KANABAY COURT REPORTERS
TAMPA AIRPORT MARRIOTT HOTEL (813) 224-9500
ST. PETERSBURG - CLEARWATER (727) 821-3320
0838
1 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA
CASE NO. 00-5682-CI-11
2
3
4
DELL LIEBREICH, as Personal
5 Representative of the ESTATE OF
LISA McPHERSON,
6
7 Plaintiff,
8 vs. VOLUME 7
9 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG
SERVICE ORGANIZATION, JANIS
10 JOHNSON, ALAIN KARTUZINSKI
and DAVID HOUGHTON, D.D.S.,
11
Defendants.
12
_______________________________________/
13
14
15 PROCEEDINGS: Defendants' Omnibus Motion for
Terminating Sanctions and Other Relief
16
DATE: May 13, 2002. Afternoon Session
17
PLACE: Courtroom B, Judicial Building
18 St. Petersburg, Florida
19 BEFORE: Honorable Susan F. Schaeffer
Circuit Judge
20
REPORTED BY: Debra S. Turner
21 Deputy Official Court Reporter
Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida
22 _________________________________________________
23
KANABAY COURT REPORTERS
24 TAMPA AIRPORT MARRIOTT HOTEL (813) 224-9500
ST. PETERSBURG - CLEARWATER (727) 821-3320
25
0839
1
APPEARANCES:
2
MR. KENNAN G. DANDAR
3 DANDAR & DANDAR
5340 West Kennedy Blvd., Suite 201
4 Tampa, FL 33602
Attorney for Plaintiff
5
MR. LUKE CHARLES LIROT
6 LUKE CHARLES LIROT, PA
112 N East Street, Street, Suite B
7 Tampa, FL 33602-4108
Attorney for Plaintiff
8
MR. KENDRICK MOXON
9 MOXON & KOBRIN
1100 Cleveland Street, Suite 900
10 Clearwater, FL 33755
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization
11
12 MR. LEE FUGATE and
MR. MORRIS WEINBERG, JR. and
13 ZUCKERMAN, SPAEDER
101 E. Kennedy Blvd, Suite 1200
14 Tampa, FL 33602-5147
Attorneys for Church of Scientology Flag Service
15 Organization
16
MR. ERIC M. LIEBERMAN
17 RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD
740 Broadway at Astor Place
18 New York, NY 10003-9518
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization
19
20 MR. BRUCE HOWIE
5720 Central Avenue
21 St. Petersburg, Florida.
22 Counsel for Robert Minton
23
24
25
0840
1 APPEARANCES: (Continued)
2 MR. THOMAS H. MCGOWAN
MCGOWAN & SUAREZ, LLP
3 150 2nd Avenue North, Suite 870
St. Petersburg, FL 33701-3381
4 Attorney for Stacy Brooks
5
ALSO PRESENT:
6
Ms. Donna West
7 Mr. Rick Spector
Mr. Allan Cartwright
8 Ms. Lara Cartwright
Ms. Sarah Heller
9 Mr. Ben Shaw
Ms. Joyce Earl
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
0841
1 (The afternoon session began at 2:05 p.m.)
2 THE COURT: I have a couple of things.
3 These documents are here pursuant --
4 Mr. Moxon, this is the one that you talked
5 about on Friday.
6 This came to me Friday, and I just said,
7 "Well, I'll just give everybody a copy on Monday." I
8 don't remember. Apparently, it's something I must
9 have signed an order for because it's here, request
10 under the Hague Convention of the taking of evidence
11 abroad in civil or personal matters.
12 MR. MOXON: Yes, your Honor. I'll see if we
13 can find the order --
14 THE COURT: Okay. Anyway, it says:
15 "Referring to your request dated" -- I'm going to
16 guess it's 11/16/01 -- "the Royal Marine Administer of
17 Justice and the Police have the honor to inform
18 you" -- I like this; these folks do nice work -- "the
19 honor to inform you that your request has been
20 complied with. Please find enclosed documents."
21 Then it's signed by some folks, and this is
22 all in some language other than English. I don't know
23 what it is. But is there any reason why I just can't
24 hand everybody a copy?
25 MR. DANDAR: Well, because of the Second
0842
1 DCA's opinion, I believe this has to do with financing
2 or money or things like that.
3 THE COURT: I have no idea.
4 MR. MOXON: This has nothing to do with
5 Mr. --
6 THE COURT: Is this funds?
7 MR. MOXON: -- funds from Mr. Minton to
8 Mr. Dandar. This is the -- this is the money that was
9 testified to that went from Helda Lund, this Operation
10 Clambake, to LMT.
11 MR. DANDAR: That's right, that's right.
12 THE COURT: The $300,000?
13 MR. MOXON: That's right.
14 THE COURT: Okay.
15 MR. DANDAR: Yes, we need to see where that
16 came from.
17 THE COURT: There is one document -- there's
18 a whole bunch of stuff. It's all, as I said, in some
19 language -- I guess this would be Norwegian.
20 MR. MOXON: Yes, I think so.
21 THE COURT: But there's one thing that looks
22 like -- it's got numbers on it, and it looks like
23 there's something called 299815, and then there's some
24 other little numbers. So maybe that's it.
25 MR. MOXON: Okay.
0843
1 THE COURT: But I don't know what to do with
2 it. I mean, was this supposed to be in the court
3 file --
4 MR. MOXON: No.
5 THE COURT: -- or supposed to go to counsel
6 or what?
7 MR. MOXON: We made -- I've got the order
8 here.
9 THE COURT: Okay.
10 MR. DANDAR: But I think you ought to
11 address it with Mr. Howie, Mr. Minton's counsel.
12 THE COURT: Okay.
13 MR. DANDAR: Oh, there he is. Okay.
14 MR. MOXON: Normally, you, of course, would
15 go to another state, and the state would just go
16 through the discovery procedures in that state. And
17 that's what happened in Norway.
18 But we're informed by Norwegian counsel that
19 because the request was an order, essentially a
20 request from the Court, like a normal out-of-state
21 commission would be, they wanted to send the documents
22 back to the Court, to the requester. And so our
23 counsel provided the Norwegian court the documents.
24 They got them from Helda Lund, gave them back to the
25 Court, and we were informed the Court was going to
0844
1 send them to you.
2 THE COURT: Okay. The only thing I would
3 ask -- this was in January -- apparently this is Judge
4 Beach's initials that says, I guess, a stay of 60 days
5 for execution or extension of this order is granted.
6 MR. MOXON: Yes, in case they wanted to file
7 a writ, but they didn't.
8 THE COURT: Did you file any writ?
9 MR. DANDAR: I had nothing to do with it.
10 THE COURT: Mr. Howie, do you know -- this
11 says UC counsel of record. I just got a whole bunch
12 of documents here that come -- that I can't read, and
13 I was just prepared to hand them out.
14 This copy is no good -- not that I can't
15 read them, but this copy isn't even -- it looks like
16 when Ms. Rudd made a copy that perhaps that one came
17 out bad. Maybe they're all that way. See what the
18 original looks like.
19 Do you want to look at this?
20 MR. HOWIE: Yes, your Honor.
21 MR. MOXON: In fact, your Honor, here's the
22 other order. We had a hearing in front of Judge Beach
23 on this.
24 THE COURT: There's two documents in here.
25 MR. MOXON: The language of the order was
0845
1 approved by both Mr. Dandar and --
2 THE COURT: Okay.
3 MR. MOXON: -- whoever was representing LMT
4 at that time.
5 THE COURT: Oh, I see the problem with this
6 little -- this original is very light, and when
7 Mrs. Rudd copied it, it didn't turn out very well.
8 But you all can see even on the original, that's very
9 light.
10 MR. MOXON: Yes. But it's readable, I mean,
11 if you could read it.
12 THE COURT: That's the original. I don't
13 know that you can read this -- see? I guess that's
14 the best.
15 MR. MOXON: No, I can't read that. Maybe we
16 can make a new copy of this.
17 THE COURT: Well, you study that if you
18 will, Mr. Howie.
19 MR. HOWIE: Yes, your Honor.
20 THE COURT: Good luck.
21 MR. HOWIE: Well, I have --
22 MR. FUGATE: "Howie" is Norwegian, isn't it?
23 THE COURT: I'll just keep them here until
24 he's had a chance to look at them, but it does look as
25 though there's been a court order.
0846
1 MR. MOXON: I said that was your order, but
2 I see it's Judge Beach's order.
3 THE COURT: I like this. It says: "Circuit
4 Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit presents its
5 compliments to the appropriate judicial probate of
6 Norway." No wonder they wrote back and said they had
7 the honor to inform me.
8 MR. MOXON: We copied those from the Hague
9 Convention.
10 THE COURT: Kind of nice. It's very --
11 MR. DANDAR: All orders should start out
12 that way.
13 THE COURT: You can have a seat, Mr. Howie.
14 MR. HOWIE: Thank you very much, ma'am.
15 THE COURT: You may take your time.
16 MR. DANDAR: For the record, the plaintiff
17 does request a copy of that document.
18 THE COURT: Okay. And defendant obviously
19 wants a copy of it. And I'm not sure why Mr. Howie's
20 reading it. I just had a copy for everybody, but --
21 MR. DANDAR: Oh.
22 (Ms. Brooks entered the courtroom.)
23 THE COURT: I'm looking at the documents
24 requested. I can understand why funds transferred
25 from Operation Clambake to the LMT would be
0847
1 appropriate to this case, but it says then "or Robert
2 Minton." What would that have to do with this case?
3 MR. MOXON: Well, it has a lot to do with
4 the case.
5 THE COURT: Okay. What?
6 MR. MOXON: I can't read the documents in
7 Norwegian. I don't know.
8 THE COURT: No, I'm saying why would Judge
9 Beach sign an order allowing this Norwegian place to
10 send money that this man, whoever he is, sent to
11 Mr. Minton? I mean, I understand it went to LMT.
12 MR. MOXON: It's a question as to where
13 these funds are actually from, whether they're from
14 Mr. Minton, rather, or to LMT or to Mr. Minton.
15 THE COURT: Okay. Well, as I said,
16 Mr. Howie, you tell me if you have a problem with
17 this. I've got copies for everybody that I've made.
18 I've got the original.
19 MR. MOXON: I'd like to get the original if
20 I could, your Honor. I could make better copies.
21 THE COURT: Okay.
22 MR. MOXON: Then I could make sure everybody
23 gets --
24 THE COURT: Okay. Yes, you saw what I was
25 saying -- it was a very light copy, and it didn't come
0848
1 out very well.
2 MR. MOXON: Okay.
3 THE COURT: So I have those here, if someone
4 will remind me I have them. Mr. Howie can read it.
5 Ms. Brooks --
6 Is it "Brooks" or "Brook"?
7 MS. BROOKS: Brooks.
8 THE COURT: -- Brooks is back with us, so
9 let's go on ahead.
10 MR. LIROT: Thank you, Judge.
11 CROSS-EXAMINATION OF STACY BROOKS (RESUMED)
12 BY MR. LIROT:
13 Q Ms. Brooks, during the break, Mr. Fugate was nice
14 enough to break out the documents we've got into two
15 separate sections, I guess the documents that were provided
16 to Minton and the documents that were provided to you. And
17 what I'll do is I've got about -- it looks like to me like
18 almost three-quarters of an inch. Does this look to be
19 generally the size of the document packet that was provided
20 to you on the 15th?
21 A Well, if there were some that were folded over,
22 it might be.
23 Q Fair enough. All right. I'm going to go ahead
24 and just hand you -- since I just have the one copy, I'm
25 just going to clip them as we go through them.
0849
1 MR. LIROT: Judge, if I could ask for
2 continuing permission to approach the witness?
3 THE COURT: You may, as long as you've got
4 something in your hand. I always tell the lawyers, if
5 you don't have something in your hand, the lawyers --
6 the witness wonders why you're coming.
7 MR. LIROT: Okay.
8 THE COURT: Having been a witness a few
9 times myself, it's disconcerting if you don't have a
10 document.
11 BY MR. LIROT:
12 Q Ms. Brooks, I've got the first segment of the
13 packet given to me by Mr. Fugate. It appears to be an
14 excerpt of your deposition of April 15th, 2001. Does that
15 look to be one of the documents that you were provided on
16 April 15th by Mr. Fugate?
17 A Possibly. It refers to the secret agreement, so
18 I would say so.
19 Q All right. Well, what does it -- I mean, there
20 is a portion highlighted there, is there not?
21 A Yes.
22 Q All right. What does that question highlighted
23 actually ask?
24 A It refers to the secret agreement, if I knew
25 about it.
0850
1 Q Well, why don't you read me the question.
2 A "Do you have any knowledge" -- well, you want me
3 to edit out all the stumbling? "Do you have any knowledge
4 or do you know what the agreement is between Mr. Dandar and
5 Ms. Liebreich?"
6 THE COURT: I'm sorry, and who? Mr. Dandar?
7 THE WITNESS: Mr. Dandar and Ms. Liebreich.
8 BY MR. LIROT:
9 Q Okay. That doesn't have anything to do with any
10 secret agreement, does it, between LMT and Mr. Minton or
11 the Trust or anything. That's Mr. Dandar and
12 Ms. Liebreich, correct?
13 A Yes, and I didn't include this in my --
14 Q Okay.
15 A -- affidavit.
16 MR. LIROT: The second one, Judge, actually
17 we took time to make a copy of this one. I'll give a
18 copy to counsel.
19 And, Judge, I'll hand this to the witness.
20 This is a September 7th, 2001, letter, from apparently
21 Teresa Summers to Ms. Brooks, which looked to be the
22 second component of the packet that Mr. Fugate
23 represents was handed over to Ms. Brooks on
24 April 15th.
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0851
1 Q Ms. Brooks, what is this letter from Ms. Summers
2 to you on September 7th, 2001?
3 A It's a letter that I found on my desk on the
4 morning of September 10th, which was a Monday morning,
5 which was also accompanied by another letter in which
6 Ms. Summers quit. And this letter is a very lengthy letter
7 in which she accuses me and Mr. Minton of a number of
8 various criminal acts, things like that.
9 Q Okay. There are a couple paragraphs -- this
10 looks to have been an exhibit to somebody's deposition,
11 although it was cut off. It says, on the bottom of the
12 first page, Defendants' Exhibit Summers. Do you know that
13 this was ever made an exhibit of a deposition or anything?
