GPNA Law Firm — Expose Lies 605

IN THIS LESSON

Sara Frankenstein, attorney/gpna Partner

Since Renae was having difficulties finding a lawyer after the SDIC Board refused to reply back to her, she had previously signed a settlement only contract to at least find a way to talk to the SDIC Board with MN lawyer, Charlie Firth at Engelmeier & Umanah working with Patrick Burns at Burns Law Firm for the SD law license. Since they would not help me file the whistleblower report to the AG and also would not file a lawsuit, Renae searched for another lawyer. Out of about a dozen SD law firms she called, Sara Frankenstein at GPNA would be the only one to call her back.

Renae signs on with GPNA on Sept 9, 2025. Renae emails Sara her correspondence with Charlie Firth that included some of her evidence of the termination, last 3 emails and 50 pages of notes document to get up to speed and we have our first meeting in person in Rapid City on Sept 22.
Sept 22nd meeting: The case in general was reviewed and discussed. Renae expressed her strong desire to file the whistleblower report to the AG and file a lawsuit against SDIC/Matt Clark for Wrongful Termination and to wrap up the tolling agreement for the settlement negotiations which her only desire was reinstatement after an investigation as is the recovery for the whistleblower grievance, which the SDIC rejected. There was never a monetary number, only numbers that Renae knew were too large to cross;) Sara says, “I love going to trial.” Renae is very happy.
Some higher level legal ideas Renae has been thinking about gets met with an answer on Sept 29th that made her think Sara didn’t understand fiduciary duty very well or the prudent man standard in trusts or that the SDIC manages several trusts.
The next legal question Renae had that was beneficial to her case, Sara told her to look it up herself.
Next, Renae try’s to drop the hint that multiple people on the boards of both SDRS/SDIC should’ve contacted the AG by now, so something is seriously sketchy about this. Sara does not seem concerned. This is concerning to Renae.
Oct. 14, Renae is sent a “Notice of Claims of Wrongful Termination” PDF from GPNA Law firm that was hand-delivered to the AG on Oct. 8th. Renae was ecstatically happy as it was the first time a lawyer did something she actually wanted them to do in this case. But thought it was weird that they waited a week to notify her.
Renae then asks what to expect next, assuming it would be litigation prep work and instead it was settlement prep work and that was confusing considering she didn’t want to settle and GPNA just filed the paperwork to preserve the tort claim.
Renae try’s to poo poo the settlement idea and reorient them back to AG investigation and lawsuit.
Sara reply’s by telling Renae what she is “allowed” to settle for and Marcus reply’s with a very detailed and weird way Renae is “allowed” to report to the AG. Renae reply’s with concerns he will send the AG something without her permission. (Renae calls Hank Prim, Hank Fink because of a brain glitch). GPNA team then checks out for 2 weeks.
The tolling agreement/settlement negotiations expired Oct 31 (at the SDIC’s request) and on Nov 1, the hacker flips Renae’s life upside-down. She had been noticing funky stuff with her computer and phone for quite a while, but couldn’t really figure out if it was just a bunch of glitches or what. They made sure that Renae knew exactly what it was on Nov. 1.
Since Sara had been demanding that Renae look for a job since the beginning, Renae decided to login to LinkedIn for the first time in 20 years and right away she notices her profile pic is from 5 yrs ago, not 20 yrs ago. Then, bam, her mouse moves and the hacker deletes her entire profile right in front of her. Renae immediately realizes what’s been going on for the last several months.
Hacker terrorizes Renae for all of Nov. and Dec.
Renae responds by thinking of any way she could to get the word out about what happened and what they are doing to her without using any electronics. She starts with the “Teacher’s Packet,” a 20ish page paper packet of what’s going on and handing it out to schools. Next was corkboarding convenance stores with flyers (of which Renae greatly appreciates how nice the places west of the James River keep their corkboards, way better than east of it;)
Sara emails Nov 11 that Renae better not be talking about the SDIC and uses Renae’s own hacked private LinkedIn messages as evidence against her. Sara is supposedly Renae’s lawyer and not the SDIC’s.
Renae pleads for her lawyer’s help in the hack to collect evidence for the case and to stop the terror. Renae explains how the hacked private LinkedIn messages are proof it’s the SDIC doing it and that all our emailed communications have been compromised by them.
Sara emails back into the compromised email account with only concerns about the settlement and demands Renae to send all her and her husband’s private financial information through an email account to give to opposing council.
Renae is stunned. Thinks it’s possibly the hacker because no experienced lawyer would do such a thing. Renae leaves a voice message at GPNA to confirm Sara actually sent it. Secretary confirms into the hacked email that Sara did send the email.
Renae sends certified mail letter to Sara as she no longer trusts any electronic communications with GPNA Law firm. It was a last ditch effort to clear up the confusion and make sure we were seeing the same emails.
