father? After stumbling out of the shower, I sat on the steps at the front door to our house unable to move – I felt like I was falling off an edge. In that moment, in my lowest time of brokenness I was tempted by Satan to do unholy things as a means of resolution. I prayed and was finally able to drive to work. In those moments I realized how truly broken I was. My next decision was crucial – but it to be made. I then sent an email with the subject line,
“I had to decide…“
Here is what the email said;
My daughter,
Saying you love someone and not hearing that back is hurtful. We’re supposed to be a family – together through thick and thin. But right now it feels like we don’t have any relationship at all – and it feels like you are pushing me further and farther away. That saddens me at a level far too deep to describe. I’m basically in the dark with no end in sight. Any time I try to make peace I’m being made to look like a monster. Everything I do is viewed as wrong. Everything I say is being twisted into something else. My voice is not being heard.
Truthful communication = zero.
I literally cannot stand the pain anymore, and only see 2 options; fight or walk away. Though fully prepared to bring forth an epic storm, I only see more pain coming from that. I want what I’ve always wanted: peace. So my choice is to walk away. I suppose someone will find fault in that too – but at least I chose the path of peace.
We said we would pay for your phone and car insurance until the end of this year, and we will honor that. We said we would give you [money] for the wedding, and we will also honor that, (Mom will give you a check for that amount next time she sees you.)
But for now I am simply walking away.
Dad
Later that day Brittany sent me an email about contacting her counselor. She said I could talk with her alone (via video chat), then at a later time the 3 of us would be in a video chat together. I sent her counselor an email the following day (3/19/2021) and am awaiting a response.
3/24/2021 My Breaking Point
On, or about Monday, 3/22/2021 I had a counseling session with Mary Sanders (Brittany’s therapist). It was approx. one-hour long and was just Ms. Sanders and myself, via video chat. She wanted to know how I was dealing with the relationship tension between Brittany and I. During that hour I shared with her how heartbroken I was and how I blamed this on Steven’s manipulation.
That night I wrote the following letter and had my wife send it to Steven and Brittany (she was now going to have them send communications through her as it was obvious this was being stressful for me:
Steven,
You won. You’ve successfully stripped my daughter out of my life, and in the process hurt me at a level I’ve not been hurt before. But understand one thing; I could have stopped you by releasing the ‘Epic Storm’ I designed and planned. But I did not. Why? Because Christ commands us to show compassion, to turn the other cheek, and to pray for others. So instead of choosing the path of destruction, I held off and allowed myself, out of compassion, to absorb the pain. During this time I’ve actually been praying for you. That’s real compassion. That’s what Christ teaches us.
You’ve taken everything from me you possibly can. You no longer have any power over me – I now have the power. You’ve repeatedly accused me of threatening violence. Let’s be clear on this; violence is the tool of Neanderthal cave-dwellers. More sophisticated people do things legally. Legal actions are not powerless nor ineffective. Quite the contrary. This isn’t my first rodeo.
Don’t mistake my silence for weakness. I’ve been compassionate to the point of literally being broken. I am a human, not a saint, and have my limits as any other person – and right now I am right at the edge of mine.
-Tim
Another counseling session was scheduled for Wednesday 3/24/2021 with Mary Sanders. This session would include Brittany. When all three of us were in the video chat room together, I noticed Brittany appeared to be very sad, and looked like she was almost in shock. Her appearance was very troubling to me and caused me to feel upset and very sad for her. Seeing her this way caused me to almost come to tears. During our session it become increasingly difficult to look at the screen and see the sadness on her face. Near the end of the session I was so sad and deeply impacted seeing her in that condition, that I became rather emotional in my speech and before our time was up, I left the chat room suddenly.
Later that evening my emotions had not calmed down and while my wife was in the bathroom, I exited the house (where we were alone), got in my car and drove to a local park (Polar Park). I parked the car at the far edge of the lot and sat there in the dark. Tears flowed down my face as I imagined all the pain Brittany was feeling. I felt powerless to help her. At that point my crying became sobbing. I reached into the center console of the car and with my right hand pulled out a .40 caliber handgun and pressed it against the right side of my head. I held it there for about 30-seconds, then had the thought the suicide would only pass along the pain I felt to others who did not deserve it. I put the gun away and called my son. I didn’t mention the gun but did say I was stressed and needed a friendly voice to talk with. We spoke for a while, then he encouraged me to go home and get some rest. I started the car, while on the phone with him and began driving home.
When I got home my wife was already in bed and starting to go to sleep. I laid in bed for a while, then also fell asleep. At about 2 AM I woke up and began having thoughts of self-harm. I struggled with those thoughts and was able to resist taking action. Later that morning, right when my wife got out of the shower, I got up out of bed, walked into our bathroom and hugged her. As I did so I began crying again, and was barely able to get out the words, “I’m not OK.” I may have said something else but don’t remember. Then I told her that the night before I had gone to the park and held a gun to my head. I was sobbing by then and she didn’t quite understand what I was saying and asked me to repeat it. I again said, “Last night, at the park, I held a gun to my head!” I don’t remember the rest of our conversation.
We ended up at Regions hospital in St. Paul, MN in the emergency room. From there I was placed in a holding room and asked to change into hospital clothing. I spoke with a man, who then had a conversation with my wife. It was agreed that I should stay at the hospital in the psych ward to get some help.
I spent the rest of the day in my room journaling. Being in a peaceful place was helpful. I was able to write down my thoughts and formulate and action plan. I later shared this plan with Dr. Brown and another clinician.
After being in the psych ward long enough to calm down and find my compass in life, I asked to be released. They said yes with the agreement I would accept outpatient care. I now have an appt. scheduled with Dr. [redacted] PsyD on April 13th @ 9 AM. They also gave me a phone number I can call if I need to speak with someone right away about any mental issue or concern. It’s the Urgent Care for Mental Health, 651-266-7900. They encouraged me to program this into my phone. I have done so.
Upon returning home I texted Brittany saying I was home safe, and that when she was ready, I would like to try counseling again. She did not respond. As of the date of me typing this, 3/28/2021 @ 10:44 AM, she still has not responded.
On 3/27 2021 my wife told me that she has a time scheduled to meet with Brittany and Steven. Says she does not have a talking agenda at this time but is thinking about it. I told her that right now I’m not thinking about anything except giving myself time and space to try and heal. Asked her to switch cars with me for the week – even looking at my car is stressful (after all, I was sitting in that car when I put the gun to my head.)
3/28/2021 I composed the following letter to Brittany and emailed to my wife, asking her to review and forward onto Brittany.
Dear Brittany,
I’d like to take a few moments and share my heart with you. Lots has been going on and my heart is heavy. First, I want to say that I love you – deeply, profoundly and forever. You are literally one of the best things that has ever happened in my life. I cannot imagine living without you, and recent times are cutting deep into me.
I also want to say that I am sorry for all the pain you’ve been going through. Doesn’t seem fair at all that you’ve been put in the middle of this conflict between Steven and I. This is something between him and I – you shouldn’t have been put in between us. Perhaps you wound up there believing you had to, but this only resulted in you being unfairly torn between two people you love.
Just thinking about all the pain you’re experiencing pushes me deeper into a dark place – one in which I worry about you every day. Literally. And cry for you – often.
Looking back, I’m not sure how things evolved to the point where you were so involved, but that’s never anything I wanted. This is between he and I, and it’s up to us to work towards resolving things. I know you and Steven are working towards a life together but know this; you don’t have to fight his battles. That’s never your place. I’m speaking as your father and from 29 years of marriage. Please step aside and let Steven handle his problem(s). And this is one of them.
Brittany, what would it look like if you had a relationship with both of us? Instead of choosing sides, you stepped aside and encouraged us to work out our differences. When you are with each of us, you wouldn’t talk about this situation, but instead tell us to go work it out. In that way you benefit from not only having a relationship with your finance, and your father, but this would also minimize any stress you feel – and would put that responsibility back where it belongs; between Steven and I. This would help move us towards a peaceful resolution.
One thing is for sure; things cannot remain the same any longer. Look at where it’s gotten us; you’re no longer speaking to me and are clearly stressed. I ended up alone, in the dark, crying and holding a gun to my head. Does that seem OK? Unless something changes, I am concerned that I may end up back in that place again. Only next time, things might not end the same.
I appeal to you as my daughter, a child I played a role in creating (literally), and to whom I put first in my life, every time and in everything; please stop this. The time to let healing begin is long overdue.
Dad
She never responded.
I decided to try another approach. So I wrote the following and shared it with my wife:
Steven,
We are Lions, the both of us. Not uncommon for lions to fight each other. It’s also not uncommon for them to live in peace. It’s a choice they make. One thing I admire about you is your tenacity. I could use someone like you in my new ministry.
After 6 years of preparation, it is launching soon.
Why am I telling you this?
Simple.
You’re being invited to join the ministry.
For real. See attached agreement.
Your position would be part-time, at first, so no need to leave Calvary. You would be the head of our non-profit division which oversees missionaries we currently support, and search for others that we can begin supporting. Something we are doing unique is that each person who makes a donation will see what their donation is used for. Example; donate $100 for blankets, and they will see pictures of families receiving those.
What’s in it for you? 40% of the donated money. The ministry will fundraise on a regular basis among our clients/members/followers. In addition, we will donate 10% of our gross revenue. The projections are for us to be @ 100k/month by end of this year. Conservative projections also show that amount being doubled by 3rd quarter 2022. You would be an independent contractor with us; 40%, plus reasonable travel expenses.
I know there have been issues between us, and the way this can work is to call a truce. This is not a blank slate – it’s a truce. We stop fighting for as long as this agreement is in place. Perhaps during that time we’ll come to respect each other enough to not return to our current state.
We are Lions, and anything is possible.
Awaiting your reply,
Mr. Hutchinson
BOLD MOVE, RIGHT?! Well, I was 100% serious. In fact….
Here is the contract:
This agreement is made and takes effect on ____/____/2021 between Tim Hutchinson, DBA Pastor Tim Hutchinson, DBA Casting Out Doubt (CastingOutDoubt.com), hereafter called “Company” and
Steven Anderson, hereafter called “Contractor”.
1. The Company hereby contracts with Contractor for a term commencing on the date of this agreement and Contractor hereby accepts the terms of this agreement.
2. During the Contractor’s time of working on behalf of the Company, he will:
A. Devote such time and effort as may be reasonably required by the Company to perform his duties as head of our non-profit division.
B. Contractor will oversee the funds raised and otherwise allocated to Casting Out Doubt for the purpose of supporting missionaries.
C. Contractor will be responsible for verifying funds are used for the purpose intended, as well as seeking out other missionaries (local, national and international) for Casting Out Doubt to begin supporting.
3. For services rendered by the Contractor, he will receive 40% of the revenue donated to CastingOutDoubt.com. In addition, should travel be necessary to perform his duties, Casting Out Doubt will reimburse any reasonable travel expense which has pre-approval from Pastor Tim Hutchinson or his assigns.
4. Contractor agrees that while under contract by the Company, and for a period of one year after termination of such contract, he will not act as an employee, agent, broker, shareholder, contractor, or otherwise engage in any business selling products or services similar to those customarily sold by the Company anywhere, at any time.
5. Contractor understands that he will acquire confidential information of business value to the Company during the course of his contract. Contractor hereby agrees not to divulge such confidential information to any other party, or to use such information for his own profit except in performance of activities beneficial to the Company.
6. This agreement is an open contract, for a period of one-year, and will be automatically extended year-by-year unless the Company or Contractor gives 30-days’ notice to the other. Additionally, the Company may, at any time, with suitable cause, discharge the Contractor by giving him 2-weeks written notice of such discharge. All amounts due the Contractor will be paid within 60 days.
7. This contract shall terminate upon Contractor’s death; inability or failure to perform the duties required by this contractor; or his written notice of resignation given to the Company.
8. Following termination of this contract, all obligations shall end except for the provisions of items 4 and 5, and any causes of action which may arise from the circumstances of the termination of the contract.
9. Should the Company close down operations completely; the Contractor will be given 30-days’ notice. At the end of those 30 days the Contractor will receive a one-time check for payment-in-full.
9. This contract constitutes the entire agreement between Company and Contractor.
10. This agreement shall be interpreted and, if necessary, adjudicated in accordance with the laws of Saint Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota.
11. Until written notice of other address(es) are exchanged between the parties, all notices legally required shall be deemed delivered by the sending of registered mail to the following addresses:
Company address:
[Redacted]
White Bear Township, MN 55110
Contractor address:
[Redacted]
New Brighton, MN 55112
In witness to their agreement to these terms, Company’s representative and Contractor affix their signatures below:
Pastor Tim Hutchinson (Company) DATE
Steven Anderson (Contractor) DATE
All I needed to see from Steven was the slightest willingness to work things out with me. The smallest window of opportunity and I will have presented this to him. It’s all real – again, I showed this to my wife and she knows I had planned to offer this to him. Sadly, he has yet to put forth any effort into resolving anything in our relationship, and so I do not feel it’s right to offer this to him just yet.
On April 7th, 2021 I sent them this email:
Steven,
I know why you don’t want mediation; because you’re afraid of the truth coming out. The truth which will show you are a narcissistic monster who captured my daughter and dragged her away from me through your web of lies. A man holding a gun to his own head is devastating – yet today I rise from the ashes. Remember that phrase I shared with you? “If you want peace, prepare for war”. Yes, that phrase which you twisted (as you did so many other things) to insinuate violence. Well I am prepared for “war”. Check out the website I created just for you www.DirtySteven.com – you did me dirty, so the web address is fitting. If you ever pull that crap off again with anyone else in my family, I promise you that I will launch this site and do everything listed there – immediately. No warning. No mediation. No hesitation. You see, I am prepared for “war”, so my family can live in peace, from you and your narcissistic, evil ways. As for me, I pick up my cross daily and pray for my enemies – including you. What’s especially sad is that when I pray for you, I get a strong sense that your name is not written in the Book of Life. Not to be Captain Obvious here, but that means you’re a fake Christian. A phony pastor who love-bombed my daughter. Heed my warning: keep your evil ways away from MY family.
Brittany,
You have changed. A lot. No longer are you the person I once knew. That person would have reached out to me after you learned I was hospitalized. That hurts more than just about anything right now. Families may argue and even fight sometimes, however, when one has their back against the proverbial wall, the others surround that person in love, stand with them and even defend them. You did nothing. You ignored me completely. Your father held a loaded gun to his head, because of what your monster boyfriend did, and there were no signs whatsoever that you cared, at all. I’m literally stunned. Never thought I’d see that day when “Daddy’s Girl” who once said, “You’ll always be the number one guy” would turn her back on me during my lowest moment in life. There were complete strangers who showed more compassion than you did.
Others have commented to me as well how much you’ve changed. They don’t want to speak up because they’re concerned Steven will do to them what he did to me. You just don’t see it right now – but he love-bombed you and you’re blinded so you cannot see the truth. I pray some day you’ll wake up from this, and when you do, I’ll be right here, still loving you. Because that’s what family does; we stand by each other no matter what.
On Easter Sunday we went to dinner, as a (partial) family. Victoria and Jake, Vanessa and James, your mom and I, along with Nana, Uncle John and Uncle Steve. Guess what happened?? We had a great time – no drama! None. Laughing, joking, hugs – love all around us. Oh, and no one was “violent”. You may have seen me get upset and yell in the past, it’s how I let out built up stress. Call it a character flaw if you want, but when…tell me when you have ever seen me become violent. You can’t, because it never happened. Just more evil lies Steven is pumping your mind full of. My other kids all come hang out with me, no problems at all. You are literally the only one saying anything about violence. You are the only one who is avoiding me. The only one. Victoria and I recently went to the Mall of America then out to Applebees. No drama. Nothing but a great father-daughter date. The kind we used to have.
As a father, I haven’t changed. As a daughter, you’ve changed. A lot.
This is my last email to both of you. Don’t even bother replying because I won’t read it. Really. If you have something to say to me, you know where I live.
Brittany’s Dad
NOTE: Here are the things mentioned on the website that I would do if Steven tries to do anything to any other person in MY family:
Instruct attorneys to file a lawsuit against Steven Anderson seeking damages of more than $250,000. There are medical records showing the significant effects these past months have had on me. There are also witnesses and mental health professionals who will testify that Steven is the cause of it. A jury will be very interested in hearing about this. [Bonus: he’ll have to testify, under oath, and my daughter will finally see everything he’s been lying about.]
File a lawsuit against Calvary Church seeking damages of more than $1,000,000 dollars. Steven works at this church, they were aware of these activities and failed to respond. (How will they explain that to a jury?)
Go public with the facts surrounding this matter. Let the complete family (on both sides), and church members know the truth about Steven Anderson.
Spend a minimum of $1,000 boosting posts about this on various social media and news outlets, with a link to the website, where this info will be posted for all to see.
Have banners made and placed on top of trucks/cars that will be parked on public property near both campuses for Calvary Church – fully visible to all church attendees – alerting them to the website.
This information will be passed along to any place he works at for the rest of his life. Steven will never be able to outrun this truth. In the event of my death or disability, I have associates who will continue doing this on my behalf.
Contact Reliant.org with all the facts and lawsuit details, and have his account suspended, preventing him from any further fundraising. If necessary, with the help of my attorneys, we will contact a judge and seek an injunction against any future fundraising efforts.
4/13/2021 1:07 PM (CST).
I feel so all alone in this. Others see the truth but won’t say anything. They are concerned Steven will attack them as he has done to me. He is, in my opinion, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. An evil wolf. In my life I’ve always done everything I possibly could for my family. I’ve always put them first. Always. Even to the point where the weight of that was crushing me, as it recently did. But it takes two to have a relationship. And right now she’s not there. Or any where’s close. She did not even show any signs of caring when I was hospitalized. I love you, Brittany, and the door is always open for us to have a relationship. What is puzzling to me is how you can simply walk away from our relationship based solely upon what Steven has told you – without ever hearing my side.
Proverbs 18:17 Any story sounds true until someone tells the other side and sets the record straight.
All I wanted was for you to hear my side.
Brittany took a screen shot of one small part of the home page and emailed that to someone an attempt to discredit me. Here’s the pic she took offense to:
Underneath that picture was a call to pray for Steven. If you think about this for a moment, you’ll realize that I’m not inferring he is a demon or even of the devil – you don’t pray for demons or anything evil – you REBUKE them. I called for PRAYER.
So, why this picture??
This is why….
“The eyes are the windows to the soul.”
-William Shakespeare
I believe Steven Anderson has been acting in unholy ways. This picture represents the amount of darkness that must exist in him in order for him to do the horrible things he’s done. I’m concerned about him and this picture is a clear representation of why. So, I called for prayer for him. And still am.
Notice the lack of devil horns or anything of that nature? [Thank you if you did].
What’s interesting is how they (Brittany and Steven) responded to this picture. They hyper-focused on this picture and literally nothing else. As if to say this picture tells the whole story. Oh my, the youth and their folly. That was literally a cheap shot in an attempt to discredit me and cause strife.
If they truly cared and acted in a Christian way, they would be willing to settle this through mediation. But they won’t for one reason: Steven is afraid of the truth coming out. Because then he would be exposed as a narcissist. Anytime I mentioned mediation he trembled in fear! Then, to cover up his fear, he would suggest mediation but quickly back away.
He was never serious about resolving any of this – never.
Why?
Because he is literally jealous of the relationship I had with my daughter. He knew if I was that close he’d never be able to (eventually) control her. So, he set out to destroy our relationship. [C’mon Steven, prove me wrong. I challenge you!] He did this by ‘love-bombing’ her (a classic narcissist’s move) and convinced her I was out to destroy him by use of violence.
My daughter has never seen me act in a violent way. Never. But Steven has her somehow convinced that he’s in grave danger being around me. He uses that as an excuse to not resolve things between us. Again, he doesn’t want any resolution because he will be exposed.
Is that evil?
Of course!
My response?
Call to prayer for him.
Yet somehow that’s being overlooked. Instead they hyper-focus on something easily explained, and insist that’s the whole story! In order to arrive at that conclusion, they must overlook dozens of other things which Steven has never answered for, nor explained.
And never will.
He’s afraid of the truth.
A scared young man, filled with darkness.
Please join me in prayer for him:
“O God of Victory, grant the lost grace for repentance. Lead Steven to the knowledge of the truth which is found in scripture. Open his spiritual eyes that he may know that life is beyond the physical and earth is just where we prepare for eternity. Cause him to hit rock bottom in areas where his heart is hardened so that he can listen to your voice and follow it. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.”
If you just prayed that prayer, thank you! From my heart to yours. Let’s stand together and push back against evil as it tries to overtake lives and cause strife.
I would like to take a moment and point out that I’ve not had problems with any of my 3 daughters current or former boyfriends. (OK, maybe one of them, but only after he physically assaulted her!) In fact, Brittany’s last boyfriend (David) and I got along very well. When Brittany made the decision to break-up with David, instead of him going to family or even friends, he came to our house to talk with me. Because I was always kind to him, and supportive, and showed him on a regular basis that I genuinely cared for him. In other words; I am an authentic Christian who lives his faith out loud.
For 29 years I’ve shown how much I love my family and always put them first in my life. Always. Anyone my daughters (and son) have dated have been treated kindly and welcomed into our home with open arms. However, if you believe Steven, I have suddenly done a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and morphed into a monstrous person. Only since he came along. And only to him. Oh, and of course, Steven is the innocent victim.
Only two problems with that;
1) None of the actual facts bear witness to his assertions, (only the lies he invents and convinces Brittany is real).
2) My other children have not noticed the changes that Steven is claiming. (Other than being sad, perhaps even a bit distraught over the declined relationship with Brittany, I remain the same loving father to them.)
What’s Steven hiding from?
The truth.
Proverbs 12:17 Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence, but a false witness utters deceit.
A few weeks later, out of pure frustration, I sent her another email;
A personal letter from an old father to his beautiful daughter:
I’ve come to a place in my life path where I think it’s a good idea for us to take a break. Instead of my waiting for you to decide when we can have a relationship again (or not).
I’m taking a break; from waiting.
From someone else controlling my happiness.
From someone else deciding if I should have a good day or not.
From someone else making me feel like I’m a good person or not.
How long of a break?
6 months.
You see Brittany, I’ve been patient even though I too feel wronged by everything that’s happened. My voice was literally not heard. Yet I am being blamed for everything. In our country I have the right to face my accuser (which never happened), the right to hear the charges, (which no one can clearly state – saying “you broke the rules of engagement” does not clarify how), the right to defend myself (which isn’t being allowed), and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty (clearly that’s not happening).
Instead, there are many things being thrown out – things that can easily be explained.
His face on the website with dark eyes? That’s actually from a poem by Shakespeare.
Open carrying the gun? Your mom asked me to do that because in light of the violence in Mpls it made her feel safer.
The website? I had to. There was no other clear choice, (you could have asked instead of making assumptions).
These things would all make sense if there was communication, instead of them being used to further drive us apart.
Brittany, you are a young lady. I am an older man. A married man. With children. Your options are different than mine. I have a responsibility to protect my wife. To protect our children. To protect our home and way of life. That’s my job. I don’t have all the freedoms of decision that you do.
Your experiences with Steven are also different than mine. Yet you choose to judge me through the lens of a younger lady engaged to someone, with whom I’ve had different experiences, and a lens focused on my family.
Example: When Steven spoke harshly to me on the phone (which did happen – I will swear to that even on my deathbed), and he used that to begin driving a wedge between you and I, then I had decisions to make. I tried having a meeting with him, many times, to seek clarity on things. But he refused and made many excuses to not meet. That left many unanswered questions.
If he would have agreed to mediation, we could have discussed this and likely worked things out. But he didn’t.
I love you more than life itself. And I’m truly sorry, but I’m simply not going to allow my heart, emotional well being and good name to be dragged through the mud any more. So, I’m calling for a break. 6 months. This should take the pressure off of you. No need to think about me while you are adjusting to married life. After that time if you want a relationship with me, say something. Otherwise, I’ll assume you don’t.
On 4/20/1998 I had my last cigarette and said, “I’m going to walk this girl down the aisle.” Sadly, it doesn’t look like that will happen.
