Apartment Trying To Get Me To Pay For Something “disturbing” I Did

On Saturday night I (26F) came home and pressed the button on the outside of the elevator to go up. When I did this, the plate around the button completely fell off. I tried to press it back into place, but when I did the top part of the plate fell off with the fire alarming on it. I tried to push that into place and now everything was falling out so the elevator door opened and I figured I would cut my losses. I got into the elevator and didn’t really think much of the experience again.

Earlier this week I received a phone call from my property manager and figured it was just a reminder to pay rent since it was the third. Well, yesterday I got another phone call with a voicemail saying it was urgent and due to some “very disturbing” footage she has outside of the elevator of me on Saturday night. The said she wanted to discuss it with me before she “charged my account”. I called her right back to clear it up.

I told her what I have told you above and she said “well, babe, no I’m looking at the video right now, again very disturbing, of you hitting the button and being aggressive” or something like that. We went back and forth. She kept calling me babe and honey, which is besides the point, but infuriated me. She was trying to intimidate me on the phone and I told her to please stop because I have done nothing wrong. I called my dad right away, who is not a lawyer, but I trust his professional opinion about these things. He told me to get the video and to record our conversation. When I got home I went straight to the office (forgot to record the conversation) and asked her to see the video. Guys, she literally has nothing and the fact she said I was being aggressive…if I didn’t know I had touched the button I would’ve never known. I look like a sim swaying back in forth in front of the button that you cannot see because I’m blocking it. Obviously when I walk away it’s hanging out of the wall. It’s actually kind of a hilarious video because it looks like I have magical powers. Lol. Anyway, I was like where’s the hitting and aggressive behavior??? And she was like “well clearly this looks bad for you, hon, because you were clearly the last person to touch it”. I was like duh that’s what I’ve been telling you. She said it was a $2000 damage and they just had it serviced in February and it was in working order. Which would make sense to me because maybe they serviced it and it was actually not in working order.

The only thing I regret is not telling management about what happened right away, but it was at 2am and I forgot about it. I told her I contacted a lawyer to give me advice (even though it was just my dad) and asked her to give me the video and she said she will not be doing that, but I need to fill out an incident report. My dad said not to do that, but she sent me the email with it included and said they are contacting their lawyers and will be in touch. And then I sent that to him and he said to fill it out and sent me a response to the email highlighting the “emotional distress” she caused me and her intimidating and unprofessional behavior and accusations. Is my best course of action to just fill it out and explain that I did not hire a lawyer, but was just seeking legal guidance? Any help would be appreciated because I don’t have $2000 lying around and I think this is ridiculous!!

Edit to add that I live in Ohio in the US