Jeff Knutilla is still waiting for Donald M. Johnson’s securities fraud case in Porter Superior Court to be resolved, and he’s been waiting for a long time.

In fact, Knutilla, 69, and living in a mobile home in Liberty Township, was the first of Johnson’s alleged victims to step forward to authorities, according to charging documents in Johnson’s case.

He filed a complaint with the Indiana Secretary of State’s Securities Division on Jan. 21, 2012 and followed up with a report to the Chesterton Police Department nine days later.

“What I’d really like to see happen is for him to be put away for the rest of his life. Obviously that’s not going to happen,” Knutilla said.

Johnson, 58, of Porter, was first charged in Porter Superior Court in March 2014 with 14 counts related to securities fraud, Class C felonies at the time. A couple of months later, he was charged with one count of forgery, also a Class C felony, and two counts of theft, Class D felonies, in a related case.

The allegations stretch back to around 2007 and include multiple victims, including Knutilla, who, according to charging documents, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate investments gone bad when they did not get the returns they were promised and couldn’t get back the money they put into the deals.

An appellate court ruling dropped two of the counts against Johnson because of the statute of limitations but said the rest of the charges could proceed to trial.

Johnson’s trial is slated to take place Nov. 13 before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, one in a series of judges — and prosecuting attorneys and defense attorneys — to receive the case because it has lingered so long.

Now, seemingly at the eleventh hour before the long-awaited trial, that list of players is again changing and growing longer. Johnson’s most recent attorneys, Julie Treida and Bob Hammerle, quit as of Aug. 28, according to a letter sent to Johnson on Aug. 18 in a recent flurry of documents filed in the case late last month.

“As a result of your actions, we feel that there has been a breakdown of the attorney client relationship,” the attorneys said in the letter, which also noted that, “On Aug. 18, 2023, Mr. Hammerle advised you of the plea offer and advised that the offer would expire Aug. 28, 2023.”

Johnson has filed a couple documents of his own in response to his now-former attorneys. Johnson provides a litany of instances in which he claims Treida and Hammerle failed in representing him in the case, alleging he was lied to and his desire not to offer a plea was ignored.

He also demands a return of the $150,000 fee he paid them, raised through refinancing his father’s house.

“My current legal representation has consistently and unethically made every decision on my behalf without my consent, and against my request since the start of their involvement and have continued to unfairly misrepresent me in this case, including lying to the Court when you addressed them,” Johnson said in one of his filings, addressing Clymer.

Clymer has set the matter for a hearing via Zoom on Thursday.

None of this offers much hope to Knutilla, who said he first met Johnson around 2000, when Johnson, then a real estate agent, sold Knutilla a home in the Porter Cove subdivision in Porter. They reconnected a few years later after Knutilla suffered a back injury at work and was having difficulty making his mortgage payments once he went on disability.

“He probably could have settled with most of the people with what he paid his attorneys,” Knutilla said, adding, “$150,000, if that’s what he paid, is half of what he owed me.”

According to charging documents filed on March 14, 2014, Knutilla signed a promissory note with Johnson for $300,000 on Sept. 11, 2009, with an offer of 10% interest and the pledge that the principal would be fully repaid after seven years.

“Mr. Knutilla said that $2,500 monthly interest payments were made by Mr. Johnson until August 2011, when they became less-than-full amounts before stopping completely, and that Mr. Johnson refused to make any more payments or return the $300,000 principal,” documents state.

In his filings with Clymer, Johnson gives a nod to how long his case has dragged on.

“As you stated in our May 2023 hearing, my criminal case is your 2nd oldest case, one which you inherited from Judge Bradford,” Johnson said. “It’s understandable you want to end this case as soon as possible, and I do too.”

Johnson goes on to say that he doesn’t have any more money to pay for an attorney after paying Hammerle his required fee. Hammerle and Treida, he said, “have asked me to stop coming to my hearings and not permitted me to attend meetings so they can continue to handle my case behind my back, leaving my life in their hands while they pursue their own objectives.”

On June 29, Johnson filed, for the third time, a motion to dismiss the charges against him, presenting a timeline which his attorneys said is evidence that his right to a speedy trial has been violated.

Despite that, Johnson claims his attorneys did not fight on his behalf for his right to a speedy trial and that Hammerle “knowingly misled me when I agreed to retain him, when he failed to inform me that his intention was to only pursue a plea from the start rather than dismissal or acquittal as I expressly requested.”

Johnson also said that, “Ms. Treida has repeatedly insulted and accused me of stealing 1M+ dollars rather than considering my evidence and doing the due diligence I’ve requested that absolutely proves otherwise.”

Knutilla is unmoved by Johnson’s claims of poor legal representation and his demand for his money back so he can hire another attorney, and Johnson’s apparent portrayal of himself as a victim in the case.

The victims, Knutilla said, are all of the people Johnson reportedly took money from.

“This was a guy who seemed to have a good track record in real estate and of course he was a smooth talker,” Knutilla said. “He knew what to say and that most of us were older.”

alavalley@chicagotribune.com