I wish you love, light and happiness.
Dad
P.S. You don’t have to wonder whether typing / sending this was easy for me or not. It was pure hell. But it seems to be my only move that might bring you some relief. You’re not talking to me, so here again I have to fill in the blanks. And I’m just over here trying to figure out how to make things easier for you. That’s what love does.
P.P.S Happy belated birthday, DG. Yesterday was the first time I’ve missed any of my kids birthdays. 4 kids and 93 birthdays so far. And I had to miss one. Tough day for an old dad.
Brittany gave a hand-written note to her mom to give to me. That note said she was OK with the 6-month break and prayed for softened hearts so we could have a relationship.
A Lesson On Rising From the Ashes of Betrayal
This morning (4/28/2021), I woke up feeling agitated by recent events concerning my daughter and her fiancé’. It felt as though I had arrived at a point where things could no longer be ignored – action needed to be taken. I left the house and drove towards her fiancé’s apartment with plans to confront him. Along the way God spoke – loud and clear;
He said, “The ministry will not reach the next level until you go to higher ground.”
(Note: I am starting a Christian ministry to prove God is real.)
What do you mean, Dad?
“You must know how it feels to be betrayed, as my Son was.”
I feel betrayal at a deep level.
“Yes, but you’ve not learned the lesson. Look at how you respond.”
I’m being blamed for everything.
“The crowds chanted ‘Crucify Him’ about my Son.’
I didn’t do anything wrong.
“Mostly true – but there were a few small things.”
I feel so alone.
“How many were at the cross when He surrendered everything?”
I’m not a bad person!
“Neither was my Son.”
I was treated horribly!
“You know what they did to my Son.”
I want revenge.
“Then you’ve not learned, yet.”
Learned what?
“To rise….you must learn to rise. Rise above all that you see and look from a heavenly place. Look upon these things with love. Even those who wronged you. You must forgive – even if they’ve not apologized. You are destined for greater things – so you must be greater. Even with His last few breath’s my Son asked forgiveness for those who murdered Him.”
Why?
“Learn the lesson.”
Dad?!
“Learn the lesson. That’s why I allowed all this to happen.”
I don’t know how. Please help me.
“Are you ready to submit to My will?”
Yes.
In that moment, for only the third time in my life, I saw heaven. I felt at one with it and everyone there. Hard to describe, but it was like some great volume of information was downloaded into my brain. It was then unpacked, and made itself at home within me. And then, suddenly, it all made sense.
My life has changed.
Now my message to them is that I love them both, and they are forgiven.
I’ve risen to a higher place.
I can see clearly now.
I asked my youngest daughter to pass this along to Brittany (since she has me blocked on her phone). Brittany’s response was to not contact her any more with anything about me.
5/1/2021. I sat down and wrote an email to Calvary church – this time to the board asking them to do the right thing and help resolve the ongoing issue with Steven.
Within days I was contacted by a lawyer stating that Calvary church does not want to have any contact with me, and that I should stay off their property.
So, I am to believe that a “Christian” church, without ever speaking with me, and their only contact with me has been through respectfully written emails & letters, is refusing to help mediate this situation, without any just reason? I firmly believe this is because Steven went to them and told them lies. That’s what he does: Lie!
5/10/2021. Monday morning – I wake and begin getting ready for work. Suddenly I had a strong feeling that I should not go to work that day. Even though I just had a 3-day weekend (Friday off), I should stay home today. So, I emailed my work and let them know I’d be off today as well. Then God impressed upon me the need to send my daughter Brittany an email. There was an urgency to this. I went into my home office and sat in front of the computer staring at a blank page – completely unsure of what to say. So I prayed. Slowly, but surely the words came. I typed sometimes a few sentences, other times a paragraph – but frequently stopping to kneel before the Lord and seek his will. It literally took hours, but finally this is what was written:
Subject line:
So this just happened….
Email body:
I received a letter from an attorney representing Calvary. They’re asking that I have no contact with them and to remain off their property. This is in response to my second request for them to help mediate a resolution. I’m over here wondering why a church, (a Christian church), would refuse to help someone seeking peace. Seems rather nefarious. I’ve mentioned filing a lawsuit, which remains a possibility. However, this is not about money – instead, I simply want my voice heard. Something I’ve said all along.
Filing a suit against the church would accomplish that. People would have to be deposed and possibly even testify, under oath. Then the truth would come out. And they would realize that all along the words they’ve been twisting (in an obvious attempt to make me look like a horrible person) were actually centuries old phrases from Latin culture, as well as the utterings of great minds like Aristotle, Gandhi, King Solomon, Shakespeare and the Bible.
Every day I wake up feeling sad. I miss you. What’s happened to our relationship is completely unfair. If I have to take this to court in order for the truth to come out, then I will. And their lies will be exposed for all the world to see. In that moment you will realize that we have both been wronged and both have suffered unfairly.
I’m just an old dad who wants a relationship with his daughter – the person he created (literally). The child he spent 23 years putting first in his life, loving without reservation and sacrificing everything for. The person who he loves more than life itself, and was stripped from him through lies.
The lies I’m trying to expose.
Does it make any sense that a church and a staff member would actively avoid the truth being told? Only through clever twisting of the truth have they convinced you that it’s OK to not honor your father – for the truth to not be told – that my voice is not heard – that it’s alright for you to make drastic decisions without ever hearing your dad’s side of things – and it’s OK to send an attorney after your father for doing something as simple as asking for help resolving a problem.
According to the Bible, their very actions are not Christian based. I mean, they do honor the Bible, right? This isn’t a cult, is it? Because if they say they’re Bible based, then I’m telling you they have disobeyed it, multiple times.
Can anyone tell me how I’ve acted outside the teachings of the Bible? Can anyone tell me what I’ve done to deserve how I’m being treated?? So far, no one has.
I’m not the only one who feels this way either; your brother and sisters have stood by me throughout this time. So have their significant others. Jake was just at the house yesterday – he and I hung out in the backyard for over a half-hour just chatting away. Vanessa’s boyfriend, James, has recently stopped by the house and said that if I ever need to talk to someone I can call him. He then gave me his work schedule.
Yet we’re to believe that I’m such a horrible person that Steven cannot work towards a resolution with me? I’ve been your father for 23 years. You know me and you know where my heart is at. Does any of this make any sense at all?
Steven and Calvary are the only person(s) I am having any problems with, and they refuse to meet and discuss the truth and/or a possible resolution. How does this make any sense at all? I’ve shown the written history of what’s happened the past few months (same as I shared with Calvary) with some family and friends. I’ve asked them to read it and tell me, as straight up and honest as possible what I did wrong. Other than me raising my voice twice, they cannot find anything I’ve done wrong. Instead, they have all commented how awful it is that our relationship was ruined without just cause, and by someone twisting my words over and over again. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. I also sent this off to 3 mental health professionals who all said that other than me raising my voice 2 times, they cannot find where I’ve done anything wrong. They have also said that to have my daughter stop our relationship is inappropriate.
As I’ve said previously, you and Steven are forgiven. In my prayer time with God, He has shown me that I need to rise up and go higher. He reminded me of the words Jesus spoke moments before dying, and how His Son forgave those who wronged him. Jesus set the standard I strive for – daily.
Calvary, however, is a different story. They are more than just one person making poor decisions; they are a collection of people, claiming they follow Biblical teachings and standards and are good leaders to follow. Yet when I ask them to help bring resolution to a problem, they respond by having an attorney tell me to not contact them anymore and to remain off their property. Does this make any sense? I never spoke disrespectfully to them, ever. I’ve only been on their property twice to drop off some paperwork (requesting help). You’d almost think I’m being banned for screeching the tires, shouting at people and/or banging on windows, etc. None of that happened – or anything remotely close to that. You know my heart. Both times I acted in a completely respectful manner; drove onto the lot, parked the car, wore a mask, entered the building quietly, left some paperwork, exited the building, walked calmly to my car, and drove away peacefully.
All I did was ask a church for help to resolve a conflict with one of their staff members. And they call their attorney – how does this make any sense at all?? It doesn’t.
I am appealing to you to prayerfully consider your stance on this. You are being lied to – repeatedly. I can see it – so can others. By accepting these lies, you are hurting your father. Is this something you’re OK with? Are you really, truthfully, OK with watching your father, the man you say you love, go through agony day-and-night because of the lies that are being told? Does it bother you at all that my voice has never been heard – that you’ve only heard one-side of things all along? Are you comfortable with making life-changing decisions based upon only half of the story, and only hearing one-side of things? Is it acceptable that despite my repeated attempts to make peace, that Steven has not made any effort at all?
I hope someday you will see that what’s being said and done is a lie. A calculated lie.
I never questioned whether you love me. I know you do.
And always will.
Ditto,
Dad
As soon as I finished typing out the above email, God said I was to send it, and that I needed to hurry. So I clicked the “Send” button…and waited.
A few moments later I felt like I should go stand in the living room if our house and wait. Not sure what I’m waiting for – but I strive to remain obedient, so I went and stood in the middle of the living room and prayed. An unmarked squad car was driving down our street and somehow I knew they were coming to our house. I continued praying. The car stopped in front of our house. I kept on praying. A deputy exited the car and walked up to our front door. I greeted her kindly and she asked me to verify my name, which I did. She then presented me with a Restraining Order from both Steven Anderson and Brittany Hutchinson.
I can see where Steven would want to do this (more on that in a moment), but my own daughter…a Restraining Order…really?? Oh, no, this is so troubling. Just a few months ago we were hanging out together, Father-daughter having a great time. But then, inexplicably I became a monster that only Steven can see, and has convinced my daughter that it is reality. Interesting that no one else can see any of the traits he is claiming are real. Literally no one else believes him. And they shouldn’t – because they’re lies!
I had just asked for 6 months away from those two when suddenly a Restraining Order is filed – why? Because Steven no longer had control. He’s obviously a control freak. Just further evidence of him being a narcist.
It should also be pointed out that until now I had no idea why we couldn’t get together and resolve things – heck, I didn’t even know what the issues were! But Steven is claiming he is so afraid of me being violent with him. He even said that one time when I stopped by to offer him forgiveness, that he was so frightened by me knocking on his apartment door, that he contemplated jumping out the 2nd story bedroom window, running away and dialing 911.
If this was even remotely true, why hasn’t he reported it? After all, it is a criminal offense;
609.713 THREATS OF VIOLENCE. §Subdivision 1. Threaten violence; intent to terrorize. Whoever threatens, directly or indirectly, to commit any crime of violence with purpose to terrorize another or to cause evacuation of a building, place of assembly, vehicle or facility of public transportation or otherwise to cause serious public inconvenience, or in a reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both.
If I am such a huge threat, why hasn’t he reported me to the police? Answer: Because he’s lying. It’s all a fake assertion to steal my daughter from me. To control her. That’s how narcissists operate.
Why up until now have neither one of them mentioned anything about the allegations they’ve made against me? Why couldn’t they have mentioned these months ago, and gone to mediation to resolve these issues? Why have they also not mentioned them to anyone else that I know or speak to? No one that I am aware of or speak to had any idea what the problems in our relationship were. I would ask others what the problems were, and they did not know. Several people asked Brittany, and they were told she did not want to talk about it. So, how are we supposed to resolve issues if we don’t talk about them? Why the secrecy until they dropped all these lies onto me like an avalanche of hate?
All along Brittany led me along to believe she wanted a relationship with me. And so I kept trying, and trying, and trying some more. Just several weeks prior to my being served the Restraining Orders, Brittany sent me a hand-written note saying, in-part that she was praying for softened hearts so we could have a relationship. If she or Steven did not want anything more to do with me, they could have said something. But they didn’t – neither one of them ever mentioned anything along those lines. All they had to say was they didn’t want a relationship with me and I would have gone away. With a broken heart, of course. But they are adults and can make that choice for themselves. But they never said anything like that at all. And so, they waited to file a Restraining Order against me and drop dozens of hateful lies onto me.
I will say this; when I first began reading the Restraining Orders, God told me to just put them down – do not read them, at least not yet. He very clearly told me that the words contained therein were a product of the Spirit of Jealousy – the Spirit of Spite – and the Spirit of Hate. He then instructed me to not focus on those evil spirits, but instead I am to focus on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (Amen!)
Their wedding is on June 19th, 2021. The following day is Father’s Day. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It is my belief that Steven had a big influence on this day being picked, knowing full well his intentions to lie about me and eventually file a Restraining Order. In this way, on his first full day of being married to my daughter he can privately gloat about how he stole her from me, and for the first time in her life she won’t be wishing me a Happy Father’s Day. Evil? Oh, yes, this is the epitome of it!
If Steven truly loved my daughter, he would put her happiness ahead of his own. Same as I’ve done for my wife during the past 32 years, (3 years of dating, 29 years of marriage). If he made her happiness a priority, our issues could be resolved. But he hasn’t. How can a reasonable person believe he really loves her at all? This is an incredibly sad situation, and there are no winners. None.
I know one thing for sure – despite having forgiven them, that does not mean I have to put myself in a position where I can be hurt again. For that reason, Steven must not call me “Dad” and I will not call him “Son”. I will not accept him as part of my family. The family I created (literally). At least not until he apologizes for all these evil acts and shows he can be trusted.
In view of everything he has done to hurt me, my blessing is now off this wedding.
His loss, literally. I had previously texted him saying, “You lost far more than you gained.” He doesn’t know about the contract I was going to offer him (mentioned earlier in this post).
Steven’s so-called “victory” will be short-lived. God will give me justice and will raise me up – he will see that God’s hand is upon me. Evil can appear as an angel of light, but inside of them is darkness – that describes Steven.
God will bring him to his very knees. His jealousy, spite and hate will be exposed!
God said it – I believe it – that settles it!
It’s interesting to note that neither Brittany’s mom or I have met with Steven’s parents before the wedding. We have not spoken with them on the phone, either. No communication between us at all. I literally do not even know his parents names. Brittany’s mom did not meet either of them until the day of the wedding – and there has been no communication since. Is it just me, or does any one else find that to be really odd??
The only mention he ever made of us potentially meeting his parents was when he said that his mom might be coming into town and would be here to plan the wedding. I mentioned that my wife is the mother of the bride and she should be involved. His reply was that his mom would be doing the planning.
Court hearing
I attended the court hearing by way a zoom video. Their attorney suggested that I allow them to have th restraining order and the court would not find any fault. He said this is what Brittany wants. I agreed and the court referee accepted this. As part of the agreement, I would take down the DirtySteven.com website. I actually did that before meeting with the referee – and in fact had cancelled website hosting the week prior. Was paid through the first part of July and that’s when the website would go down completely. Another component was that I am able to send Brittany a letter through her attorney. Began composing that letter shortly afterwards.
About a week later I was served the final order.
Steven Filing 1 Steven Filing 2 Steven Final
Brittany Filing Brittany Final
June 4th I emailed the letter to Brittany’s attorney.
Dear Brittany,
Amazing how he has you believing that after 22 years of being an amazing father, that somehow, I have become a monster. Apparently, he has super-powers because only he can see that…and he has convinced you that his fantasy is real. I am so grateful and thankful for my children who know my heart and have stood by my side, unwavering during these difficult times. They will always have a special place in my heart. I have proven to them, over the decades, that I always put my family first. Always. They will not just give up on me when someone tells a lie. They came to me and asked what my side of the story was. I shared my heart and truth as best as possible, which again confirmed that I have put this family first, even when it caused me tremendous pain (and even resulted in my being hospitalized.) They are my family, and I am so proud of them!
All I have been doing has been to try and resolve things through making the truth known. His response has been to escalate his lies and twisting of the truth to cover his previous lies. He has done so by making even the slightest ant hill seem like a ginormous mountain. He has scrutinized every single step I have taken and found fault with it – even if that means twisting the truth, or outright lying. Quick example: For weeks I had been coming home and placing my handgun on the top railing for a few minutes (since the riots, doing this made your mom feel safe), entering the kitchen and unpacking my lunch bag, then taking the handgun and putting it away in the bedroom. For weeks this was a daily routine (unless someone was walking down the street towards the park when I got home – in that case I waited until later to bring it into the house, when no one was around.) One day when he was over, he noticed the gun on the railing, and automatically assumed it was there to intimidate him. That is what he stated in the Restraining Order. Again, just a small example of how he has twisted things to fit his agenda. An agenda to strip us out of each other’s lives. And you just caved him and let him get away with this. That makes me feel like I really do not matter to you – it seems you just gave up so easily.
Here I am fighting to get you back and you are blindly going along with his evil plan. He has been avoiding the truth being told. He does not want mediation because he knows the truth will come out and his evil deeds with be exposed. That is also the reason why he continues to keep you isolated from me. He is afraid of the truth. That also explains why he blatantly lied to Calvary about me; so they would not help with mediation, and instead have a lawyer ask me to stay away. I am no threat to them whatsoever. Yet he has them thinking I am such a threat they have supposedly hired additional security. That is how far he will go to cover his lies. They are a CHURCH – I am a PASTOR. They are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I would never go there and commit any sort of act of violence. Not ever. I only went to them because previously when we were going to have mediation, someone from the church was going to be the mediator. This was in no way an attempt to have him fired – they are a church; they are supposed to help people. I went there seeking their help in resolving things. Had he worked at any other place besides a church I would have never contacted them. But he twisted this also to make it seem I was going there to somehow attack him. More lies on top of the other lies.
Remember when I said let us take a 6-month break. That took control away from him, Once I took control away, he felt a need to take it back. That is the real reason for the Restraining Order. Why file that if I am going away for 6 months? Control. The only thing I did during that time was to come over and attempt to tell you both that you are loved and forgiven. Just one time and you would never hear from me again for at least 6 months. This is about control – he wants to control, and I am in his way. Even worse; he has you believing that I am a threat and/or danger to you. Above all else that especially troubles me!! Let me be perfectly clear on this one point: I love you. More than life itself. There is no way, and I mean literally zero chance I would ever physically hurt you. Ever. Never. You are absolutely one of the greatest things to ever happen in my life. Period. Even the mere thought of any type of harm to you is so repulsive it makes me ill to my stomach. Literally. I know that you have been emotionally hurt – some of that is likely my fault. For that I wholeheartedly apologize. I truly do. It was never my intention in any way, shape, or form to cause you any kind of pain. None whatsoever. That is a promise. A solid promise from a father to his precious daughter. I pinky swear.
I think this has been tremendously difficult for you. After all, it is not normal to become engaged, then need therapy. What’s next, medication? He has painted a picture of a fairy tale, but after the wedding he will slowly turn it into something else. There are literally thousands of stories exactly like this on the internet about guys like him. Everything seemed almost magical. No way could he ever turn out like all the others, he special, he different, he really loves me – then they changed. And the ladies who were lucky and escaped, ended up just another statistic with a sad story to tell and deep emotional scars. Sadly, I believe you will see this firsthand. Once you walk down the aisle and I am not next to you, the door of opportunity to resolve things with him closes. After that time, I will never acknowledge him as my son-in-law. He will never call me “dad”. I will never have any type of relationship with him. Something else is going to happen after the wedding: my response. It will then be my turn, and I will expose his lies and evil ways. You see, I have been patiently waiting to see how far he would take things – and all the while I have been trying to resolve this (apologizing, offering forgiveness, seeking mediation, etc.) I’ve been patient, very patient, for a good reason; I want to be sure that I’ve given every chance possible to resolve this another way. I don’t want to think about the “What if’s” afterwards, wondering if there was another chance to settle this.
Filing the Restraining Order was enough to show me there isn’t another way – I’m left with literally no choice. This entire time he has only done one thing: continue playing his game. So, remember this phrase: “He Treated Me Like a Game – Now I’m Going to Show Him How It’s Played.” I am fairly certain your lawyer is also reading this, so here’s the disclaimer (as I’ve stated over and over and over again, repeatedly since this conflict began…) Nothing stated here is meant to infer or condone any illegal activities, or anything of a violent nature. I am a law-abiding citizen and will comply with all laws, including the Restraining Order. Step #1 is to file a lawsuit against Steven, and possibly Calvary. He will have to answer questions during the lawsuit proceedings, and the truth will come out! There will be other (legal) events that will happen as well. Again, all fully legal and in compliance with the Restraining Order. But that does not make them any less effective.
My entire goal is to show you, my beautiful daughter, the lies he has been telling. As I’ve stated so many times before; I just want the truth revealed! I will not stop until that happens. For the rest of my life I will not rest until you know the truth. I promise you this. As these events unfold, you will reach a point in time when you realize that you joined the wrong team. When that happens, come home. No judgement, no ‘I told you so’ comments, no holding a grudge. Nothing but love is waiting for you here. That is a real father to daughter promise. We all make mistakes in life (myself included), and it is comforting to know we have a family that will take us back, no matter what. Because that’s how real families roll. His real battle is not with me, it is with himself. He clearly does not know how to express himself or his emotions in a healthy way and as a result, pushed me to my limits – then blamed me for the outcome; all the while lying about what he has done to cause the problem(s) to begin with. Then, in order for you to remain in a relationship with him, you had to hurt someone; me. Are you happy with that? Seems fair, right? I mean all you have to do is treat your dad like crap after he made you a priority in his life for 23 years. And did anything and everything he possibly could for you. Here’s a hint: if you have to give that up to be with someone, then you’re with the wrong guy! Especially if he’s lying to keep you away from your own dad.
During all of this time he has not once shown any care or compassion towards me. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. How is this Christian behavior? Answer: it’s not! I’ve offered love, forgiveness and multiple opportunities to resolve this. He’s offered nothing except lies in an attempt to exacerbate things. Again, that is not Christian. At all. But somehow, he just turns things around in your mind to make me the bad guy. Again, it’s amazing how awesome of a relationship we had, until he came along. I now present to you some answers to the false claims made in the Restraining Order. In the interest of brevity, I’ve not covered everything. However, if there is something you would like to know, share that with your attorney and I’ll answer through him.
Love Dad.
I have a challenge for you. Read this alone and do not let Steven read this. It was agreed upon in court that I got to share a letter with you. But just you. I want you to read this with your heart and meditate on it.
My Response to Your Order
The Kyle Situation Kyle was Vanessa’s ex, who assaulted her. After he assaulted her, Vanessa came to me and told me what happened. Vanessa didn’t want me to call the police because she was embarrassed. I called Kyle, and he started to verbally assault me so I hung up. I shared this with Vanessa, who still did not want me to call the police. So I went to Kyle’s apartment in person. I knocked on the door and he opened it. I identified myself as Vanessa’s father and asked if he was Kyle. He said yes. I asked if he had assaulted her. He responded by saying “Yeah, and if I wanted to I could go rape your daughter.” He then pushed me back with both hands. At that point I felt the need to defend myself, and struck him twice. He fell back against the wall about 6 feet behind him and his head made a dent in the wall. He looked up at me and said “Okay, okay. I’m done” I responded, “Never come near my daughter again.” He responded “No sir. It’s done.” So, I left.
He never bothered Vanessa again and this was the end of it. I never intended for anything to become physical – and I learned that in the future I would insist on calling the police and letting them handle the situation. The Phone Calls to Steven It was alleged that I made an increasing number of harassing calls to Steven. But I have checked my phone records, and they show that I have called Steven a total of 4 times ever. Not in a week, a month, but ever. 4 times.
Acting Out? It’s claimed that I, at one time, were stomping, slamming cabinets, and slamming doors, and raising my voice while talking about steven. I only raised my voice to you once about Steven, but only after he treated me several times very disrespectfully.
I was so disappointed in myself for having raised my voice to you (something I’ve not done before) that I slapped the doorway as I walked out of the kitchen. I cannot slam the doors in our kitchen, there are none. I cannot slam the kitchen cabinets as they have easy close stoppers. I never stomp my feet as I am not a child.
Inappropriate Use of My Firearm? You said I “placed the firearm on the banister by the front door, in plain sight, as both a threat and reflecting his anger and resentment towards Steven.” The truth of the matter is that I have been placing my firearm there for weeks, based on a request from your mom. It made her feel safer. Placing my firearm on the banister became an everyday routine for me.
