Founder of Honey Latte Cafe Seeks Mutual Aid

Hello, my name is Angelyna, and I’m seeking mutual aid for a legal battle that I lost because the justice system has failed me.

I have 7 days to come up with $13,969 to pay to someone who groomed me, mentally and emotionally abused me, and has not faced any consequences but has taken it even further by suing me. I'm not mentioning his name to avoid further legal issues, but many people in our community know who this person is.

Please help me if you can. I live off a salary of $1200/month, which barely covers my monthly expenses, and I don’t have savings. I rely on EBT and Bottle Drop to buy groceries and toiletries. I don’t have a regular job because it’s my life’s work to create jobs and opportunities for the people around me. I spend all my time investing in my community and trying to make a difference. I can't even properly put into words how incredibly difficult it has been to show up as a brand new business owner, a boss, a partner, a friend and a leader while dealing with the mental burden and anxiety that comes from this traumatic situation. I am so exhausted.

On May 25th, 2019, I moved in with an elderly man (68 years old at that time) who was seeking a housemate because he’s a widower, has no family or loved ones around him and spent weeks at a time alone. He was a member of the Portland music scene; I constantly saw him at shows and working with bands which is how we met. He told me that he just wanted to feel there was someone else in the house and to share meals occasionally, and that would make him feel less lonely. I felt a lot of sympathy for him and his situation, and the idea that simply my existence in his house would make him feel less lonely along with cheap rent ($200/month) seemed like a win-win for both of us, but it turns out that he wanted so much more.

Before I moved in with him, a woman had just moved out and attempted to warn people of his predatory behavior. Still, he convinced the community that she was mentally unstable and an alcoholic, so whatever she says can’t be trusted and that it didn’t go down the way she said it did. Unfortunately, I and many, many others believed his lie. To this day it is one of my deepest regrets, but he is a perfect manipulator, and I didn’t know any better as a 22 year old girl, so I’m trying to not hate myself for it.

I come from an immigrant family with no wealth, and I’ve never experienced financial comfort in my life; even now, being a business owner of a beautiful, successful cafe, I opened it using someone else’s money. I don’t have a safe and loving grandfather figure in my life, so when I moved in, he immediately assumed that role. It was amazing. I finally felt like I had a loving grandfather figure in my life who I trusted, who was cool, he loved going to shows and was in a band when he was young, and it seemed like we were a grandfather/granddaughter match made in heaven. We shared meals, ran errands, went out together, etc. We were good friends. It felt like a mutually beneficial dynamic until it wasn't.

He offered to loan me thousands of dollars to help me pay off my debt, and of course, I took that rare opportunity. His only stipulation was that I sign a contract saying I can’t move out until that balance was paid. At that time, I thought I would live there for years because it was going really well, so that didn’t seem unreasonable. That is when his behavior towards me began to change, and the dynamic shifted. Little did I know, this was his way of ensuring I couldn’t leave. Me one day leaving was a horrific thought to him, and he constantly expressed his anxiety about me leaving because he liked having me around so much. He emailed me long-winded letters expressing his loneliness and how much I have helped him feel less lonely. I always responded with empathy, validation and encouragement, but eventually, his letters started giving me anxiety. I felt like I had to hurry up and come home, so he could feel better, which made me feel unsafe coming home at all. If I didn’t report to him where I was or when I’d come home, I’d receive a text that said something along the lines of “we need to talk” or “I miss you". It felt like I was more to him than just a housemate or even a granddaughter.

Over time, the emails became needier, and it began to feel like his happiness and well-being depended on me. I alerted him that I don’t feel comfortable being the source of his happiness, but I’m happy to be a friend while I’m around. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. He demanded even more meals together and more time with me. This man was desperately lonely, and whenever I would try to encourage him to meet women, he would tell me that he just isn’t attracted to women his age and that he only thought his wife was attractive because he knew her when she was young. He blatantly talked about how attractive I was all the time and always shared with me how attractive my girlfriends are or other girls my age. He also spoke about how he was too shy to date girls when he was young, so he never really got to experience much and regretted that. I tried really hard to set clear boundaries with him. I told him I'm a busy person and I can't commit to regular meals together. When he asked me if we could have more hugs, I told him I'm only comfortable with one hug per day. That didn't stop him from trying to see what he could get out of me though.