Sara sends Renae a letter before receiving Renae’s first letter as the South Dakota mail is so slow it takes 10 days to receive. Sara sends the settlement document with terms Renae clearly expressed she would never agree too and a case analysis riddled with typos and confusing analysis with only half of Renae’s evidence because she was never interested enough to ask for the second batch Renae told her she had. Renae is extremely disappointed in the quality of GPNA legal work. It also had the standard threats that Renae better not be talking about what happened to her.
Sara then sends a 2nd letter with GPNA-side emails (along with the standard SDIC threats). First thing Renae notices are each email chain had been stapled, unstapled, and restapled 3 or 4 times. It’s interesting what emails are not in her batch vs. Renae’s.
Renae really enjoyed corkboarding, but it took alot of time to drive all day to hit a few communities. How could she do a similar thing at a much bigger scale?
First billboard in Ft. Pierre goes up Dec. 8! Vinal, not electronic. Hacker is powerless against it;)
Sara sends a second letter on Dec 15 (the day the Rapid City billboard close to her office went up) with some new emails that she “found.” SDIC finally decided they didn’t want to settle on Dec 8;)
Renae has a meeting with Sara in Rapid City on Jan 8 that she voice records with Sara’s reluctant permission because Renae did not trust Sara at all at this point, but tried to get a clear answer as to what was going on to no avail. Renae terminates her relationship with GPNA at the end of this meeting.
Renae disputed the last bill of $15k because almost all of those charges were for unapproved settlement work over which GPNA did not defend and sent the check back. Renae also gave GPNA an opportunity to explain themselves and their work for the other approx. $15k in charges that GPNA Law said they would do for Renae in filing the AG Whistleblower report and file a Lawsuit for Wrongful Termination, but after 4 months seemed to continue to stall on those projects.
Renae has also made several accusations to GPNA that they sent her malware in legal PDF attachments and Renae has also given GPNA several opportunities to defend against such accusation. GPNA Law firm clearly has no interest in getting those PDFs analyzed for malware to clear them of this accusation.
Renae also wanted several legal citations for several questionable things GPNA has claimed to Renae. The sources for the multiple Employee Handbooks (one of which completely cleared Matt Clark of any wrongdoing and that was the one in force at the time) is a very important one. GPNA refuses to give Renae the sources for the multiple Employee Handbooks. Renae has serious questions of the truth of the multiple Handbooks as the current Employee Handbook hasn’t been changed since 2016. GPNA Law firm is claiming that there was apparently another Handbook in existence sometime in 2024/25 when all this was happening that clears Matt Clark/SDIC of all wrongdoing, but GPNA refuses to explain more clearly or provide sources for the multiple Handbooks. https://boardsandcommissions.sd.gov/bcuploads/BHR_Draft_Handbook2.pdf
Renae sent a dispute letter to the Managing Partner of GPNA Law firm, but Sara Frankenstein replied back. She returned the last check for approx. $15k in unapproved settlement charges, but refused to answer Renae’s questions about the other approx. $15k or return the money.
A few weeks later, GPNA Law firm would send Renae a $17k bill with late fees from not paying last month’s $15k bill.
Renae sends second dispute letter to Talbot J. Wieczorek, managing partner of GPNA Law Firm asking what GPNA thinks Renae owes them for legal fees and several Model Rules of Conduct questions.
Renae will wait for reply.
Renae would be very interested in hearing other stories of GPNA Law firm clients being treated like this. If you have had an “experience” with GPNA Law firm, please contact Renae Randall through this website.
Check back in the future for updates.

GPNA printed emails sent to Renae to verify what emails they had verses what emails Renae had to clear up miscommunications that the Hacker may have intercepted. GPNA’s batch was stapled, unstapled, restapled multiple times, and Renae notices that several interesting emails are missing from the GPNA’s batch. A week later after the billboards go up, GPNA “finds” more emails. The “found” set of emails included an email from GPNA to Wood Fuller of Sara lying to Melanie that Renae wanted to settle quickly. Sara never told Renae that she sent this email to Melanie at the time.

Renae never said she was interested in a monetary settlement, only reinstatement after an investigation. There was never a second option. So GPNA Law Firm Sara Frankenstein’s response of “Yes” is extremely confusing to Renae, and Melanie Carpenter at Woods Fuller should be very upset about being lied to by Sara, as alot of time/expense on both sides were wasted because of this. This is a violation of South Dakota Codified Law of Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 4.1 below. Will Woods Fuller pursue this violation that has done their client, The State of South Dakota, harm? The State of South Dakota in this case includes State Employees, SDRS members, SD tax payers and SD Citizens. Those people deserve the respect of proper council along with all other Woods Fuller clients who may have opposing councils treating them like this.