After what happened in Minneapolis with George Floyd and the protests and then the protests threatening to go to the suburbs, it made your mom feel safer to have it visible at times when I got home from work. Again, she literally asked me to do this! One day while Steven is over he sees the handgun in its usual place, and made an incorrect assumption. Later it’s claimed that I went to the garage to retrieve my firearm and returned looking very angry. This is not true. I am very careful when retrieving my firearm from the car. In fact, for 20+ years, you didn’t even know I had one. It was only after the events in Minneapolis that I started to display my firearm – and only at the specific request of your mom.
Over the years, I have been so discreet, that whenever there are people anywhere around (going to the park, out walking, working in their yard, etc.), I will wait until later to retrieve the firearm from the car so I can be as to be as safe and discreet as possible. We have lived in that house for 22 years and our neighbors have never seen me carrying it. I only have it out in the open inside the house, and only for a short period of time. I have since asked your mom if she was okay with me being completely discreet and she said yes.
I have never waved this gun around; I have never used this firearm to threaten or to harm anyone. I am a very responsible gun owner. To imply that I have used my firearm to harm or threaten someone is a lie and crazy. I made it to 60 without a criminal record, but Steven wants to paint me as this crazy man with a gun. The second time that I raised my voice, I did not know you were even home, I thought you had left with Steven. And when I did raise my voice, it lasted maybe 15 seconds. Your mom was at the top of the stairs and I was by the door. I raised my voice towards your mom about the frustrations I was feeling with this situation. And I was shouting towards her, but not at her. After the 15 seconds had passed, your mom came and gave me a hug and said “I can see that this is clearly hurting you” She said “Let’s go make supper together and have a glass of wine”; to which I responded with “Okay, the things Steven are doing and saying are bothering me.”
Within 10 minutes, your mom and I were in the kitchen laughing and joking about Facebook memes. You then claim I went to the car and returned with the gun, still visibly angry. That’s a lie. (It should also be noted that I have not raised my voice at all since then. Not once, under any circumstances. Again, just trying to make me appear to be a bad person, which I am not.) In the order it says, “The presence of his firearm in several incidences, along with his emotional instability, and refusal to respect boundaries that I’ve set in our relationship concern me that this will continue to escalate and that the result may involve his firearm and Steven or I”
To that I say: First of all to talk about boundaries- the only way I have stepped over boundaries is to try to resolve this. That’s all that I have been doing for months. The display of my handgun, again, was because of your mom’s request. That has nothing to do with the situation between you, Steven and I. Nothing. Other than raising my voice twice, there has been no outward signs of aggression or anything being escalated. This is all a complete fabrication. Yes, this is a bold face lie. All I’ve been trying to do, repeatedly, is to have the truth come out. I believe the truth doesn’t mind being questioned, whereas lies want to hide. (Sound familiar?) There’s a reason Steven does not want mediation or to resolve things; because his lies will be exposed. So, he pretends to be afraid and paint me as a violent person to avoid the truth coming out.
The Night You Moved Out You went to a friend’s house and a few days later moved out. The night you moved, you came back because you forgot something. I was in the bedroom with your mom. I heard something moving around in the house, so I went out into the hallway to see what was going on. When I noticed it was you I said hi. You gave me a hug and said “I love you so much dad.” I said “I love you too.” I asked if you were okay, and you said yes. I then said, “It’s kind of weird because this is the first time you have moved and I didn’t help you.” You smiled and said, “Yeah, it is kind of weird.” YOU SMILED AND SAID YEAH IT’S KINDA WEIRD. You said you had to go, and I said, “Okay, have a good night.”
This is the day you moved out because you were supposedly afraid of me. How does that say you are afraid of me?
The Last Page It’s interesting that when Steven came up with this order, in his evidence, he left out the last page of my website where it talks about you guys being loved and forgiven. LOVED AND FORGIVEN. But that would go against his claim that I am a crazed, violent man. That doesn’t fit his agenda to make you think I am this horrible violent person. What’s interesting is that no one other than Steven thinks I am a violent person. Sadly, he has convinced you this lie is real. I spend time with both Jake and James and there’s literally no problems between us at all. None. In fact, they have both said they would write letters in support of me. They both heard the Kyle story and are not afraid of me at all – because there’s literally no reason to be. None. That’s all a fabrication of Steven’s.
I now have over 15 people who are close to me, all willing to write letters stating they have never seen any of the behavior Steven is alleging, and that they simply do not believe any of it is true. How many do you have? I’m not a betting man, but if I was, my bet would be there are zero people to back up his claim(s). Because they are lies.
The Therapy Session You approached me to go to therapy with you. Before you, your therapist, and I got together for a meeting, the therapist wanted to get together with me alone in a zoom type meeting. She was rude, condescending, and I really did not feel as though she cared about me or resolving anything. It was very frustrating talking to her.
Nonetheless, I said any therapy sessions I was involved in I would pay for and gave her my credit card number so you would not be burdened with that. What no one, not even the therapist knows is that I was not alone in that room. When the session with myself and the therapist was scheduled, I asked your mom to be in the room with me. She sat off to one side, out of view to the camera. She witnessed how stressful this was for me. Then, at the time you and I had our session with the therapist, it was immediately stressful again. I felt as though the therapist was condescending from the beginning. My only goal for that session was to tell you that I loved you and to validate your pain. I know you’ve been hurt, and it’s incredibly painful to see you go through this. The therapist interrupted me repeatedly. When I didn’t recite things back exactly, it seemed she was a bit condescending. Half the time I didn’t look at the screen as it was too hard to see the pain on your face.
I didn’t even get to say anything what I really wanted to say; that I love you and to validate your feelings. At one point in time, I muted the microphone then I leaned forward to cry. You may have thought I got up and walked around the room, but I was bent over forward crying into my hands. I truly and sincerely hurt throughout this session. Having you out of my life hurts more than my brothers dying – and still does to this very day. At this point it was clear that my message of love was not going to be conveyed to you, I became frustrated, rambled on about something and left the meeting abruptly. I think I mentioned not knowing if I wanted a relationship with you, but what I really meant was for a temporary amount of time. (P.S. I did not slam my laptop closed – this laptop is too expensive to be slammed shut.) With the thought of that session fresh in my mind. I ended up in a park later that night with a gun to my head. That’s the reason I had suicidal ideations; the pain on your face was more than I could handle.
Word Choices I notice that throughout the order, words were used to misdescribe the situations. “RAGE, ANGER, IMPATIENCE, SLAM, STOMP, SCREAMING”. This is nothing more than character assassination. Can someone name even one person who’s actually witnessed me doing anything like that? I didn’t think so – because it’s not true.
Trying to Get an Answer I have been trying repeatedly for months to hear what Steven and your complaints/problems/concerns were, what the problems were. And no one has told me anything. It was only when I got the restraining order that I was informed of the problems. Not once before that did I know truly what the problems were as neither of you had told me. I had called for a 6 month break, and immediately, the 2 of you filed for a restraining order. Was this because Steven thought he was losing control? The only thing I did within that 6 months was to come to you to tell you were loved and forgiven. And now I hear that Steven thought about jumping out his 2nd story window and call 911 all because he heard the story of Kyle. Meanwhile, Jake, James and I are hanging out having a good time.
Clarifications So let’s talk about that story again, it was told twice in one year. Both times Vanessa started to tell the story. Both times I finished it quickly. After the second time, I leaned over to Vanessa and said “Please let’s not tell this story again” And she responded with “but I like to brag about you” And I said “okay thank you but let’s leave this story in the past” and she said “okay dad I love you” and I said “I love you too”. Both of these times, James and Jake were present. And neither of them felt threatened by this. I did not tell this one on one with Steven. It was told in a group setting. I have since hung out many times with Jake and James. James has even shared his working schedule with me so I can call before/after he is off work to chat. Neither of them feel threatened by me at all. You say that on February 16th, I came home and discovered Steven’s laundry, I immediately responded with anger and rage. That is not true. It was an hour later, and it was in the presence of your mom, lasting about 15 seconds, as mentioned before. I was upset, but there was no “rage”. Again, character assassination.
My Military Record Charlie was the name given to me in the military as a result of having an elevated security clearance. I served courageously, and sometimes heroically. I was honorably discharged. My military records are now sealed. That’s all anyone needs to know. As I made it clear over the years, I really don’t want to talk about my service to our country and I avoid the topic. Owatonna There is a solid, logical reason behind this event. If you heard the reason you would immediately realize it’s not what it seemed at first glance. However, I am unable to write about this, and can only share this with you verbally. Perhaps some day down the road when we can speak again. I only ask that you trust me on this.
I Have Doubts Did you even write this yourself? There are at least 5 times that it is copied and pasted from Steven’s order. Also, one thing I find interesting is that when the question is asked “Do you believe that the harassment will continue?” You respond with “The respondent has made several claims that he ‘resigns’ or is done with the ‘conflict’ yet he has continued to produce more emails, the website, etc.. There seems to be no indication this will end. He continues to escalate the harassment, demonstrated by showing up at both my apartment complex and Brittany’s on 4/28/21.” This is word for word copied from Steven’s order. How much of any of this did you even write yourself? Do you even know what half your order against me says? And up until now, all I have been doing is trying to resolve this. At least I’m trying. That’s more than Steven and you have done collectively. Yet every single time I try to resolve things, Steven turns it around to make it seem like I am a violent person and a threat to him.
What’s even worse, is because of his lies, you think that I am a threat to yourself. As a father I would never be violent towards any one of my kids, ever. That’s nonnegotiable in my mind. I’m Not Violent I was going to take the restraining order to trial, until your attorney told me that this is what you wanted personally. At that point in time, I asked myself “Why am I trying to fix anything?” I just want to be able to go to bed at night, knowing I have done everything I possibly could to resolve this matter peacefully. And the only reason it hasn’t been, is because of Steven’s lies and twisting of the truth.
To date, you have not seen me respond to the damage he has done, but you will. What’s especially troubling is the fact I have to add a disclaimer to everything I write now which states “Everything I do will be accomplished by legal means” all because of Steven’s lies. You know I’m not a violent person. Again, 60 years old, no criminal record. That wouldn’t be possible if I was such a violent person. I’m this amazing father until Steven comes around and it’s like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde that only he can see. As it only exists in his mind. And he has you convinced it’s real. No one else can see it. Why? It’s not real or true. There is literally no one else that I know who thinks this of me or believes any of these lies being told. That alone speaks volumes.
How I Have Handled this Emotionally You say in your order “The respondent has shown an inability to control and regulate his emotions. He has lived out delusions of a violent nature.” (Again, this is copy and pasted right from Steven’s order) This has been a very emotional time for me, which it would be for any father that has their daughter unfairly stripped from their life. Considering the depth of this tragedy, aside from the regrettable evening that I held a gun to my head, I feel as though I have handled this quite well. As far as the reference of violence, this is only an illusion in Steven’s mind, that he has gotten you to believe. No one else in my life believes this whatsoever. They have seen no signs of violence in me. Why? It is simply not real, it is just lies. How else do you explain that I went from an amazing dad, who has done a tremendous amount of work preventing bullying in schools, has chaperoned dances and prom for more than 25 years, and even done volunteer work at a hospice center sitting with dying people who have no family or friends to sit by their side, just so that they feel loved and cared for in their last moments, to a crazy homicidal maniac who threatens violence all in just a few months? And only Steven can see it. Maybe there’s another answer? Maybe he’s jealous of our relationship and set out to ruin it? That’s a more likely answer in my eyes.
An Epic Storm Let’s talk about some of the things I’ve mentioned- starting with an epic storm. This is a real thing. I’ve done two so far in my life. Everything I do is completely legal in nature. We have a wonderful legal system in this country that helps defend innocent people like myself. Without going into too many details, suffice it to say, the first person ended up in prison. After which time I started dating his wife, and every month for a year, we would mail him a picture of us together. How do you know this is true? I was living with her when I met your mom. For the second time, a man threatened our family. He was well respected in the community, had a 6 figure job, a nice home and a family. In a very short period of time, again using all legal means, he lost all of that. Afterwards, sitting alone in a motel outside of town, he called me and said “It’s over, you won!” I said “No, it’s not over. There are 3 more steps left.” He begged, “Please, no. I have 2 daughters.” I responded, “If you ever come near my family again, or come near our home again, I will finish what I started.” He responded, “I’m gone.” Want to know if this is true? Ask your mom, she knows. You see here again that Steven is twisting things to seem like I’m this crazy, violent man. But I know how to defend my family using legal means. I prefer to live in peace, which is why I use the phrase “If you want peace, prepare for war.” This just means to be prepared to defend yourself against people who want to take that peace away, which I am fully prepared to do through legal means. Steven has been rude to me, disrespectful, twisting my words, and pulling you out of my life. “Prepare for war” simply meant to stop what he was doing or prepare for legal consequences. The “Epic Storm” and “Prepare for war” was a deterrent to stop him from doing what he was doing, which he didn’t.
My Books Let’s set the record straight. Steven had heard that I had written several books. I said I had. He said he would be interested in reading them. So, I went into the other room and got a copy of each for him. He said “Oh okay.” And we changed the subject. It was after that we hung out and he mentioned he read my books. He only wanted to talk about the miracles in ‘Casting Out Doubt’, not my memoir. You know all the good things that have come from writing this book. I have given out hundreds of copies and no one has ever felt threatened by it.
Final Thought About Your Order And lastly, your restraining order was centered around a claim of domestic violence. I (regrettably) raised my voice around you, but how is that violent? The answer; it is not. It doesn’t even rise to the level of bullying. Therefore, your restraining order was based around a false premise to begin with. I think it was filed that way just for dramatic effect. That rises to the level of bearing false witness against your neighbor, just like Steven’s. My Response to Steven’s Order He says that I am unable to control my emotional response. Unable to control my emotional response? He was trying to talk down to me, and I was telling him to not talk down to me. He was being disrespectful to me. He is a 25-year-old man and I am a 60- year-old father. He does not have the right to talk down to me. From the beginning, all along his goal was to control me. If he can’t control me, he wants to make me look like a terrible person.
Every time I have tried to stand up for myself, he has turned it around to seem like I am aggressive or violent. He was also rude to Alex, Vanessa, and my friends Heather and Henry. They all told me independently that Steven acted very rudely towards them, and all 4 are willing to make written statements about how poorly he treated them. Interestingly enough, Alex and Vanessa do not know Heather and Henry, so there was not, nor could be, any collusion.
My Letters to the Church About my letter to the church and that it was a threat to him. I went to the church to ask them politely and calmly to ask if they would help resolve this peacefully and without conflict. Along with the letter, I included the history of the challenges we have faced in our relationship. This documentation included emails and texts we had sent between each. Nowhere in any of the documentation did it reference any violence or threats. This was sent to the senior pastor only, in confidentiality, and he never responded. Anyone reading this letter would ask “How is this defamatory?” Steven twisted things around, again. As for the second letter, the senior pastor did not respond, so this was addressed to the elders at the church. Nowhere in any communication do I ask to terminate his employment. All I have ever asked was that they get involved in the conflict. As far as showing up “unannounced”, I left 2 voicemails for the senior pastor the week before. As far as me being “uninvited”, I went into the lobby, rang the buzzer, and asked if I could leave the package there. I left the package in the “Leave Deliveries Here” area (the same as UPS or FedEx would). I then went back out to my car peacefully. Also “uninvited”? How can someone not be invited to a church?”
P.S. At the time I wrote this letter, there were markers that were off that led doctors to believe that I might have cancer. I had to go through numerous tests, including a colonoscopy. Along the way, the real problem was discovered after I was taken to the emergency room by my wife after being in excruciating pain one night. Once there, after going through some more tests, they discovered the real problem. For privacy reasons I will not disclose what the problem is. I have since been undergoing treatment (and as of June 4th, 2021 continue to be under the care of doctors for this condition). In conclusion, there was a serious concern that I had cancer. Fortunately, it was not cancer, but is still of great concern, and I am thankful for the medical community in helping through this difficult time.
I say in the letter that I am prepared to make some bold moves. I went to the church to ask them to help. I wanted to get mediation.
Bold moves- asking you over to have cheesesteaks and talk about what each other needs to resolve the issues. Nowhere have I threatened anyone.
The Website The website was intended as a warning. Nothing more than a warning. Yet again he has twisted things around to seem that I am going to use violence against him, even though I clearly state that everything will be done in a legal manner and not a violent one. I also had the website coded so that search engines will not pull it up or catalog it. I did that intentionally to protect privacy. It was a warning that if he continues or tries to pull anything else like what he has done to me, the site would go live. Even the screenshot Steven used in the filing says, “To be perfectly clear, everything listed above will be accomplished through legal means, I do not condone violence or any illegal activities. I am an otherwise peaceful person who has been unfairly put in a position of having to fight back for his family.” How does that say that I am a violent man? It doesn’t!
His Claim about My Gun His whole claim about me, my gun, and him- it is baseless. All these allegations of me using my gun for a violent purpose is something he invented in his own mind. And he has caused undue concern to that church, both campuses, because of his lies. Name one time that he has seen the handgun in my hand. He has never! He is doing this to get my daughter out of my life, period.
FYI About a week before we had our court meeting, I spoke to David (your ex). He said when you and Steven first broke up, you started texting and calling him trying to get back with him. Does this mean Steven is forever your second choice? He also mentioned the issue with Alex Rodriguez. But the bottom line here is that David clearly said that I treated him wonderfully and it was truly a sad day when we said good-bye for the last time. I honestly wish you were marrying David, or someone like him. He is awesome.
On June 7th, 2021 I sent an email to the attorney representing Calvary Church. This is what it said:
Dear Mr. Lutz,
I have received the notice, have honored it and will continue to do so. I recently became aware of the allegations being made against me which are horrible and unfounded. Is there a possibility of presenting my side of this ordeal? If your client, Calvary Church, would be open to a meeting with me, it can be at a place and time of their choice. The only goal is to clear my name and I come in a spirit of peace and truth. The Bible says we should choose a good name rather than riches, and I would appreciate an opportunity to prove to your client the truth.
Respectfully,
Tim Hutchinson
651-724-1325
david@lutzlawfirm.com
Tue, Jun 8, 12:29 PM
to me
Tim,
I have advised my client not to meet and discuss due to the threat of litigation. My client has received and reviewed your written communication.
David A. Lutz
Lutz Law Firm
120 South 6th Street, Suite 1550
Minneapolis, MN 55402
612-424-2110
david@lutzlawfirm.com
www.lutzlawfirm.com
Tim Hutchinson <mrhutchinson@gmail.com>
Attachments
Wed, Jun 9, 12:03 PM (3 days ago)
to david
David,
All along I’ve stated my desire to avoid any legal proceedings. Sad day when Christians cannot come together and resolve an issue. Attached is a letter I wrote to my daughter in response to a Restraining Order. Would appreciate you reviewing it and forwarding it to your client, Calvary Church. I’d like them to know these things, My goal has always been to have the truth told.
Regards,
Tim Hutchinson
Tim Hutchinson <mrhutchinson@gmail.com>
Wed, Jun 9, 12:19 PM (3 days ago)
to David
P.S. In the attachment there are the names Jake and James. It would be helpful to know that Jake is engaged to my oldest daughter, and James is dating my youngest daughter. The church might also be interested in knowing that 2 of Brittany’s 3 siblings won’t attend the wedding, and no one from my side of the family will be there either. The reasons are the same; they are shocked at the lies Steven told about me.
Regards,
Tim Hutchinson
To date there has been no response.
Got a letter in the mail from the Sheriff’s office which says I have to turn in my concealed carry permit. Made a copy of the letter and mailed that along with my permit back to them.
June 11th, 2021. Brittany sends me a message through her mom to cancel her phone. We pay for her phone, car insurance and medical insurance. If they’re trying to save money, why would they give up a free phone? Now Alex and Vanessa don’t have her phone number. More isolation from the family!
Letter to Brittany (sent through her attorney) – August 22, 2021. Note: she never responded.
Hi Brittany,
Been a while and I wanted you to know that I think about you every day. Literally.
Not surprising considering how much I love you.
Sometimes I ask mom how your headaches are – truly feel badly that you have
those so much. Wish there was something that could be done.
A goal of mine is to lose weight. There is a lady on Facebook who’s always sharing
pics of others who are losing a lot of weight. I mean, their transformation is
incredible. So, I reached out to her and she let me know about the plan. Talked
with your mom and she said that she’d join as well to be supportive of my goal.
After the first week I lost 7 lbs! Out of curiosity I looked up the ingredients to the
pre-packaged foods we were eating. Turns out every meal has a lot of calcium in
- That’s bad for me due to being very prone to kidney stones (yikes!) So now am
off the plan – however, your mom was/is losing weight and decided to remain on
- So, it worked out for her and I’m happy about that. I going to figure something
else out – likely all salads and daily trips to the gym 🙂 Won’t end up looking like a
body-builder, but that’s OK, I just want to look in the mirror and be comfortable
with how I look.
So, your mom and I have been discussing my retirement, and decided it can
happen in November of 2022. It’s going to be so weird waking up and not having
to run off to a job. I’ve been working over 40 years now – most of it in the same
industry. I hope things are worked out by then so my whole family can come to
the retirement party. That would mean a lot! After retirement I’m going to
increase the amount of volunteering I do and will likely start up again at the
hospice. If I ever become a grandpa, I’ll open up “Grandpa Day Care” for my
grandkids (free of course!)
The ministry is getting closer to launching. My gosh, it’s been a long time in the
making, right?! But it WILL happen! I feel blessed that we hired a consulting firm –
they have helped the ministry move forward by leaps and bounds. If things
continue going forward at the pace they’re on now, the launch could happen as
soon as next month. Otherwise, October would be the absolute latest. Just
thinking about all the people this ministry will reach for Christ quite literally gets
me teary-eyed. This has been at the forefront of my daily efforts for months and
months. When it finally happens, I’ll be overcome with joy!!
Once the ministry is launched, there is something I’ve been wanting to do for a
long time; fill out the “My Dad – in his own words” book you gave me. It sits on a
ledge in front of my desk, and I look at it every day. If you ever have children, I
hope you’ll let them read it. I want them to know how much I love my kids, and
how much joy they brought into my life, despite the challenges.
That’s it for now. Going back to copywriting and moving through the action steps
my coach gave me.
Love you,
Dad
September 2021.
I am considering hiring an attorney to sue Steven for the damages. Contacted the attorney who represented him and Brittany in the restraining order to see if he was still representing him (them.) This is the email exchange we had:
Hello Mr. Van Loh,
Checking to see if you are still representing Steven Anderson? I ask because I would like to give him a chance to settle our disagreement. Starting in October I will begin searching for an attorney. Once I hire legal representation, this window of opportunity will be closed.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Tim Hutchinson
Tim, Thank you for your email. Yes, I am still representing Steven Anderson. I appreciate your reaching out to me in an attempt to settle your disagreement. Can you please clarify for me which disagreement you wish to settle with Steven so that I can apprise him accordingly? What is your proposal for resolution or request of Steven?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you,
Dan
Hello Mr. Van Loh,
My goal is a relationship with my daughter Brittany, and healing for broken relationships in my family; most notably her siblings that do not have any contact with her. As a father, this is heartbreaking to see.
Arbitration seems like a reasonable move. Right now, mediation would not offer a resolution I’d be happy with – I need accountability for past actions. At this time I cannot simply “kiss-and-makeup”. My family, Brittany included, deserves to know whether Steven’s accusations against me are accurate or not.
If he/they are agreeable to arbitration, then I further suggest we split the cost of the arbitration services. If the ruling is in my favor, then they should request the court to dismiss the restraining order, so Brittany and I can go to counseling to try and heal our relationship.
At this time I am not open to having a relationship with Steven. If things work out to where Brittany and I are back on speaking terms, then I can be sociable with Steven, but nothing more.
Awaiting their response,
Tim Hutchinson
Tim,
Thank you for the explanation. I’m not sure that reconciliation of a father-daughter relationship for and adult daughter is something that can be arbitrated. The accusations to which you refer have not been adjudicated because you agreed to accept the HRO without a hearing and without admitting anything. Hence, there is no public sharing of the allegations, unless you have shared Steven and Brittany’s affidavits with others, otherwise the allegations remain between you and them. On this note, can you please verify that you have removed the public website that contained your disparaging comments about Steven? This was required as part of the HRO.
