GILLETTE — Michael “M.G.” Stellpflug is a process guy. As a retired master sergeant and 21-year Army combat veteran, he’s used to following rules and executing orders. He’s also black-and-white no nonsense — when he sees wrongdoing, he seeks to correct it.
In his words: If a woman is getting raped on a subway, he’s going to be the guy who jumps in to help, not the person taking video of it on a cellphone.
This doesn’t always go well for Stellpflug. Most recently, he was slapped with a stalking protection order for mounting a case against his former boss and owner of First Class Realty, Tami Leann Hinson. Specifically, for compiling documentation containing her alleged crimes that he provided to the Gillette Police Department last May and more than 40 other people and entities throughout the state.
As a result of his accusations that were turned over to the Gillette police, Hinson, 57, is facing six felonies. She’s accused of using the personal information of Stellpflug and two other local relators, Will Collier and Chad Friedt, and forging their signatures to gain thousands of dollars in commission on foreclosed properties.
Hinson has denied any wrongdoing, according to court documents. She waived her right for a preliminary hearing in Campbell County Circuit Court on Jan. 9, and was bound over to district court with an arraignment date still pending.
Hinson did not respond to a Cowboy State Daily request for comment.
Binders
Stellpflug estimates that he invested more than 2,000 hours, or roughly 11 months of 40-hour work weeks, gathering evidence against Hinson. In addition to the time, he also calculates that he’s spent up to $4,000 in office supplies and postage.
It’s this same attention to detail and work ethic that makes him a good real estate agent, Stellpflug said. On the online real estate site Zillow, Stellpflug maintains a five-star rating with 45 reviews.
Sitting behind a desk in his third-floor office in the Energy Professional Center in Gillette on Wednesday morning, Stellpflug held up a hefty white binder, complete with color tabs and index, documenting Hinson’s alleged wrong doings.
He sent identical binders to more than 40 entities and people throughout the state, including the Gillette police, the Wyoming Real Estate Commission, Wyoming Attorney General’s Office and others, including Campbell County District Judge Matthew Castano, between May and August 2023.
Every binder contains a personal letter as well as an index of what documents pertained to that agency or person.
‘Pattern Of Escalation’
What Stellpflug saw as dotting his i’s and crossing his t’s was deemed by Hinson, and her attorney Ryan Healy, as harassment.
In her petition for the stalking order submitted to court Oct. 11, Hinson stated that along with sending out the complaints with “the intent to harass and intimidate her,” Stellpflug befriended her ex-husband Guy Morrison III, sent her emails implying she had “limited time left” and that he was sure “things will change soon,” signed her business email up to porn sites, and told mutual colleagues that Stellpflug would personally have her thrown in jail, among other allegations.
She also worried for her safety because he owns guns and a “massive arsenal of ammunition,” court documents state.
In total, Hinson considered Stellpflug’s action as comprising a pattern of escalation for “an already extreme person.”
Combined, Hinson stated that though Stellpflug had not physically hurt her, she worried it “is only a matter of time before he does attempt to physically harm me and the people close to me.”
She further attributed Stellpflug’s actions to those of a disgruntled employee after she’d fired him in November 2022.
This was the second time Stellpflug worked for her over the course of the past eight years. That time, Stellpflug quit in May 2019 after he felt he’d been disrespected but went back to work for her shortly thereafter after the two had made peace.
In a line-by-line response, Stellpflug refutes all of the accusations.
He told Cowboy State Daily that he doesn’t see his investigation as harassment. Rather, he considers himself to be a victim, and as such, seeks justice for Hinson’s alleged crimes. He also wants to protect the integrity of his profession, noting that real estate agents get a bad rap to begin with.
“The guilty always think it’s crazy when the just seek justice,” he said.
Seeking Justice
Stellpflug doesn’t deny being angry about being fired, but said his actions now are to get justice for what he sees as Hinson’s wrongdoings.
“I am angry, yes,” he said. “She forged my name on a contract for financial gain.”
Stellpflug said he learned about the alleged forgery from Collier. This prompted him to mill through hundreds of past contracts in the multiple listing service, or MLS, to see if his name had been forged.
