Almost a year ago, the Lampo Group (the legal name of Dave Ramsey’s company) complied with a court order to turn over discovery documentation in the ongoing O’Connor v. Lampo Group lawsuit.
Ramsey Solutions (legally known as the Lampo Group) had been sued by a former employee who was fired after she asked for FMLA paperwork.
The problem, Lampo argued, wasn’t that she was pregnant, it was that she was unmarried and had violated the stated value of “Righteous Living” by having sex as a single individual.
The late August 2022 filing included attached discovery documents that shed light on what had been happening internally for quite some time.
Last fall, my friend Melissa Hogan, who also happens to be a brilliant attorney whose own life has been very intertwined in this situation, joined me to record a conversation giving her impressions on what she observed from the discovery documents. Some of these documents were talking about her.
I shared this with my Patreon community after we recorded this, but since it’s been a year since there has been movement on this lawsuit and I’ve never publicly shared it, I decided this was a good time to share it with you all.
Keep in mind, as you’re listening, that we recorded this in November of 2022, so any mention of “recent” or upcoming dates needs to be filtered through the fact that this conversation happened almost a year ago.
You can listen to the audio here: Untangled Faith: Recovering From Spiritual Abuse (pod.link)
I’ve also put together a very incomplete timeline with some documentation to show a little bit of what was happening and when it was happening. Many more things could have been added before this timeline, inside of this timeline, and after the end of this timeline.
Partial Timeline
November/December 2018: Ramsey leadership is told about inappropriate conversations and alleged affair between Chris Hogan and current female coworker, as well as prior affair and abuse. Ramsey also learns of a pattern of cheating, abuse, deception, and a secret bank account. Allegations are confirmed by church leaders. So, this is not merely a “he said, she said” situation. There is outside corroboration.
January 5, 2019: Hogan goes on a book tour.
January 24, 2019: Dave sends email referencing DCS investigation and calls from others familiar with the situation (shows his knowledge of affairs and abuse from multiple additional people and provides additional reasonable sources of inquiry). This email is in the court filing.
Feb 2019: In a meeting with all employees Dave says that Chris is going on a sabbatical: “ And so he's going to grow an off button while he's home. Um, he, he, and I've been talking about this and uh, um, and Jeremy and you know, some, some of us that are real close to him and so forth. So, uh, he, he is a good man and uh, you're not going to see him for the month of February and after February you'll be seeing him a lot, cause he ain't going nowhere.” “that's some stuff that's going on there and that's exactly what is going on. As, um, As there's more information or any different information than that I will let you guys know. Uh, we do not hide things. We do not sweep things under the rug and so forth. So that's, what's up.” (quotes from audio of Ramsey Solutions employee meeting)
April 2019: Jeff Prince resigns over Ramsey’s handling of Hogan issue. Nathan Fritz(my husband) also resigns over Ramsey’s handling of Hogan issue.
Jack Galloway tells former co-workers of Jeff Prince/ Nathan Fritz that they left because their wives were friends with Melissa and taking her side in a nasty divorce. Galloway doesn’t mention that he is aware of many confirmed alarming allegations regarding Hogan.
Note from me: As of the date of Nathan’s resignation, Melissa had told Nathan and me nothing about her situation. She had purposefully not shared any details of this. The information we had came from other sources, including board member, Suzanne Simms, in a meeting with Nathan.
May 6, 2019: Got Your Six meeting.
In this meeting, Dave Ramsey says to all the employees: “Chris Hogan is going through a really, really nasty divorce.
He's not leaving. He is here. That's not sad news, that is sad news, well it’s not sad news that he's staying. It’s not that kind of sad news, but it's really a tough time. We started learning about this from Chris last summer. Um, and, uh, five days before the book tour, um, started, um, Melissa, who I've known, Chris's wife for many years, came in unannounced right after I got off the radio show without an appointment and demanded very angrily to see me and began to accuse Chris of doing all kinds of things. Um, to which, what did I do?
What have I been telling you for the last 25 minutes? Okay, Chris, where are you? Get your butt in here. You need to be sitting here and have a chance to tell me if this is true or not, these things she's saying.”
“And, um, but that's the reason we put Chris on sabbatical. When he came home, that's what was going on. At that point, we didn't know what was going to happen. And at that point it was still none of your business, but now it's going public. I mean, he's filed, it's a public filing of the divorce and um. And so, you know, some of these people who have opinions out there. And truthfully, um, we had folks working here that heard things and believed that we were covering for Chris and quit.
‘So, which is kind of okay. And that's probably a good thing. I love you, but if you don't believe I've got integrity and do what I say I'm going to do. You should quit. And if you don't have the backbone to come ask what the flip’s going on, you should quit. If you're just going to believe lies on their face, I'm okay with that. Okay. So that's how this works. It's messy, y'all. This is grown up talk, isn't it? Welcome to your first day.’
