MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A White Bear Lake couple is speaking out after years of being victimized by a neighbor who has taunted and yelled obscenities at them and their three children.
Kim and Greg Hoffman say Lori Christensen’s constant and cruel harassment is a daily strain on their family.
Christensen has been charged with three felony counts of aggravated stalking and violating a harassment order. She is scheduled for a court hearing Wednesday morning in Ramsey County, where she may plead guilty to one count.
At the moment, she is not allowed in her house, except with a police escort.
The Hoffman family shared a video they shot, which can be seen above, of the bizarre signs Christensen hung on her garage over the last two years. The signs say things like “Rat Queen, Break a Leg” and “Ha-ha-ha….”
The Hoffman family says they see such signs daily, as they come and go from their house.
“It’s been a nightmare,” Kim Hoffman said.
They said the behavior has terrorized their family for years and led to personality changes in their three young children, who are ages 9, 10, and 15.
Their ordeal is detailed in court documents, which describe Christensen as having made “masturbatory gestures” toward Greg Hoffman and his then 8-year-old daughter.
“Our daughters are young enough that it’s really had the biggest impact at to trusting people,” Kim Hoffman said.
Christensen is accused of repeatedly taunting Kim Hoffman, who is a recovering alcoholic, by singing to the Hoffman children: “What do you do with a drunken mother?”
“It always shocks and amazes us at just the cruel things that she can do,” Kim Hoffman said.
Court records show that Christensen herself was convicted of driving while intoxicated in 1989. The list of harassing behavior goes from Christensen videotaping the children to posting large signs in the front yard that read “LOSER” and “FREAKS.”
Christensen was also convicted late last year for harassing the Hoffmans. For that felony, she was sentenced to 90 days in jail, a period of time that stretched over the Christmas holiday.
For the Hoffmans, this brought a brief peace.
“For five years, we have carried all this stress with us, and we didn’t realize it, because that is the way we learned to live and that is the way we learned to raise the kids,” Greg Hoffman said. “It was very difficult.”
Through all this, Christensen has held onto her $51,000-a-year state job as an executive assistant at the Metropolitan Council.
“I am helping pay for her salary,” Greg Hoffman said. “We’re flabbergasted that nothing has happened.”
The judge in the case, George Stephenson, issued an order Tuesday barring Christensen from her home until after her hearing Wednesday.
At a hearing last fall, a Metropolitan Council executive wrote a letter saying he felt “lucky” that Christensen worked for him. The council refused to comment on Christensen when asked Tuesday.
WCCO-TV left messages with Christensens’ father and her attorney and heard nothing back.
A spokesman for the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office said a tentative plea deal has been reached and that Christensen is expected to plead guilty to one felony Wednesday. The sentencing guidelines for that offense would be 12-15 months in prison.
