Opinion ID: 623947
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Count 1: Citibank employee Jennifer Petsche

Text: Following a dispute with Citibank (South Dakota), N.A., over the amount White owed Citibank and how the bank was reporting White's past due amounts to credit agencies, the bank and White reached a settlement agreement by which White agreed to pay the bank $14,000 and the bank agreed to request deletion of adverse credit commentary as reported by the three primary credit reporting agencies. When, after a couple of weeks, the adverse commentary, referred to as derogatories, had not yet been removed, White began calling Citibank repeatedly. He placed approximately 50 calls to Citibank over the period of 24 hours, and eventually left a voicemail for Jennifer Petsche, a litigation specialist at Citibank. In the voicemail, White demanded that Petsche fax to his attorney a copy of the letter that Citibank had sent the credit reporting agencies and said, I now have your name and direct number so I will not hesitate to call you back should we not receive that in a prompt manner. Petsche's supervisor advised Petsche not to respond to the voice-mail since both the company and White were represented by counsel. The next evening, on March 22, 2007, Petsche received another voicemail from White on her home answering machine, informing her that White had sent her an email and instructing her to review it, respond to it, and send over the necessary information as quickly as possible. This telephone call frightened Petsche, as she had never before had a customer call her at her home, and she called her husband to determine what time he was coming home. She also called the night supervisor at Citibank to report the call. The next morning, Petsche found the email sent to several versions of her email address. The email began by listing Petsche's full name, age, birth date, current home address with the word confirmed beside it, three of her previous home addresses, her current home telephone number with the word connected beside it, and her husband's full name. The email then read: I understand you think you're very tough and you think that by dragging this process out you have created me a lot of misery; that is an incorrect assessment, but I must admit I have run out of patience with you and your smug attitude. I hope the fact that I've obviously paid someone to find you conveys the seriousness with which I take your current attitude. If you resolve this issue quickly and efficiently I can guarantee you will not hear from me again; if you don't, well, you will be well known to the Citibank customers you are currently in litigation with in [a] very short amount of time. Again, make my life easy, fax over the letter, and you will not be hearing from me again. PS: I took the liberty of buying the [Citicard] corporate phone directory and locating information on your outstanding disputed credit accounts from an internet dealer today, and can probably make you better known to your customers than the security measures you enact at your company indicate you would like. Consider this, as I'm sure, being in the collections business and having the attitude about it that you do, that you often make people upset. Lord knows that drawing too much publicity and making people upset is what did in Joan Lefkow. After the last paragraph, the email included a hyperlink to a Google search on Joan Lefkow. Petsche clicked the hyperlink and learned that Lefkow was a judge whose husband and mother had been murdered by a disgruntled litigant who had appeared before Judge Lefkow in court. Petsche took this email as a direct threat to herself and her family, and she immediately notified her direct supervisor, the paralegal working with her, and Citibank security. Petsche went to pieces and felt as if she was in a state of shock. The paralegal broke out in hives and had to go home. Citibank's lead investigator took the email as a threat to Petsche and launched a full investigation. Eventually, when he discovered that White was the leader of a white supremacist organization, he turned the investigation over to the FBI, fearing a violent attack on Citibank employees. Petsche testified at trial that she remained in fear for her safety and the safety of her family for the next three years, taking precautions such as changing her telephone number to an unlisted number.