He gradually started asking me for more of my time and more hugs, and eventually, he asked me to cuddle with him in bed and even hung mistletoe just in case I wanted to kiss him. "A grandpa/granddaughter peck" he said. I felt really uncomfortable by all of these advances and tried even harder to set boundaries, but he would respond to me by saying, “boundaries are meant to be broken down” or gaslight me into believing that none of those were very big asks, and there's nothing to be weirded out about in regards to his inappropriate advances. All of these changes only began to happen after he loaned me the money, which makes me feel like he treated me this way because he must’ve felt entitled to me having done such a generous gesture loaning the money. He used the loan as leverage to make it seem like he was a very kind and giving person, and as a result, he had a lot of power over me, my living conditions, my finances, my mental state, and even my appearance. One time I once told him that I was considering getting a septum piercing, and he told me that if I did, I would have to move out because he wouldn't be able to look at me anymore. As if I am just there for him to look at.

He had a “boys not allowed to come over” rule, which at first I thought was on brand for being a loving grandpa, but it turned out that it wasn’t just any boy; it was only potential boyfriends of mine. He allowed boys to come over who I viewed as just friends and had no issue with it. One of those boys, originally just a friend he liked, ended up becoming someone I had a crush on. Because he trusted this guy, he let him come over and spend the night. That next morning, he came to me and told me that he couldn’t sleep all night, knowing that there was a man in his house who was closer to me than he was. That’s when I realized this was very serious. This man was not treating me like a housemate. He then sent me emails about how he wished he was him sleeping next to me and my pets and how it would be so lovely to have a slow, sleepy morning cuddled up in bed together and constantly comparing our dynamic to a romantic one. He began to frequently compare himself to potential lovers of mine. Comparing himself to my future husband, telling me the ways I am kind of like a wife role (and other roles) to him. That was when I immediately started searching for a new place to live.

Around that time, my sister and her friend were set to move into his other rental property on a specific date. They had already put in their 30-day notice to their apartment, but when I told him I had to move out, he sabotaged my sister's housing plans to punish me for leaving. He said "look what you did" it was my fault that my sister's housing fell through. She would still have a place to live if I hadn't been moving out. He used this as leverage for me to stay. He told me she can still move in but only if I stay.

If you’re still reading this, I can't thank you enough.

I moved out on Feb 1st, 2020, without paying the loan back because I didn’t have that kind of money, I had to move unexpectedly, and the pandemic had begun, so I had no other choice and was not in a good place at all. After I moved out, he tried to be friends with me still, but I couldn't maintain a relationship with him due to his unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions and continuing to ignore my boundaries.

He stalks my every move on social media, creating a new account every day to watch my stories on Instagram. He emailed me about the color of my hair when he spotted me in public, found my new address and sent me letters in the mail, contacted my friends and family, uploaded videos of me without my consent to Youtube, emailed random strangers telling them personal information about me and how I am a liar because I tried to warn others that he is a predator and targets young, attractive women to move in with him and that it is an actual real life pattern.

So he sued me, and I lost. I thought the justice system would see through him and understand that this is a really messed up situation. I hoped he would be held accountable for his predatory behavior onto 3+ women who have evidence of his behavior, but he is a smooth manipulator, and the Arbitrator (who is, of course, a man) thinks I asked for it. He genuinely believes I brought this all upon myself just because I didn't pay him back. He didn't care how I was treated. I don’t know in what world it’s okay for an elderly man to call a girl his granddaughter, then expect her to act like his girlfriend. I don’t know why this kind of behavior is dismissible or how it can be overlooked. There is no excuse. I’m not the only girl he has done this to. There have been a total of 5 girls (I know of) that have had similar experiences. The person who moved in with him after I'd moved out told me that he was so obsessed with me that he would not stop talking about me, and that they had to move out because of how uncomfortable it made them to hear him talk about me. This is a pattern and there is evidence from multiple sources, but the Arbitrator who was supposed to bring justice completely ignored these facts and is now making me pay for HIS lawyer fees. I have been silently battling this for 3 years, and I desperately want to be free from him. I never intended not to pay him back. He is a man who has enough money to live comfortably until he dies. He wouldn't have taken it this far if he genuinely just wanted to help me, as he claims. Having power over me is something he just won’t give up, and he is taking all measures to make sure I suffer even more.

If I had long-term financial security, I would’ve paid him back immediately, but it went from bad to worse when the justice system decided my suffering didn’t matter. I am exhausted and defeated and don’t know what to do. Please share this with someone who you think could help or someone who appreciates my work. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read all of this, for supporting me by stopping by my cafe for coffee, and for going to the shows I put on. It all makes this burden a little bit lighter.

Attached are some screenshots with sections from some of the letters he sent me.