For the last year and a half Takara (Kyndra) has been fighting a legal battle with an ex-employer. She was accused of taking money. A lot of money. The matter moved from a civil case to a criminal case. And having no money to hire a lawyer she had to rely on a public defender to make her case. With no ability to prove she did not do it, and the District Attorney refusing to accept a plea of "no contest" Takara had to plea guilty to avoid the possibility of our son being without a mother for the next 4-12 years. During sentencing, the judge decided that Taks wasn't repentant enough and sentenced her to spend the last six weeks of her pregnancy in jail. She went in the day after the baby shower.

Technically she will be released the moment she goes into labor. But we are currently working with the Public Defender to ask the judge to reconsider. When she is released she will spend the next year (from october 8th) on electric home monitoring. And will, over the next 10 years, have to pay $81,000 in restitution (the money she was accused of taking, back taxes they accused her of not filing, legal fees, etc). The probation also stipulates that she can not have a job where she handles money, that she can not, without permission, conduct any financial transactions over $200, and 200 hours of community service.

It should be noted that no money that has come into GU either by advertising, commission, or donation has gone to pay any legal fees, etc. And the donations that have come in via the baby shower that have not been used specifically to buy baby stuff has been used to pay bills for the house.

This situation is a private issue between Kyndra and her ex-employer; it does not involve GU in any way. But certain acts on the part of other members of the gaming community have worked to bring the issue to light regardless of it not being a gaming community matter. So I felt it best that you readers hear the story from me directly. You can make whatever decisions you like about the validity of the information. Where I can not comment on the legal end of this ordeal. I can say that if there was any legal misconduct I was not aware of it and did not benefit from it. But as far as I know there was no wrong doing.

The one shining spot in this whole mess has been the support that GU readership has continued to show me, Kyndra and our soon to be born son. But, I understand if there are those of you that feel you need to withdraw that support for me and the comic because of a perceived association to this matter.

Thank you for reading and understanding. But please keep in mind that it was very difficult for me to write this post and submit it for public consumption.

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Gonna go ahead and close the thread since it's not something I really really want to talk about. Especially since it has nothing to do with me or GU in the first place.

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UPDATE:
A Boulder Daily Camera article has been posted about a civil suit filed against me by Kyndra's previous employers. The Boulder Daily Camera made no attempt to contact me or my lawyer. At this point nothing has come of the civil suit but I will keep you apprised of the situation.

UPDATE:
The civil suit against me has been settled out of court.

NOTE:
For those of you that asked, I'm not sure why the Ex is being so negative toward me. I didn't leave her for Taks any more than she left me for her new guy at the time (near identical timelines). She was talking to him the day I was packing up to leave (after which I offered again to stay and seek marriage counseling). We then proceeded to correspond with each other for months. I wished them the best of luck, hoping she'd finally found someone that could make her happy, and asserting that I thought he was a good guy. I've still got the email chains to back this up. Over the years, I guess she just soured toward the situation and the timeline got fuzzy. **shrugs** I still wish her the best.

Yet another bump in the road of life, Woody...it is very brave of you to put this all out for us to read. Its cruel that they would go to such lengths to get at someone. I wish you the best of luck, and hope you look at the bighter side of things, not matter how faint that might be. I for one will be here for quite some time, me thinks...

Da Jep'ray