At 61, professional process server Ron Belec is usually content to stay at the office and let his employees run around town, thrusting subpoenas and other unwelcome legal documents into the hands of reluctant recipients. But in November 2007, Belec's company, North West Legal Support, was charged with delivering a courtroom summons to a woman who happened to live in the same Pioneer Square apartment building as he did. So he went to make the delivery himself.
Kevin P. Casey
Ron Belec on the job:
Please don’t shoot the
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Belec recalls knocking on her door, announcing he had papers for her, and receiving no response. Whereupon, he says, he returned to his apartment, took out his dentures, and had a couple of drinks.
The woman in the apartment recalls the evening differently. She says Belec banged so hard that the door hinges started rattling. She refused to open up and instead called 911.
According to a police report, Belec greeted the cops by saying: "What the fuck do you assholes want?" They told him they were there investigating a harassment call. "Fuck you guys," Belec responded.
The cops returned to the woman's apartment where, once more, there was a knock at the door. When one of the officers opened it, Belec threw the papers inside and walked off.
Mission accomplished.
Process servers are the first step in any civil legal action. Under Washington state law, when you file a lawsuit against someone, be it divorce, an auto accident claim, or an attempt to collect on a debt, you have to physically get a copy of the suit into their hands. Servers are tasked with delivering those documents.
As the bearers of bad news, they aren't a popular bunch. But Belec has cultivated an especially passionate enemies list. A small man with graying hair and three days of gray stubble on his chin, given to wearing loafers and sweatshirts, Belec is perhaps Seattle's most notorious process server. He represents an old-school way of doing business that can be highly effective, and highly offensive. Sometimes he crosses the line. But then that's OK for process servers.
Indeed, Belec had that legally affirmed in a court case just a few years ago. Belec had been hired by a wife to serve papers on her husband during a messy divorce. Unable to locate the man, named Yves Cauvin, Belec called Cauvin's former girlfriend, Jeanne Peterson, at the Southcenter Mall Bon Marché, where she worked. (The mall is now called Westfield and the store Macy's.)
According to Peterson, Belec called her several times, trying to get contact information for Cauvin, even making three calls in one day. Eventually she called the police, claiming Belec had threatened to tap her phone and put a tracking device on her car to follow her until she led him to Cauvin. "He told me he knew where I lived, he told me he knew that I was a single mother with a daughter," Peterson says, speaking in a recent interview.
Belec was charged with misdemeanor telephone harassment by the city of Tukwila and found guilty. King County Superior Court agreed. But in November 2003, five years after the incidents, the State Court of Appeals overturned Belec's conviction, saying he hadn't been trying to frighten Peterson just for its own sake. Calling her—even haranguing her—for the purpose of serving her ex-boyfriend papers was permissible under state law.
"It is harassment," observes Belec with satisfaction, sitting recently in his basement office across the street from the King County Courthouse. "It's just not illegal harassment."
"Ron Belec does have a reputation of going the extra mile, even if that would risk bracelets [handcuffs], in an effort to diligently effect service of process," says Eric Vennes, Executive Director of the Washington State Process Servers Association.
Others are less charitable. "Mr. Belec seems to believe himself to be above the law and a firm message should be sent that he is not," wrote a probation officer who reviewed the Peterson case for Tukwila's municipal court. In interviews with the officer, "[Belec] repeatedly stated that [as a licensed server], he has the right to do things that other people cannot do," she wrote, arguing in favor of sending Belec to jail for his harassment of Peterson.
The officer noted that while Belec had only one prior conviction—for driving under the influence in 1985—he'd been charged at least eight other times with various misdemeanors, including assault and patronizing a prostitute. None of those charges stuck, and in his interview with the probation officer, Belec claimed they were all the result of his work as a process server and legal investigator, even the prostitution charge. "I was bounty hunting. A guy jumped bail, and his sister was a prostitute. I was trying to find him," he told the officer. Belec has faced charges twice more in Seattle since then, most recently in connection with the November 2007 incident in his building. In both cases the city attorney's office dropped the charges.
Yves Cauvin has since launched an online campaign to take down Belec and North West Legal Support. Posting notices to Web sites like ripoffreport.com and Craigslist using the moniker "Citizens Against Ron Belec Northwest Legal Support," Cauvin writes: "Ron Belec has based his career on harassment, intimidation, and deceit. And now is the time to put an end to him and his illegal actions." Cauvin says his goal is to find enough people who feel victimized that he can file a class-action suit against his nemesis.