In doing so, he found two additional contracts for Friedt and himself in which both are listed as buyers’ agents. Both deny signing the contracts or receiving commissions from the sales.
Hinson is accused of pocketing the more than $11,000 in commissions on the sale of the three foreclosed properties with PennyMac Loan Services, according to court documents.
The incentive for keeping both the buyer’s and seller’s agents in house, Stellpflug explained, is that it nets a higher commission rate at 6% than it would if the home was bought by an outside agency. By signing the contracts, all three men would have been entitled to split the commission with Hinson, though none received payment, according to court documents.
In Stellpflug’s case, he said the $2,484 commission he didn’t received ended up on his taxes.
For her part, Hinson said that because none of the three men were employed by her at the time the contracts were signed, she, as the broker, had “the right to do anything I want with the information.”
According to court documents, Hinson then changed her story to say that both Friedt and Collier had given permission to use their names and had probably signed the contracts themselves because she didn’t forge anyone’s signatures.
She further stated the practice of using internal agents on foreclosure sales was a “paperwork thing” to “keep the foreclosure company from reducing what they pay us for doing the same job.”
All three men stated that they were employed at the time the contracts were signed, and in fact went on to close more deals after.
Hinson did not have employment records to provide to police, according to the charging documents.
Why?
Despite the pending charges against Hinson, Stellpflug said the quest to seek justice has been physically and mentally exhausting. He believes there are likely more alleged crimes by Hinson hidden in the paperwork but said he’s too tired to continue searching.
Even he asks himself sometimes why he has expended the energy digging into his former boss’s alleged wrongdoing, which was called into question by Hinson’s attorney, Healy, during the stalking protection order hearing in December.
Holding one of the weighty binders in his hand, Healy repeatedly asked Stellpflug why he had put so much energy into the case against Hinson in what he considered excessive.
Flustered on the stand, Stellpflug sputtered out a vague response about the need for justice in the face of wrongdoing, and if he didn’t pursue it, who would? He said he’d sent the binders to all those people because he thought all of those people and entities had the ability to act on the allegations.
Campbell County Circuit Judge Paul Phillips sided with Healy.
In his ruling, Phillips stated that there was a “preponderance of evidence that a reasonable person would feel substantial emotional distress in response to what could only be described in the best light as obsessive behavior.”
Phillips further noted the investment of Stellpflug’s time and the money spent sending documentation to the more than 40 entities and went on to say he didn’t find the respondent’s explanation for his actions credible.
Resolved
Now more than a month after the ruling, Stellpflug is astounded by the ruling and the fact that he is now a guy who has a stalking order filed against him while Hinson faces criminal prosecution.
“This summation is disturbing and distressing to me on several different levels,” he said.
He noted that he hasn’t called or spoken to Hinson in more than a year and all correspondence following his departure was work related. He further said because he’s not a skilled investigator, gathering his evidence it took time.
He hadn’t considered how Hinson would respond.
“The fact that I knew or should have known my actions would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress was not a factor in my equation,” he said, noting that he isn’t the one who allegedly committed the crimes.
In the end, he feels it was his duty to bring Hinson’s alleged crimes to light.
“I’m not happy that a judge who just met me stated his version of duty was correct and my version of duty was not,” he said. “I’m not the one who broke the law.”
As to why he did what he did, Stellpflug narrowed it down to when he was in fifth grade and grew tired of watching one of his classmates being hazed and bullied. The classmate in question was poor and looked it, Stellpflug said. Though he never took part in the bullying, Stellpflug also did nothing to stop it because he didn’t want to become the bullies’ next target.
One day when the kid was taking a beating, Stellpflug jumped in to defend him. The two got their tails kicked, and afterward the classmate looked at Stellpflug with shame and embarrassment before running off.
It wasn’t the fight itself that haunts Stellpflug, but rather the many months he stood idly by with his hands in his pockets doing nothing.
“I am not obsessed. I am not unhinged. I am not unstable,” he said. “I am not even determined. What I am is resolved.”
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