14 A Well --
15 THE COURT: Maybe somebody here could help
16 us out. It looks like it.
17 MR. MOXON: It was. Ms. Summers produced it
18 in her deposition.
19 THE COURT: And so this was made an exhibit
20 to her deposition?
21 MR. MOXON: That's correct.
22 THE COURT: Okay.
23 MR. LIROT: And I assume that deposition was
24 taken in this case?
25 MR. MOXON: That's right.
0852
1 BY MR. LIROT:
2 Q Okay. So this is a long letter. And there seem
3 to be two paragraphs. On page 2, the only thing circled
4 there is paragraph No. 2. Did you circle that?
5 A No. It was circled when I got it.
6 Q Okay. And --
7 THE COURT: When was Ms. Summers'
8 deposition?
9 MR. MOXON: When?
10 THE COURT: M'hum (affirmative).
11 MR. MOXON: I don't know. I can ask Sarah,
12 your Honor. It was about five months ago.
13 THE COURT: Her deposition?
14 MR. MOXON: About five months ago.
15 THE COURT: Oh, five months ago. I thought
16 you said about five minutes ago.
17 MR. MOXON: No.
18 THE COURT: Five months ago, okay.
19 MR. FUGATE: We were busy over lunch.
20 THE COURT: Yes.
21 MR. MOXON: It's a little more,
22 September 5th.
23 THE COURT: September 5th?
24 MR. MOXON: Yes.
25 MR. LIROT: Judge, I think, quite simply --
0853
1 THE WITNESS: No, it couldn't have been
2 September 5th.
3 MR. LIROT: Well, I'll tell you what, Judge.
4 The documents --
5 MR. MOXON: Your Honor, October 16th.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes.
7 MR. LIROT: All right. The documents that
8 we were provided actually have excerpts. At least one
9 deposition of Ms. Summers was taken on September 5th
10 of 2001, and there looks to be another deposition
11 taken of Ms. Summers on October 16th of 2001.
12 THE COURT: And then there was a third one?
13 MR. LIROT: And if there was a third one,
14 there is no except in what we were provided.
15 MR. MOXON: That's the third one, your
16 Honor.
17 THE COURT: Pardon me.
18 MR. MOXON: The October deposition was the
19 third. There are three very short versions of her
20 deposition. October was the last one.
21 THE COURT: I was just given 9/5 and
22 then 10/16, so --
23 MR. MOXON: There's one about -- oh, a year
24 earlier.
25 MR. DANDAR: June 13th, 2001, I took her
0854
1 deposition, the first one.
2 THE COURT: Okay.
3 BY MR. LIROT:
4 Q Ms. Brooks, you told me that the only two -- I
5 guess paragraph 2 and paragraph 7 on this letter were
6 circled. And apparently the letter was provided to you
7 with those circled?
8 A Yes.
9 Q Was it accompanied by any instruction that those
10 are the only issues that were in this letter that needed to
11 be addressed by you?
12 A No, it wasn't -- as I said earlier, the things
13 that were highlighted or circled or whatever, was somebody
14 else's idea of what I might possibly have to include in a
15 recantation.
16 Q Okay. Did you go through this entire document
17 relative to what you were considering to put in an
18 affidavit to recant earlier testimony?
19 A Yes, I did.
20 Q All right. And I guess I'll look at paragraph
21 No. 2, since that one says -- and I'm quoting a letter
22 here. It says your stated purpose of dissolving the LMT as
23 a corporation:
24 So that you and Bob would not have to
25 testify as to financial matters also places me
0855
1 and all of the other staff members at risk. The
2 argument that you just don't want Scientology to
3 know about the finances takes on new meaning in
4 light of Item No. 1. It also brings up the
5 question of the validity of the LMT, if it can be
6 dissolved at once in order to protect you and
7 Bob -- once again, with little care for
8 employees.
9 What importance, if any, did you place on that
10 sentence?
11 A None.
12 Q Okay. And why was the LMT dissolved?
13 A I believe I testified about this earlier. The
14 LMT was dissolved around the same time that I ordered
15 Jesse -- Mr. Minton and I ordered Jesse to withdraw as an
16 expert, that I withdrew as a witness, that Mr. Minton
17 informed Mr. Dandar that he wasn't going to fund the case
18 any longer, and basically we disbanded the LMT in a further
19 effort to try to distance ourselves from this wrongful
20 death case.
21 Q Well, I think your earlier testimony was that the
22 LMT did a lot more than participate in any activity with
23 the wrongful death case. Isn't that true?
24 A That's correct.
25 Q And Ms. Summers did a lot more than participate
0856
1 in the wrongful death case. Isn't that true?
2 A That's correct.
3 Q All right. What about paragraph No. 7?
4 THE COURT: Are we introducing this or is --
5 MR. LIROT: Yes, I would like to --
6 THE COURT: -- this an exhibit or what?
7 MR. LIROT: Judge, I'll go ahead and mark
8 it.
9 And I believe we're up to No. 16?
10 THE CLERK: 15.
11 MR. LIROT: 15.
12 THE COURT: So you're referring to -- these
13 references have been to Defendants' -- Plaintiff's 15?
14 MR. LIROT: Yes, Judge.
15 THE COURT: Do you have any objection to
16 this being introduced?
17 MR. FUGATE: No, your Honor. I think for
18 the record that it's my understanding that the
19 circling was done at the deposition, if that makes any
20 difference to anybody. But other than that, I have no
21 objection to it.
22 THE COURT: Okay. Well, I suppose if that
23 becomes important, you can put somebody on for that --
24 MR. FUGATE: Okay.
25 THE COURT: -- if that's important.
0857
1 THE WITNESS: Your Honor, if I could make a
2 comment?
3 THE COURT: Sure.
4 THE WITNESS: This letter was full of lies
5 and innuendo, which ended up on the Internet, and was
6 the beginning of an unbelievable smear campaign that's
7 going on against us by Ms. Summers and other people
8 who are now part of Mr. Dandar's trial team. And --
9 THE COURT: Well, we don't need this, so
10 just know you can't get into that. Maybe they'll ask
11 you something about it, and you can answer it. But I
12 don't need that kind of a discourse without a
13 question.
14 MR. LIROT: Well, I'll just ask one final
15 question on the letter. Was there --
16 THE COURT: That reminds me. I'm getting a
17 couple things in the mail, anonymous. You know, "You
18 might want to see this," some Internet postings.
19 Typically I just would throw those things out. I
20 mean, I wouldn't bog the court file down. I'm happy
21 to put them in the court file. I mean, I don't pay
22 much attention to anonymous stuff off of an Internet
23 Web site.
24 What do you want me to do with it?
25 MR. FUGATE: You're getting them addressed
0858
1 to you --
2 THE COURT: I got one. It came certified.
3 And, you know, Sue just stamps it in and puts it on my
4 desk. And it was an anonymous letter to me saying,
5 "You might want to read" -- I don't know what it said,
6 to tell you the truth. "You might want to read the
7 following," something about Mr. Hubbard and his --
8 I'll show it to you all, and you tell me what to do --
9 I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get more.
10 It's not unusual for a judge to get mailings on a
11 high-profile case. I usually just throw them out or
12 file them in the court file. In this case, I normally
13 would just file it in the court file. If that's all
14 right, that's what I'll do.
15 MR. MOXON: One suggestion, your Honor. If
16 you keep the envelope, the post office can trace it
17 and see who is doing it. It's certified.
18 THE COURT: Well, this has an address on it.
19 MR. MOXON: Okay.
20 THE COURT: It's actually an address like
21 Clearwater, as I recall. But I normally put that in
22 the court file too. I mean, I just put the whole
23 thing in the court file.
24 I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say, do
25 you all want copies of this? This is not the kind of
0859
1 stuff that I normally would think my secretary would
2 make copies of.
3 MR. FUGATE: I think for both sides to take
4 a look at as far as -- I don't think -- I mean,
5 there's so much paper in this case.
6 THE COURT: Well, I kind of figured. And
7 nobody would ever know what it was there for. So --
8 but what I would like to do is just show it to you
9 all, and if you don't have any need for it --
10 MR. FUGATE: Well, I don't mean to speak for
11 them, but I certainly don't.
12 THE COURT: I will throw it away or file it
13 in the court file. I think I told my secretary just
14 before lunch to make a copy of this so you all can see
15 what I'm talking about. That was the first one I got,
16 but it wouldn't be surprising to me, if this case
17 ended up in trial, that I started getting mail. It's
18 not uncommon.
19 MR. LIROT: Thanks, Judge.
20 THE COURT: What I would really have to
21 worry about is if this was a death penalty case. Then
22 I do have to worry about it, because I have to be sure
23 everybody gets copies. And I put in an order that I
24 have -- you know, that can become bothersome. But in
25 a case like this -- anonymous Internet postings.
0860
1 Worse than whatever it is they could send me, I
2 suppose.
3 Continue on.
4 BY MR. LIROT:
5 Q Ms. Brooks, on the first page of that letter, I
6 guess Ms. Summers talks about in paragraph 1, or at least
7 the No. 1, it says, "The revelation in your recent
8 deposition of $800,000 that was donated to the LMT from
9 foreign sources and then every penny of that money was
10 delivered to Bob Minton is difficult to make sense of."
11 Down at the bottom, it continues to say, in the
12 next full paragraph, "I cannot make sense of this. If Bob
13 was the sole source of LMT funding and our salaries came
14 from the LMT account, how then can he be given $800,000
15 from this account and then turn around and claim there's no
16 money to pay our salaries?"
17 What does that refer to? Did Mr. Minton take
18 $800,000 out of the LMT account?
19 A No.
20 Q Was there a period of time that you gave
21 Mr. Minton money out of the LMT account?
22 A Yes.
23 Q Okay. Can you tell me how much that was?
24 A $800,000.
25 Q Okay. And what was that for?
0861
1 A It was to repay monies that he had put into the
2 LMT.
3 Q Was this -- was it hidden by you at some point
4 that all the money had come from Mr. Minton?
5 A I wasn't aware of it at that point.
6 Q Did you ever recant that statement anywhere else?
7 A That's already come up in this testimony. And
8 that was done.
9 Q Was there anything else in Ms. Summers' letter
10 that you felt appropriate to put in your two affidavits
11 recanting earlier testimony?
12 A No.
13 Q So you looked at this and said, "I've got this
14 one handled. Let's go on to the next one"?
15 A I looked at this and gave it the legitimacy that
16 it was due.
17 Q All right. The next document in that packet
18 appears to be an excerpt from a videotaped deposition of
19 you individually on September 7th of 2001. And again, that
20 document was given to me with the highlighted portions just
21 as they are.
22 THE COURT: What -- are you marking this? I
23 mean, we need a record here. Is this a number?
24 MR. LIROT: Judge, I'll go ahead and we'll
25 put this entire packet in as Plaintiff's Exhibit
0862
1 No. 16. I don't have any copies of it. We just got
2 it this morning, and I only had time to make a few
3 copies of some of the things that I thought were more
4 interesting.
5 THE COURT: Well, why don't you make it then
6 a composite exhibit?
7 MR. LIROT: I will do that, Judge. We will
8 make this Plaintiff's Composite Exhibit No. 16.
9 MR. WEINBERG: Well, is the letter -- is
10 Ms. Summers' letter part of that composite --
11 MR. LIROT: We'll make -- we'll make
12 Ms. Summers' letter a part of that. If you would like
13 to renumber --
14 MR. WEINBERG: Why don't we just make it a
15 Composite Exhibit 15?
16 THE COURT: 15, and Ms. Summers' letter will
17 be part of it.
18 MR. LIROT: Very good, Judge.
19 THE COURT: And I'll count on you making a
20 copy to the clerk and keeping your copy.
21 MR. LIROT: Very good.
22 THE COURT: If you think I need it for
23 whatever reason, why, you can make me a copy as well.
24 BY MR. LIROT:
25 Q Now, describe to me that next item. You
0863
1 obviously -- I'm going on the belief that you looked at all
2 these documents that were provided to you and that you used
3 these to analyze -- to in fact comply with your desire to
4 make the record straight. Right?
5 A This was part of what I used.
6 Q Okay. What is the -- what's the information in
7 that particular -- I guess what I'll -- I guess this will
8 be Composite Exhibit 15, Sub C, we'll call this. And we'll
9 call the first -- the first excerpt A, Ms. Summers' letter
10 is B, and this will be 15C.
11 MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, I just ask for --
12 if we're going to do that, if we could go back to A
13 and just identify what pages, at least, of the
14 deposition there are so the record is clear. And then
15 on C, just -- because these are excerpts -- what pages
16 there are in the deposition that are in front of her.
17 I think that would be useful.
18 These are not the entire depos, I don't
19 believe, are they?
20 MR. LIROT: No.
21 THE COURT: I think the only thing this is
22 being put in the record for is just to show what she
23 was given, so --
24 MR. WEINBERG: And just for the clarity of
25 the record, I would ask --
0864
1 THE COURT: Whose deposition and what date?
2 Maybe you could tell us the pages.
3 THE WITNESS: Okay. This is the cover page,
4 page 1 --
5 THE COURT: Right.
6 THE WITNESS: -- deposition of Stacy Brooks,
7 August 15th, 2001, 1:35 p.m.
8 THE COURT: Pages?
9 THE WITNESS: Page 1, page 49, page 93, 94,
10 95, and 149.
11 THE COURT: Thank you.
12 Is that what you wanted?
13 MR. WEINBERG: Yes. And each time we go
14 through a transcript, if we could do that.
15 THE COURT: Yes.
16 MR. WEINBERG: That would be useful.
17 MR. LIROT: I'll do that, Judge.
18 BY MR. LIROT:
19 Q So C would be your deposition of September 7th,
20 2001. And I don't have that copy. Can you tell the Court
21 what pages I've handed you that were part of this packet
22 provided to me.
23 A Page 1, page 40, and the reporter's deposition
24 certificate page.
25 Q And what was it that you reviewed in that
0865
1 document that had any impact on the affidavits recanting
2 testimony that you offered?
3 A There was a document that Mr. Minton received
4 from Mr. Dandar. And Mr. Dandar had told Mr. Minton not to
5 tell anyone that he had gotten it from Mr. Dandar. And so
6 when I was asked, "Do you know" -- well, it says, "Do you
7 aware [sic] Mr. Minton got this report," but I think it
8 meant to say, "Do you know where Mr. Minton got this
9 report?"