I’m sorry that I cannot offer a better solution, Tim. I’m sure this is difficult. I’m happy to speak with an attorney who contacts me on your behalf, but there is simply not a legal process through the HRO to force relational reconciliation with an adult child. This is not to say that there is never a hope for healing and reconciliation, just not through the legal process.
Thank you,
Dan
Mr. Van Loh,
The website you are referring to was offline before the conclusion of the HRO hearing. In fact, I had already notified the hosting company of my intent to cancel hosting prior to being originally served.
My intent in reaching out to you was to see if there was a way to handle this situation without my retaining a lawyer and suing Steven. Once I proceed in that direction there is no turning back, and it will become a publicly known matter. I firmly maintain that I am a victim and am innocent of all accusations of Steven. It is only out of a desire to peacefully restore a relationship with my daughter that I extend this one-time offer to settle things before hiring an attorney.
Regards,
Tim,
What are the damages that you are alleging and what is the legal basis for any claims? Are you just referring to the allegations in Steven’s HRO petition because these allegations were repeated by Brittany as well. I’m still trying to understand what you feel that Steven has done that can be remedied for me to see if there is a solution.
Can you clarify this for me?
Dan,
As for the damages, let’s start with the relationship between Brittany and I. Next there is the wedding I did not get to attend, and did not walk my daughter down the aisle. There’s also the suicide attempt for which I ended up in the hospital. Other relationships have been affected, and so has my job. There have been other deep impacts on myself as well. This has been a living nightmare. And all as a result of Steven’s lies.
The allegations in Steven’s HRO are a lie. They are repeated in Brittany’s because it appears they were copied from Steven’s. At one point in Brittany’s HRO it refers to “Brittany and I…” I’m convinced Brittany went along blindly with this and doesn’t really know what the HRO says.
Let me be perfectly clear; I fully intend to take him to court and sue for damages resulting from his lies. It is only because I am a peaceful person that this opportunity to handle things outside a courtroom is being presented. With all due respect to you, sir, I really don’t want to go back-and-forth through email with you like this. Either they want an opportunity to resolve this between us, or they are sticking with their story and not willing to move forward towards a resolution.
Thank you,
Tim Hutchinson
Tim,
Thank you for the clarification. I will discuss your proposal with Steven and get back to you. I just needed to be sure what the legal issues are so that I can advise him. Feel free to check back with me next week if I don’t get back to you by next Thursday.
Mr. Van Loh,
Thank you. Hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
Kind regards,
Tim
Mr. Van Loh,
Checking to see if ther are any updates?
Tim
Mr. Van Loh responded saying that Steven does not want reconciliation.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Nothing more notable happened until the summer of 2023 (other than a visit to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office – see note at the bottom about this visit). It was then that my youngest sister, who knew the HRO was about to expire, suggested that she take some action. She was doing this with good intentions. Just a few months prior, her only daughter had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away at the age of 40. I stood by her throughout this horrible ordeal. She wanted to find a way to help me with the situation concerning my daughter, Brittany. Her idea was to form a peaceful protest at Calvary church. And continue doing so until they agreed to do a proper investigation. I initially said no, don’t do anything. But she was insistent and even looked up the laws concerning a peaceful protest. I reluctantly agreed to go along with this idea of hers. But I made it abundantly clear that I would not participate in those protests. The most I would do is to send the bastard and Calvary church a letter explaining the intention of an upcoming protest. The letter to the church was very respectful. The letter to the bastard was more pointed. Because, after all, this was all his fault. And because of this, my marriage of 31 years was ending and I would have to give up the house I lived in for 24 years, and raised our children in.
The response I got was to be served papers that the bastard and Brittany had filed for an extension of the HRO’s. And requested a hearing on an emergency basis, claiming that I was such a threat that they feared for their lives, and were concerned I would go to their church and harm/murder hundreds of children. At that time I asked my sister to abandon any intentions of protesting, and she agreed.
I attended the hearing and requested a trial. Their attorney proposed that nothing from the first HRO filing would be included in the trial for the second HRO, and the referee agreed.
I focused on everything that had to do with events that happened after the first HRO was approved, and lined up witnesses for my defense.
I filed an evidence that I was going to present via the courts online system, and emailed a list of those items to their attorney. What I forgot to do was send along the actual evidence to their attorney with the list.
During the trial their attorney questioned me and kept bringing up the website I had previously put up. That website was taken down prior to the issuing of the first HRO and should not have been included in the evidence for the second HRO.
The referee allowed this evidence and did nothing to stop or prevent it.
When it was my turn, I presented several witnesses, who their attorney flat out insulted and objected to any questions I asked. The referee clearly sided with their attorney and never with me. When it was my turn to share evidence and/or personal testimony, the referee stopped the proceedings and gave their attorney and myself only a couple of minutes to make a closing statement. Their attorney asked for a minimum of 10 years for an HRO and suggested it be for Life. He also called myself and my witnesses liars.
During this time it should have been obvious that I was so emotionally broken that I was unable to defend myself or present evidence in an effective way. She did nothing to help ensure this was a search for truth and justice, and instead allowed the lawyer to continue on his path of seek & destroy.
After that I was informed that the HRO’s would be extended and we would have to wait to find out for how long.
I later learned that they were extended for 10 years for the bastard and 2 years for my daughter.
Note: In the spring of 2023 I went to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office and met with an investigator. I showed him all the info / evidence that I had. He said that I had not done anything wrong, that the bastard had, and if I could get the civil courts to refer this case to them, they would complete their investigation and likely place him under arrest.
Five reasons to report their attorney, Mr. Dan Van Loh to the MN State Bar Association;
- Before I agreed to accept the first HRO, Mr. Van Loh told me that if I fought back and won the HRO it would show up on Brittany’s background check and could affect her employment and future missionary efforts.
- I told him before the first HRO hearing the website was not for the public, but instead was a private journal, and the only person I invited to see it was Steven.
- He suggested to the court referee that no information or evidence from the first hearing be allowed at the trial for the second hearing, but then the website (my private journal) was introduced as evidence and became the bulk of their claim against me.
- He went along with all of the blatantly false accusations against me, and threw reasoning out the window and went along with all of their hateful claims.
- He claimed I was a liar and so was my sister (who had just lost her only daughter, suddenly and unexpectedly. I mentioned this before she was brought into the virtual courtroom to testify.)
The reasons the referee should be reported (Judicial Misconduct Complaint) are;
- She allowed information to be presented that she previously said would not be allowed.
- Allowed their attorney to speak harshly about my witnesses without any evidence to prove his statements.
- Did not explain that I was not obligated to answer any of their attorneys’ questions.
- Was not there to seek truth and ultimately justice, but instead allowed their attorney to do whatever he please, despite it being obvious I was unable to defend myself.
Closing thoughts…
I left a couple things out of the long video which is about an hour and 34 minutes because i wanted to cover them here in a shorter video. Just a few things really close to my heart – first and foremost as most of you know i went through a really terrible time after the failed counseling session with Brittany which resulted in me having some suicidal ideations. Unfortunately stephen and brittany attempted to use that against me in the harassment restraining order and i want to let you know that if you have any sort of mental struggles it’s nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever. Sadly they tried to portray me as someone who was almost held against my will or forced to remain there. Nothing was further from the truth, i mean nothing. I said that I have a problem and want some help. My wife and i went to the hospital and i agreed to stay. It was completely voluntary. I talked to a psychologist, a few counselors, and went to a class to learn coping skills, then i spent the rest of the day journaling. It was a very quiet time for me to de-stress. The following day when i met with the psychologist i said thank you, this meant a lot to me, and i’m ready to go home. The doctor agreed saying i’m not a danger to myself, i’m there on a completely voluntary basis, that they’re not holding me, nor are they looking for any type of 72-hour hold or anything and I was released with best wishes along with a plan and new coping skills.
What’s even more disturbing about this is that they knew i was in the hospital and yet neither one of them reached out to me to show any care or concern or anything of the sort. And that’s really troubling because i’ve asked a couple of people, i asked if the knew someone that they really didn’t like at all, they had a lot of issues with them and just generally don’t like them, and you find out that they’re suicidal, what’s your reaction going to be? Every single person said they would put that difference aside, and reach out to that person and say them hey don’t do this. Suicide passes your pain onto other people who don’t deserve it. They do this because there are times when you need to act as a human and you put the differences aside and you reach out to that person. They didn’t do that for me at all, nothing, and to me that doesn’t even rise to the level of being human. Not whatsoever. I couldn’t fathom a time when anyone that I dislike so much that i wouldn’t reach out to them at such a low point in their life.
Something else that i wanted to touch base on here is the whole allegation from stephen about how when i went to his apartment to tell him he was loved and forgiven that he was so afraid they thought about you know jumping off the second floor second story balcony fleeing for his life and calling the police, and as i thought about that i’m like wait a minute if he’s so scared of me why’d he just call the police anyway?
Just call them and report this – seems to me that’s what the average person would if you’re that afraid of someone – you’re gonna call and make a report. But that never happened and i thought about that for a little bit and i’m like why wouldn’t he call and report me to the police at all? And i’m thinking hmm maybe the reason is because then the police do an investigation, and the investigation would clearly show that he was filing a false report.
Let’s be clear, there was never anything to be afraid of because the number of times i threatened him was zero. He invented all of it he made it all up, yeah, he lied!
And lastly i just want to say that this has been my family for 30 years. I have been in this family a hundred percent. I am not a perfect father – they don’t exist, I have made some mistakes – a few small ones here and there; for example, i raised my voice once to my daughter and i completely regret that. It was wrong – she didn’t deserve that at all and i apologized for that, and i meant that apology.
The second time that i raised my voice i didn’t think she was at home – i was just venting some frustration to my wife, and again during the process i wasn’t threatening anybody. The worst thing i said was i don’t want steven at our house anymore. That was it – that’s not a threat. But again i did raise my voice absolutely and it’s been over 3 years since that happened and the number of times that i’ve raised my voice since then has been zero. This just shows the level of frustration that i had with him and nonetheless i tried to make amends with him, to make peace at least 12 times. And he’s made no attempts whatsoever, absolutely not a single one, which shows what his ulterior motive is, which is me out of Brittany’s life. and um and so i think back on all that and i’m like you know 30 years is a long time to put your family first and and along comes stephen he’s in the family a very short period of time and all sudden here i am having to defend myself against him when really he has no evidence whatsoever.
Everything he’s said about me is is made up, it’s invented, it’s absolutely not true. I, on the other hand, have evidence including emails, and all this other stuff going on and he has nothing.
Again, this isn’t about revenge, that’s not what i’m after, it has everything to do with showing my family that i’m innocent, and that i still deserve to be called dad and treated like a dad, a father who put their family first, a father who loves his children unconditionally, a father who was lied about.
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Reasons to File Complaints & Lawsuit(s)
Attorney
Lied to me during first HRO hearing. He said that if I did not accept the HRO and instead fought against it, that would affect Brittany negatively. He said that in the future anytime an employer or volunteer organization that she would travel internationally as a volunteer for performs a background check on her, that this would come up and disqualify her.
During that same meeting, he also said “This is what Brittany wants.” Subsequently, there were numerous times that he would say that I should just leave her alone, because contacting her was making a difficult for her to heal. Even when I suggested a possible way to work things out, he took a negative approach to this and did nothing to help a family heal.
During that same meeting, I asked that the website I had up about Steven be taken down. I specifically told him that was not a public website and that it was my private journal – one that I discreetly shared with Steven. He then said, “That’s what pen and paper are for.” So, he knew that was a private journal, but in the future he would act as though it was a public website that I used to disparage Steven. In one later email he even specifically referred to that website as a “public website.” Why would anyone refer to a website in that manner? Unless of course they know it’s private and are trying to overlook the fact that they know it was a private journal. In the second HRO, over half of their so-called evidence was that website. However, during the previous meeting when I asked for a trial, both their attorney and the referee agreed that no evidence from the first HRO was to be allowed into the HRO trial. But that didn’t happen. That private journal ended up being a primary focus of their case.
During the trial he acted rudely and was not at all interested in truth and justice. This was purely a seek-and-destroy mission for him. He introduced evidence (the website) which he knew was not an attack or threat to Steven and used that as most of the evidence presented. He was also rude to my witnesses and suggested to the court that my witnesses were lying.
He also filed court papers which presented the case in a manner which was worded to make me appear as though I was one of the worst humans on this earth (at least that’s what it felt like), and went as far as to ask the HRO’s be for life.
Court
First, though I was allowed to present a few witnesses (which their attorney treated harshly and poorly), when it came time for me to present my case, the referee stopped the proceedings and said she would hear closing comments before issuing a ruling. So, I was literally not allowed to present my case.
During the trial she (the referee) spoke harshly to me. Even at times when I was objecting to something their attorney was saying, she seemed to be talking down to me. I made a simple mistake in presenting my evidence before trial, and when that came up at the beginning of the trial, she spoke in a manner that could easily be viewed as condescending.
Every time I made an objection it was overruled. Every time their attorney made an objection it was sustained.
She claimed that I had violated the previous HRO by posting a video on a private website, which was password protected, and contained my side of the story for the first HRO. This was a private communication between myself and five members of my immediate family. Once they viewed the video I removed it. One of them shared the website address and password with Brittany. (And that’s violation of the HRO?? So, I don’t have the First Amendment Right to freedom of speech anymore?) Nothing in that video was a threat or could be perceived as harassment. None of the video was shown in court and no transcript was presented. Nonetheless, the referee claimed it was a violation of the first HRO without knowing any of the content.
My sister was prevented from reading a letter which explained the information she had to share in my defense. It is important to note that several months prior to this hearing, my sisters oldest child (and only daughter) suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Still very much in the process of grieving such a tremendous loss, she was not allowed to present her information in a manner that was easy for her, especially considering the circumstances. When I tried questioning her about the content(s) of the letter, their attorney objected to almost everything and her testimony was largely not allowed. Afterwards, their attorney called my sister a liar.
The referee allowed information that was previously agreed to not be allowed as evidence in this trial, notably my private online journal.
During the portion of the trial where they were presenting evidence, I was not informed by the court that I did not have to testify for them. In the beginning of the trial, I was sworn in and their attorney began questioning me. I feel that the court should have informed me that I have a right to refuse to be questioned by their attorney. I felt like it was an obligation to answer their attorney’s questions. If I had known that I did not have to, I would have remained silent during his questioning.
Had I been allowed to present my case, part of that would have been to ask for this matter be referred to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office for investigation and criminal proceedings. I had previously been in touch with them, and they asked for this matter to be sent to them via the civil courts.
Ways in Which I Have Been Harmed / Affected
- Suicide ideations and near attempt.
- Depression and loss of interest in many aspects of life.
- Divorce.
- Loss of house of 24 years.
- Career of 30 years ended (unable to perform duties.)
- Various health impacts; heart, pre-diabetic, sleep, etc.
- And more…
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This may be redundant, but want to be sure this is included somewhere…
It’s interesting to note that neither Brittany’s mom or I have met with Steven’s parents before the wedding. We have not spoken with them on the phone, either. No communication between us at all. I literally do not even know his parents names. Brittany’s mom did not meet either of them until the day of the wedding – and there has been no communication since. Is it just me, or does anyone else find that to be really odd??
The only mention he ever made of us potentially meeting his parents was when he said that his mom might be coming into town and would be here to plan the wedding. I mentioned that my wife is the mother of the bride and she should like to be involved. His reply was that his mom would be doing the planning.
Court hearing
I attended the court hearing by way a zoom video. Their attorney suggested that I allow them to have the restraining order and the court would not find any fault. He said this is what Brittany wants. I agreed and the court referee accepted this. As part of the agreement, I would take down the DirtySteven.com website. I actually did that before meeting with the referee – and in fact had cancelled website hosting the week prior. Was paid through the first part of July and that’s when the website would go down completely. Another component was that I am able to send Brittany a letter through her attorney. Began composing that letter shortly afterwards.
About a week later I was served the final order.
June 4th I emailed the letter to Brittany’s attorney.
Dear Brittany,
Amazing how he has you believing that after 22 years of being an amazing father, that somehow, I have become a monster. Apparently, he has super-powers because only he can see that…and he has convinced you that his fantasy is real. I am so grateful and thankful for my children who know my heart and have stood by my side, unwavering during these difficult times. They will always have a special place in my heart. I have proven to them, over the decades, that I always put my family first. Always. They will not just give up on me when someone tells a lie. They came to me and asked what my side of the story was. I shared my heart and truth as best as possible, which again confirmed that I have put this family first, even when it caused me tremendous pain (and even resulted in my being hospitalized.) They are my family, and I am so proud of them!
All I have been doing has been to try and resolve things through making the truth known. His response has been to escalate his lies and twisting of the truth to cover his previous lies. He has done so by making even the slightest ant hill seem like a ginormous mountain. He has scrutinized every single step I have taken and found fault with it – even if that means twisting the truth, or outright lying. Quick example: For weeks I had been coming home and placing my handgun on the top railing for a few minutes (since the riots, doing this made your mom feel safe), entering the kitchen and unpacking my lunch bag, then taking the handgun and putting it away in the bedroom. For weeks this was a daily routine (unless someone was walking down the street towards the park when I got home – in that case I waited until later to bring it into the house, when no one was around.) One day when he was over, he noticed the gun on the railing, and automatically assumed it was there to intimidate him. That is what he stated in the Restraining Order. Again, just a small example of how he has twisted things to fit his agenda. An agenda to strip us out of each other’s lives. And you just caved him and let him get away with this. That makes me feel like I really do not matter to you – it seems you just gave up so easily.
Here I am fighting to get you back and you are blindly going along with his evil plan. He has been avoiding the truth being told. He does not want mediation because he knows the truth will come out and his evil deeds with be exposed. That is also the reason why he continues to keep you isolated from me. He is afraid of the truth. That also explains why he blatantly lied to Calvary about me; so they would not help with mediation, and instead have a lawyer ask me to stay away. I am no threat to them whatsoever. Yet he has them thinking I am such a threat they have supposedly hired additional security. That is how far he will go to cover his lies. They are a CHURCH – I am a PASTOR. They are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I would never go there and commit any sort of act of violence. Not ever. I only went to them because previously when we were going to have mediation, someone from the church was going to be the mediator. This was in no way an attempt to have him fired – they are a church; they are supposed to help people. I went there seeking their help in resolving things. Had he worked at any other place besides a church I would have never contacted them. But he twisted this also to make it seem I was going there to somehow attack him. More lies on top of the other lies.
Remember when I said let us take a 6-month break. That took control away from him, Once I took control away, he felt a need to take it back. That is the real reason for the Restraining Order. Why file that if I am going away for 6 months? Control. The only thing I did during that time was to come over and attempt to tell you both that you are loved and forgiven. Just one time and you would never hear from me again for at least 6 months. This is about control – he wants to control, and I am in his way. Even worse; he has you believing that I am a threat and/or danger to you. Above all else that especially troubles me!! Let me be perfectly clear on this one point: I love you. More than life itself. There is no way, and I mean literally zero chance I would ever physically hurt you. Ever. Never. You are absolutely one of the greatest things to ever happen in my life. Period. Even the mere thought of any type of harm to you is so repulsive it makes me ill to my stomach. Literally. I know that you have been emotionally hurt – some of that is likely my fault. For that I wholeheartedly apologize. I truly do. It was never my intention in any way, shape, or form to cause you any kind of pain. None whatsoever. That is a promise. A solid promise from a father to his precious daughter. I pinky swear.
I think this has been tremendously difficult for you. After all, it is not normal to become engaged, then need therapy. What’s next, medication? He has painted a picture of a fairy tale, but after the wedding he will slowly turn it into something else. There are literally thousands of stories exactly like this on the internet about guys like him. Everything seemed almost magical. No way could he ever turn out like all the others, he special, he different, he really loves me – then they changed. And the ladies who were lucky and escaped, ended up just another statistic with a sad story to tell and deep emotional scars. Sadly, I believe you will see this firsthand. Once you walk down the aisle and I am not next to you, the door of opportunity to resolve things with him closes. After that time, I will never acknowledge him as my son-in-law. He will never call me “dad”. I will never have any type of relationship with him. Something else is going to happen after the wedding: my response. It will then be my turn, and I will expose his lies and evil ways. You see, I have been patiently waiting to see how far he would take things – and all the while I have been trying to resolve this (apologizing, offering forgiveness, seeking mediation, etc.) I’ve been patient, very patient, for a good reason; I want to be sure that I’ve given every chance possible to resolve this another way. I don’t want to think about the “What if’s” afterwards, wondering if there was another chance to settle this.
Filing the Restraining Order was enough to show me there isn’t another way – I’m left with literally no choice. This entire time he has only done one thing: continue playing his game. So, remember this phrase: “He Treated Me Like a Game – Now I’m Going to Show Him How It’s Played.” I am fairly certain your lawyer is also reading this, so here’s the disclaimer (as I’ve stated over and over and over again, repeatedly since this conflict began…) Nothing stated here is meant to infer or condone any illegal activities, or anything of a violent nature. I am a law-abiding citizen and will comply with all laws, including the Restraining Order. Step #1 is to file a lawsuit against Steven, and possibly Calvary. He will have to answer questions during the lawsuit proceedings, and the truth will come out! There will be other (legal) events that will happen as well. Again, all fully legal and in compliance with the Restraining Order. But that does not make them any less effective.
My entire goal is to show you, my beautiful daughter, the lies he has been telling. As I’ve stated so many times before; I just want the truth revealed! I will not stop until that happens. For the rest of my life I will not rest until you know the truth. I promise you this. As these events unfold, you will reach a point in time when you realize that you joined the wrong team. When that happens, come home. No judgement, no ‘I told you so’ comments, no holding a grudge. Nothing but love is waiting for you here. That is a real father to daughter promise. We all make mistakes in life (myself included), and it is comforting to know we have a family that will take us back, no matter what. Because that’s how real families roll. His real battle is not with me, it is with himself. He clearly does not know how to express himself or his emotions in a healthy way and as a result, pushed me to my limits – then blamed me for the outcome; all the while lying about what he has done to cause the problem(s) to begin with. Then, in order for you to remain in a relationship with him, you had to hurt someone; me. Are you happy with that? Seems fair, right? I mean all you have to do is treat your dad like crap after he made you a priority in his life for 23 years. And did anything and everything he possibly could for you. Here’s a hint: if you have to give that up to be with someone, then you’re with the wrong guy! Especially if he’s lying to keep you away from your own dad.
During all of this time he has not once shown any care or compassion towards me. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. How is this Christian behavior? Answer: it’s not! I’ve offered love, forgiveness and multiple opportunities to resolve this. He’s offered nothing except lies in an attempt to exacerbate things. Again, that is not Christian. At all. But somehow, he just turns things around in your mind to make me the bad guy. Again, it’s amazing how awesome of a relationship we had, until he came along. I now present to you some answers to the false claims made in the Restraining Order. In the interest of brevity, I’ve not covered everything. However, if there is something you would like to know, share that with your attorney and I’ll answer through him.
Love Dad.
I have a challenge for you. Read this alone and do not let Steven read this. It was agreed upon in court that I got to share a letter with you. But just you. I want you to read this with your heart and meditate on it.
My Response to Your Order
The Kyle Situation
Kyle was Vanessa’s ex, who assaulted her. After he assaulted her, Vanessa came to me and told me what happened. Vanessa didn’t want me to call the police because she was embarrassed. I called Kyle, and he started to verbally assault me so I hung up. I shared this with Vanessa, who still did not want me to call the police. So I went to Kyle’s apartment in person. I knocked on the door and he opened it. I identified myself as Vanessa’s father and asked if he was Kyle. He said yes. I asked if he had assaulted her. He responded by saying “Yeah, and if I wanted to I could go rape your daughter.” He then pushed me back with both hands. At that point I felt the need to defend myself, and struck him twice. He fell back against the wall about 6 feet behind him and his head made a dent in the wall. He looked up at me and said “Okay, okay. I’m done” I responded, “Never come near my daughter again.” He responded “No sir. It’s done.” So, I left.
