Server of court papers faces felony charges in northern Minnesota

Jeremy Umland's victims never knew they were being taken for a financial ride.

As a lawsuit process server, he allegedly falsely claimed to have notified many individuals about debt-collecting lawsuits. In truth, they would learn about those actions when notified that judgments for thousands of dollars had been filed against them.

Umland, 35, of Verndale, Minn., claimed he served a 73-year-old man at a home he had lost to foreclosure three years earlier and a woman at an address she had not lived at for 11 years, according to a lawsuit filed in November against him and TJ Process Service of Wadena, Minn., by Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson.

Now he's also facing felony perjury charges in connection to the false delivery claims in two northern counties.

The depth of Umland's scamming, also known in the legal community as "sewer service," is unclear. But Swanson's suit was the fourth filed by her office since 2011 over allegations against debt collectors and buyers who manipulated the legal process when pursuing Minnesotans in court.

"People have a due-process right to be notified of lawsuits against them," Swanson said Tuesday. " 'Sewer service' defrauds both the courts and the public."

Lawsuits trigger court action that includes giving a defendant notice and the opportunity to respond. TJ Process Service and its owner, Terrill Jasicki, who were named in Swanson's suit, provided creditors and debt buyers with affidavits wrongly attesting that a lawsuit notice had been served on a specific person at their home address.

Once a lawsuit is served and not responded to, the court issues a default judgment on behalf of the debt collectors and buyers. The debtor then can try to get the judgment vacated, but the action could have already damaged his or her credit report.

Swanson's suit was filed in Koochiching County District Court in November, where Umland was also charged with felony perjury Nov. 25. According to the criminal complaint, he lied about serving a suit to a 48-year-old woman in Tower, Minn., for Ford Motor Credit Co. for $12,479. She proved to a judge that she hadn't lived at the house for 11 years, and the judgment was vacated.

Umland is also charged with two counts of perjury in Roseau County. He claimed to have delivered notice of a lawsuit to a roommate who didn't exist and to a nonexistent nephew.

Swanson's office is seeking a court order to determine the scope of deficiencies and to remedy situations in which false claims were filed.

The other suits filed by her office include an eventual settlement against Midland Funding LLC of St. Cloud, which "robo-signed" thousands of collection documents without verifying their accuracy, allowing false and deceptive lawsuits to be filed across the country against consumers who didn't owe money. A settlement required the firm to change practices.

In 2013, her office secured passage of a law regulating debt buyers to prove they sued the right person and that that person was served.