10 And I said, "No. That was false."
11 So in my first recantation affidavit, it's
12 covered in Point B on page 2.
13 Q Okay. Do you know what the document was that you
14 referred to? The document in your recant affidavit.
15 A Oh. Yes. It was a report written by Brenda
16 Hubert concerning Lisa McPherson.
17 THE COURT: Report written by whom, ma'am?
18 THE WITNESS: A woman named Brenda Hubert.
19 THE COURT: Oh, that's that thing?
20 MR. FUGATE: That's the Brenda Hubert
21 knowledge report --
22 THE COURT: Knowledge report, okay.
23 THE WITNESS: Right, the knowledge report.
24 BY MR. LIROT:
25 Q How was it that you were made aware of that
0866
1 document?
2 A Mr. Minton told me he had it.
3 Q Anything else? Did he tell you how he got it?
4 A I just said he told me he got it from Mr. Dandar.
5 Q Fair enough.
6 The next one I have is Composite Exhibit 15D,
7 which is an excerpt of the videotaped deposition of Stacy
8 Brooks of June 23rd, 2000, and pages --
9 THE COURT: How many depositions did you
10 have to give?
11 THE WITNESS: Many, many, many.
12 THE COURT: Wow. Maybe I should add you to
13 the list of the ones that probably had too many
14 depositions taken.
15 THE WITNESS: I was hoping you would do
16 that, your Honor.
17 THE COURT: I'm sorry, I thought you only
18 had one, so --
19 THE WITNESS: No, your Honor.
20 THE COURT: Well, then I'll add you to the
21 list as well. If you were deposed in two separate
22 cases about the same thing, that shouldn't have been
23 allowed to happen. And that's the fault of either me
24 or Judge Baird or both of us, but I'm not sure we were
25 exactly understanding that this was happening on both
0867
1 ends of the county. Certainly I was not. And I
2 apologize to you. That should not happen.
3 THE WITNESS: Thank you, your Honor.
4 BY MR. LIROT:
5 Q All right. Ms. Brooks, just to make the record
6 clear, this is 15D, June 23rd, 2000 --
7 THE COURT: And so that's clear, I'm not
8 being critical of counsel here. There are separate
9 counsel involved in these cases. But the deal is that
10 we shouldn't have witnesses coming in, take -- have
11 long depositions being taken about the same
12 information, when really they should be -- two lawyers
13 ought to be able to be there at the same time, one of
14 them ask questions, somebody else listen in, and the
15 deponent inconvenienced one time.
16 And I'm sure if Judge Baird and I had
17 realized that this was happening, he and I, one or the
18 other, would have said, well, you know, we're not
19 going to have this. It's not fair to the folks.
20 I can only assure you I really didn't
21 realize that this was happening. At least if I did,
22 I'm not aware of it. So that's what I was referring
23 to. And I'm sure Judge Baird would feel the same way.
24 One person to be deposed, there's two lawyers, well,
25 you tell the lawyers to consolidate these things, take
0868
1 them together.
2 I'm not suggesting if only one is there that
3 the other doesn't have a right to take a deposition.
4 We don't normally put witnesses through duplicate,
5 very lengthy depositions.
6 MR. LIROT: We certainly acknowledge that,
7 your Honor.
8 BY MR. LIROT:
9 Q What I'm referring to here is 15D, June 23rd,
10 2000. And just for the record, it says here, "Do you know
11 if Mr. Minton" -- I guess I'll give the page numbers. It's
12 the cover page, page 126, and then the certificate page of
13 146.
14 And the question here was whether or not
15 Mr. Minton provided any money to Dell Liebreich. Your
16 answer was: "I don't know."
17 The question was: "Do you know if there's any
18 agreement with Dell Liebreich and Mr. Minton with respect
19 to the potential proceeds of this case?"
20 Your answer was: "Well, that's been discussed, I
21 know that."
22 Then question, which isn't a question: "It
23 certainly has."
24 And then Mr. Bolt says: "Now, that's a yes or no
25 question, Ms. Brooks."
0869
1 And the answer was: "To be honest, I'm not
2 sure."
3 Now, this was in June of 2000, and I'll hand that
4 to you so you can look at that. And that was part of the
5 packet that was provided to you relative to the affidavits
6 that you prepared to recant earlier testimony. And I think
7 it's pretty clear that you used that in some fashion to
8 recant earlier testimony in some of your affidavits, right?
9 MR. FUGATE: Your Honor, I object to that as
10 testifying. And also for point of clarification, I
11 think the entire -- the entirety of the depositions
12 were also provided. So this is somewhat confusing,
13 and I don't know --
14 I don't want to interject myself into the
15 cross, but don't you have copies of each of her
16 depositions as well, as well as the highlighted
17 portions?
18 MR. LIROT: We don't know what you gave her.
19 That's only what we're going by.
20 MR. FUGATE: Judge, I'll go back and --
21 THE COURT: Okay.
22 MR. FUGATE: -- let the submission, but I do
23 object to the testifying.
24 THE COURT: That would be sustained.
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0870
1 Q Well, I guess my question was, Were these
2 excerpts given to you, or did you get the entire
3 depositions for those dates?
4 A I believe I had more than this, for sure.
5 MR. LIROT: Well, then, Judge, I need some
6 clarification. Is counsel's position that the whole
7 deposition was given to Ms. Brooks and that just these
8 highlighted portions were given to us?
9 MR. FUGATE: Judge, I'm confused because I
10 don't know what's over there now. I know that the
11 request was both to both counsel for Ms. Brooks and
12 counsel for Mr. Minton for the entire depositions.
13 And as I sit here, I know that all of Mr. Minton's
14 depositions were given to him. I do believe -- and I
15 thought Ms. Brooks' were. If we need to give those in
16 their entirety to them, we will. But Mr. McGowan can
17 clear that up. If we only gave excerpts, we only gave
18 excerpts.
19 Do you remember?
20 MR. McGOWAN: Your Honor, I believe that
21 there were excerpts, but I believe separate from the
22 excerpts were the entire depositions.
23 THE COURT: So but there were excerpts?
24 These were excerpts?
25 MR. McGOWAN: There were excerpts, and then
0871
1 there were depositions.
2 THE COURT: Okay.
3 MR. LIROT: And, Judge, I think we requested
4 the excerpts. We were interested in what was
5 highlighted. That's what we were interested in.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes. That's what I'm looking
7 at here, just this highlighting.
8 THE COURT: Okay.
9 BY MR. LIROT:
10 Q The next document I'm going to hand to you is
11 apparently a notice of filing plaintiff's witness list,
12 which appears to be an April 17th, 2000, witness list in
13 the wrongful death case when it was still in Hillsborough
14 county. And it looks like the only highlighted portion
15 here is the name Teresa Summers. What significance would
16 that have being placed in this packet?
17 A Well, it was my understanding -- and I'm going to
18 refer to documents that you haven't yet put in evidence
19 that should be in your package. It was my understanding
20 that the reason this was included was that there was
21 testimony by me in another excerpt, which we haven't talked
22 about yet, about whether or not I knew Teresa Summers or
23 something. And I can't remember exactly, and I'd have to
24 look at it again. But there was -- clearly, someone had
25 thought that I was -- that I had lied about my knowledge of
0872
1 Teresa Summers in some way. But I did not include this
2 because I didn't feel that that was the case based on the
3 dates of the various documents that I reviewed.
4 Q Okay. Well, this might clear it up. I guess
5 Composite Exhibit 15 Sub F appears to be the cover page or
6 at least page 4 of Ms. Summers' deposition of June 13th of
7 2000. And just the -- I guess the next page is page 5, and
8 it just has one page of her direct examination. And
9 there's nothing highlighted on this. Does this refresh
10 your memory as to the significance of those documents?
11 A I believe I was given more than this, but --
12 Q I think you were too, actually. I see what I'll
13 call Exhibit 15G. It appears to be the deposition of Stacy
14 Brooks from June 23rd of 2000 -- oops. And it's the cover
15 page, and then pages 254, 255, and then the signature page
16 of 283. Let me hand you that, because it looks like
17 there's certain questions asked of you regarding
18 Ms. Summers' in this excerpt.
19 MR. WEINBERG: I don't think he said it, but
20 the presumption is that 15E was little witness list.
21 Is that what he said it was?
22 MR. DANDAR: Yes, that's what he said it
23 was.
24 MR. LIROT: Yes.
25 A Okay. I should probably read this to the Court
0873
1 so that she can understand what I'm about to say.
2 THE COURT: Okay.
3 THE WITNESS: The highlighted part:
4 The question: "Teresa Summers, you claim,
5 has come to you?"
6 And my answer, "Is she a witness? She has
7 contacted us. We did not contact her."
8 THE COURT: Maybe I don't -- that's --
9 THE WITNESS: It's to the LMT.
10 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
11 Has come to you as an employee -- oh, this
12 is to be taught -- in other words, LMT, you told me
13 the other day that one of the things that LMT did was
14 to counsel people --
15 THE WITNESS: Yes.
16 THE COURT: -- who left the Church.
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 THE COURT: Is that what you're talking
19 about?
20 THE WITNESS: Yes.
21 THE COURT: Okay.
22 THE WITNESS: And the question was: "When
23 was this?"
24 Answer: "Recently."
25 And then question: "When?"
0874
1 And then my answer: "You know, this is
2 going to get this girl in trouble. I don't like
3 this."
4 And then the counsel said: "She's
5 testified."
6 And then Mr. Dandar said to me: "We've
7 already deposed her. She's been deposed."
8 And then I say: "Oh, okay." And then: "So
9 what's the question?"
10 And the question: "When did you talk to
11 Teresa Summers?"
12 And the answer: "I haven't talked to Teresa
13 Summers. I haven't talked to Teresa Summers."
14 And the question: Who talked to Teresa
15 Summers in the LMT?"
16 And my answer: "Nobody. She sent an e-mail
17 or maybe a letter."
18 And question: "When? When?"
19 And the answer: "Actually, I think she sent
20 it -- well, it was to Jesse, and it was received maybe
21 two days ago."
22 Okay. So that was the testimony. And I
23 believe that someone -- or, I thought at the time that
24 someone may have thought that I was lying about not
25 knowing her at that time, but in fact what I said was
0875
1 true --
2 BY MR. LIROT:
3 Q Okay.
4 A -- because -- well, it was true.
5 Q Okay. Composite Exhibit 15H is an excerpt of
6 Ms. Summers' deposition of September 5th, 2001, with a
7 cover page, pages 36, 37, and the signature page of
8 page 105. And I guess there are only two questions. There
9 on page 36, they ask about Ms. Summers having worked for
10 the LMT, and the other question is about Ms. Summers making
11 complaints about the Church. And I'll hand you this.
12 THE COURT: I thought she was a consultant.
13 No. Was this somebody else?
14 MR. DANDAR: This is a former Scientologist.
15 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
16 MR. DANDAR: Not retained by the plaintiff.
17 THE WITNESS: But on his witness list.
18 THE COURT: Okay.
19 THE WITNESS: On the plaintiff's witness
20 list.
21 THE COURT: Well, was she the one -- I
22 remember when you were going through, at somebody's
23 request, a group of people who had worked for LMT --
24 THE WITNESS: Yes. She was one of them.
25 THE COURT: -- and one of them in particular
0876
1 you said had really done a lot of work and done
2 some --
3 THE WITNESS: Yes. That was Teresa Summers.
4 THE COURT: Okay. That's where I heard the
5 name then.
6 THE WITNESS: Do you want me to read the
7 highlighted part every time?
8 THE COURT: I don't.
9 THE WITNESS: Okay.
10 MR. LIROT: No.
11 THE COURT: I'm not saying -- if counsel
12 wants you to, but . . .
13 THE WITNESS: Okay.
14 BY MR. LIROT:
15 Q Now, I take it that the explanation there about
16 your knowledge of Ms. Summers coincides with the dates of
17 that excerpt. Is that correct?
18 A I'm sorry, I -- say that again.
19 Q You said that you had not said anything
20 untruthful about your knowledge --
21 A Oh.
22 Q -- or relationship with Ms. Summers at the LMT,
23 and they speak about dates in that certain highlighted
24 section.
25 A Right.
0877
1 Q So that's consistent with you?
2 A Yes. This was September 5th, 2001 --
3 Q Right.
4 A -- and this is Teresa's deposition on
5 September 5th, 2001.
6 Q And that's her deposition. So obviously you
7 don't know what she testified to. That's just some point
8 of reference for you, right?
9 A Right.
10 Q All right. The next sub exhibit I have is 15I,
11 and this is an excerpt from the September 7th, 2001,
12 deposition of Stacy Brooks as representative of the Lisa
13 McPherson Trust. And this is page 1, the cover page;
14 page 60; page 107; page 108; and then the signature page.
15 And I'll hand this document to you. There looks
16 to be only two things about -- one being the LMT office
17 being operated out of Mr. Dandar's office, and I think you
18 already testified to that. Wasn't it true that the only --
19 the only thing she did at Mr. Dandar's office was try to
20 find office space for the LMT, make phone calls from there
21 for a little while?
22 A Well, we operated out of -- yes, it is true to a
23 certain degree. We did operate out of Mr. Dandar's office
24 until we had our own office. So part of what I was doing
25 was -- you know, Mr. Dandar let us work out of his office
0878
1 to find our office.
2 Q Okay. And there was something else in that
3 segment about a check going to Mr. Spector?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Do you know who Mr. Spector is? Can you tell the
6 Court?
7 A He's been in the courtroom, your Honor. He's
8 Mr. Dandar's videographer and a private investigator who
9 works for Mr. Dandar.
10 Q And I think the question was, Did the Lisa
11 McPherson Trust ever pay Mr. Spector for anything?
12 A Right. And I said I don't think so.
13 Q And then I think --
14 A But I had to correct that in my first recantation
15 affidavit because I found a check for $168.
16 Q Right. Well, we'll call that Exhibit 15J. And
17 that looks to be, at least to some extent -- a little bit
18 bad copy -- but at least a copy of the check to Mr. Spector
19 for $168?