He never bothered Vanessa again and this was the end of it. I never intended for anything to become physical – and I learned that in the future I would insist on calling the police and letting them handle the situation. The Phone Calls to Steven It was alleged that I made an increasing number of harassing calls to Steven. But I have checked my phone records, and they show that I have called Steven a total of 4 times ever. Not in a week, a month, but ever. 4 times.
Acting Out?
It’s claimed that I, at one time, were stomping, slamming cabinets, and slamming doors, and raising my voice while talking about steven. I only raised my voice to you once about Steven, but only after he treated me several times very disrespectfully.
I was so disappointed in myself for having raised my voice to you (something I’ve not done before) that I slapped the doorway as I walked out of the kitchen. I cannot slam the doors in our kitchen, there are none. I cannot slam the kitchen cabinets as they have easy close stoppers. I never stomp my feet as I am not a child.
Inappropriate Use of My Firearm?
You said I “placed the firearm on the banister by the front door, in plain sight, as both a threat and reflecting his anger and resentment towards Steven.” The truth of the matter is that I have been placing my firearm there for weeks, based on a request from your mom. It made her feel safer. Placing my firearm on the banister became an everyday routine for me.
After what happened in Minneapolis with George Floyd and the protests and then the protests threatening to go to the suburbs, it made your mom feel safer to have it visible at times when I got home from work. Again, she literally asked me to do this! One day while Steven is over he sees the handgun in its usual place, and made an incorrect assumption. Later it’s claimed that I went to the garage to retrieve my firearm and returned looking very angry. This is not true. I am very careful when retrieving my firearm from the car. In fact, for 20+ years, you didn’t even know I had one. It was only after the events in Minneapolis that I started to display my firearm – and only at the specific request of your mom.
Over the years, I have been so discreet, that whenever there are people anywhere around (going to the park, out walking, working in their yard, etc.), I will wait until later to retrieve the firearm from the car so I can be as to be as safe and discreet as possible. We have lived in that house for 22 years and our neighbors have never seen me carrying it. I only have it out in the open inside the house, and only for a short period of time. I have since asked your mom if she was okay with me being completely discreet and she said yes.
I have never waved this gun around; I have never used this firearm to threaten or to harm anyone. I am a very responsible gun owner. To imply that I have used my firearm to harm or threaten someone is a lie and crazy. I made it to 60 without a criminal record, but Steven wants to paint me as this crazy man with a gun. The second time that I raised my voice, I did not know you were even home, I thought you had left with Steven. And when I did raise my voice, it lasted maybe 15 seconds. Your mom was at the top of the stairs and I was by the door. I raised my voice towards your mom about the frustrations I was feeling with this situation. And I was shouting towards her, but not at her. After the 15 seconds had passed, your mom came and gave me a hug and said “I can see that this is clearly hurting you” She said “Let’s go make supper together and have a glass of wine”; to which I responded with “Okay, the things Steven are doing and saying are bothering me.”
Within 10 minutes, your mom and I were in the kitchen laughing and joking about Facebook memes. You then claim I went to the car and returned with the gun, still visibly angry. That’s a lie. (It should also be noted that I have not raised my voice at all since then. Not once, under any circumstances. Again, just trying to make me appear to be a bad person, which I am not.) In the order it says, “The presence of his firearm in several incidences, along with his emotional instability, and refusal to respect boundaries that I’ve set in our relationship concern me that this will continue to escalate and that the result may involve his firearm and Steven or I”
To that I say: First of all to talk about boundaries- the only way I have stepped over boundaries is to try to resolve this. That’s all that I have been doing for months. The display of my handgun, again, was because of your mom’s request. That has nothing to do with the situation between you, Steven and I. Nothing. Other than raising my voice twice, there has been no outward signs of aggression or anything being escalated. This is all a complete fabrication. Yes, this is a bold face lie. All I’ve been trying to do, repeatedly, is to have the truth come out. I believe the truth doesn’t mind being questioned, whereas lies want to hide. (Sound familiar?) There’s a reason Steven does not want mediation or to resolve things; because his lies will be exposed. So, he pretends to be afraid and paint me as a violent person to avoid the truth coming out.
The Night You Moved Out
You went to a friend’s house and a few days later moved out. The night you moved, you came back because you forgot something. I was in the bedroom with your mom. I heard something moving around in the house, so I went out into the hallway to see what was going on. When I noticed it was you I said hi. You gave me a hug and said “I love you so much dad.” I said “I love you too.” I asked if you were okay, and you said yes. I then said, “It’s kind of weird because this is the first time you have moved and I didn’t help you.” You smiled and said, “Yeah, it is kind of weird.” YOU SMILED AND SAID YEAH IT’S KINDA WEIRD. You said you had to go, and I said, “Okay, have a good night.”
This is the day you moved out because you were supposedly afraid of me. How does that say you are afraid of me?
The Last Page
It’s interesting that when Steven came up with this order, in his evidence, he left out the last page of my website where it talks about you guys being loved and forgiven. LOVED AND FORGIVEN. But that would go against his claim that I am a crazed, violent man. That doesn’t fit his agenda to make you think I am this horrible violent person. What’s interesting is that no one other than Steven thinks I am a violent person. Sadly, he has convinced you this lie is real. I spend time with both Jake and James and there’s literally no problems between us at all. None. In fact, they have both said they would write letters in support of me. They both heard the Kyle story and are not afraid of me at all – because there’s literally no reason to be. None. That’s all a fabrication of Steven’s.
I now have over 15 people who are close to me, all willing to write letters stating they have never seen any of the behavior Steven is alleging, and that they simply do not believe any of it is true. How many do you have? I’m not a betting man, but if I was, my bet would be there are zero people to back up his claim(s). Because they are lies.
The Therapy Session
You approached me to go to therapy with you. Before you, your therapist, and I got together for a meeting, the therapist wanted to get together with me alone in a zoom type meeting. She was rude, condescending, and I really did not feel as though she cared about me or resolving anything. It was very frustrating talking to her.
Nonetheless, I said any therapy sessions I was involved in I would pay for and gave her my credit card number so you would not be burdened with that. What no one, not even the therapist knows is that I was not alone in that room. When the session with myself and the therapist was scheduled, I asked your mom to be in the room with me. She sat off to one side, out of view to the camera. She witnessed how stressful this was for me. Then, at the time you and I had our session with the therapist, it was immediately stressful again. I felt as though the therapist was condescending from the beginning. My only goal for that session was to tell you that I loved you and to validate your pain. I know you’ve been hurt, and it’s incredibly painful to see you go through this. The therapist interrupted me repeatedly. When I didn’t recite things back exactly, it seemed she was a bit condescending. Half the time I didn’t look at the screen as it was too hard to see the pain on your face.
I didn’t even get to say anything what I really wanted to say; that I love you and to validate your feelings. At one point in time, I muted the microphone then I leaned forward to cry. You may have thought I got up and walked around the room, but I was bent over forward crying into my hands. I truly and sincerely hurt throughout this session. Having you out of my life hurts more than my brothers dying – and still does to this very day. At this point it was clear that my message of love was not going to be conveyed to you, I became frustrated, rambled on about something and left the meeting abruptly. I think I mentioned not knowing if I wanted a relationship with you, but what I really meant was for a temporary amount of time. (P.S. I did not slam my laptop closed – this laptop is too expensive to be slammed shut.) With the thought of that session fresh in my mind. I ended up in a park later that night with a gun to my head. That’s the reason I had suicidal ideations; the pain on your face was more than I could handle.
Word Choices
I notice that throughout the order, words were used to misdescribe the situations. “RAGE, ANGER, IMPATIENCE, SLAM, STOMP, SCREAMING”. This is nothing more than character assassination. Can someone name even one person who’s actually witnessed me doing anything like that? I didn’t think so – because it’s not true.
Trying to Get an Answer
I have been trying repeatedly for months to hear what Steven and your complaints/problems/concerns were, what the problems were. And no one has told me anything. It was only when I got the restraining order that I was informed of the problems. Not once before that did I know truly what the problems were as neither of you had told me. I had called for a 6 month break, and immediately, the 2 of you filed for a restraining order. Was this because Steven thought he was losing control? The only thing I did within that 6 months was to come to you to tell you were loved and forgiven. And now I hear that Steven thought about jumping out his 2nd story window and call 911 all because he heard the story of Kyle. Meanwhile, Jake, James and I are hanging out having a good time.
Clarifications
So let’s talk about that story again, it was told twice in one year. Both times Vanessa started to tell the story. Both times I finished it quickly. After the second time, I leaned over to Vanessa and said “Please let’s not tell this story again” And she responded with “but I like to brag about you” And I said “okay thank you but let’s leave this story in the past” and she said “okay dad I love you” and I said “I love you too”. Both of these times, James and Jake were present. And neither of them felt threatened by this. I did not tell this one on one with Steven. It was told in a group setting. I have since hung out many times with Jake and James. James has even shared his working schedule with me so I can call before/after he is off work to chat. Neither of them feel threatened by me at all. You say that on February 16th, I came home and discovered Steven’s laundry, I immediately responded with anger and rage. That is not true. It was an hour later, and it was in the presence of your mom, lasting about 15 seconds, as mentioned before. I was upset, but there was no “rage”. Again, character assassination.
My Military Record
Charlie was the name given to me in the military as a result of having an elevated security clearance. I served courageously, and sometimes heroically. I was honorably discharged. My military records are now sealed. That’s all anyone needs to know. As I made it clear over the years, I really don’t want to talk about my service to our country and I avoid the topic.
Owatonna
There is a solid, logical reason behind this event. If you heard the reason you would immediately realize it’s not what it seemed at first glance. However, I am unable to write about this, and can only share this with you verbally. Perhaps some day down the road when we can speak again. I only ask that you trust me on this.
I Have Doubts
Did you even write this yourself? There are at least 5 times that it is copied and pasted from Steven’s order. Also, one thing I find interesting is that when the question is asked “Do you believe that the harassment will continue?” You respond with “The respondent has made several claims that he ‘resigns’ or is done with the ‘conflict’ yet he has continued to produce more emails, the website, etc.. There seems to be no indication this will end. He continues to escalate the harassment, demonstrated by showing up at both my apartment complex and Brittany’s on 4/28/21.” This is word for word copied from Steven’s order. How much of any of this did you even write yourself? Do you even know what half your order against me says? And up until now, all I have been doing is trying to resolve this. At least I’m trying. That’s more than Steven and you have done collectively. Yet every single time I try to resolve things, Steven turns it around to make it seem like I am a violent person and a threat to him.
What’s even worse, is because of his lies, you think that I am a threat to yourself. As a father I would never be violent towards any one of my kids, ever. That’s nonnegotiable in my mind. I’m Not Violent I was going to take the restraining order to trial, until your attorney told me that this is what you wanted personally. At that point in time, I asked myself “Why am I trying to fix anything?” I just want to be able to go to bed at night, knowing I have done everything I possibly could to resolve this matter peacefully. And the only reason it hasn’t been, is because of Steven’s lies and twisting of the truth.
To date, you have not seen me respond to the damage he has done, but you will. What’s especially troubling is the fact I have to add a disclaimer to everything I write now which states “Everything I do will be accomplished by legal means” all because of Steven’s lies. You know I’m not a violent person. Again, 60 years old, no criminal record. That wouldn’t be possible if I was such a violent person. I’m this amazing father until Steven comes around and it’s like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde that only he can see. As it only exists in his mind. And he has you convinced it’s real. No one else can see it. Why? It’s not real or true. There is literally no one else that I know who thinks this of me or believes any of these lies being told. That alone speaks volumes.
How I Have Handled this Emotionally
You say in your order “The respondent has shown an inability to control and regulate his emotions. He has lived out delusions of a violent nature.” (Again, this is copy and pasted right from Steven’s order) This has been a very emotional time for me, which it would be for any father that has their daughter unfairly stripped from their life. Considering the depth of this tragedy, aside from the regrettable evening that I held a gun to my head, I feel as though I have handled this quite well. As far as the reference of violence, this is only an illusion in Steven’s mind, that he has gotten you to believe. No one else in my life believes this whatsoever. They have seen no signs of violence in me. Why? It is simply not real, it is just lies. How else do you explain that I went from an amazing dad, who has done a tremendous amount of work preventing bullying in schools, has chaperoned dances and prom for more than 25 years, and even done volunteer work at a hospice center sitting with dying people who have no family or friends to sit by their side, just so that they feel loved and cared for in their last moments, to a crazy homicidal maniac who threatens violence all in just a few months? And only Steven can see it. Maybe there’s another answer? Maybe he’s jealous of our relationship and set out to ruin it? That’s a more likely answer in my eyes.
An Epic Storm
Let’s talk about some of the things I’ve mentioned- starting with an epic storm. This is a real thing. I’ve done two so far in my life. Everything I do is completely legal in nature. We have a wonderful legal system in this country that helps defend innocent people like myself. Without going into too many details, suffice it to say, the first person ended up in prison. After which time I started dating his wife, and every month for a year, we would mail him a picture of us together. How do you know this is true? I was living with her when I met your mom. For the second time, a man threatened our family. He was well respected in the community, had a 6 figure job, a nice home and a family. In a very short period of time, again using all legal means, he lost all of that. Afterwards, sitting alone in a motel outside of town, he called me and said “It’s over, you won!” I said “No, it’s not over. There are 3 more steps left.” He begged, “Please, no. I have 2 daughters.” I responded, “If you ever come near my family again, or come near our home again, I will finish what I started.” He responded, “I’m gone.” Want to know if this is true? Ask your mom, she knows. You see here again that Steven is twisting things to seem like I’m this crazy, violent man. But I know how to defend my family using legal means. I prefer to live in peace, which is why I use the phrase “If you want peace, prepare for war.” This just means to be prepared to defend yourself against people who want to take that peace away, which I am fully prepared to do through legal means. Steven has been rude to me, disrespectful, twisting my words, and pulling you out of my life. “Prepare for war” simply meant to stop what he was doing or prepare for legal consequences. The “Epic Storm” and “Prepare for war” was a deterrent to stop him from doing what he was doing, which he didn’t.
My Books
Let’s set the record straight. Steven had heard that I had written several books. I said I had. He said he would be interested in reading them. So, I went into the other room and got a copy of each for him. He said “Oh okay.” And we changed the subject. It was after that we hung out and he mentioned he read my books. He only wanted to talk about the miracles in ‘Casting Out Doubt’, not my memoir. You know all the good things that have come from writing this book. I have given out hundreds of copies and no one has ever felt threatened by it.
Final Thought About Your Order
And lastly, your restraining order was centered around a claim of domestic violence. I (regrettably) raised my voice around you, but how is that violent? The answer; it is not. It doesn’t even rise to the level of bullying. Therefore, your restraining order was based around a false premise to begin with. I think it was filed that way just for dramatic effect. That rises to the level of bearing false witness against your neighbor, just like Steven’s.
My Response to Steven’s Order
He says that I am unable to control my emotional response. Unable to control my emotional response? He was trying to talk down to me, and I was telling him to not talk down to me. He was being disrespectful to me. He is a 25-year-old man and I am a 60- year-old father. He does not have the right to talk down to me. From the beginning, all along was to control me. If he can’t control me, he wants to make me look like a terrible person.
Every time I have tried to stand up for myself, he has turned it around to seem like I am aggressive or violent. He was also rude to Alex, Vanesaa, and my friends Heather and Henry. They all told me independently that Steven acted very rudely towards them, and all 4 are willing to make written statements about how poorly he treated them. Interestingly enough, Alex and Vanessa do not know Heather and Henry, so there was not, nor could be, any collusion.
My Letters to the Church
About my letter to the church and that it was a threat to him. I went to the church to ask them politely and calmly to ask if they would help resolve this peacefully and without conflict. Along with the letter, I included the history of the challenges we have faced in our relationship. This documentation included emails and texts we had sent between each. Nowhere in any of the documentation did it reference any violence or threats. This was sent to the senior pastor only, in confidentiality, and he never responded. Anyone reading this letter would ask “How is this defamatory?” Steven twisted things around, again. As for the second letter, the senior pastor did not respond, so this was addressed to the elders at the church. Nowhere in any communication do I ask to terminate his employment. All I have ever asked was that they get involved in the conflict. As far as showing up “unannounced”, I left 2 voicemails for the senior pastor the week before. As far as me being “uninvited”, I went into the lobby, rang the buzzer, and asked if I could leave the package there. I left the package in the “Leave Deliveries Here” area (the same as UPS or FedEx would). I then went back out to my car peacefully. Also “uninvited”? How can someone not be invited to a church?”
P.S. At the time I wrote this letter, there were markers that were off that led doctors to believe that I might have cancer. I had to go through numerous tests, including a colonoscopy. Along the way, the real problem was discovered after I was taken to the emergency room by my wife after being in excruciating pain one night. Once there, after going through some more tests, they discovered the real problem. For privacy reasons I will not disclose what the problem is. I have since been undergoing treatment (and as of June 4th, 2021 continue to be under the care of doctors for this condition). In conclusion, there was a serious concern that I had cancer. Fortunately, it was not cancer, but is still of great concern, and I am thankful for the medical community in helping through this difficult time.
I say in the letter that I am prepared to make some bold moves. I went to the church to ask them to help. I wanted to get mediation.
Bold moves– asking you [Steven] over to have cheesesteaks and talk about what each other needs to resolve the issues. Nowhere have I threatened anyone.
The Website
The website was intended as a warning. Nothing more than a warning. Yet again he has twisted things around to seem that I am going to use violence against him, even though I clearly state that everything will be done in a legal manner and not a violent one. I also had the website coded so that search engines will not pull it up or catalog it. I did that intentionally to protect privacy. It was a warning that if he continues or tries to pull anything else like what he has done to me, the site would go live. Even the screenshot Steven used in the filing says, “To be perfectly clear, everything listed above will be accomplished through legal means, I do not condone violence or any illegal activities. I am an otherwise peaceful person who has been unfairly put in a position of having to fight back for his family.” How does that say that I am a violent man? It doesn’t!
His Claim about My Gun His whole claim about me, my gun, and him- it is baseless. All these allegations of me using my gun for a violent purpose is something he invented in his own mind. And he has caused undue concern to that church, both campuses, because of his lies. Name one time that he has seen the handgun in my hand. He has never! He is doing this to get my daughter out of my life, precisely.
FYI About a week before we had our court meeting, I spoke to David (your ex). He said when you and Steven first broke up, you started texting and calling him trying to get back with him. Does this mean Steven is forever your second choice? He also mentioned the issue with Alex Rodriguez. But the bottom line here is that David clearly said that I treated him wonderfully and it was truly a sad day when we said good-bye for the last time. I honestly wish you were marrying David, or someone like him. He is awesome.
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On June 7th, 2021 I sent an email to the attorney representing Calvary Church. This is what it said:
Dear Mr. Lutz,
I have received the notice, have honored it and will continue to do so. I recently became aware of the allegations being made against me which are horrible and unfounded. Is there a possibility of presenting my side of this ordeal? If your client, Calvary Church, would be open to a meeting with me, it can be at a place and time of their choice. The only goal is to clear my name and I come in a spirit of peace and truth. The Bible says we should choose a good name rather than riches, and I would appreciate an opportunity to prove to your client the truth.
Respectfully,
Tim Hutchinson
651-724-1325
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From: david@lutzlawfirm.com
Tue, Jun 8, 12:29 PM
Tim,
I have advised my client not to meet and discuss due to the threat of litigation. My client has received and reviewed your written communication.
David A. Lutz
Lutz Law Firm
120 South 6th Street, Suite 1550
Minneapolis, MN 55402
612-424-2110
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Wed, Jun 9, 12:03 PM (3 days ago)
to david
David,
All along I’ve stated my desire to avoid any legal proceedings. Sad day when Christians cannot come together and resolve an issue. Attached is a letter I wrote to my daughter in response to a Restraining Order. Would appreciate you reviewing it and forwarding it to your client, Calvary Church. I’d like them to know these things, My goal has always been to have the truth told.
Regards,
Tim Hutchinson
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Tim Hutchinson <mrhutchinson@gmail.com>
Wed, Jun 9, 12:19 PM (3 days ago)
to David
P.S. In the attachment there are the names Jake and James. It would be helpful to know that Jake is engaged to my oldest daughter, and James is dating my youngest daughter. The church might also be interested in knowing that 2 of Brittany’s 3 siblings won’t attend the wedding, and no one from my side of the family will be there either. The reasons are the same; they are shocked at the lies Steven told about me.
Regards,
Tim Hutchinson
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To date there has been no response.
June 11th, 2021. Brittany sends me a message through her mom to cancel her phone. We pay for her phone, car insurance and medical insurance. If they’re trying to save money, why would they give up a free phone? Now Alex and Vanessa don’t have her phone number. More isolation from the family!
Letter to Brittany (sent through her attorney) – August 22, 2021. Note: she never responded.
Hi Brittany,
Been a while and I wanted you to know that I think about you every day. Literally.
Sometimes I ask mom how your headaches are – truly feel badly that you have those so much. Wish there was something that could be done.
A goal of mine is to lose weight. There is a lady on Facebook who’s always sharing pics of others who are losing a lot of weight. I mean, their transformation is incredible. So, I reached out to her and she let me know about the plan. Talked with your mom and she said that she’d join as well to be supportive of my goal.
After the first week I lost 7 lbs! Out of curiosity I looked up the ingredients to the pre-packaged foods we were eating. Turns out every meal has a lot of calcium in them.
That’s bad for me due to being very prone to kidney stones (yikes!) So now am off the plan – however, your mom was/is losing weight and decided to remain on.
So, it worked out for her and I’m happy about that. I going to figure something else out – likely all salads and daily trips to the gym ?? Won’t end up looking like a body-builder, but that’s OK, I just want to look in the mirror and be comfortable with how I look.
So, your mom and I have been discussing my retirement, and decided it can happen in November of 2022. It’s going to be so weird waking up and not having to run off to a job. I’ve been working over 40 years now – most of it in the same industry. I hope things are worked out by then so my whole family can come to the retirement party. That would mean a lot! After retirement I’m going to increase the amount of volunteering I do and will likely start up again at the hospice. If I ever become a grandpa, I’ll open up “Grandpa Day Care” for my grandkids (free of course!)
The ministry is getting closer to launching. My gosh, it’s been a long time in the making, right?! But it WILL happen! I feel blessed that we hired a consulting firm – they have helped the ministry move forward by leaps and bounds. If things continue going forward at the pace they’re on now, the launch could happen as soon as next month. Otherwise, October would be the absolute latest. Just thinking about all the people this ministry will reach for Christ quite literally gets me teary-eyed. This has been at the forefront of my daily efforts for months and months. When it finally happens, I’ll be overcome with joy!!
Once the ministry is launched, there is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time; fill out the “My Dad – in his own words” book you gave me. It sits on a ledge in front of my desk, and I look at it every day. If you ever have children, I hope you’ll let them read it. I want them to know how much I love my kids, and how much joy they brought into my life, despite the challenges.
That’s it for now. Going back to copywriting and moving through the action steps my coach gave me.
Love you,
Dad
September 2021.
I contacted the attorney who represented Steven and Brittany in the restraining order to see if he was still representing them. This is the email exchange we had:
Hello Mr. Van Loh,
Checking to see if you are still representing Steven Anderson? I ask because I would like to give him a chance to settle our disagreement. Starting in October I will begin searching for an attorney. Once I hire legal representation, this window of opportunity will be closed.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Tim Hutchinson
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Tim, Thank you for your email. Yes, I am still representing Steven Anderson. I appreciate your reaching out to me in an attempt to settle your disagreement. Can you please clarify for me which disagreement you wish to settle with Steven so that I can apprise him accordingly? What is your proposal for resolution or request of Steven?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you,
Dan
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Hello Mr. Van Loh,
My goal is a relationship with my daughter Brittany, and healing for broken relationships in my family; most notably her siblings that do not have any contact with her. As a father, this is heartbreaking to see.
Arbitration seems like a reasonable move. Right now, mediation would not offer a resolution I’d be happy with – I need accountability for past actions. At this time I cannot simply “kiss-and-makeup”. My family, Brittany included, deserves to know whether Steven’s accusations against me are accurate or not.
