In 2007, Kimberly Forsythe needed help fighting her eviction notice after she’d been laid off and was struggling to support her newborn baby. So she turned to a flyer promoting a man named Charles Taylor, who claimed to be an attorney at law.
Taylor helped her keep her roof over her head, so when Forsythe later needed help divorcing her husband, she turned to him again. This time, the process didn’t go so smoothly, launching Forsythe on a journey of unpacking lies and false identities, which eventually landed her on the set of Court TV.
“Judge Judy basically called me a moron,” Forsythe writes of her reality TV debut. “But I still won.”
Judy came in and sat down. I started to explain my story. I handed the bailiff the sign I had removed from the telephone pole to show how I met Mr. Taylor. I handed her all of the paperwork I had accumulated that included the contract and the copy of the business card.
She was very short with me, then turned her attention to Mr. Taylor in his two-sizes-too-big suit. He tried to play it cool, denying that he ever represented himself as an attorney or that the contract ever stated I was entitled to attorney services or even a refund.
I do remember Judy telling him “Right, I mean if she can’t read, that’s her problem,” or something like that. At that moment, I thought I was going to lose and be made a fool of on national TV. She asked him to tell his version of events as to why services were never rendered. He lied. And, it was his lie that sealed his fate.
Don’t mess with Judy.