20 A Correct.
21 THE COURT: From LMT?
22 MR. LIROT: Pardon me?
23 THE COURT: From LMT?
24 THE WITNESS: From LMT, yes, your Honor.
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0879
1 Q What was that check for?
2 A As I recall, it was for a copy of a videotape of
3 one of my depositions. I think that's what it was for.
4 THE COURT: Did the Church have the LMT
5 checks?
6 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Have those been produced at some
8 time?
9 MR. DANDAR: Deposition (nodding
10 affirmatively).
11 THE COURT: Okay. So these were some checks
12 pursuant to a request to produce?
13 MR. DANDAR: At the deposition of the bank.
14 THE COURT: Oh, okay. One of those ones
15 that says if -- in other words, they give you the ten
16 days to object, and if you don't object, then the
17 people send the --
18 MR. DANDAR: No --
19 THE COURT: -- documents. There's no -- no,
20 this is a deposition.
21 MR. DANDAR: It's a real deposition.
22 THE COURT: Okay. Because there wasn't
23 anything wrong with it. That check was given
24 pursuant --
25 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
0880
1 THE COURT: -- to the work that had been
2 done by him --
3 THE WITNESS: Oh.
4 THE COURT: -- for LMT --
5 THE WITNESS: Yes.
6 THE COURT: -- for you or --
7 THE WITNESS: Yes.
8 THE COURT: But you had said you didn't
9 think so and --
10 THE WITNESS: Right.
11 THE COURT: -- you were just correcting your
12 testimony.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes.
14 THE COURT: Okay.
15 BY MR. LIROT:
16 Q All right. Ms. Brooks, the next one will be 15K,
17 which appears to be excerpts of your deposition of
18 August 15th, 2001. And it has the cover page, page 1;
19 page 62; page 63; page 72; and then the signature page,
20 149. And there look to be two -- two areas highlighted
21 here. One highlighted is a question. It says: "You have
22 no statements of any, slash, no written statements by any
23 of the witnesses in this case?"
24 And your answer was: "No."
25 And then there's another highlighted part. It
0881
1 says -- your question was -- or, your answer, I guess:
2 "Why not? I don't have any reason to have any statements
3 by witnesses. I'm not involved in this case."
4 What was there you needed to recant about that?
5 Did you review those particular excerpts?
6 A Can I see that one?
7 Q Yes, you can. There was a lengthy part I want to
8 get to, but I guess I'll retrieve it back after you answer
9 the first part of my question.
10 THE COURT: I think if that's your only copy
11 you'd better make sure you get all that stuff back if
12 you're going to copy it for the clerk.
13 A Okay. Sorry.
14 BY MR. LIROT:
15 Q I haven't gotten to the second part yet, just
16 about the witness statements. Anything there that you were
17 made aware of that you needed to recant?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Okay. What was it in that particular statement
20 that you had to set the record straight on?
21 A Well, this was a document production line of
22 questioning. And this is -- I need a few pages earlier,
23 but I believe this was referring to the unedited videotape,
24 either the unedited videotape or information -- or data on
25 our hard drives. And I did have to inform the Court that
0882
1 the hard drives were removed and they've now been turned
2 over to the special master. And the unedited videotape
3 also needs to be turned over to the special master.
4 Q Okay.
5 THE COURT: I kept reading about this in
6 this series of orders signed by the judge. I don't
7 even know what they are.
8 MR. McGOWAN: I do. There were a series
9 of -- I don't know how many. They were unedited
10 videotapes at the LMT. My understanding is --
11 THE COURT: Unedited what?
12 MR. McGOWAN: Videotapes. Of what, I don't
13 know.
14 THE WITNESS: I can explain.
15 THE COURT: Okay.
16 MR. McGOWAN: But there was a body of
17 videotapes that existed. They were removed from the
18 LMT, my understanding it is, by John Merrett.
19 I have made numerous attempts to contact
20 Mr. Merrett and get those back. He was supposed to
21 call my office today. As of the lunch break, he had
22 not. We were trying to retrieve those to get them
23 into the hands of the special master. What is on
24 those, I have no idea.
25 THE COURT: Okay. Ms. Brooks, what are
0883
1 they?
2 THE WITNESS: Well, in fact the entire body
3 of unedited videotapes is the property of our
4 videographer, whose name is Mark Bunker. And a lot of
5 the unedited videotapes are things that he videoed
6 before he was doing anything with the LMT at all. But
7 some of the unedited videotape is of -- you know, it's
8 picket footage. I'm not sure what else it is, but it
9 has to do with Scientology in some way.
10 And the history of the discovery on this, to
11 my understanding is that at first Judge Moody -- and I
12 may be wrong about this, but this is my recollection.
13 At first Judge Moody had limited what should be turned
14 over just to statements by witnesses on the list. And
15 then somehow or another it got expanded to being
16 anything at all about Scientology, or at least that
17 was my understanding. And so --
18 THE COURT: Not said by a witness in this
19 case --
20 THE WITNESS: Right.
21 THE COURT: -- but just any old body --
22 THE WITNESS: Said by anybody.
23 THE COURT: Well, that would have been too
24 broad, most likely, of an order, but --
25 THE WITNESS: Well, but it was the order --
0884
1 THE COURT: Okay.
2 THE WITNESS: -- as far as I know. So, you
3 know, unfortunately, I felt that it was too broad of
4 an order, and I took it upon myself not to comply. So
5 that was the wrong thing to do. So now we're trying
6 to get the videotape back.
7 And then what we'll have to do, I think, is
8 have Mark Bunker come down here and work with the
9 special master to go through each reel of unedited
10 videotape to identify which -- which ones are relevant
11 to this proceeding and which ones really are not.
12 MR. FUGATE: Does that mean if you get them
13 back from Mr. Merrett -- I hate to interrupt.
14 But you don't have them, right?
15 MR. McGOWAN: No.
16 THE COURT: Mr. Merrett was quite a prize.
17 He was the one that used to appear by phone --
18 MR. FUGATE: Yes.
19 THE COURT: -- and on what I would consider
20 to be some fairly important matters. And to me, it's
21 difficult to deal with a lawyer on important matters
22 over the telephone.
23 But if you're suggesting -- and I don't
24 know, somebody better contact Mr. Merrett, because if
25 Mr. Merrett, knowing that there was a court order that
0885
1 said there was something to be produced -- and I
2 already heard Ms. Brooks say that Mr. Merrett said
3 leave them in the hallway, and didn't show up.
4 Mr. Merrett might find himself in some difficulty.
5 So Mr. Merrett most likely, would be my
6 guess, isn't going to have those videotapes. He's not
7 going to know what you're talking about. Maybe I'm
8 wrong. But I don't know. I just imagine that's why
9 you haven't heard from him.
10 MR. McGOWAN: I have actually heard --
11 THE COURT: He, by the way -- he, by the
12 way, is, as I said -- just all I can say is quite a
13 character. I mean, and I'm not saying that -- he just
14 walks to a different drummer.
15 MR. McGOWAN: Your Honor, with -- in hopes
16 that he would comply, in hopes that your Honor was
17 wrong about that, it was my intention to give him
18 today to do that, or at least to turn them over, and
19 if I didn't hear from him today I would get either a
20 subpoena or court order and we'd bring it to the
21 Court's attention.
22 THE COURT: Okay.
23 MR. McGOWAN: Hopefully, that won't be
24 necessary. If it is, it is.
25 THE COURT: Well, as you know, as I said,
0886
1 I'll be happy to command Mr. Merrett to appear in
2 court with anything that he took that was ordered
3 turned over by the Court and he said put out in the
4 hallway and just whisked them away. But I'm betting
5 you, he won't show up with a box for us.
6 MR. McGOWAN: Well, your Honor, I'm still
7 struggling for phone numbers. But I would --
8 MR. DANDAR: Judge, the plaintiff would love
9 for you to issue an order to have him appear in court
10 this week.
11 THE COURT: Well, you know, as I said,
12 Mr. Merrett has never -- luckily, Mr. Merrett
13 practices in Jacksonville, and I don't have to deal
14 with Mr. Merrett very often.
15 MR. DANDAR: But I have to deal with him.
16 THE COURT: I guess I was just traveling --
17 this was another Court's problem. My guess is he
18 knows what's going on here and what is being suggested
19 about these tapes. I don't know, but I expect that if
20 he ever had them, they were deep-sixed somewhere and
21 he's never going to admit it. This is my guess. Now,
22 I could be wrong.
23 THE WITNESS: I don't think so.
24 MR. DANDAR: Would you let him appear by
25 phone?
0887
1 THE WITNESS: I think he'll produce them.
2 He's out of town.
3 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
4 MR. DANDAR: Judge, would you let him appear
5 by phone?
6 THE COURT: No, I absolutely will not.
7 MR. DANDAR: All right. I mean --
8 THE COURT: I mean for what? How can he
9 bring something by the telephone?
10 MR. DANDAR: Well, he can tell you what it
11 is and where it is and why he hasn't produced it and
12 also testify in reference to the allegations
13 Ms. Brooks has made against him.
14 THE COURT: Well, he can -- what's wrong
15 with this man? Something like this, his -- his
16 practice of law has been challenged. You mean he's
17 just too damn arrogant to get in the car and come down
18 here and defend himself or --
19 MR. DANDAR: That I can't answer.
20 THE COURT: Well, that's what I sure would
21 do if I were a lawyer and I had these kind of
22 accusations being made. I would either -- I would
23 either -- but I wouldn't say: Gee, Judge, if you
24 don't mind again, once again, let me just appear on
25 the telephone. That's good enough for you.
0888
1 So, yes, I'll let him appear by phone, and
2 if his credibility is at issue, I guess I'll just have
3 to guess.
4 MR. DANDAR: (Gestured.)
5 MR. LIROT: Well, I guess --
6 THE COURT: I don't think he served his
7 client very well, what he would be appearing on, what
8 I perceived his client must have thought were some
9 fairly important matters. Over a telephone, it's
10 difficult to -- you do the best you can. But, I mean,
11 what happens is lawyers are talking and the judge
12 wants to interrupt or the other side does, and the
13 next thing you know they're still prattling. They've
14 been prattling, and you don't know even know what they
15 said. It's just not a very good way to do business in
16 an important matter.
17 I suppose Mr. Minton was paying him well,
18 and Mr. Minton would probably have paid him to come
19 down and represent him. That didn't seem to be a very
20 good thing for him to do. If he was too far away,
21 then he probably needed to retain local counsel to
22 come in.
23 BY MR. LIROT:
24 Q With that as an introduction, Judge. On page 72,
25 the question posed to Ms. Brooks:
0889
1 Question, it says: "I just want to make it very
2 clear then -- correct me if I'm wrong -- your testimony is
3 that there's not a single piece of paper in the LMT
4 building which is a statement by you or Minton or Prince
5 concerning Scientology, concerning any issue in this case,
6 or concerning Lisa McPherson. Correct?"
7 Your answer, Ms. Brooks, was: "That's correct.
8 The only place anything exists like that are in John
9 Merrett's files, which are his files."
10 Question: "So you gave some files to
11 Mr. Merrett?"
12 Answer: "Well, he -- he is in charge of all of
13 our legal files, and they have -- I believe they probably
14 have -- well, to be honest, I don't know if they do or not.
15 I asked Mr. Merrett if there was anything in his files
16 responsive, and he said no. Other than that, you know,
17 said, 'Anything in my files is a attorney work product or
18 attorney/client privilege.'"
19 Question: "So there might be some documents, but
20 you consider them to be privileged?"
21 Answer: Well, what he told me is that they were
22 legal documents and that wasn't something that I needed to
23 be concerned about in this document production."
24 And that's the conclusion of that, so I think in
25 your affidavit you put something to the effect of
0890
1 Mr. Merrett being an extension of Mr. Dandar?
2 A Not by this point. By this point, we were
3 extremely alienated from Mr. Dandar, and the relationship
4 had changed.
5 THE COURT: Between you all or between
6 Mr. Merrett and Mr. Dandar?
7 THE WITNESS: Well, Mr. Merrett representing
8 us; therefore, his relationship had changed as well.
9 BY MR. LIROT:
10 Q The next document I have is Sub Exhibit K, and
11 this is a videotaped deposition of Stacy Brooks from
12 September 7th, 2001. I have the cover page 1 --
13 THE COURT: Maybe I'm all wet here. Did I
14 not -- did I not read in an affidavit where somebody
15 alleged that Mr. Merrett said, about something that
16 was compelled or supposed to be delivered at a
17 deposition, "Just leave it outside and I'll take care
18 of it"?
19 MR. FUGATE: Yes.
20 THE COURT: Who said that, Ms. Brooks?
21 THE WITNESS: I think I said that, your
22 Honor.
23 MR. FUGATE: And that's in reference to the
24 videotapes.
25 THE COURT: That's in reference to the
0891
1 videotapes. And then they disappeared, never to be
2 seen again. And this lawyer knew that they were
3 supposed to be produced. And this lawyer said, "Leave
4 them out in the hallway, and they'll be gone"? And
5 he's going to come in and tell me that and say, "Here
6 they are, and I whisked them away so she wouldn't
7 produce them"? Well, good for him.
8 MR. LIROT: Oh, did I publish -- I'm sorry,
9 this is L.
10 BY MR. LIROT:
11 Q All right. September 7th, 2001, will be Sub
12 Exhibit 15L, and Ms. Brooks' deposition from September 7th
13 of 2001, on page 1, I have page 78, and I have the
14 signature page. And this deals with destruction of records
15 from LMT. And I'll go ahead and hand you that, Ms. Brooks.
16 And I'll ask if you reviewed that in preparing your
17 affidavit.
18 THE COURT: What is that, Counselor?
19 MR. LIROT: Judge, this is the -- an excerpt
20 from Ms. Brooks' deposition of 9/7/01, September 7th,
21 2001. And they're asking her questions about the
22 destruction of some documents at the LMT.
23 BY MR. LIROT:
24 Q And I'll go ahead and ask you, for the Court's
25 edification, just to read what the questions and answers
0892
1 are on that page.
2 THE COURT: What does it say on the front,
3 did you say?
4 MR. LIROT: It's the cover page of her --
5 it's a videotape -- it's a transcript of a videotaped
6 deposition from September 7th, 2001, of Stacy Brooks.
7 A Do you want me to read the highlighted part?
8 BY MR. LIROT:
9 Q Sure. Please. That's what I've been focusing
10 on.