If he/they are agreeable to arbitration, then I further suggest we split the cost of the arbitration services. If the ruling is in my favor, then they should request the court to dismiss the restraining order, so Brittany and I can go to counseling to try and heal our relationship.
At this time I am not open to having a relationship with Steven. If things work out to where Brittany and I are back on speaking terms, then I can be sociable with Steven, but nothing more.
Awaiting their response,
Tim Hutchinson
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Tim,
Thank you for the explanation. I’m not sure that reconciliation of a father-daughter relationship for and adult daughter is something that can be arbitrated. The accusations to which you refer have not been adjudicated because you agreed to accept the HRO without a hearing and without admitting anything. Hence, there is no public sharing of the allegations, unless you have shared Steven and Brittany’s affidavits with others, otherwise the allegations remain between you and them. On this note, can you please verify that you have removed the public website that contained your disparaging comments about Steven? This was required as part of the HRO.
I’m sorry that I cannot offer a better solution, Tim. I’m sure this is difficult. I’m happy to speak with an attorney who contacts me on your behalf, but there is simply not a legal process through the HRO to force relational reconciliation with an adult child. This is not to say that there is never a hope for healing and reconciliation, just not through the legal process.
Thank you,
Dan
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Mr. Van Loh,
The website you are referring to was offline before the conclusion of the HRO hearing. In fact, I had already notified the hosting company of my intent to cancel hosting prior to being originally served.
My intent in reaching out to you was to see if there was a way to handle this situation without my retaining a lawyer and suing Steven. Once I proceed in that direction there is no turning back, and it will become a publicly known matter. I firmly maintain that I am a victim and am innocent of all accusations of Steven. It is only out of a desire to peacefully restore a relationship with my daughter that I extend this one-time offer to settle things before hiring an attorney.
Regards,
Tim,
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What are the damages that you are alleging and what is the legal basis for any claims? Are you just referring to the allegations in Steven’s HRO petition because these allegations were repeated by Brittany as well. I’m still trying to understand what you feel that Steven has done that can be remedied for me to see if there is a solution.
Can you clarify this for me?
Dan,
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As for the damages, let’s start with the relationship between Brittany and I. Next there is the wedding I did not get to attend, and did not walk my daughter down the aisle. There’s also the suicide attempt for which I ended up in the hospital. Other relationships have been affected, and so has my job. There have been other deep impacts on myself as well. This has been a living nightmare. And all as a result of Steven’s lies.
The allegations in Steven’s HRO are a lie. They are repeated in Brittany’s because it appears they were copied from Steven’s. At one point in Brittany’s HRO it refers to “Brittany and I…” I’m convinced Brittany went along blindly with this and doesn’t really know what the HRO says.
Let me be perfectly clear; I fully intend to take him to court and sue for damages resulting from his lies. It is only because I am a peaceful person that this opportunity to handle things outside a courtroom is being presented. With all due respect to you, sir, I really don’t want to go back-and-forth through email with you like this. Either they want an opportunity to resolve this between us, or they are sticking with their story and not willing to move forward towards a resolution.
Thank you,
Tim Hutchinson
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Tim,
Thank you for the clarification. I will discuss your proposal with Steven and get back to you. I just needed to be sure what the legal issues are so that I can advise him. Feel free to check back with me next week if I don’t get back to you by next Thursday.
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Mr. Van Loh,
Thank you. Hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
Kind regards,
Tim
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Mr. Van Loh,
Checking to see if there are any updates?
Tim
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Tim,
I apologize for my delayed response. I’ve discussed your invitation to arbitrate with Steven and, without a valid legal issue to resolve, I don’t see arbitration as helpful or beneficial. I‘m aware of your threats to sue Steven which appear to contradict your hope of reconciliation with your daughter, Brittany, as hurting Steven will hurt Brittany which would most assuredly undermine or end any future hope of reconciliation.
Thank you,
Dan
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Mr. Van Loh,
No valid legal issue? There has been documented slander and libel which has resulted in personal tort. The allegations in the restraining order are blatant lies, and that rises to the level of perjury.
All along Steven has not offered any potential resolutions; none whatsoever – he’s only said no to my suggestions, or ignored them. It seems clear to me that he does not want this resolved. Why? Is it because he’s afraid of the truth coming out?
As far as undermining or ending any future hope of reconciliation; I am offended that you and/or Steven would pretend to know more than I what’s best for Brittany. I’m her dad. I co-created her, raised her, gave up my heart, mind and soul to help her in any way that I ever could as a father. I was there for her 100%, all of the time and she means more to me than anything in this life. We were like 2-peas-in-a-pod until Steven began telling her horrible lies. My singular goal is for the truth to come out, so my daughter sees I am not the person Steven has wrongly convinced her of. I’ve tried settling this peacefully many times and Steven has put no effort at all into a resolution. If Steven is hurt in the process, then that’s on him.
If I have to sue him, then that’s only because he has refused every other suggestion that I’ve made, all while not offering any possibilities to resolve this. Brittany will eventually learn the truth – and that makes it all worth while. A lawsuit, however, is not my next move.
It’s coming – soon. I will never give up on my daughter. Not ever! The truth WILL come out.
Tim
P.S. My other family members do not believe the lies Steven has told either – and they are supportive of my efforts to expose the truth.
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Tim,
I appreciate the reply and explanation. We’ll have to agree to disagree on your understanding of what constitutes libel and slander. Understanding that I represent your daughter Brittany and cannot give you legal advice, I encourage you to give some thought to whether you are missing the opportunity to understand Brittany’s perspective through this process.
That said, I do not think that any further dialogue on this issue will be helpful. I remind you of the terms of the HRO given your comment/threat that “a lawsuit, however, is not my next move.” Per the HRO, you are to refrain from direct and indirect contact with both Steven and Brittany. Hence, both direct and indirect attempts of communication or behavior with the intention of reaching or impacting Steven and Brittany may be considered a violation of the HRO which may then have criminal penalties for any violations. On behalf of both Steven and Brittany, I am requesting that you refrain from any attempts to communicate with them.
I reiterate my comments that your threats of lawsuits or “other moves” undermine your efforts for future reconciliation with Brittany. She needs a break and respectfully requests that you respect her wishes, including with your threatened legal attacks against Steven.
Thank you,
Dan
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In another, final email from Dan Van Loh he stated that Steven does not want reconciliation with me.
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Here is an update to what’s been happening.
Let’s start by going over a couple of things from the first HRO…
Brittany and Steven’s attorney, Dan Van Loh, told me that if I contested the first HRO and won, that would have a serious impact on my daughter’s ability to obtain employment or continue going overseas as a volunteer. She is an RN and has traveled to different countries to help others.
This is important to her, I am very proud of her for doing this, and it would be devastating to her if she could not continue doing so. Mr. Van Loh said that if I contested this matter and proved their claims were false (which they are), then anyone who did a background check would see that my daughter had filed false documents with the court and would not hire her and allow her to do any more overseas volunteering. (He later recanted this in an email stating that this would all remain private unless I let someone know.)
He told me that it was “a tough day” for a dad and that he could understand because his own daughter was getting married in only a few months. He also let me know that I was doing the right thing by accepting this HRO without contesting it. Go ahead and check out when his daughter got married – I mean, how else would I know this?
Based upon what he said to me, I agreed to the 2-year HRO uncontested and without finding of fact.
I also agreed to take down a private journal I had online. This private journal is where I documented the events that had happened since Steven Anderson began manipulating my daughter.
It is important to note that this journal was absolutely private and I only invited Steven over one time to show him that I had all this information and would make it public if he did not stop creating problems and agree to make peace with me. All I wanted was peace in my family and to have a relationship with my daughter.
He responded by copying the entire private journal and using it as evidence against me.
When I told his attorney, Mr. Van Loh it was a private online journal, he responded, and I quote; “That’s what pen and paper are for.” So, he clearly knew this was not a public website. I even explained that this journal was coded so the search engines would not list it in their search results.
And nowhere in this journal are there any threats against Steven or my daughter.
Almost 2 years went by and I was waiting for the HRO to expire to see how things could be resolved. During the last few months my sister decided to help by organizing a peaceful protest at the church. I initially said no, but then agreed if it was peaceful and I was not involved. The idea here was to get them to agree to oversee mediation. I sent the following letter to Steven through his attorney.
Steven,
May 27th is almost here. Then the HRO will expire, and you will quickly realize that your lies are going to be exposed. I have plans, including protests at the church. I feel bad for them being dragged into this mess, however, they failed to do a proper investigation.
So, this is on them not me. I have the banners ordered and have family / friends who are going to protest the church every week – both locations. There’s not been one person in the past 2 years who has told me they believe any of the bullshit lies you’ve told. Now we get to expose you.
If you have a suggestion on how to resolve this otherwise, you better speak up now. Once my plan goes into action, there is no stopping or turning back. This is your one and only chance to get ahead of this. Just don’t waste my me with stupid self-centered ideas.
In the words of Janis Joplin; “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”
There is one question you need to ask yourself; what do you think will happen to your life when the truth comes out?
Tick-tock,
Mr. Timothy Hutchinson
The result was Brittany and Steven filed for an extension of the HRO, on an “emergency basis”, as if they were both in imminent danger for their lives.
Part of their claim is that I was a CIA assassin and they have concerns I would kill them both and harm hundreds of children at a church. These are outrageous lies and they have no evidence or witnesses for this claim. In fact, they do not have any witnesses or evidence against me at all which would show that I am a threat to them, or to anyone. Because in reality, I am a peaceful person and the victim of lies.
My plan now was to ask for a trial and bring out the facts there. So, I asked my sister to not hold any protests, and she agreed.
When I asked for a trial, their lawyer, Mr. Van Loh, and the judge referee both stated and agreed that nothing from the first HRO would be allowed as evidence in the trial.
I submitted my evidence to the state collection system and sent a listing of this evidence to their attorney. Afterwards, I followed up with an email to their attorney’s office, and the response was they had received it. What I did not realize at the time was that I should have also emailed the evidence to their attorney along with the list of items. They could have mentioned this, but they chose not to. I mistakenly assumed that they would access it through the state evidence system.
During the trial, one of the first things that happened was the Judge Referee berated me in front of all present for my failure to send the evidence to their attorney. She spoke harshly towards me, and in a disrespectful manner that I did not deserve.
I was also found to be in violation of the first HRO because I shared my side of the story with 5 members of my immediate family, in private. These included my wife, 3 children (not Brittany though) and my only living brother, Steve. To avoid having to tell my story repeatedly, I made a video and shared it with to them on a HIDDEN web page that was additionally password protected. Clearly I did not want this video to be public. Once those 5 people saw the video I took it down. Somehow Brittany became aware of its existence.
In the court filing for extension of the HRO (which again was made on an emergency basis – literally for no reason at all other than dramatic effect) it mentioned the video and said they could provide a transcript if needed.
This was clearly an attempt to make it seem as though the video had illegal or violent content. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their statement, like many others, was intended to be misleading. Some of those who watched the video came to me afterwards and said this confirmed they were right to believe me and not the lies Steven was telling. Their words, not mine.
The video was not shown in court nor was a transcript presented, yet the Judge Referee said this was in violation of the HRO without knowing any of the content. She stated in the HRO extension that I had created this video (which is true) and shared it with Brittany (not true!), and so was in violation of the original HRO.
This is not only false, but no one in the hearing made this claim. The Judge Referee, made this up without any evidence and issued a ruling that was harmful to me. All without evidence or testimony.
During the trial their attorney presented their only piece of evidence, and that was my private journal that Steven had obtained through a violation of copyright laws. Their attorney then began questioning me at length about it. I did not know nor understand at that time that I could have refused to answer his questions.
Further, this private journal was included as evidence in the first HRO filing, and therefore should not have been allowed. But then, what other evidence do they have? None, really. But still, they went against a court ruling and the judge referee said nothing. They were basically given a free pass to do whatever they wanted.
When it was my turn, I introduced a few witnesses, who were spoken to harshly by their attorney, who also objected to questions I asked. Clearly this was not about the truth coming out. This was purely a seek and destroy mission for their attorney, and the judge went along with it, keeping step with whatever their attorney wanted to do. Any time he objected, it was sustained. Any and all of my objections were immediately overruled.
One of my witnesses was my sister, Sunnie. I informed the court that she just a few months prior had suddenly and unexpectedly lost her only daughter. I asked if she could read a statement as part of her testimony. That request was denied. I want you all to know what she was going to say, so I will read it here for the first time – and just know this is only some of the information the court never heard.
Here is her statement,
Good morning your honor. I am here today to make a statement in support of my brother, Tim Hutchinson. I have known him all of my life, which is now more than 50 years. Nothing in these court filings comes even close to who my brother really is.
To begin, I will share with you about my only daughter, Jessica. Several months ago she suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Children should bury their parents, not the other way around. This was one of the most devastating things I’ve experienced in my life. In that time of enormous grief, my brother Tim rushed to my side and remained there as a steady rock for me to hold onto. Without him I don’t even know how I would have made it through all of this.
My brother Tim and I are close, and we talk on the phone at least 3 or 4 times a week. At least once a week during our calls, as Tim will be talking about his daughter Brittany, and how much he loves her and wants to see her, he will cry. Not just a little, but actually sobbing. He is truly hurt by these terrible lies about him.
I know my brother had contacted several attorneys looking for a way to resolve this matter outside of a court proceeding – he wanted this to be settled peacefully and privately as a family should. His desire was for this family to come together and resolve this using mediators. The attorneys told him that it was unlikely that Steven would voluntarily agree to this, and that going to the church he worked at would be the best solution. Especially since Steven had previously talked with the church about doing mediation.
My brother had said that he tried contacting the church several times previously and they wouldn’t agree to any mediation or investigation. He said he wasn’t sure what the next steps were and that he was going to wait until the restraining order expires and see if they can move forward with coming together as a family and working through this.
Because we are family, and especially that he helped me so much when my daughter died, I wanted to find a way to help ease his pain. My thought was to try and get the church to agree to do an investigation or at least mediate this matter. So I contacted family members and friends to see if they would help with a protest at the church. Every person said yes, they absolutely believe Tim is innocent of these outrageous claims.
I then called Tim and explained what we were ready to do. He said no, don’t do that. Just wait. As he has said all along, we should practice peace and calm – love and forgiveness. I waited a few days and asked him again. He still said no, don’t do anything. So I went online and looked up laws concerning peaceful protests. From that I made a list and told others that if we did this that we would only remain on public property, act peacefully 100% of the time, and if approached by anyone we would be polite and courteous. This was always intended to be a peaceful protest to help my brother, not a riot.
I called my brother a third time and explained how we would act. He agreed and said that everyone there must promise to act in a calm and peaceful manner. My brother also said that he would not attend these protests, due to the lies about him being a danger to the church. He then sent an email to the church’s attorney requesting they do an investigation, stating if they didn’t there would be a protest. They declined his request. He also sent an email to Steven, through his attorney letting him know what the plan was. He also offered Steven an opportunity to share what ideas he had about how to resolve this. The response was to file another restraining order against my brother.
Tim said he is going to ask for a trial, and that I should call off the protests. So I cancelled them. It’s a sad day when a court needs to get involved in order for the truth to come out between family members.
Your honor, I have never heard my brother say anything about being violent or do anything illegal. Instead, he has encouraged his family to remain peaceful and calm, and to act with love and forgiveness. I’m not sure if Tim wants me to say anything about this, but Steven had approached my brother asking him to send him money to help with living expenses. My brother said yes, absolutely. And he has been sending this help every month now for the past 2 and a half years. Even though they say horrible lies about him, he still helps. That’s who my brother really is – not some demon crawling out of the pit of hell as they want you to believe.
Our family looks up to Tim and respects him greatly. And we stand beside him 100% because we know who he really is.
Thank you, your honor for the opportunity to come here today and speak this truth on behalf of a great man, husband, father, brother, uncle and American citizen.
Despite being denied a chance for her to read that statement, I was able to ask her questions about it and she answered truthfully.
When Mr. Van Loh asked my sister questions I felt as though he was being disrespectful, especially knowing that he daughter had passed away only a few months prior.
Here is a letter I was going to read after my sister read that letter – but of course none of this was allowed….
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Your Honor,
What you just heard from my sister is a small example of the lies that have been told about me by Brittany and Steven. They take everything to the extreme worst case scenario then have their attorney file it requesting an emergency hearing. No emergency exists. All of the first and current filing for an HRO are fabrications, exaggerations, distortions and outright lies. I have the facts, evidence and witnesses to prove this, including my entire family who is tired of seeing me being bullied by these two.
My life these past few years has been like living under a microscope as they lay waiting for anything they can hyper-inflate into something nefarious.
I won’t go into many details and will save that for trial, but would like to address two things;
My heart…. Why is this even in the HRO filing, is it because they don’t have any real evidence? It seems this is all part of an elaborate smear campaign against me.
The gun….He escalated this simple event all the way up to where I am now supposedly a threat to 1,000 people? Based upon what evidence?
If they are so afraid of me…and there are 1,000 people at their church in danger, including hundreds of children…why haven’t the police been notified?? Someone who is as dangerous as they allege I am should be reported to the authorities. But they didn’t. I say it’s because they know there would be an investigation and that would prove they are lying.
Same with their false claims of harassment. For example: where are the phone records?
How about he show phone records to prove his claim I was making an increasing number of harassing calls to him? In my life I’ve only called him 6 times. None of them were harassing. Two of them were to arrange for him to come borrow a ring from us so he could propose to Brittany. One was about some fundraising I was helping him with. Another was to ask if he wanted to hang out. One was to offer him some advice, the same advice my father-in-law gave me shortly before I married his daughter. Only one of those calls was to ask a simple question about their wedding. And Brittany’s mom not only knew about this call, she is the one who asked me to make it. That call was very peaceful and uneventful. Where is the harassment? In reality, your honor, the phone records would show he was the one calling me. And he would say things like “you don’t deserve a relationship with your daughter” and if I want Brittany in my life then I need to submit to him. He also said something similar to that last statement in an email which I will show at trial.
I look forward to the truth coming out during a trial. And I ask that no HRO be issued at this time. Please wait for the evidence to be presented at trial. Brittany and Steven are literally attempting to use this court to validate their lies.
Thank you for your time.
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I had a few other witnesses, but again soon felt as though I could not really ask them to share the truth because of concern the attorney would treat them as he did my sister. So, I decided it would be best for myself to state the truth and spare my witnesses from being mistreated by their attorney.
As soon as I said that I was done presenting witnesses and would testify myself, the Judge ended the proceedings and said Mr. Van Loh and myself could make brief closing remarks. I was stunned and felt as though this proceeding was completely unfair. Their attorney asked for the HRO extension to be for life – meaning I could never see or speak to my daughter again. He also called my witnesses liars.
I was literally not allowed to defend himself, nor ask for a referral to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office.
The HRO extension was granted for another 2-years for my daughter and 10-years for Steven.
All because of lies told by Steven, their attorney acting in an unethical manner, and a Judge Referee that clearly did not care about truth, justice or my family.
Let’s be clear, the only so-called “evidence” they had was a copy of my private journal, which was mostly a compilation of letters and emails Steven, Brittany and I had written each other as well as a chronological listing of events that occurred. Nowhere in this private journal are there any threats of any type.
That was all the evidence they had, and their only witnesses were themselves and me – and again I was not even informed that I did not have to testify. Had I been told that, then I would not have testified at all for them.
As far as them being witnesses, I can absolutely prove that Steven lied, and Brittany went along blindly with whatever he told her to say. Why else is it in the filing of the first HRO that she refers to herself in the third person, and has even told her mom that she copied and pasted most of that filing from Steven. I doubt she even knows what it says!
Their allegations are lies and hyper-exaggerations. For example:
Prior to the first HRO being issued, I called Steven to ask how he was doing. In the HRO he stated that I was making an increasing number of harassing phone calls. For what? Asking how he was doing one time?
One day he called me and said that I was a horrible father – that Brittany deserved better – and also said that if I wanted a relationship with her, then I would have to submit to him and allow him to control us.
I have an email from him stating something similar, where he says that if I care about my daughter then I will “Lay down everything”… which basically means the same thing: Submit.
I went to his apartment to let him know that he was loved and forgiven for the things he had done. In the court filing he stated that I had “gained access” to his apartment building, making it sound as though I had snuck in like some kind of a thief. When in fact, I had simply walked through the front door like anyone else does.
The same day I also went to Brittany’s apartment to bring her flowers and tell her that she is loved. She was home but did not open the door. I later learned that she was afraid to answer the door. How can it be that the last time I saw her she hugged me…and the last thing she ever said to me was, and I quote, “Dad, I love you so, so, so, so much!” Then Steven convinced her to stop talking to me so they could “focus on their relationship.”
Now suddenly, she is afraid of me? Without any other contact whatsoever with me at all after the hug and what she said to me?
This whole scenario screams MANIPULATION!! Even her mom says this is what Steven is doing.
And do the rest of my family. They all think the same.
Another time he called me, and during our conversation I only asked if we were going to be able to meet his parents before the wedding. In the HRO filing he stated that I was taking issue with their wedding plans.
Ummm….how?? That is literally not the truth at all.
One time while at my house he saw my handgun, in a holster, in a room other than the one he was in, and in fact never entered during that visit. He only saw it from a distance in another part of my house. And from that, he claims I am a CIA assassin who wants to kill him, kill my daughter, and bring harm to hundreds children at a church.
It is not typical at all for me to leave that gun out. Not at all! In reality I had left that out at the request of my wife, because she asked to see it. It had absolutely nothing to do with Steven………this is just another example of how hyper-exaggerated all their claims are.
See what I have had to put up with?
Again, I had all the witnesses and evidence that would have exposed these terrible lies about me. But none of it was allowed. How is that justice?
They had nothing and the only reason they prevailed was because of lies and apparent corruption.
It is my opinion they saw the evidence that I uploaded to the state’s evidence system and were aware that one piece of evidence was contact info for the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, along with a case number that had already been assigned from when I presented to them the evidence I have on this case. So, it is reasonable to assume they knew that I would be asking for a referral for this to the Sheriff’s Office for a criminal investigation.
So how could they stop me?
Well, by not allowing evidence,
calling witnesses liars,
and by not allowing me to testify on my own behalf.
And that is exactly what they did.
How can any reasonable person call that justice??
During the trial I was having a hard time focusing on asking questions of my own witnesses or even defending myself – I mostly sat there experiencing incredible sadness anytime I looked at my daughter during the zoom call. It was heart-wrenching and I was clearly having a difficult time defending or even representing myself – and this should have been obvious to the judge, who did nothing to help bring forth the truth or facts of this case.
And their attorney clearly seemed to enjoy this and went into attack mode.
This was not about justice – this was not about the truth – this was all about attack and destroy, even if it meant abandoning the truth completely and throwing all decency as well as the ultimate importance and inviolability of the family unit out the proverbial window.
This is not how a court or an agent of a court should act, not at all. It is my firm belief they aided and abetted a person involved in criminal acts, who cunningly attacked a good, decent American family. An attack that resulted in a divorce after 31 years of marriage, a family home being stripped away after 24 years, a father-daughter relationship being destroyed after 22 wonderful years. And more heartbreak than I have ever known in my life.
Prior to Steven entering the picture I had am amazing relationship with all my children, and especially with Brittany. We were like 2 peas in a pod. And Steven ruined that through lies and manipulation.
So, considering the role their attorney and the judge referee had in how the system failed to protect the innocent, I have filed a complaint against their attorney with the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility. That has now been assigned to the Hennepin County Bar Association Ethics Committee and at the time of this recording are awaiting Mr. Van Loh’s response.
A complaint has also been filed against the Judge Referee with the Board of Judicial Standards. I am waiting to hear back from them.
Pending the outcome of these investigations, I plan to file an appeal in the appellate court seeking a new trial, and subsequent referral to the Sheriff’s Office for a criminal investigation.
All I have ever wanted throughout this process was for the truth to be told, so I can have a relationship with my daughter.
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After the trial I filed a complaint against both the judge and the attorney.