Note from me: Dave’s insinuation that Jeff and Nathan believed he was covering for Chris turned out to be absolutely true. Dave’s insinuation that Nathan and Jeff were believing lies and lacked a backbone was and is 100% false. Everything they did showed great courage and integrity and everything Jeff and Nathan believed about the situation turned out to be completely true.
October 3, 2019: Hearing on Melissa Hogan motion to compel Ramsey discovery in Hogan divorce. Ramsey lawyer claims meetings aren’t recorded and there is no easy way to figure out who spent what on the company debit cards.
Attorney Todd Presnell from the hearing: “Mr. Hogan is one of a few employees who has a company debit card. So, when he is traveling and charging expenses he uses his debit card, which goes directly to the Lampo bank account. So he does not complete, nor does he have expense reimbursement forms. . . .There are multiple employees that have a debit card that goes to the same account. And so when we get a bank statement, we do not have a way to segregate Mr. Hogan’s expenses from any other employee’s expenses.”
“We audio-record devotional meetings which occur on Wednesdays as opposed to staff meetings where we don’t audio-record or video-record.”
Note from me: The reason we have audio of the Got Your Six meeting that Melissa was requesting was because the meeting was recorded by Ramsey personnel. Someone gave that audio to journalist Bob Smietana. It was widely known, at the time, that employees who had not been at a meeting could find recordings on an internal drive that employees could access.
December 19, 2020: Dave Ramsey emails Chris Hogan after the divorce is finalized.
April 2020: Amy Fritz writes blog post about why Nathan resigned from Ramsey.
May 18, 2020: Dan Watt resigns and tells leadership that he is leaving because of how they handled the Hogan situation. Leaders tell Dan they were aware of everything but decided the line wasn’t crossed. Quote from Jack Galloway: “Um, as far as firing people here, we've had everything from emotional affairs that were they never kissed, to making out but their clothes were on, to pornography that feels almost just like, there's this disgusting spectrum of things. And we had never had to decide what line are we going to draw on a team member on that, on sex?” They communicated to Dan that they decided that oral sex, in this situation, didn’t cross the line.
May 2020: Ramsey leaders gather much of the digital development team together. They claim that Nathan Fritz, Jon Fulk, Jeff Prince, and Greg Thoman were trying to harm the company.
Note from me: Nathan Fritz had done nothing. Jeff Prince had done nothing. Greg Thoman had done nothing. Jon Fulk had done nothing. I had shared a blog post with honest reflections of why Nathan resigned.
Fritz/Fulk/Prince/Thoman are sent C&D’s even though none of them had signed any NDAs or said anything that was false. Some of these men had virtually no knowledge of the situation he was being accused of being a part of.
Note from me: When we showed the C&D to an attorney, the attorney said it was a bully move that sounded very much like a mob boss trying desperately to silence someone.
May 2020: CTO from Ramsey Solutions, Brendan Wovchko, has a Zoom meeting with leaders from Fritz/Prince/Thoman new employer to threaten them to try to silence them.
October 23, 2020: Dave sends email to Sievertson/Williams/Simms that he met with Chris Hogan and told him they have all the details of the divorce filings and communications. Chris says he doesn’t feel like his past will ever be done there. Dave says the board will keep talking and processing and get back to him. Dave closes the email by saying he’s more convinced than ever that Chris can’t get the healing he needs to be a healthy person while “here.” (this is information from the emails attached in the O’Connor lawsuit)
January 14, 2021: Ramsey Solutions board members lead a meeting of all employees to tell them the RNS article is about to run. Tells staff Bob was digging up dirt to smear Hogan and the company. Employees are encouraged to go back to their desks and send emails to Bob refuting what they believed he would be reporting in his article.
January 15, 2021: RNS article is published along with the Ramsey response heard around the world.
March 2021: Chris Hogan fired.
August/September 2021: Depositions were taken in O’Connor lawsuit.
Question to Jack Galloway: “And the distinction between intercourse and oral sex, where y’all decided to draw the line, what was the situation where that came about?” Jack’s response: “I do not recall the exact situation that that came about. It has been the line at which we’ve made the decision for a very long time.” (from the deposition of Jack Galloway that is included in the court filings)
How to read the court documents for yourself
You can find all the documents related to the O’Connor lawsuit here:
O'Connor v. The Lampo Group, LLC, 3:20-cv-00628 – CourtListener.com
Here’s some link to some of the specific filings:
Deposition of Amando Lopez. HR Director
Deposition of Jennifer Lynn Sievertsen CMO
Deposition of Suzanne Simms SEVP
Deposition of Michael Finney COO
30b6 Deposition of Armando Lopez
30b6 Deposition of Jack Galloway
30b6 Deposition of Suzanne Simms
Deposition of David L. Ramsey, III
Partially redacted emails. Dates and context point to most of this being about Chris Hogan.
Thanks for caring about the truth of this situation.
May the truth rise to the top and illuminate all the darkness, deception, and hypocrisy that has existed for too long.