11 A Question, by Mr. Moxon: "Just to clarify one
12 point you've mentioned here, since May of 2000, you
13 periodically destroyed all e-mails to and from Mr. Prince,
14 yourself, Mr. Minton, Mr. Jacobsen, Mr. Bunker, and
15 Ms. Summers that came into LMT computers?"
16 Answer: "Correct."
17 Question: "You also did that since July,
18 obviously, right?"
19 Answer: "As I said, we have a policy --"
20 Question: "Yes."
21 Answer: "-- that we do not retain records."
22 Question: "Okay. The answer is yes, you
23 destroyed everything from May to the present, and you did
24 it periodically?"
25 Answer: "Yes. Shall I read my declaration into
0893
1 the record about it?"
2 BY MR. LIROT:
3 Q Okay. Did you have such a policy?
4 A Yes.
5 Q And what was that policy?
6 A Well, our security person, whose name is Grady
7 Ward, instituted a policy with everybody, which he
8 communicated to them via several e-mails -- a whole
9 procedure that the people were supposed to follow to
10 maintain the security of their records.
11 Q And what did that have to do with destroying
12 records?
13 A Well --
14 THE COURT: Well, deleting them. Are you
15 talking about e-mails now?
16 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor, I am.
17 (The Court's judicial assistant, Mrs. Rudd,
18 entered the courtroom and spoke to the Court
19 off the record.)
20 THE COURT: Excuse me.
21 Give me just a second here.
22 For the information of the people -- I'm not
23 going to tell you who this is from, but this is
24 something from the person who apparently sent the
25 materials to me in the mail, who is most distressed
0894
1 that I was going to give those up. But I must admit,
2 I'm wondering whose -- I mean --
3 THE WITNESS: How does he know?
4 THE COURT: I don't know.
5 MR. WEINBERG: Maybe you could do something
6 of a side bar, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Well, I really can't, because
8 this is somebody is that very frightened of my giving
9 this information to counsel and indicating that she's
10 got children and she's a sitting duck and on and on.
11 And I don't know what to do with it, to tell
12 you the truth. I just am not used to getting
13 something delivered to me in the middle of a hearing.
14 Obviously, my secretary must have thought it was
15 rather important, so I'm going to take just about five
16 minutes and reflect on it, and then I'll let you all
17 know what I'm going to do with it.
18 Anybody that's here, don't send me stuff
19 unless you want me to put it in the court file.
20 That's what I do with stuff. I don't do ex parte
21 stuff. If somebody sends me stuff, it goes in the
22 court file.
23 (A break was taken at 3:05 p.m. until
24 3:22 p.m.)
25 THE COURT: Okay. I think what -- I'll put
0895
1 this in an envelope, which I'll put it back in. The
2 fear of this person, apparently, was that this
3 certified -- I mean, it always amazes me, somebody
4 sends me certified mail -- which means, in other
5 words, they know that I've got it and now -- I don't
6 know what they thought I was going to do with it.
7 Somebody is going to come along years down the road
8 and say, "What did you do with that? I don't know
9 what you're talking about."
10 They paid $9 to have this delivered to me.
11 As I say, it is a -- it's talking about some gloating
12 Internet posts made on April 7th, transferred from
13 www.altreligion-.scientology.org to www.xenu.net.
14 It says: "While there's no way to know for
15 certain who made them," I could only have -- "it could
16 only have been by someone very close to the McPherson
17 case, with intimate knowledge of the behind-the-scenes
18 goings-on because they were posted prior to all this
19 being made public. Also enclosed are direct quotes
20 from L. Ron Hubbard. They speak for themselves. It
21 might be considered that the dictates are being
22 followed precisely."
23 And then it goes on: "He with the deepest
24 pocket" -- I don't know if I read this as carefully as
25 I'm reading it now -- "He with the deepest pockets and
0896
1 most skilled lawyers and heavy-handed tactics
2 shouldn't necessarily win or lose. Justice will have
3 been served and the judicial system allowed to work as
4 it was designed and both sides are allowed to present
5 their case to twelve jurors" -- somebody doesn't know
6 the Florida system, obviously, very well -- "let the
7 chips fall where they may. Then only then will we
8 have all won."
9 And there's a quote here: "The truth is too
10 simple. It must always be arrived at through
11 complication. Blessings to you and your work and
12 life," unsigned.
13 And then there are some postings here,
14 page 1 of 40. Must have been a big night or
15 something. I don't know if that means there's 40
16 pages or what, but I've got 1 of 40 and 2 of 40.
17 And at the top it says: "Bob and Stacy in
18 court, true or," dot, dot, dot, dot. "Operation
19 Clambake forum, opinion and debate."
20 What is that? I don't even know what this
21 is. Is this what these postings are --
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
23 THE COURT: -- that everybody keeps talking
24 about? I keep telling you all, maybe one of these
25 days you all ought to invite me to go to a couple of
0897
1 these so I can look at them, because I don't go to
2 these places that have postings.
3 THE WITNESS: You don't want to.
4 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
5 Anyway, it appears there's inquiry being
6 made here as to whether or not Bob and Stacy have -- I
7 guess that being Mr. Minton and the lady right here
8 before us as we're talking about -- are going to go
9 in, and what is -- what is apparently of importance
10 that I read, the only thing that's seemingly
11 underlined -- and I believe this was the way I
12 received it: "Tomorrow morning Bob Minton will walk
13 into Wally Pope's office and suborn perjury by telling
14 all the lies Scientology asks him to" -- I don't know
15 what these little daggers, little caret marks -- "with
16 the anticipated result of bringing down the," caret
17 marks, "case."
18 So I guess that is what this was referring
19 to, that this must be somebody close to this. And
20 then there's a bunch of stuff -- I couldn't even tell
21 which side wrote this because --
22 THE WITNESS: It's hard to tell.
23 THE COURT: It's hard to tell, because on
24 the other thing -- I mean, I suppose that somebody
25 telling the group that's listening that Bob and Stacy
0898
1 are going to try to ruin this case, but then I've got
2 some stuff that sounds like it come from a -- maybe, I
3 don't know -- the Church is going to acknowledge that
4 these were supporters. But --
5 THE WITNESS: What's it say?
6 THE COURT: Well, it says: "Minton must be
7 in some deep shit. He's supposed to take the deal the
8 Church offered him. What a sucker. We always knew he
9 would roll over. How do you like your boy now? Why
10 don't you ask him" what he and Stacy -- "why he and
11 Stacy Brooks were meeting with Church officials until
12 wee hours of Sunday morning? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha."
13 THE WITNESS: Yes. This was someone who
14 obviously was following us.
15 THE COURT: "Keep idolizing Minton, but how
16 will you rationalize --"
17 I mean, I don't know. But anyway, the deal
18 is, was when I said I was going to give this to you
19 all -- oh, the last page, I'm sorry, is Ron Hubbard in
20 his own words. And there's -- I wouldn't know what it
21 was, to tell you the truth, and I don't believe I read
22 it. There is something here underlined. I wouldn't
23 even know what it meant. "Branch 5 Project, Project
24 Swirl." Anyway. And then of course there's this
25 letter.
0899
1 Now, of course, now I've got this, which
2 seems to say, "What in the hell are you thinking?"
3 And then it says: I'm the one that sent you the
4 Internet postings. I did it because" -- and the quote
5 from Ron Hubbard. "I did it because I thought it was
6 very revealing. If I were in your position, I would
7 have wanted that information."
8 Well, don't do me any favors, folks. I've
9 got all the information I could deal with.
10 And then it says: "Approximately ten days
11 ago, I had a recording of a blood-curdling,
12 terror-filled message left on my voice mail. I
13 received an e-mail with a message" -- I don't have any
14 idea what this means -- "PM exiting, and my computer
15 was" -- a word, I don't even know what it is -- "with
16 advertisements for life insurance. Unknown charges
17 have appeared on my credit card."
18 And then this next might be revealing to
19 this person if she identifies -- something personal
20 about her. She's a sitting duck. "And now you're
21 going to hand them my name" -- I wonder who "they"
22 are -- "my name and address. I'm the source of giving
23 you that info."
24 THE WITNESS: Well, your Honor, I think
25 "them" -- she thinks Scientology is going to do
0900
1 something to hurt her.
2 THE COURT: "If ever there was a case of
3 directly feeding someone to the lions, that would be
4 it. You're the judge. Use good judgment."
5 And then I suppose this was this woman's
6 name. So I've got a name, apparently. I've got a
7 name on here, and I've got this $9.09 envelope that's
8 got an address. And then I've got somebody suggesting
9 that I'm going to be feeding this person to a lion's
10 den if I -- but in essence, that's what it is.
11 I've asked my secretary to take one of these
12 copies and go talk to somebody to see if what I've got
13 from this person, anybody would know -- I mean, I
14 don't want to -- if somebody doesn't understand it,
15 let it be clear. I mean, when you give a judge
16 something, the judge generally throws it in the
17 wastebasket, files it in the court file, or gives it
18 to the lawyer, depending on the case and what the
19 import of it is or what have you.
20 I brought this up only because I figured I
21 might start getting more of these, and I thought I
22 might want you all to tell me what you wanted me to
23 do, whether you wanted a copy, whether you wanted it
24 thrown in the court file, thrown in the wastebasket.
25 Any of this would have been okay with me.
0901
1 But now that somebody suggests that if I
2 reveal this that somebody is going to be in harm's
3 way -- which I don't believe -- I'm not sure what it
4 is I should do. So I'm going to think about it
5 overnight, and maybe you all would think about it
6 overnight and give me some suggestions.
7 MR. FUGATE: Judge, obviously, if she's
8 looking to -- if I heard correctly what you read in
9 the handwritten note, that somebody was in the
10 courtroom and then left when they thought you were
11 going to reveal it. There's only one person that has
12 come and gone, and that was a blond woman, who I have
13 no idea who she was, sitting in the second row there.
14 And the only person that we saw her have contact with
15 was Mr. Jesse Prince, who was standing in the hallway.
16 So I can't tell you anything other than
17 that -- the old Florida circumstantial evidence
18 instruction -- I don't know what that means. But
19 that's what happened. I mean, obviously whoever gave
20 that to you was sitting in the courtroom and realized
21 you were going to give it up, wrote the letter and
22 took it to your J.A.
23 THE COURT: Well, it -- nonetheless, it's
24 somebody suggesting that if I give this up, they
25 can't -- as I said, it's "What in the hell are you
0902
1 thinking of?" Well, I thought I was thinking like a
2 judge.
3 But I just -- I'm just going to tell you I'm
4 going to think about this overnight. I don't -- I
5 don't know that anybody really needs to know who that
6 was. Does anybody need to know who this person was?
7 MR. LIROT: We don't need to know anything,
8 Judge.
9 THE COURT: I mean, would that --
10 MR. MOXON: Judge, we don't care who it was.
11 Our only concern is that there was an attempt to, you
12 know, influence the Court by somebody who has been
13 talking -- the woman that was talking to Mr. Lirot at
14 the last hearing and was talking to Mr. Prince in the
15 hallway.
16 THE COURT: Well, trust me.
17 MR. MOXON: I know that you wouldn't --
18 THE COURT: And you know that --
19 MR. MOXON: Of course not.
20 THE COURT: -- I get this stuff all the
21 time. When I used to be at criminal, I mean, I got
22 letters all the time: This guy needs to be put away,
23 up -- you know, hung from a tree. And this guy is a
24 wonderful fellow.
25 And I just didn't pay much attention to that
0903
1 stuff. I just usually filed it in the court file.
2 But on death penalty cases, as I said, I would have to
3 try not to read them and put them in a box and try, if
4 I did hand them out -- and there's all kinds of
5 problems.
6 This is not a death penalty case. So, as I
7 said, I just was trying to get a feel for how we might
8 want to deal with it. But I don't want somebody to --
9 they think they sent me something and now all of a
10 sudden I'm --
11 MR. MOXON: Judge, we don't care. We don't
12 care.
13 THE COURT: You don't care, nobody cares.
14 Then the best thing to do is just to tell my secretary
15 to shred this. I'll file the original in the court
16 file without the envelope, throw this thing away, that
17 hand letter away. And assuming that there's nothing
18 in here that's identifying, I'll give you copies of
19 it. But as I said, I read it more fully in court
20 today than I ever read it.
21 MR. FUGATE: Well, the only concern I have
22 Judge, and my first impulse I stated to the Court when
23 you read the first one was just throw them away. But
24 if it's someone who is providing the Court something
25 and attempting -- and I know that it won't -- to
0904
1 influence your Honor and that someone is having
2 contact with Jesse Prince, I do have a problem with
3 that. But I don't know that there's anything we're
4 going to be able to do with it based on what you've
5 got right there. And that's my concern.
6 I mean, I think that we're all here to try
7 to get this hearing over with, and the less of this,
8 the more likely we are to get it over with. But I
9 don't want to have somebody think they can come in to
10 give things to the Court to influence the Court. And
11 I think both sides ought to be instructed fairly to
12 make sure that anybody on either side keeps that from
13 happening.
14 THE COURT: But, you know, it's real hard.
15 I mean, I understand why neither side -- I mean, I've
16 been involved in this court system for 20 years.
17 People send stuff to the judge. And naturally they're
18 trying to influence them. That's why they send it. I
19 mean, that's exactly why they've sent it. They've got
20 a position, and they want you to know it.
21 Judges just aren't influenced by stuff like
22 this. If we were, we couldn't ever sit on a case. We
23 get it all the time. If somebody knew that if we got
24 something we couldn't sit on a case, I guarantee you
25 the other side that didn't want us would be sending us
0905
1 stuff to get us off the case. So it isn't that big a
2 deal. But, yes, would both sides please instruct
3 their --
4 MR. FUGATE: Gallery?
5 THE COURT: -- their folks that are -- their
6 supporters, for lack of a better word, that please
7 don't send me stuff. I mean, all I have to do is -- I
8 will file it in the court file, I will hand it out to
9 the lawyers, or I will throw it in the wastebasket,
10 depending on what the lawyers tell me they want me to
11 do in this case. And if they don't want that to
12 happen, then they really ought not to send it.