The complaint against the judge was filed with Board on Judicial Standards (651-296-3999) and the complaint against the attorney was filed with the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility (800-657-3601).
This is the complaint I filed:
To whom it may concern,
I am sending the following information to initiate a complaint against Judge Referee Elizabeth Clydesdale (Ramsey County, MN) and Attorney Dan Van Loh (from the law firm Capistrant Van Loh). I am including information about both in the same document as the complaints against each stem from the same incident(s) / occurrences. The purpose of this complaint is to have these individuals held accountable for their actions pertaining to and surrounding Harassment Restraining Orders 62-HR-CV-21-362 and 62-HR- CV-21-361.
Important Background Information.
My name is Tim Hutchinson. I am a 63-year-old man who was with my wife over 31 years. We enjoyed a good life together. That is, until along came a man named Steven Anderson, who works at a Calvary church in Roseville. He began manipulating our daughter (Brittany) soon after dating her. She broke up with him and told me it was because Steven was “too controlling.” She met with him again and he “shared his heart” and told her it was because of his upbringing that he was not able to properly express himself. Because of this she began dating him again. And is also the reason my family and I gave him a wide swath of grace and patience. Turns out he took total advantage of that and in the process has caused tremendous damage to our family, and we are now experiencing unimaginable pain. Due to his actions my daughter has completely shut me out of her life (where previously we were remarkably close). He has her convinced, through lies, that I am a horrible person.
My daughter is an RN who works on a Covid unit at a Twin Cities hospital, and I’ve not seen or spoken to her since February 2021.
I’ve asked the church where he works to help mediate this, and they responded by having their lawyer tell me to stay off their property and to not communicate with them. This is because of the lies he told them.
My daughter’s boyfriend had convinced her to file a restraining order against me based upon lies. Afterwards, they married, and I was not allowed at the wedding and did not walk my daughter down the aisle. The first HRO was in
2021. When it was set to expire they filed for an extension, and was granted that. All based upon lies and improper court proceedings.
As a direct result of the lies he told about me, my wife and I divorced and we sold our house where we lived for the past 24 years.
Steven Anderson was able to get away with this, in large part because his attorney lied multiple times, and because the court referee acted improperly. I am now filing a complaint against both.
Summary of complaints,
Reasons attorney Dan Van Loh is being reported;
- Before I agreed to accept the first HRO, Mr. Van Loh told me that if I fought back and won the HRO it would show up on Brittany’s background check and could affect her employment and future missionary efforts. This turned out to be a lie.
- I told him before the first HRO hearing a website was not for the public, but instead was a private journal, and the only person I invited to see it was his client, Steven Anderson. He later falsely claimed it was a public website set up to defame Steven. He later used this false narrative to request an emergency hearing for an extension of the HRO.
- He suggested, and the court referee agreed, that no information or evidence from the first HRO be allowed at the trial for the second HRO. But then my private journal was introduced as evidence as a public website and became the bulk of their claim against me.
- He went along with all of the blatantly false accusations against me and threw reasoning out the window by pushing forward with their hateful and hyper-exaggerated claims.
- Any time I attempted to find ways to reconcile matters, Mr. Van Loh would state in an email that my continued efforts to work things out with my daughter were only pushing her away. He intentionally made things worse and much more difficult for me to restore peace and harmony in my family.
- He claimed I was a liar and so was my sister (who had just lost her only daughter, suddenly and unexpectedly. I mentioned this before she was brought into the virtual courtroom to testify.)
Reasons Judge Referee Elizabeth Clydesdale is being reported;
- When it was my turn to present my testimony, she stopped the proceedings and did not allow me to present any evidence or personal testimony to refute the claims of the plaintiff. In short; I was denied my opportunity to testify.
- She allowed information to be presented that she previously said would not be allowed.
- Allowed their attorney to speak harshly about my witnesses without any evidence to prove his statements.
- Did not explain that I was not obligated to answer any of their attorneys’ questions.
- Was not there to seek truth and ultimately justice, but instead allowed their attorney to do whatever he please, despite it being obvious I was unable to defend myself.
- When I made an honest mistake of providing evidence in an improper way before the trial, she harshly berated me in front of the others present, including my daughter.
Facts;
Either prior to, or during the first HRO hearing their attorney, Dan Van Loh told me that if I contested this matter and won, that would have a serious impact on my daughter’s ability to obtain employment or continue going overseas as a volunteer. She is an RN and has traveled to different countries to help others. This is important to her, and it would be devastating if she could not continue doing so. Mr. Van Loh said that if I contested this matter and proved their claims were false (which they are), then anyone who did a background
check would see that my daughter had filed false documents with the court and would not hire her and allow her to do any more overseas volunteering.
Based upon that I agreed to the 2-year HRO uncontested and without finding of fact. I also agreed to take down a private journal I had online. This private journal is where I documented the events that had happened since Steven Anderson began manipulating my daughter. I am including a copy along with this letter and other evidence to show it is completely innocent. It is important to note that this journal was absolutely private and I only invited Steven over one time to show him that I had all this information and would make it public if he did not stop his manipulation and agree to make peace with me. All I wanted was peace in my family and to have a relationship with my daughter.
He copied the entire private journal and used it as evidence against me. When I told his attorney, Mr. Van Loh it was a private online journal, he responded, “That’s what pen and paper are for.”
Nowhere in this journal are there any threats against Steven or my daughter. Here is the text from the home page of this private journal
1 Peter 5:8 “…Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
and;
John 10:10 “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”
This website is the true story of how one person told evil lies to ruin a great father- daughter relationship. What’s even more shocking is that person works at Calvary Church; his name is Steven Anderson – director of youth services.
When the father (Tim Hutchinson) asked Calvary to assist in rectifying the problem, the church had their attorney tell him to not communicate with them, and to stay off their property. Clearly Satan is causing a division based upon lies. This website is being put up to not only expose the lies of the devil, but to also as a call to prayer for Calvary and Steven Anderson, who caused so much heartache.
The dad had become so distraught that he attempted suicide. The response from Steven Anderson and the church, was nothing. No signs of compassion at all. No reaching out to see how he was doing – no offer to pray with him – absolutely nothing at all.
Steven then had a restraining order put in place against that father, and married his daughter. The father could not attend the wedding, or walk his daughter down the aisle.
Despite all of this, the father made 11 attempts at settling things peacefully. Neither the church nor Steven will communicate with him, at all.
This website is a humble request for prayer – a plea for mighty warriors of God to call upon the heavens to intervene – to strike down evil influences and to lift up the broken! For restoration of the relationship that was stolen from the father. For wisdom in the church so they may have a heart more like Christ’s – and for healing of Steven’s mind so he may awaken and realize that evil has been influencing his decisions, to repent, and come back to the Lord.
Here’s some information from the father…
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, my name is Tim Hutchinson. I am a 60-year-old man, and have been with my wife for 32 years. Thus far we’ve enjoyed an amazing life together. That is, until along came a man who works at a church in MN. He began manipulating my daughter soon after dating her. Now my family and I are experiencing unimaginable pain. Due to his actions my daughter has completely shut me out of her life (where previously we were remarkably close).
He has her convinced (through lies) that I am a horrible person.
My daughter is an RN who works on a Covid unit at a Twin Cities hospital, and I’ve not seen or spoken to her since February, 2021.
I’ve asked the church where he works at to help mediate this, and they responded by having their lawyer tell me to stay off their property and to not communicate with them. I later learned that at least some of the negative actions against me were likely the result of advice given by counselors at the church.
My daughters boyfriend had convinced her to file a restraining order against me based upon lies. Afterwards, they married and I was not allowed at the wedding and did not walk my daughter down the aisle.
As you will see below I have this situation well documented.
I have been hurt at a profound level; first, the relationship between my daughter and I; the wedding I did not get to attend and did not walk my daughter down the aisle; the suicide attempt; other relationships have been affected, and so has my job. There have been other deep impacts on myself as well. I have become socially withdrawn. This has been a living nightmare. And all as a result of lies. Evil lies which I believe are due to a monster inside of the church and
influencing Steven Anderson. A monster known as Satan. Please, join me in prayer against the evil among us, and for restoration of that which was stolen from me!”
The only thing other than the home page on this private journal, was the journal itself – which again is where I documented the events that happened, including emails, phones and text messages we sent each other. That journal is included in this complaint as a separate file.
I took the journal offline during the HRO hearing process. Later, during the filing of the second HRO, Mr. Van Loh would claim this was a “public website” and again try to use this against me.
[Note: there are several times in the above text which refers to my journal as a “website” – that is there in case I made the private journal public, which I never did.]
During the two-year period of the first HRO I sent my daughter letters through her attorney, Mr. Van Loh, as allowed by the HRO. These letters were infrequent and just letting her know that I love her and some updates. At one point in time, I asked Mr. Van Loh to discuss the possibility of reconciliation with Steven. Because of the upsetting nature of my not being able to see or speak with my daughter, I had mentioned the possibility of a lawsuit against Steven. Mr. Van Loh’s response was, in part; ”…hurting Steven will hurt Brittany which would most assuredly undermine or end any future hope of reconciliation.” He also went on to say in another email that Steven does not want to reconcile with me.
As documented in the private journal, I tried 15 times to make peace with Steven, and he refused every attempt.
I did not violate the terms of the first HRO and was waiting for it to expire so I could once again find a way to have a relationship with my daughter. During those two years my family was asking me questions about the HRO and how things happened. It was upsetting for me to keep talking about it, so my idea was to have my youngest daughter interview me and make a video of that.
Which we did. I then created a private web page, without links coming into or out of that page (you literally had to know the exact web page address to find it). I then password protected that page and uploaded the 93-minute video
and shared the link and password to five of my immediate family members. Once they had watched it, I took that page down. During the time it was up (only a few days) someone shared the link and password with my daughter, Brittany. She showed it to her husband Steven, who then planned to use it against me in filing for an extension of the HRO. You can view this video in its entirety by copying and pasting this private link into your browser:
The above video is not available to the public. It is only available by my sharing the link above to certain individuals, including yourself for the purpose of filing a complaint.
It is important to know at this point that in January of 2023 my niece suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Her mom is my youngest sister. I stood by her side throughout this terrible time in her life. Months later she decided to try and help me by offering to organize some peaceful protests at Calvary church where Steven works. Her goal was to get the church to agree to help move Steven towards mediation. Her intentions were pure and honest. Initially I said no to this. Eventually I agreed when there were assurances that this would be peaceful and with the understanding that I would not participate.
I sent a letter about this to Mr. Van Loh. Shortly afterwards I was served papers for an extension of the HRO, which was to soon expire. I planned to ask for a trial in the hopes that the truth could finally come out. I called my sister and explained this, asking her to stop the plans for a protest.
Part of their claim is that I was a CIA assassin and they have concerns I would harm (or murder) hundreds of children at a church. These are outrageous lies and they have no evidence or witnesses for this claim. In fact, they do not have any witnesses or evidence against me at all which would show that I am a threat to them, or to anyone. Because in reality, I am a peaceful person and the victim of lies. Except for the one daughter who was convinced to file an HRO against me, the entire rest of the family is on my side.
During the first hearing, I asked for a trial. Mr. Van Loh told Judge Referee Clydesdale that nothing from the first HRO should be allowed in this trial. She agreed.
Prior to the day of the trial, I submitted evidence through the Minnesota Digital Exhibit System. I also sent a list of the items submitted to their attorney, Mr.
Van Loh. When I did not hear back from him, I called his office. A woman there said that he was not available. She checked the email and said they had it and everything was fine.
On the day of the trial, I found out that I was also supposed to send the evidence to their attorney, and not just a list. I somehow thought they would be able to access it through the Minnesota Digital Exhibit System where I had uploaded it too. The Judge Referee spoke very harshly to me about this honest mistake. She mentioned that this matter would be concluded on that day but did not give any times or reference a length of time it would last. In the papers I was served it mentioned that this trial would last at least 3 hours.
One of the first things that happened was I was found to be in violation of the first HRO because I shared my side of the story with 5 members of my immediate family. To avoid having to tell my story repeatedly, I made a video (as previously mentioned) and shared with to them on a hidden web page that was additionally password protected. Once those 5 people saw the video I took it down. In the court filing for extension of the HRO (which was made on an emergency basis – literally for no reason at all other than dramatic effect) it mentioned the video and said they could provide a transcript if needed. This was clearly an attempt to make it seem as though the video had illegal or violent content. Nothing could be further from the truth. Their statement was intended to be misleading. Some of those who watched the video came to me afterwards and said this confirmed they were right to believe me and not the lies Steven was telling. The video was not shown in court nor was a transcript presented, yet the Judge Referee found this to be in violation of the HRO without knowing any of the content.
It should also be noted here that Brittany admitted to her mom that she did not write all of her HRO filing – Steven did and she just copied C pasted it. So
there remains the possibility that she does not even know what her HRO filing says.
During the trial their attorney questioned me at length about the private journal I had online previously. There was really nothing there that was a threat to anyone and seemed like a big waste of time. They had no evidence and no witnesses.
I believe the Judge Referee should have informed me that I was not under any obligation to answer Mr. Van Loh’s questions and that I have a right to not submit to his questioning.
During the trial their attorney (Mr. Van Loh) acted rudely and was clearly not interested in truth and justice – this was purely a seek and destroy mission for him. It was almost as if he took pleasure in attacking a man who was clearly emotionally distraught, and the Judge Referee allowed this.
When it was my turn, I was able to call a few witnesses, and was told that I could not ask them questions about anything the Plaintiff’s had not already introduced as evidence. This limited what I could do and felt like my opportunity to prove my innocence was being intentionally squashed. For example, I asked if my sister could read a statement. I explained that her daughter had passed away only a few months ago and she was still grieving. The Judge denied that request. Here is the statement she was going to read:
Good morning your honor. I am here today to make a statement in support of my brother, Tim Hutchinson. I have known him all of my life, which is now more than 50 years. Nothing in these court filings comes even close to who my brother really is.
To begin, I will share with you about my only daughter, Jessica. Several months ago she suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Children should bury their parents, not the other way around. This was one of the most devastating things I’ve experienced in my life. In that time of enormous grief, my brother Tim rushed to my side and remained there as a steady rock for me to hold onto. Without him I don’t even know how I would have made it through all of this.
My brother Tim and I are close, and we talk on the phone at least 3 or 4 times a week. At least once a week during our calls, as Tim will be talking about his daughter Brittany, and how much he loves her and wants to see her, he will cry. Not just a little, but actually sobbing. He is truly hurt by these terrible lies about him.
I know my brother had contacted several attorneys looking for a way to resolve this matter outside of a court proceeding – he wanted this to be settled peacefully and privately as a family should. His desire was for this family to come together and resolve this using mediators. The attorneys told him that it was unlikely that Steven would voluntarily agree to this, and that going to the church he worked at would be the best solution. Especially since Steven had previously talked with the church about doing mediation.
My brother had said that he tried contacting the church several times previously and they wouldn’t agree to any mediation or investigation. He said he wasn’t sure what the next steps were and that he was going to wait until the restraining order expires and see if they can move forward with coming together as a family and working through this.
Because we are family, and especially that he helped me so much when my daughter died, I wanted to find a way to help ease his pain. My thought was to try and get the church to agree to do an investigation or at least mediate this matter. So I contacted family members and friends to see if they would help with a protest at the church. Every person said yes, they absolutely believe Tim is innocent of these outrageous claims.
I then called Tim and explained what we were ready to do. He said no, don’t do that. Just wait. As he has said all along, we should practice peace and calm – love and forgiveness. I waited a few days and asked him again. He still said no, don’t do anything. So I went online and looked up laws concerning peaceful protests. From that I made a list and told others that if we did this that we would only remain on public property, act peacefully 100% of the time, and if approached by anyone we would be polite and courteous. This was always intended to be a peaceful protest to help my brother, not a riot.
I called my brother a third time and explained how we would act. He agreed and said that everyone there must promise to act in a calm and peaceful
manner. My brother also said that he would not attend these protests, due to the lies about him being a danger to the church. He then sent an email to the church’s attorney requesting they do an investigation, stating if they didn’t there would be a protest. They declined his request. He also sent an email to Steven, through his attorney letting him know what the plan was. He also offered Steven an opportunity to share what ideas he had about how to resolve this. The response was to file another restraining order against my brother.
Tim said he is going to ask for a trial, and that I should call off the protests. So I cancelled them. It’s a sad day when a court needs to get involved in order for the truth to come out between family members.
Your honor, I have never heard my brother say anything about being violent or do anything illegal. Instead, he has encouraged his family to remain peaceful and calm, and to act with love and forgiveness. I’m not sure if Tim wants me to say anything about this, but Steven had approached my brother asking him to send him money to help with living expenses. My brother said yes, absolutely. And he has been sending this help every month now for the past 2 and a half years. Even though they say horrible lies about him, he still helps. That’s who my brother really is – not some demon crawling out the pit of hell as they want you to believe.
Our family looks up to Tim, and respects him greatly. And we stand beside him 100% because we know who he really is.
Thank you, your honor for the opportunity to come here today and speak this truth on behalf of a great man, husband, father, brother, uncle and American citizen.
Despite being denied a chance for her to read that statement, I was able to ask her questions about it and she answered truthfully. When it was Mr. Van Loh’s turn he asked her some questions and then told the Judge that my sister was a liar. I had a few other witnesses, but again felt as though I could not ask them to share the real truth because of concern their attorney would only attack them, as he did my sister. So I decided it would be best for myself to state the truth. As soon as I said that I was done presenting witnesses and would testify myself, the Judge ended the proceedings and said Mr. Van Loh
and myself could make brief closing remarks. I was stunned and felt as though this proceeding was completely unfair and the result of a corrupt court. Their attorney asked for the HRO extension to be for life – meaning I could never again see or speak to my daughter again. He also called my witnesses liars.
In the end Steven got a 10-year extension and Brittany got another 2-years.
All because of lies told by Steven, his attorney acting in an unethical manner, and a Judge Referee that clearly did not care about truth, justice or my family.
Summary
In addition, even talking about this matter is emotionally upsetting. It took a long time for me to even begin to write this letter of complaint. Having someone that you love so dearly, being stripped out of your life because of a barrage of horrible lies is overwhelming. And to have that result in a failed marriage, loss of the family home, health problems and becoming depressed is unfathomable.
I am asking…no, begging for help with this. Please, let there be someone out there who still believes in truth and justice – someone in a position to help set the truth free. I am 100% certain that if the truth were told, then neither the original or the extension would have been granted. I would have a relationship with my daughter, my marriage would not have failed, we would still be in our family home, and my health would be better.
End notes:
- Earlier in 2023 I contacted the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office and asked them to review this matter. I presented to them all the information that I have in as straightforward and honest way possible. Their response to me was that if I could have the Civil Court refer this matter to them, they would continue their investigation and likely arrest Steven. When I asked what, if anything, I had done wrong, they replied, “Nothing, you’re a good, good father, sir.” At the time I did not know if
there was to be another court hearing and had hoped the first HRO would expire, and we could work things out as a family. If that happened, then I would not have asked the court to refer this to law enforcement. However, when they filed for an extension, I decided to ask for this referral during the trial. I never had the opportunity to do so because I was not allowed to present my testimony.
- I tried to hire a lawyer after the issuing of the HRO extension and spoke with several of them about an appeal. None would take the case because I had been found guilty of violating the original HRO. I tried to explain it was about the video, but they said it doesn’t matter, it is still a violation. So, I decided to do something myself, and it seems my only recourse is to file this complaint. This would have been filed sooner, however there were several exacerbating events; a) I was divorced due to the stress of the lies in the HRO(s). b) Our family home was sold, and I became temporarily homeless. c) I face several health challenges, one of them is I now have heart disease. d) My youngest daughter became addicted to meth, and I rescued her. (She is now clean, stable and working as a supervisor at a well-known hotel chain.)
Attachments: the backstory. HRO court filings (first and extension).
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I was then contacted by phone by Mr. David Hashmall who had further questions about my complaint against their attorney. He said that if I had any else to add that I could email him. Here is what I sent the following day;
Hello Mr. Hashmall,
Thank you for your time yesterday – I appreciate your efforts investigating this matter.
In addition to my comments on the phone, I would also like to add the following observation. It is interesting that Mr. Van Loh sent so many pages, when it seems he could have directly answered the question(s) in a page or two. It is also interesting that he begins by insinuating that I am the problem.
However, back in reality, I have actually never threatened or harassed either my daughter Brittany, or Steven. Not ever. Those are all lies. They have no witnesses or evidence. None. I have all the witnesses and all the evidence which proves Steven is a liar and a manipulator.
My entire family believes me, not just because I say so, but also because they have read the HRO and in places where Steven claims a certain event or events happened, they realized they were actually there and are saying the events that Steven described literally never happened or were altered to make me appear to be an aggressor. They have also had their own personal negative experience(s) with Steven. According to them, when Steven is not around Brittany he acts much differently. Sort of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde effect.
There is a reason 2 of 3 of Brittany’s siblings did not attend her wedding, and neither did anyone from my side of the family. Some have had their own personal negative experience with Steven, some have caught him in lies, and others noticed the lack of evidence, witnesses, and credibility of Steven, and made their own decision.
So, it seems Steven is a manipulator, and he conned the church where he works at, and then got Mr. Van Loh involved. Since they have no witnesses or evidence, how did they get two consecutive HRO’s against me? Through lies, calling my witnesses liars and by the judge referee not allowing my evidence and not allowing me to testify.
At one point in time, I had stated that if Steven wants to treat me like a game, then I will show him how it’s played.
So, I took all of the evidence that I had and brought it to the Ramsey County Sheiff’s Office. The end result is they told me that if I could get the Civil Court which issued the HRO to refer this matter to them, they would complete the criminal investigation and likely arrest Steven. It is important to note here that I presented ALL of the evidence, not just bits and pieces as Steven does through his attorney, Mr. Van Loh. And when I asked what I had done wrong, the response was “Nothing sir, you are a good good father.”
I was never allowed the opportunity during trial to request this referral.
My family knows the truth, stands with me 100% and are losing faith in the “justice” system. They have seen how Steven cleverly phrases things to make me look like a horrible person. I walk in to a building and Steven claims I “gained access” as if I were a criminal breaking in – or when he called me and I asked if my wife and I would be able to meet his mom and dad before the wedding, and he then claimed I was taking issue with wedding plans – or once I called him and asked if we could get together and hang out, he stated in the HRO that I was making an increasing number of harassing phone calls. He also told my daughter that he asked me for money and that I promised to help but didn’t. In reality, I sent him money every month for 2 1/2 years and have the receipts to prove this. My family sees the avalanche of lies and manipulation. They know the truth.
I actually feel sorry for Mr. Van Loh getting caught up in all of this and ask that you go easy on him. Yes, there needs to be accountability, but Steven is a good liar and manipulator, and it seems Mr. Van Loh fell into his trap.
Kind regards,
Tim Hutchinson
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It should also be noted that I gave Steven money every month through Reliant for 2 ½ years. At one point he told Brittany that I had promised to send him money every month to support them, but I had broken that promise. If you look at the receipts in the folder titled Reliant Giving, you will see annual receipts for 2021, 2022 and 2023. There were some donations in 2020 but I do not have any receipts for that. I continued to send him money every month for over 2 years and only stopped when my wife moved out of the family house in June, 2023. I could not find it in me to continue sending him any more money. I sent money every month on the 20th because that is the day that Brittany was born. Reliant is an organization that people will use to raise funds to support their missionary efforts.
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A letter I sent to my kids; Victoria, Alex and Vanessa after I learned they were not all getting along very well.
Hi Kids,
I want to reach out to you about relationships in this family. As a father, it breaks my heart to see my kids at odds with one another. In the bible it says to “Honor Thy Mother and Thy Father”. Part of that is to be thankful for their role in creating you. Another component is to honor their vision for the family they created. Though you’ve grown and branched out into your own lives, there remains a life-long connection to our family.
Victoria, Alex and Vanessa; please make peace with one another. And if you are not close with Brittany, then reach out to her and strengthen that connection – make amends if needed. I mean, really put forth an effort. Recently I coined a phrase; “If someone you loved died tomorrow, would you be happy with how you treated them today?” Meditate on that for a while.
