Case Summary: 1320 12th Street, Mishawaka, Indiana

This matter concerns a prolonged eviction proceeding involving nonpayment of rent, repeated procedur

I want to be very clear about why this page exists.

This is not about attacking a judge.
This is not about personal revenge.
This is about accountability—and preventing a precedent that could damage the integrity of landlord-tenant courts if left unchecked.

This case involves a rental property at 1320 12th Street in Mishawaka, Indiana, owned by Donnie Lewis. The tenants stopped paying rent almost immediately.

They also failed to pay the agreed-upon security deposit. From the very beginning, rent was never escrowed, despite repeated claims that it was being withheld due to alleged habitability issues.

Those habitability claims were investigated—thoroughly.
Licensed plumbers were dispatched multiple times.
The City of Mishawaka conducted an emergency inspection using cameras.
Both concluded the same thing: there was no plumbing defect.

The problem was not the property.
The problem was nonpayment.

Despite this, eviction proceedings were dismissed multiple times on technical grounds unrelated to rent: deed-recording technicalities, procedural objections, and arguments that avoided the central issue entirely—that the tenants were living rent-free.

Over the course of five hearings, legal aid counsel repeatedly delayed resolution. Attorney fees exceeded $20,000. Utilities were illegally kept active while records showed the property listed as vacant. Furniture from a third-party vendor was removed after a court order allowed retrieval—yet the items disappeared.

Then, after nearly a year of litigation, something unprecedented happened.

At the final hearing, rent receipts were suddenly introduced—documents that had never appeared in any of the prior hearings. These receipts allegedly showed payments covering the period in question. They directly contradicted bank records, utility data, and sworn statements previously made to the court.

Those receipts are now the subject of a police report for forgery.

The case was dismissed.

An agreement was later reached in court for the tenants to vacate by October 28. They did not comply. Possession was not regained until December 1—after additional hearings and sheriff involvement.

From October 2024 through December 2025, the tenants occupied the property without paying rent.

This raises a simple, serious question—not just for landlords, but for the justice system:

Should an attorney be permitted to introduce evidence that did not exist—or was never disclosed—across four prior hearings, without scrutiny?

And a second, equally important one:

If forged receipts are accepted without consequence, what stops others from copying this behavior?

All documents, transcripts, filings, and exhibits are provided here so the public can review the facts and decide for themselves. This is not about assigning blame emotionally. It is about preventing abuse of a system that depends on honesty to function.

[ i'll replace the picture with the docs ]