13 MR. FUGATE: Thank you, Judge.
14 THE COURT: Okay.
15 MR. LIROT: Judge, just for the record, in
16 light of what Mr. Moxon said, I was never asked about
17 anything. I've never told anybody to send anything to
18 the Court. And if anybody did ask me, I would tell
19 them absolutely under no uncertain circumstances --
20 THE COURT: I have no doubt that that is
21 true, and I have no doubt that that is true for all
22 the lawyers that appear in front of me on this case.
23 But I'm just telling you that sometimes people --
24 obviously, somebody in court didn't know that.
25 And so do I think they were trying to
0906
1 influence me? Maybe. I don't know what this means,
2 to tell you the truth. "Five years ago, Bob Minton
3 set out to destroy Scientology by funding the Lisa
4 McPherson case. Today he's made a pact with
5 Scientology to destroy the Lisa McPherson case to save
6 his own skin."
7 I mean, that kind of stuff isn't influential
8 to a judge.
9 THE WITNESS: Well, your Honor, this is
10 raging on the Internet.
11 THE COURT: Is it?
12 THE WITNESS: This whole attitude, this
13 fervent belief that Mr. Minton and I are both under
14 some sort of threat of death by Scientology and that
15 that's why we're doing this.
16 And there are a lot of people who think they
17 are really doing us a big favor by posting things like
18 that on the Internet and, you know, saying that we're
19 lying and this whole thing. I mean, the feelings are
20 very, very high. You know, people are just raging
21 about this whole issue.
22 And what you're reading there is just one
23 example of literally hundreds of postings about
24 Mr. Minton and myself and our testimony and --
25 THE COURT: Yes, there's some stuff in
0907
1 these -- I'll give these to you that are fairly long.
2 There's vulgar stuff here.
3 THE WITNESS: Very vulgar.
4 THE COURT: Very vulgar stuff. As I said,
5 if anybody thinks that's influential, it really isn't.
6 But that -- I mean, I know you all wouldn't
7 occasion this stuff to be sent to the Court. People
8 that think I need to know things, I really don't. I
9 need to know what comes from a lawyer.
10 So the best you can, pass that onto anybody
11 that might -- and the rest of it I'll just deal with
12 at the time.
13 Okay.
14 MR. LIROT: Very good, Judge.
15 THE COURT: I'm sorry that we had to have
16 that interruption, but . . .
17 BY MR. LIROT:
18 Q Ms. Brooks, I believe we left off at Exhibit 15L,
19 and I'm going to hand you what I've marked as Exhibit 15M.
20 This is the declaration of Stacy Brooks regarding records
21 retention and destruction. And it looks to be an exhibit
22 from -- it says Witness 1SB9-7-01LC, and it looks like
23 you've signed this under penalty of perjury. And that
24 looks to me to be a declaration that you prepared and
25 signed, or at least signed, about the policies of the Lisa
0908
1 McPherson Trust and document destruction.
2 What does that -- what does that paragraph say?
3 If you can, read the highlighted paragraph to the Court.
4 A "From its -- from its inception, the records
5 retention policy of the Lisa McPherson Trust has been to
6 minimize the number of records retained. Under that --"
7 THE COURT: Go slow. Remember my court
8 reporter here is doing realtime.
9 THE WITNESS: Sorry, sorry.
10 Did you get what I just said?
11 THE REPORTER: Yes.
12 A Okay. "Under that policy, all records,
13 correspondence -- correspondence, e-mails and Internet
14 postings are deleted or destroyed as soon as is practical
15 after their use has terminated, with the exception of
16 minimal archival records which are stored in digital form.
17 It is not possible to identify the records which have been
18 purged pursuant to the aforesaid policy. All records have
19 been dealt with according to that policy."
20 BY MR. LIROT:
21 Q All right. Was that true?
22 A Yes. There -- that policy did exist. And,
23 unfortunately, everybody didn't adhere to the policy.
24 There were things that were still in the office. And the
25 special master has now gone through the whole office and
0909
1 found -- I don't know what he's found, whatever he's found.
2 And also, he has the hard drives so he can -- you know, I'm
3 not really sure what there is to find, but I wouldn't be
4 surprised if there were documents and things on the
5 computers that he found that would be -- that would have
6 been responsive to whatever subpoena that was in response
7 to.
8 Q Okay. Now, the next paragraph is not
9 highlighted. And this one says: "No archival records
10 include statements of any person having knowledge of the
11 facts of the complaint or counterclaim in the case of
12 McPherson vs. Scientology. No archival records contain any
13 statement or information concerning the subject matters of
14 the aforesaid action. No archival records contain any
15 reference to any person designated as a witness in that
16 case or to any person who has knowledge of the facts of the
17 case, except a digital copy of Teresa Summers' privilege
18 records concerning" -- Marcus Quirino? Is that how you
19 pronounce his name?
20 A I would imagine.
21 Q Okay. "Are stored there, as are digital
22 duplicates of the statements of the Woodcraft family which
23 appear on the Lisa McPherson Trust Web site. Only Teresa
24 Summers has access to the records concerning Marcus
25 Quirino."
0910
1 That wasn't highlighted at all. So all that I
2 would assume would be true in your declaration. Isn't that
3 correct?
4 A I think you have the wrong idea here. The things
5 that are highlighted aren't highlighted because they're
6 false. And I think we've gone through quite a number of
7 these highlighted excerpts --
8 Q Okay.
9 A -- that I have testified clearly were true.
10 Q Okay.
11 A So I think you're misstating my testimony or
12 misstating something --
13 Q Well --
14 A -- to say that everything that's highlighted is a
15 lie.
16 Q That wasn't my statement.
17 A Well, that is I think what you said.
18 Q No. You testified that some of the things were
19 highlighted that were true. And I think at one of the
20 meetings certain things came up, and you had said, well,
21 not all of that was false. I think in testifying about
22 Mr. Rinder's discussions with you, he apparently brought
23 some things up. And you said, "Well, not everything you've
24 brought to my attention did I testify to falsely."
25 So I took it to be your description of these
0911
1 documents that these highlighted sections were sections
2 that were brought to your attention so that you could set
3 the record straight. And you don't know who highlighted
4 them, so I'm trying to find exactly what it is --
5 A That's incorrect.
6 Q What's incorrect?
7 A If that's your understanding of what I've been
8 saying, your understanding is incorrect.
9 Q Correct me. What is it exactly that was
10 highlighted in these documents?
11 A Someone's idea about things that I might need to
12 correct. It didn't -- it certainly didn't mean that I
13 might not need to correct something else.
14 Q Okay.
15 A And I certainly didn't rely on only these
16 excerpts to determine what I needed to do.
17 Q Okay.
18 A I think it's important for you to understand that
19 when we finally went --
20 And, your Honor, this is what -- this is what
21 these people that are making these postings on the Internet
22 cannot even wildly imagine could be true, what I'm about to
23 say.
24 By the time we went and spoke to Mr. Rinder on
25 Saturday, April 6th, we felt that Mr. Dandar had put us in
0912
1 a very, very, very dangerous position. And we -- we felt
2 that we could no longer trust him at all. And we were
3 confronted with a landscape of players that was so surreal,
4 because on one side, we had people that we had been working
5 with that we now no longer trusted at all. And on the
6 other hand -- and on the other side, we had Scientology,
7 that we had spent years demonizing and not trusting at all.
8 And -- and suddenly we were in a position
9 where -- and Mr. Minton will probably testify about this,
10 but I will say for myself that I had the impression from
11 Mr. Minton that he found himself in a position where the
12 world had turned upside-down, and the person that he could
13 think of that he might possibly be able to trust in the
14 world was Mike Rinder.
15 And so when we went and spoke to him and when we
16 were working with him, this was not a matter of Mike Rinder
17 directing us in any way. I need for you to understand
18 that. You won't believe me. All these people that are
19 posting these things don't believe this. But all of these
20 people that are posting these things don't believe what
21 Mr. Dandar has been doing either. And if they believed
22 what Mr. Dandar has been doing, then they would understand
23 perhaps why we found ourselves in such a surreal situation.
24 And we went to Mr. Rinder, and he was extremely
25 uncomfortable about talking to us. He was not quite sure
0913
1 what to do. But we said to him -- and this is not a
2 quote -- but basically what we said -- and Mr. Minton.
3 Basically what Mr. Minton said was:
4 I need help, and I'm in -- I'm in a situation
5 where I'm facing another contempt hearing in three days. I
6 just escaped from a contempt hearing by the skin of my
7 teeth. Judge Schaeffer was going to put me in jail, and
8 I'm facing another judge that's even madder at me than
9 Judge Schaeffer has ever been. And I don't know what to
10 do, and I need help. And how do I get myself out of this
11 situation? You know, I need to set the record straight.
12 And he had by now spoken to his attorney,
13 Mr. Howie, and Mr. Jonas had spoken to him about this case,
14 and I'm not -- I'm not getting into any substantive
15 description of what was said between him and his attorneys.
16 But I can tell you this, that -- that he felt that there
17 was nowhere else to turn for help and that Mr. Dandar was
18 willing to -- and Mr. Dandar had said this many times --
19 that Mr. Dandar was willing to let Mr. Minton go to jail
20 for the sake of this lawsuit.
21 And I was not in any way willing to let
22 Mr. Minton go to jail for the sake of this lawsuit. And I
23 don't think Mr. Dandar should have been willing to after
24 what Mr. Minton did to try to help the family. And -- and
25 Mr. Minton -- and again, he may testify differently -- but
0914
1 it was my feeling that Mr. Minton had gotten to the point
2 where if there was anybody in the world that he might be
3 able to trust to be -- to be -- to help him get out of the
4 situation that he felt Mr. Dandar had put him in, it would
5 be Mr. Rinder.
6 And I've got to tell you that that was the truth,
7 because we sat down with Mr. Rinder, and he was nothing but
8 courteous. He was nothing but -- as far as I know,
9 completely ethical about what would be acceptable in such a
10 situation for Judge Schaeffer or for Judge Baird. He was
11 very, I think, meticulous about that.
12 But he was willing to provide the documents that
13 we were asking for. We explained to him. He said, "Why
14 are you asking me?"
15 We said: "Who else are we suppose to ask? We
16 can't ask Mr. Dandar. That's for sure. We can't ask
17 Mr. Merrett. We can't even find him. You know, we've got
18 nobody on our side to help us get out of this mess. You
19 know, will you please help us?"
20 And that's what he did. So when you're talking
21 about this -- I understand that you need to impeach my
22 testimony, but you need to be straight on what exactly
23 happened here and what your partner's role in this was.
24 Q That's all I'm asking.
25 A Well, I --
0915
1 Q I just want to find out --
2 A -- want to clarify for you.
3 Q I appreciate that.
4 Okay. So you've gone over that and you've gone
5 over your declaration which we had as Exhibit M.
6 Exhibit N is a copy of the video -- or,
7 transcript of the videotaped deposition of Teresa Summers
8 of October 16th, 2001, consisting of page 1, page 52, and a
9 signature page. And apparently all this is, is asking
10 Ms. Summers about your document retrieval policies or --
11 A Right. And she said no, we don't have them.
12 Q All right. And Exhibit O is a transcript of the
13 video deposition of Robert Peterson --
14 A And he said no, we don't have one.
15 Q Fair enough. That's page 81, and he says no, you
16 don't have one.
17 Then there's the videotaped deposition of David
18 Cecere, Exhibit 15P. That's the cover page, 67, page 68,
19 and page 92, which appears to be the signature page. And
20 he asked about -- he was asked about any policy at LMT
21 concerning deleting Internet messages and a written policy.
22 He answered no.
23 Any orders to people that they must delete their
24 messages?
25 He answered no.
0916
1 And he was asked if there was any policy about
2 shredding documents, and he answered no.
3 A Okay. Well, I think that if these people would
4 have been asked the question, "Have you ever received from
5 Grady Ward instructions on what to do about your documents
6 and your electronic documents, they would have answered
7 differently. Their understanding of what a policy is was
8 different from mine.
9 Q Okay. And Exhibit Q looks to be an order signed
10 by Judge Moody, I believe, on May 15th, 2000, which I --
11 apparently is the order that the Lisa McPherson Trust shall
12 produce within ten days a person most knowledgeable to
13 testify to matters addressed in the court's ruling, et
14 cetera, and shall produce unedited videotapes in the
15 possession, custody, or control of the Lisa McPherson
16 Trust. And I think that one speaks for itself.
17 THE COURT: What are you doing? I mean,
18 Counsel --
19 MR. LIROT: I'm just going -- Judge, I'm
20 just trying to go through all these documents. It
21 will make sense when I get to the end.
22 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
23 BY MR. LIROT:
24 Q Next is the May 18th, 2000 videotaped deposition
25 I believe of the Lisa McPherson Trust, which I assume to be
0917
1 you. And this is Sub Exhibit R, May 18th. And this again
2 is obviously asking you again questions about all of these
3 videos and tapes and I guess the hard drives. This will
4 speak for itself. Is there anything else in that document
5 that comes to your attention?
6 MR. WEINBERG: I think that's Mr. Minton as
7 the representative, although I'm not positive.
8 THE WITNESS: Let me -- I think I'll be able
9 to recognize it pretty quickly.
10 MR. WEINBERG: Sorry.
11 THE COURT: It's all right.
12 THE WITNESS: That's Mr. Minton.
13 BY MR. LIROT:
14 Q Okay. So did you go through the highlighted
15 sections of this exhibit?
16 A That's Mr. Minton's testimony.
17 Q All right. Well, apparently this was part of the
18 packet provided to you, so we'll leave it in there. Did
19 you review it to make sure that there was anything you were
20 concerned about?
21 A If it was provided to me, I think it was probably
22 done in error.
23 Q Fair enough.
24 A And when -- you know, I wasn't -- I wasn't
25 interested in recanting Mr. Minton's testimony.
0918
1 Q Fair enough. Okay. The next one is 15S, it was
2 the order regarding videotapes of the Lisa McPherson Trust.
3 And apparently this is also an order signed by Judge Moody
4 on July 18th of 2000, ordering the production of any
5 unedited videos in the possession, custody, control of the
6 Lisa McPherson Trust of statements of any person presently
7 identified as a witness in this case. And it says,
8 "Mr. Minton shall further file a sworn statement that LMT,
9 Inc., searched their video files as to the entire witness
10 list of the parties and produced all segments of
11 statements --"
12 THE COURT: Counsel, slow down. I just know
13 that my court reporter is going crazy down there.