Just so you know, I have made a final attempt to resolve things with Steven – if he declines, I will be hiring a lawyer and filing a lawsuit against him. I swear to my family with all my heart, mind, body and soul that I’ve not done the things he alleges. I am not a monster. When the truth comes out, Brittany will be heart-broken, and I really want the family to surround her with love and compassion. Having a connection with her will make that easier. Please be there for her.
This is an incredibly sad experience for our family, and especially Brittany. We need to be strong for her and for each other. Even though my heart has been shattered at a profound level, I will still forgive her and receive her back into my life with open arms. That is how family is supposed to be; family means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life, no matter what.
Perhaps things don’t start off where all of you are buddy-buddy, besties, BFF’s…but maybe you start with text messages, a few phone calls, and let’s start having dinners together – how about the last Sunday of the month? I’m open to any suggestions.
I love you – all of you – with all my heart. This family is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Period. Despite the challenges. I will stand and fight for any of you, anytime, and will love you no matter what. So let’s start finding ways to include each other, instead of excluding.
Hopefully you will receive this in the spirit of how it was intended; with love, compassion, caring and a desire to unite.
Love,
Dad
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If all else fails, then I have already prepared this final letter to my family;
If you are receiving this email, it is because you are either a family member or friend. As you all know I have been the victim of lies and a false Harassment Restraining Order (HRO). My attempts to have the truth made known have fallen short of the goal. It seemed my only remaining recourse was to file a complaint against the lawyer and court referee, which I have done. If that fails, I have made an end-of-life decision.
That decision is to go to sleep one night and just not wake up. While this may seem at first glance like a suicide note, it is not. There is no suicide involved. This, to me, is like having a terminal illness. It never gets better, no hope for improvement and every day becomes a little more unbearable. People in this much pain should be allowed to make the decision to cross over at a time of their choosing. I am at peace about this decision – am not depressed or in any danger of immediately harming myself. If this does happen, it is still several weeks away.
[Note: I am not at the point yet where I will cross-over, so please don’t call the police asking for a well check. That is not the intent of this email.]
A few may think this is a selfish act because my passing will cause them some pain. But every day I wake up and must think of a reason to move forward. It always comes down to two things; a) there is a still a chance the truth might come out, and b) my crossing over to the next life would cause some emotional pain for those left behind. I have carried this burden too long by myself. I am worn down, beaten up and have nothing left.
If you think about it, I am the one suffering the most, and yet am the only one who did not have a choice. The bastard made a choice to lie and manipulate, my daughter made a choice to believe and marry him, their lawyer made a choice to lie, the court referee made a choice to act improperly (by not giving me a fair chance to testify), and my family / friends made a choice to stand on the sidelines and not do anything to help.
The one notable exception is my daughter, Vanessa. That girl is a fucking rock star! Not only did she read the HRO’s, but she also helped me gain a deeper understanding of the lies they contained, and even helped make a video about these lies. I am forever grateful to her. She did more than just offer empty words – she took action. I both admire and respect her for that. Thank you, Vanessa! I will love you always.
I powered through soul-crushing pain the past three (3) years and finally reached a point where I could file, as I previously mentioned, a complaint against the lawyer and referee. God willing, the governing boards will see the lies and corruption and act accordingly. All I ever asked for was a fair chance to tell the truth.
Oh, and to anyone who ever suggested I just forget about my daughter, you can go fuck yourself and just exit my life. You are truly low-life pond scum and I have zero respect for you.
Please don’t call me and try to have a conversation about this. It will turn ugly and I will just hang up. So, let’s keep our conversations pleasant. And especially don’t try to tell me this is suicide and that it is a sin, and I won’t go to heaven for this. Because that’s a conversation that I will have with God.
Hopefully this doesn’t sound too brash, but before anyone tries to preach to me, just remember those three (3) years where my heart, mind and soul were being crushed.
In closing, I have reached a point where I just can’t keep going on the same way every day. Nothing is getting better – I am in the same amount of pain that I was three (3) years ago. There is no light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Counseling and medication won’t do anything to make this situation better. Those are just cheap band-aids to try and make me forget about how much my heart is broken. If a person is medicated to the point where they stop caring, then they are no longer human and are nothing more than a drugged-out zombie. No thanks.
If the time does come where I cross over, my hope is for people to use that as a time of reflection to reevaluate what the words “family” and “friend” really mean and go rediscover each other in a healthy way.
Tim
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Misc letters I sent to Brittany;
August 21, 2021
Hi Brittany, Been a while and I wanted you to know that I think about you every day. Literally. Not surprising considering how much I love you. Sometimes I ask mom how your headaches are – truly feel badly that you have those so much. Wish there was something that could be done. A goal of mine is to lose weight. There is a lady on Facebook who’s always sharing pics of others who are losing a lot of weight. I mean, their transformation is incredible. So, I reached out to her and she let me know about the plan. Talked with your mom and she said that she’d join as well to be supportive of my goal. After the first week I lost 7 lbs! Out of curiosity I looked up the ingredients to the pre-packaged foods we were eating. Turns out every meal has a lot of calcium in it. That’s bad for me due to being very prone to kidney stones (yikes!) So now am off the plan – however, your mom was/is losing weight and decided to remain on it. So, it worked out for her and I’m happy about that. I going to figure something else out – likely all salads and daily trips to the gym 🙂 Won’t end up looking like a body-builder, but that’s OK, I just want to look in the mirror and be comfortable with how I look. So, your mom and I have been discussing my retirement, and decided it can happen in November of 2022. It’s going to be so weird waking up and not having to run off to a job. I’ve been working over 40 years now – most of it in the same industry. I hope things are worked out by then so my whole family can come to the retirement party. That would mean a lot! After retirement I’m going to increase the amount of volunteering I do and will likely start up again at the hospice. If I ever become a grandpa, I’ll open up “Grandpa Day Care” for my grandkids (free of course!) The ministry is getting closer to launching. My gosh, it’s been a long time in the making, right?! But it WILL happen! I feel blessed that we hired a consulting firm – they have helped the ministry move forward by leaps and bounds. If things continue going forward at the pace they’re on now, the launch could happen as soon as next month. Otherwise, October would be the absolute latest. Just thinking about all the people this ministry will reach for Christ quite literally gets me teary-eyed. This has been at the forefront of my daily efforts for months and months. When it finally happens, I’ll be overcome with joy!! Once the ministry is launched, there is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time; fill out the “My Dad – in his own words” book you gave me. It sits on a ledge in front of my desk, and I look at it every day. If you ever have children, I hope you’ll let them read it. I want them to know how much I love my kids, and how much joy they brought into my life, despite the challenges. That’s it for now. Going back to copywriting and moving through the action steps my coach gave me. Love you, Dad
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12 / 7 / 2021
Brittany, I have a heart condition. This isn’t exactly the way I wanted to tell you but thought you should know. I first became aware after having chest pains that radiated both into my left arm as well as my left shoulder. After a trip to the ER, a cardiologist visit and testing (including a heart scan) they discovered the problem. About a year ago I had some routine tests done just to check where I was at as a 60-year old, and my heart was perfectly fine. Since then, the results are 247% worse. They are telling me this is stress related. At this level it’s treatable. If I do nothing and it progresses to the next level, well, I don’t want to think about that. If you have any doubts about the authenticity of what I am saying, ask your mom. She was at the ER with me; she met the cardiologist; was there during the testing and read the results. It’s real. This past year has been the worst year of my life. By far. I sleep, at most, 3 hours per night. Most nights I lay awake in bed between 1 – 4 AM thinking sad thoughts. But none of that is your fault. Not any of it. In fact, and I want you to know this; you don’t owe me an apology or any explanation for your actions. Not at all. You’ve not done anything wrong. You are truly a wonderful person, and I am still very proud of you. I’ve been patient, peaceful and prayerful. My reward has been a heart condition. Sorry I had to tell you this way. Love you, Dad
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11/18/2021
Hi Brittany, Well, today is my birthday and all I really want is to say that I love you. Very much. Every day I think about you. Literally every day. And I miss you more than you know. I haven’t smiled in months. Just can’t. I am so sad that I cannot talk to you, hug you, or have us spend time together. At Victoria’s wedding I saw you crying. It was really hard for me to not come hug you. But I couldn’t do that because if I had, then I would be in violation of the restraining order and could possibly have gone to jail. Then I wouldn’t have been able to walk Victoria down the aisle. Seeing you so sad really hurt me. In fact, several times I went into the bathroom and cried. For real. I hoped later in the evening we would encounter each other on the dance floor and possibly have a dance together. That would have been amazing. But I understand you had to leave early. I know you’ve been hurt, and I am so sorry for my role in that. The restraining order is 3/4 of the way over. In about 6 months it will be done. Perhaps we should go to some counseling to prepare for us to have a relationship again. I’m open to working things out with Steven as well, but he and I will have to figure that out ourselves. Well, I love you and pray for you often. I hope this is the last birthday I’ll ever have to spend without you. Love, Dad
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Misc.
I am sorry that Van Loh got involved with this matter. Van Loh is literally parroting the lies that Steven is telling and presenting them as facts. Now he is in deep with a person I can prove is a liar and a manipulator.
“If you want a relationship with Brittany then you need to submit to me and let me control you both.” He also said in an email that if I cared about my daughter that I would “lay down everything” which to me says the same thing.
Bob Roby – Cambridge Law (Minnesota Mediation Services) My sister contacted him to try and help me because of how I stood by her after her daughter passed away. That’s also why she organized the protests (which I intially said no to, and once I agreed also said that I would not be a part of it.)
False claims about my harassment stemming from their wedding plans. I literally talked to Steven one time about the guest list (explain why, including her AVM), and another time when he called me, I asked if we would be able to meet his parents before the wedding. How is that a problem??
2 of 3 siblings did not attend the wedding, and no one from my side of the family did either. 2 of Brittany’s siblings read the HRO and know that at least some of the situations Steven described are lies because they were present and say the event was absolutely not the way he desribed it at all. They also do not like him because he is rude to them.
Victoria got married and I did not cause any issues whatsoever. I did, however, see Brittany cry several times about how sad she was that we did not have a relationship. I was later told she actually broke down crying 8 times and left shortly after the wedding ceremony. Brittany goes to counseling every week because she is traumatized by not having a relationship with me. And all because of lies that Steven tells and Van Loh protects him!
Van Loh said to me that if I fought back against the HRO that would impact my daughter…. also said a tough day for a dad, and he understands that because of his daighter either recently getting married or would be getting married in the next 2 months…he also said that I was doing the right thing.
They have no witnesses and no evidence. I have all the witnesses and real evidence. Van Loh’s actions were partly responsible for my not being able to present these at trial.
My witnesses include family members who read the HRO and in the parts where Steven describes an event, they realize it did not happen the way he described it – they see he is lying.
Steven asked for my help with money and I agreed. I later learned that he told Brittany that I had promised to send him money and had not done so. In fact I had sent him money – every month for 2 1/2 years!
He is a mediator? Then why wasn’t he trying to mediate this and bring resolution to this matter? Instead, he beleived lies that should have been obviously made up and moved forward with an HRO.
Ramsey County Sheriff’s Dept. “You did nothing wrong sir, you’re a good good father!”
Jen saying “If Brittany sat in jail, maybe then she would begin to realize that Steven is manipulating her.”
I tried to make peace 15 times.
31 years of marriage, 24 years in the house, 22 year relationship with my daughter, and so much heartache my family has concerns about me possibly becoming suicidal. I ended up being homeless because of this.
My relationship with Jake, David Zimmerman (when Brittany broke up with him and also when he damaged my truck), and when James Anderson and how I helped when he and Vanessa became homeless (I hugged him, etc. and when Vanessa broke up with him I still paid for his hotel room and gave him money).
At the end of the day all I really want is a fair trial – a real chance to bring out the truth. To present many witnesses including a biologist with 5 college degrees, a retired heart surgeon and a NASA scientist.
Their only evidence was my private journal and the lies Steven told and manipulated my daughter into believing. During the time when I asked for a trial, Van Loh and the judge agreed nothing from the first HRO could be used in the trial. And that was ALL of their evidence; my private journal from the first HRO.
Cory J read all of the evidence and wants to talk with his Hollywood friends about making this into a movie.
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Leaving my job;
I worked for many years in the transportation industry, and for several years (2020 – 2022) worked as a safety and compliance manager at a local company. I began taking time off due to the stress of this situation, and also began making mistakes. I left suddenly in 2022 without notice. From there I worked at a few random jobs before accepting another manager position at a company I had previously worked at, in the same position. They welcomed me back based upon my previous performance. It was a job I enjoyed very much.
They flew me out to Pennsylvania for a week of orientation and training, since a few things had changed in my absence. After a short amount of time it was becoming obvious to me that I would also struggle at this job as well. So I accepted a lower position as a driver. I previously had done that exact job before for this company, and had moved approximately 30,000 trailers for them during my years with them before. This time would be different though – during my first week after stepping into a lower, non-management position, I made a critical mistake which caused serious damage to a trailer. I was fired that day. This is the first time in my life that I have ever been fired from a job.
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Ultimatum email to Steven (prior to first HRO)
The time has passed for us to settle things via mediation.
The time has passed for my apologizing (for things I NEVER did).
The time has passed for me being patient (while you do nothing).
It is now time for an ultimatum.
Here’s what I am prepared to do….
- Remove my blessing from the engagement. Think about this carefully so you understand what this means.
- File a lawsuit against you seeking damages of more than $250,000. I have medical records showing the effects these past weeks/months have had on me. There are witnesses and mental health professionals who will testify that you is the cause of it. My medical records from holding a gun to my head and ending up in the psych ward list you as the cause. A jury would most likely be very interested in hearing about that. [Bonus: you’ll have to testify, under oath, and Brittany will finally see everything you’ve been lying about.]
- File a lawsuit against Calvary Church seeking damages of more than $1,000,000 dollars. They were aware of your activities and failed to respond. Good luck to them explaining that to a jury.
- Go public with the facts surrounding this matter. This includes the complete family (on both sides), and members of Calvary church. I will also spend a minimum of $1,000 boosting posts about this on various social media and news outlets, with a link to a website, where this info will be posted for all to see. www.DirtySteven.com – I own the domain name – website coming soon.
- I will have banners made and placed on top of trucks/cars that will be parked on public property near both campuses for Calvary Church – fully visible to all church attendees – alerting them to www.DirtySteven.com .
- This information will also be passed along to any place you ever works at for the rest of his life. You will never be able to outrun this truth. In the event of my death or disability, I have associates who will continue doing this on my behalf.
- Contact Reliant with all the facts and lawsuit details, and ask they close your account and prevent you from any further fundraising. If necessary, with the help of my attorney, we will contact a judge and seek an injunction against any fundraising efforts.
- Other planned activities that will be disclosed at a later date/time.
[To be perfectly clear, everything listed above will be accomplished through legal means. I do not condone violence or any illegal activities. I am an otherwise peaceful person who has been unfairly put in a position of having to fight back for his family. But that does not render me powerless nor helpless. Steven has given me plenty of ammunition which I can and will use in a lawful and highly effective manner.]
The steps listed above will not happen all at once – there will be a period of time between them which I will determine and enact without advance notice.
There is only one way to stop this from happening. Only one.
Steven must agree to the following:
- Put a hold on the wedding for one-year.
- Steven must go through counseling, present the facts which I have, and be tested/treated for narcissistic tendencies.
- I must attend a minimum of one of these counseling sessions with him.
- Before the wedding happens, Steven must issue me a written apology.
Nothing on these pages or in the ultimatum is negotiable. This is literally a “take-it or leave-it” scenario. Steven should consider himself fortunate that I even allowed him a glimpse inside of my playbook.
I have worked tirelessly for weeks preparing for this because my family means everything to me.
Two things I am certain of;
1) I love my family more than life itself.
2) I will NEVER stop fighting for them, and right now there is an EPIC storm on the horizon.
To accept, reply to this email with the word “YES” in the subject line. I WILL NOT read the body of any email reply sent. Anything other than the word “YES” in the subject line will be considered a “No”, and I will move forward with the above mentioned steps. You have exactly seven (7) days, zero hours, zero minutes to accept.
[Note: Once the process begins of enacting the above steps, there is no stopping it. Nothing you say or do beyond the time-frame allowed will alter the events about to happen.]
Steven; it’s your move – choose wisely.
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Website – last copy
The “Monster” is Satan
1 Peter 5:8 “…Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
and;
John 10:10 “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy…”
This website, “A Monster Inside” is the true story of how one person told evil lies to ruin a great father-daughter relationship. What’s even more shocking is that person works at Calvary Church; his name is Steven Anderson – director of youth services.
When the father asked Calvary to assist in rectifying the problem, the church had their attorney tell the father to not communicate with them, and to stay off their property. Clearly Satan is causing a division based upon lies. This website is being put up to not only expose the lies of the devil, but to also as a call to prayer for Calvary and Steven Anderson, who caused so much heartache.
The dad had become so distraught that he attempted suicide. The response from Steven Anderson and the church, was nothing. No signs of compassion at all. No reaching out to see how he was doing – no offer to pray with him – absolutely nothing at all.
Steven then had a restraining order put in place against that father, and married his daughter. The father could not attend the wedding, or walk his daughter down the aisle.
Despite all of this, the father made 11 attempts at settling things peacefully. Neither the church nor Steven will communicate with him, at all.
This website is a humble request for prayer – a plea for mighty warriors of God to call upon the heavens to intervene – to strike down evil influences and to lift up the broken! For restoration of the relationship that was stolen from the father. For wisdom in the church so they may have a heart more like Christ’s – and for healing of Steven’s mind so he may awaken and realize that evil has been influencing his decisions, to repent, and come back to the Lord.
Here’s some information from the father…
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, my name is Tim Hutchinson. I am a 60-year-old man, and have been with my wife for 32 years. Thus far we’ve enjoyed an amazing life together. That is, until along came a man who works at a church in MN. He began manipulating my daughter soon after dating her. Now my family and I are experiencing unimaginable pain. Due to his actions my daughter has completely shut me out of her life (where previously we were remarkably close). He has her convinced (through lies) that I am a horrible person.
My daughter is an RN who works on a Covid unit at a Twin Cities hospital, and I’ve not seen or spoken to her since February, 2021.
I’ve asked the church where he works at to help mediate this, and they responded by having their lawyer tell me to stay off their property and to not communicate with them. I later learned that at least some of the negative actions against me were likely the result of advice given by counselors at the church.
At one point in time I became so distraught over this that I ended up in a park at night, holding a gun to my head about to commit suicide, and ended up in the hospital.
My daughters boyfriend then convinced her to file a restraining order against me based upon lies. Afterwards, they married and I was not allowed at the wedding and did not walk my daughter down the aisle.
As you will see below I have this situation well documented.
I have been hurt at a profound level; first, the relationship between my daughter and I; the wedding I did not get to attend, and did not walk my daughter down the aisle; the suicide attempt; other relationships have been affected, and so has my job. There have been other deep impacts on myself as well. I have become socially withdrawn. This has been a living nightmare. And all as a result of lies. Evil lies which I believe are due to a monster inside of the church and influencing Steven Anderson. A monster known as Satan. Please, join me in prayer against the evil among us, and for restoration of that which was stolen from me!
VIDEO: INTERVIEW
HISTORY
From here to end of page was the history (my private journal)
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Letter to Calvary Pastor Shawn White
To; Pastor Shawn Winters
From; Timothy Hutchinson
Re: Steven Anderson, youth pastor
Dear Brother in Christ;
I come to you today seeking help with a troubling situation. My daughter is engaged to your youth pastor, Steven Anderson. He has been, in my opinion, acting very inappropriately and has refused to work towards a resolution. Instead, he has chosen to ruin an otherwise healthy father-daughter relationship, and cause strife in an otherwise loving family. I am a 60-year-old Christian man who has been with his wife for 32 years, lives in White Bear Township and together we have raised 4 beautiful children.
Attached you will find the facts laid out as openly and honestly as I can possibly state them. I ask that you review these and prayerfully consider helping bring resolution to this matter. I would prefer to handle this quietly through the church, rather than publicly and/or through any legal proceedings.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach me at anytime on my cell phone, 651-724-1325 or by emailing mrhutchinson@gmail.com .
I pray for help during these difficult days.
Kind regards,
Timothy Hutchinson
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Letters to Calvary church (before the first HRO)
Dear Calvary Church Elders;
I am writing you today about an ongoing situation with one of your staff members, Steven Anderson (Young Adults Ministry Director). He is engaged to my daughter and has been acting inappropriately. Due to his actions my daughter has completely shut me out of her life (where previously we were remarkably close). Steven has her convinced I am a horrible person – yet neither one can state even one thing I’ve done wrong. Literally not one thing.
I became so distraught over this, that about one-month ago I ended up in a park at night, holding a gun to my head about to commit suicide. Thankfully, I did not and subsequently spent time in the hospital in the psych ward. Mental illness has not previously been an issue in my life, yet here I am, under the care of a psychologist.
I am a 60-year-old man, who has been with his wife for 32 years. (I am a safety & compliance manager, and she is a high school science teacher). Together we have 4 children and have lived in the same house in White Bear Township for 22 years. Thus far we’ve enjoyed an amazing life together (blessed by God), until Steven Anderson came along with his manipulative ways. Now we are experiencing unimaginable pain.
Previously I reached out to your senior pastor (Shawn White) several times, and your executive pastor (Jeff Morgan). Neither of them responded to me. Despite requesting this remain confidential, the senior pastor allowed his staff to read the details I sent over. This caused significant embarrassment to my daughter, and further deepened the divide between her and I.
Attached to this email is an updated document which tells the history of this situation and details the many steps I’ve taken to resolve things. To date Steven has made exactly zero attempts at working through this.
At this moment I am at a crossroad and need resolution. I am requesting Calvary church do the following;
1) Explain why I’ve not gotten a response to my multiple requests for help.
2) Review the back-story, and either:
a) Facilitate mediation.
b) Issue an opinion on whose actions caused the problem(s). If you say it is my fault, then state the exact reasons why. If you say this is all Steven’s fault – that will conclude this matter with you 100%, for that would affirm the truth, and I can use this to repair the relationship with my daughter (which is all I really want).
If you choose to do neither and once again ignore me, I will have literally no choice but to take legal action. Steven works there and used his position while committing narcissistic acts that tore my family apart. In my letters to both pastors, I clearly stated I would like this to be settled privately and avoid any legal matters. That remains my position.
However, the damage has already been done, and if you are not going to help resolve this, then I’ll turn things over to a lawyer. I would very much like to avoid that scenario. So, please, help me help you avoid legal action.
Kind regards,
Tim Hutchinson
mrhutchinson@gmail.com
651.724.1325
CC: Jon Ochs
Mark Anderson
Lisa Horsager
Guy Bristol
Jason Schmidt
Carole Spickelmier
Shawn White
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MISC.
Five reasons to report their attorney, Mr. Dan Van Loh to the MN State Bar Association;
1) Before I agreed to accept the first HRO, Mr. Van Loh told me that if I fought back and won the HRO it would show up on Brittany’s background check and could affect her employment and future missionary efforts.
2) I told him before the first HRO hearing the website was not for the public, but instead was a private journal, and the only person I invited to see it was Steven.
3) He suggested to the court referee that no information or evidence from the first hearing be allowed at the trial for the second hearing, but then the website (my private journal) was introduced as evidence and became the bulk of their claim against me.
4) He went along with all of the blatantly false accusations against me, and threw reasoning out the window and went along with all of their hateful claims.
5) He claimed I was a liar and so was my sister (who had just lost her only daughter, suddenly and unexpectedly. I mentioned this before she was brought into the virtual courtroom to testify.)
The reasons the referee should be reported (Judicial Misconduct Complaint) are;
1) She allowed information to be presented that she previously said would not be allowed.
2) Allowed their attorney to speak harshly about my witnesses without any evidence to prove his statements.
3) Did not explain that I was not obligated to answer any of their attorneys’ questions.
4) Was not there to seek truth and ultimately justice, but instead allowed their attorney to do whatever he please, despite it being obvious I was unable to defend myself.