14 Slow down. We all do that when we can read. We read
15 real fast, but she's --
16 MR. LIROT: Understood, Judge.
17 THE COURT: Especially when she's doing
18 realtime.
19 MR. LIROT: Balancing these competing
20 interests, Judge.
21 THE COURT: Yes.
22 BY MR. LIROT:
23 Q And I'll pick it up at the beginning of page 2,
24 "search their video files as to the entire witness list of
25 the parties and produce all segments of statements dealing
0919
1 with Lisa McPherson, the Lisa McPherson case, the
2 defendants, and Scientology."
3 What was the significance of that order being
4 attached to the packet delivered to you?
5 A Well, this was again having to do with whether or
6 not my compliance with the discovery had been, whatever you
7 call it, false or --
8 Q Okay. Exhibit T is an order compelling document
9 production of Lisa McPherson Trust, Inc. It's signed by
10 Judge Quesada, apparently on November 20th of 2000. And
11 that looks to be pretty much identical to Judge Moody's
12 statement.
13 A Okay.
14 Q So that, again, your testimony would be that
15 that's attached --
16 THE COURT: Whoa. You don't know that
17 that's identical or not. It's a different order. It
18 may or may not be identical. I don't know if it is or
19 it isn't.
20 THE WITNESS: Well, your Honor, it has to do
21 with videotapes and documents.
22 THE COURT: Okay.
23 THE WITNESS: So that's probably why it
24 would have been included.
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0920
1 Q Okay. And then Exhibit 15V, this appears to be
2 excerpts of your deposition, Ms. Brooks, of August 15th,
3 2001. And it has page 1 and then pages 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,
4 124, 125, 127, 128, 129 --
5 THE COURT: How many pages are there?
6 MR. LIROT: -- 130 --
7 There's just a couple more, Judge.
8 -- 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, and then 149 is
9 the signature page.
10 MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, while he's -- I
11 didn't hear a U. Did you call it V or U?
12 MR. LIROT: This is U. Did I call it V?
13 MR. WEINBERG: Yes, you called it V on the
14 record. So it's U.
15 MR. LIROT: Can't even read my own
16 handwriting. I apologize.
17 A So what is your --
18 BY MR. LIROT:
19 Q And then the questions in that deposition also
20 deal with documents, videotapes, hard drives, and those
21 types of issues, correct?
22 MR. WEINBERG: Do you want her to go through
23 all the papers?
24 MR. LIROT: She can.
25 A Do -- you want me to do what?
0921
1 BY MR. LIROT:
2 Q Why don't you just take a look at that document
3 and make sure that you're aware of what it was that they
4 were providing that document for you to be aware of when
5 you asked for these documents.
6 A Okay.
7 Q All right. Would you agree that that deposition
8 testimony all centers on documents, Mr. Bunker's use of the
9 videotapes, and those issues?
10 A Well, it centers on the videotapes.
11 Q Okay.
12 THE COURT: Again, these are these
13 videotapes, and we don't even know what they are?
14 MR. LIROT: Apparently so, Judge.
15 THE WITNESS: This is unedited videotape
16 that had been ordered.
17 EXAMINATION
18 BY THE COURT:
19 Q Of maybe some pickets or --
20 A Yes. Well, it hadn't been clarified. But
21 basically what happened was we were being very -- whatever,
22 recalcitrant about turning over anything.
23 Q That is true.
24 A And so --
25 Q Like I said, I went through order after order
0922
1 after order.
2 A Yes. And so what finally Scientology said was,
3 "Look, we want -- just make them turn over the unedited
4 videotape," because -- you know, so that they -- I would
5 assume so that they could see what all there was and we
6 could stop -- and they could stop us from, you know,
7 saying, "Well, we only have edited stuff," blah, blah,
8 blah.
9 So then they made a request to the judge for the
10 unedited, raw footage so that they could look for
11 themselves. I think that's why they did it.
12 Q Well, what did it have to do with the Lisa
13 McPherson wrongful death case?
14 A Well, your Honor, I don't think it had much to do
15 with it, but -- but I never went through all the raw
16 footage, so I couldn't tell you that for sure. And I think
17 Scientology wanted to go through all the raw footage to see
18 if it did.
19 Q Okay.
20 A But that's the best of my understanding.
21 Q Were somehow some of these tapes taken and edited
22 for certain other things --
23 A Yes.
24 Q -- is that it?
25 A Yes.
0923
1 Q What were they used for?
2 A Well, for example, there were some videotapes
3 that were put up on our Web site that were -- maybe it was
4 an inner deal with someone. Or there were a couple of
5 videos that Mr. Bunker edited that one of them was sort of
6 a behind-the-scenes sort of a -- what do you call that
7 word, candid -- a candid video of me and Mr. Minton and
8 Mr. Prince and a number of other people just sitting around
9 and talking about various aspects of Scientology, that kind
10 of thing. And, you know, they wanted to see what else had
11 been said that he hadn't put in the edited version, I
12 think.
13 THE COURT: Okay.
14 CROSS-EXAMINATION (RESUMED)
15 BY MR. LIROT:
16 Q I guess the last thing in your packet was a
17 declaration of Michael Rinder, which was apparently signed
18 by Mr. Rinder or -- I don't know, it was signed by somebody
19 on October 24th, 1994. Is this the -- is this the
20 declaration -- and I guess you had a chance to review this,
21 and I'll hand it to you.
22 And this is Sub Exhibit V. Is that the
23 declaration that Mr. Rinder provided that inspired you to
24 write the responsive declaration of December 12th, 1994,
25 that we've already given to the Court?
0924
1 A Okay. First of all, I don't think that this was
2 part of the package that I was given. I don't remember
3 being given this.
4 Q Okay. Well, it was given to me as --
5 A Okay.
6 Q -- part of what was given to you. So -- I have
7 no idea. So if it wasn't, please tell me that.
8 A Well, I don't believe it was. I don't remember
9 having this turned over to me as --
10 THE COURT: Well, assuming -- whether it was
11 or it wasn't, is that the -- I mean, your declaration
12 was in response, obviously, to a declaration of
13 Mr. Rinder.
14 THE WITNESS: Yes. This is --
15 THE COURT: And you've already testified
16 about that --
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 THE COURT: -- and you indicated, where it
19 may be slanted in some regards, it was true. And your
20 declaration was saying, now, Mr. Rinder's declaration
21 was not true.
22 THE WITNESS: Right.
23 THE COURT: In part, that was what your
24 declaration was saying.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes. This is the declaration
0925
1 that I was responding to.
2 BY MR. LIROT:
3 Q Okay. Why don't you read paragraph 12 to that
4 declaration, whether you got it or not, since you've
5 already seen it.
6 A "Both of the Youngs readily agree that they could
7 easily set the record --"
8 THE COURT: Slow down for me.
9 THE WITNESS: Sorry.
10 A "Both of the Youngs readily agree that they could
11 easily set the record straight by writing new declarations
12 which would clarify the statements they had made
13 previously. Vaughn said that he did not want to write
14 anything that would be a direct contradiction to what he
15 had written earlier, but this was simply a matter of
16 interpreting things differently. He said he intended to
17 make his career as a writer and would need credibility in
18 order to obtain future jobs so wanted to do this properly."
19 Q Okay. And you don't remember if that was
20 provided to you or not in order to prepare these
21 affidavits?
22 A In fact, I -- in fact, I remember that it wasn't.
23 Q Okay. Fair enough. Now, since we've had an
24 opportunity to take a look at what was provided to you, I
25 think your testimony was that you had many meetings between
0926
1 April 9th and the 15th. And then subsequent to April 15th,
2 did you have any additional meetings with members of the
3 Church or their counsel relative to preparing the
4 affidavits that you filed in this case?
5 A I believe so.
6 Q Okay. Can you tell me when those may have been
7 after the 15th?
8 A Well, it would have been sometime after the 15th
9 and before the 29th, which was when I signed my --
10 Q Okay.
11 A -- affidavit. I think Mr. Minton signed his
12 several days earlier.
13 Q Okay. Were there a couple of days after you were
14 given these materials to digest, or did you meet the very
15 next day on April 16th? Do you remember that?
16 A I don't recall. I believe I met with my attorney
17 the next day.
18 Q Okay. And then after having received these
19 documents, you prepared I believe -- and I know we've
20 already testified to this -- you prepared an affidavit
21 of -- affidavit recanting testimony of Stacy Brooks, which
22 apparently you signed on --
23 A April 17th.
24 Q -- April 17th. So you had these documents, and
25 you had numerous meetings between the 9th and the 15th.
0927
1 And then on the 17th, you provided --
2 MR. FUGATE: Excuse me, your Honor. I just
3 object to "numerous meetings." I think she's
4 identified the meetings in past testimony.
5 THE COURT: Sustained. However many she
6 said.
7 BY MR. LIROT:
8 Q You had some meetings between the 9th and the
9 15th, and then you had some meetings after the 15th. And
10 then on the 17th, you filed your affidavit. Correct?
11 A I believe I said that on the 16th I met with my
12 attorney.
13 Q All right. And then you filed your affidavit.
14 Now, after this affidavit was filed, did you have any other
15 meetings to make sure that the affidavit was appropriate
16 for this global settlement that you were trying to
17 obtain --
18 A No.
19 Q -- with the Church of Scientology?
20 A No.
21 THE COURT: The date of the 17th is the date
22 that this affidavit was signed, actually. I'm guilty
23 of the same thing. It's filed. This is a notice of
24 filing. It's signed by Mr. McGowan. That was
25 included. And Lord knows whether it was actually
0928
1 filed then or whether it was filed on the 19th. That
2 depends on when the clerk stamped it in. So -- but
3 we're talking about when she signed it on the 17th,
4 right?
5 MR. LIROT: That's correct, your Honor.
6 THE COURT: Okay.
7 BY MR. LIROT:
8 Q Did -- after this was filed, did you have any
9 additional meetings? Did you send this affidavit to the
10 Church for approval?
11 A No.
12 Q Well, then why did you -- why did you have to
13 file the second affidavit?
14 A Because I wanted to.
15 Q All right. Well, you wanted to set the record
16 straight, and you had many meetings with -- whatever number
17 you testified to. And then you had a meeting with your
18 counsel, and then you filed one affidavit. So out of the
19 blue, you decided to file a second affidavit, which --
20 A I didn't --
21 Q Okay.
22 A -- say it was out of the blue at all.
23 Q All right.
24 A In fact, it wasn't out of the blue at all.
25 Q Well, why did you file the one and then file a
0929
1 second affidavit after that?
2 A Well, as I recall, the first affidavit Mr. Howie
3 and Mr. McGowan both felt that we needed to get a
4 recantation -- a recantation affidavit filed with both
5 Judge Schaeffer and Judge Baird. And I believe that at
6 that time there was the possibility -- I don't remember
7 what the -- I believe that at that time there was some
8 question about what was going to go forward, whether Judge
9 Schaeffer -- whether we were going to be beginning a
10 hearing before Judge Schaeffer or beginning one before --
11 or continuing one before Judge Baird.
12 But I think there was some question about what
13 was going to be happening next, and our attorneys felt that
14 it was important to let the courts see and know that we
15 were trying to cooperate with the court and that we were
16 acting in good faith and working with our attorneys to
17 correct our testimony.
18 Q Couldn't you just have been called as a witness?
19 THE COURT: Counselor, let's not be naive
20 here. I know what their lawyers were thinking. The
21 lawyers were thinking that somebody might move before
22 they moved, in which case they wouldn't recant; it
23 would be too late. They would be charged with
24 perjury, a third-degree felony. I suspect; I don't
25 know that. But that's, if I were a lawyer, what I
0930
1 would be thinking. We'd better get something in
2 there.
3 THE WITNESS: I believe that's basically
4 correct.
5 THE COURT: Yes. They said we need to just
6 get something filed, and then we'll go back and
7 work -- maybe I'm putting words in your mouth. But
8 that's what good criminal defense lawyers do. I guess
9 maybe these civil lawyers know the same -- pretty
10 smart too.
11 MR. LIROT: Fair enough.
12 BY MR. LIROT:
13 Q And --
14 THE COURT: Maybe they called a criminal
15 lawyer. I don't know. But the deal is you've got to
16 get going before somebody comes after you. For all
17 they knew Mr. McCabe might come up pounding or I might
18 start some proceeding, in which case it's too late.
19 You can't recant.
20 MR. LIROT: Fair enough. Now --
21 THE COURT: Right? Mr. Fugate, you're a
22 criminal lawyer. Isn't that right?
23 MR. FUGATE: Well, that's right, and that's
24 what I understand was happening, so . . .
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0931
1 Q Now, just to go back to all the materials now,
2 most of those materials --
3 THE COURT: By the way, I'm not suggesting
4 you can't explore the fact, and maybe it's true, that
5 what you're suggesting I guess is if somebody said,
6 "This isn't good enough, you've got to write a better
7 one, we want you to write a better one," not
8 suggesting you can't explore that. But I certainly
9 know, and you would know, why the lawyers would want
10 it filed as quickly as possible.
11 MR. LIROT: I understand, your Honor.
12 BY MR. LIROT:
13 Q Look at those -- most of the documents that you
14 were provided just don't have anything to do with
15 Mr. Dandar, do they? I mean, if you look at exhibits --
16 from Exhibit K, I guess, is where they talk about the
17 Merrett files, documents of destruction, the videotapes.
18 Mr. Dandar had no idea what was on any of those videos, did
19 he?
20 A Yes.
21 Q He did?
22 A As far as I knew, he did.
23 Q How would he know?
24 A Well, he was there for some of it. He was on
25 some of the videotape --
0932
1 Q Okay. Well --
2 A -- for example.
3 Q All right. What difference would that make to
4 this wrongful death case?
5 A I -- are you asking me what was in his mind? I
6 don't know what was in his mind.
7 Q If Mr. Dandar appears in public at a vigil or
8 anything else that he might be on, what difference would
9 that have in the wrongful death case?
10 MR. FUGATE: Your Honor, I object to that as
11 testimony again. That's not been established in the
12 record that that's what the videos are of.
13 THE COURT: Assuming that's what's on the
14 video I guess is what he's saying.
15 THE WITNESS: Well, I can answer that.
16 THE COURT: It might annoy the lawyer -- it
17 might annoy the judge if the lawyer in the case was
18 out involved in what might perceived as a picket.
19 THE WITNESS: Exactly, your Honor.
20 THE COURT: But it was too late, because the
21 judge had already seen pictures.
22 THE WITNESS: But Mr. Dandar didn't want it
23 to go any further. He certainly didn't want to have
24 the courts provided with any further footage of him
25 being involved, because -- I think this has been
0933
1 covered pretty extensively from other aspects of this
2 situation. But there came a point in time where --
3 which was towards the end of -- which really began in
4 earnest towards the end of 2000 where -- where
5 Mr. Dandar wanted to do everything possible to make it
6 appear that there was no connection between Mr. Minton
7 and the case, the LMT and the case, any of us and him.
8 He was trying to distance himself from all of us as
9 much as he possibly could. He didn't want there to be
10 any connection. He didn't want the courts to see that
11 there was any kind of connection whatsoever.
12 So, you know, obviously being on a videotape
13 with all of us unsavory characters, as he came to
14 feel, would not be good for him or his case.
15 Q How -- how many videotapes are we talking about
16 in total?
17 MR. FUGATE: In the LMT or Mr. Dandar's?
18 A I believe there's several -- I believe there's --
19 maybe several hundred.
20 BY MR. LIROT:
21 Q Okay. How many of those do you know Mr. Dandar
22 was on?
23 A Oh. Maybe 15 or 20, maybe 25.
24 Q Okay. And how about the hard drives? Is there
25 any way Mr. Dandar would know what you guys at the LMT had
0934
1 on your hard drives on your computer?
2 A Only if there was any e-mail from him or anything
3 like that. Again, the issue for Mr. Dandar was only to be
4 separate from us and only to distance himself from us. It
5 was -- it would have been the same situation in any -- in
6 any of these things.
7 Q Didn't he suggest that you guys should just turn
8 over all of this stuff?
9 A No. I don't remember that.
10 Q Well, he wasn't around when Mr. Merrett told you
11 to leave the stuff in the hall, was he?
12 A No, he wasn't there that day.
13 Q And as far as all the documents and whatever else
14 disappeared, you have no -- you have no independent
15 knowledge if any of this stuff went to Mr. Dandar, do you?
16 A What?
17 Q Well, apparently there's a lot of things missing
18 here that apparently Mr. Merrett has. You don't have any
19 knowledge that Mr. Dandar has any of that material, do you?
20 A No.
21 THE COURT: I don't even know that she said
22 Mr. Merrett had it. Her testimony, I thought, was
23 that Mr. Merrett said -- maybe -- maybe I read this --
24 "Leave it in the hallway," and then it was gone. So I
25 don't know that Mr. Merrett has it. I suspect
0935
1 Mr. Merrett is going to tell us he doesn't. Now the
2 witness thinks Mr. Merrett will tell us he does.
3 THE WITNESS: Well, I can see your point.
4 THE COURT: Good.
5 MR. LIROT: Okay.
6 THE COURT: He'll want to appear in front of
7 me by phone. I can see why. I mean, you can't as a
8 lawyer tell your client that's been ordered to bring
9 something to -- by a judge to bring something, to
10 leave it out in the hallway and it'll be gone, you
11 won't have to worry about it. That would cause a
12 lawyer to be in serious trouble.
13 THE WITNESS: Well, your Honor, I can only
14 tell you that it's a very good experience for me to be
15 represented by Mr. McGowan.
16 THE COURT: Well, good.
17 BY MR. LIROT:
18 Q Now, as far as the -- was it Mr. Dandar that
19 helped you contact Mr. McGowan? Was he the introduction
20 between and you Mr. McGowan?
21 A Yes, originally when he wanted Mr. McGowan to
22 take on Jesse Prince's lawsuit against Scientology.
23 Q Okay.
24 THE COURT: Oh, my Lord, is there another
25 suit?
0936
1 THE WITNESS: No, your Honor.
2 THE COURT: Good. I hope it's not in my
3 court.
4 THE WITNESS: Mr. McGowan didn't take it.
5 THE COURT: No offense, guys, but one is
6 just all one judge can handle. My office wouldn't
7 handle any more than one.
8 BY MR. LIROT:
9 Q Now, we've gone through the documents, and
10 apparently you're familiar with what it was that you wanted
11 to say in these affidavits. Why do we have so many
12 meetings?
13 A There was a lot to talk about.
14 Q Okay. And were you being told what to put in
15 your affidavit?
16 A No.
17 Q Well, why is there so much to talk about?
18 A We had a lot to say. A lot had happened. We
19 felt really bad about what had happened. We were very glad
20 to have somebody to talk to about it. We were working with
21 our attorneys. Mr. Howie had provided a written -- what do
22 you call it? You know, he had put it in writing that it
23 was okay for us to have these meetings, and we were keeping
24 him informed and Mr. McGowan that it was happening. And it
25 wasn't any secret --
0937
1 THE COURT: Tell me about that. Mr. Howie
2 had put it in writing that it was okay for you all to
3 have these meetings. Tell me about that.
4 THE WITNESS: Well, the day of -- I believe
5 it was on the day of your hearing --
6 THE COURT: The 5th --
7 THE WITNESS: Yes, and I remember it
8 because -- because Mr. Jonas wasn't able to come down
9 for your hearing. He was going to go -- come down for
10 Judge Baird's hearing, but he wasn't able to come down
11 for yours. And so -- and Mr. Jonas at that time was
12 the only attorney who was involved in the -- well, he
13 was -- he was the attorney that had been there for the
14 March 28th to March 29th meeting. And so I believe
15 Mr. Minton had told Mr. Howie that he wanted to meet
16 with Mr. Rinder, and --
17 THE COURT: Without a lawyer.
18 THE WITNESS: Well, and that Mr. Jonas
19 wasn't going to be there that weekend. And so I think
20 the reason for it was that Mr. Howie was basically,
21 you know, saying that that would be okay. And then
22 Mr. Howie was on the phone with Mr. Minton -- well,
23 several times over that weekend, as I recall as well.
24 I don't have a copy of that --
25 THE COURT: Okay.
0938
1 THE WITNESS: -- but I believe that
2 happened.
3 BY MR. LIROT:
4 Q Well, let me ask you again about this other stack
5 of documents that was apparently provided to you and
6 Mr. Minton when Mr. Prince was with you. You were at a
7 hotel either on the beach or somewhere in Clearwater?
8 A Actually, Mr. Lirot, I don't believe that any
9 documents ever arrived while Mr. Prince was there. I
10 believe that some documents arrived before he got there at
11 Mr. Minton's request --
12 Q Okay.
13 A -- in preparation for Mr. Minton's speaking to
14 Mr. Prince.
15 Q What -- what documents were delivered to
16 Mr. Minton prior to Mr. Prince arriving in preparation for
17 Mr. Minton speaking to Mr. Prince?
18 A Mr. Minton was very concerned -- well, if I could
19 just back up briefly. Mr. Prince had told us that on the
20 day of Judge Baird's hearing on Tuesday, April 9th, he came
21 into the courtroom briefly and he wasn't -- he wasn't aware
22 of the agreement that Mr. Minton had made to recant his
23 testimony in return for a withdrawal of Scientology's
24 motion for contempt --
25 THE COURT: I'm sorry, I'm all confused. I
0939
1 thought this question had something to do with some
2 stack of documents.
3 THE WITNESS: It does.
4 THE COURT: You're going to get there for
5 me?
6 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Okay.
8 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
9 THE COURT: All right.
10 A And Mr. Prince apparently came into the courtroom
11 and heard Mr. Minton testifying and thought that he was
12 about to be put in jail. And Mr. Prince told us later that
13 he was so upset about that that he took an overdose of
14 Vistaril and drank a fifth of vodka and tried to kill
15 himself.
16 BY MR. LIROT:
17 Q Mr. Minton did or Mr. Prince did?
18 A Mr. Prince. And he told us this I believe on
19 Friday night when he came to see us at our hotel when we
20 were staying at the Adam's Mark on Clearwater Beach.
21 Q If Tuesday is the 9th, Thursday --
22 A We didn't see him until Friday.
23 Q You saw him Friday the 13th?
24 A Yes. And I believe that was the first time we
25 had seen him since the hearing on Tuesday.
0940
1 Q This is Friday the 12th, I'm sorry.
2 A Okay. And when we saw him on Friday, he was very
3 intoxicated, but we had dinner with him in the restaurant.
4 We had a good --
5 THE COURT: I'm sorry, let me just talk to
6 you for just a minute. Naturally, I've seen these
7 affidavits flying back and forth. This is the only
8 time that you saw Mr. Prince between your hearing in
9 front of Judge Baird and this intoxicated episode,
10 just this one time?
11 THE WITNESS: No, no -- well, there were --
12 there were -- there was another incident on Sunday,
13 after this Friday.
14 THE COURT: Oh, okay.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes.
16 THE COURT: This is -- all right.
17 THE WITNESS: Yes. And Sunday is what he's
18 asking me about, so I'm just trying to lead up to
19 that.
20 A But we had a good conversation on Friday night,
21 we -- Mr. Minton and I felt that we had. We felt that --
22 well, Mr. Prince said that he was very happy that we
23 were -- that we had initiated settlement talks with
24 Scientology, that he really wanted to be a part of that
25 settlement, that -- that he didn't want to have anything
0941
1 more to do with this litigation, and he was -- what he was
2 saying that night -- and this is what he had said for
3 months prior to this too -- was that he wanted to work with
4 us to bring that about. And we told him that we were --
5 well, actually, we didn't tell him that night.
6 Then on Sunday, we saw Mr. Prince again. Now --
7 BY MR. LIROT:
8 Q Well, let me ask you --
9 A This is where the documents came up.
10 Q Let me slow you down a little bit. So Friday
11 Mr. Prince comes up, and he tells you that he's so
12 disappointed with whatever happened, what he heard
13 Mr. Minton testify to in front of Judge Baird on the 9th,
14 that he left to go kill himself? Is that your testimony?
15 A He may have -- he may have told me that over the
16 telephone.
17 Q Okay.
18 A I believe we made reference to it on Friday, but
19 I believe he had already told us that.
20 Q All right. And your testimony was that --
21 A And it wasn't that he was so disappointed. He
22 was frightened for Mr. Minton, is what he said to us.
23 Q He was frightened for Mr. Minton --
24 A Yes.
25 Q -- or Mr. Prince was frightened he would go to
0942
1 jail?
2 A What he -- the impression I got was that he was
3 frightened for Mr. Minton.
4 Q Okay. So Mr. Minton's recanting his earlier
5 testimony in the hearing in front of Judge Baird, and he
6 cares so much for Mr. Minton that he leaves in the middle
7 of the hearing, before the end of the hearing?
8 A Yes, he left before the middle. He didn't stay
9 very long.
10 Q And it depressed him to the point where he
11 subsequently made a phone call to you or communicated with
12 you in some fashion saying that "I was so depressed with
13 what I heard that I decided to take an overdose." I don't
14 know what you referred to, some pharmaceutical drug or
15 something like that?
16 A Yes. I believe it's an antianxiety medication,
17 if I'm not mistaken.
18 Q And he mixed that with a quart of vodka? A
19 fifth? I'm sorry.
20 A Well, what he said, I mean, his girlfriend has a
21 prescription for Vistaril. He said he took her Vistaril,
22 took enough pills that he thought that if he also drank it
23 with a fifth of vodka, it would kill him. That's what he
24 told me.
25 Q Okay. And that would have been that Tuesday, and
0943
1 then did you hear from him between that Tuesday and the
2 Friday that he met with you at the hotel?
3 A I'm not sure I heard from him again until after
4 Wednesday, and I spoke to him on the phone. And that's
5 when he told me what had happened --
6 Q Okay.
7 A -- and how upset he had been at what he thought
8 he was looking at. So I spent quite a bit of time with him
9 on the telephone explaining to him that he was mistaken
10 about that, that in fact Mr. Minton was -- was stepping
11 forward to correct his testimony in return for
12 Scientology's withdrawing their motion for contempt.
13 And when I spoke to Jesse about it on the phone
14 either Wednesday or Thursday -- I think it was Wednesday --
15 he was very, very happy about that. He was very relieved
16 and -- or at least he acted like he was.
17 And then on Friday, as I said, we had a good talk
18 with him. He was a little -- he wasn't acting like
19 himself, we didn't feel. And he was -- he was obviously
20 either on some medication or had been drinking and seemed a
21 bit fragile. So we had a talk with him. We told him about
22 what we were doing.
23 As I said, he was very happy. Actually, what he
24 specifically said was, "Well, I'm really glad about what
25 you're doing, because I choose life." That was his
0944
1 statement, "I choose life." And what I understood him to
2 mean by that was he wanted his life back. He didn't want
3 to be involved in this litigation any longer.
4 And so -- so we were very hopeful about that.
5 Jesse was a very good friend of both of ours, and we
6 knew -- I was aware of the fact that Jesse had quite a bit
7 of false testimony, because I had sat in at least two of
8 his depositions, that I knew -- although I hadn't reviewed
9 his testimony, I knew from my memory that -- that Jesse had
10 some things that he needed to correct as well.
11 So Mr. Minton, I believe, asked for the hearing
12 before Judge Schaeffer where Judge Schaeffer had -- because
13 Mr. Dandar had told us about this -- where Judge Schaeffer
14 had -- I'm not sure exactly what she said, but the
15 impression we had from what Mr. Dandar had told us was that
16 Judge Schaeffer had said that Mr. Prince's credibility was
17 questionable because of his bias and that she didn't
18 believe that he was so afraid of Scientology that that was
19 how come he had withdrawn or -- anyway.
20 And then she had said -- well, at least what
21 Mr. Dandar had said was that Judge Schaeffer had said that
22 she couldn't imagine why Mr. Dandar would want Jesse Prince
23 as his expert, but if he did, she would certainly help him
24 with that in some way or whatever, and if she had to put
25 him in jail to keep him here for his testimony, she would.
0945
1 Anyway, something like that. That's what Mr. Dandar had
2 said to Mr. Minton.
3 THE COURT: I remember. That's all
4 accurate, except I don't remember saying I would put
5 him in jail. But I think Mr. Dandar reflected what I
6 said pretty well.
7 THE WITNESS: Well, I'll tell you, your
8 Honor, we really had the feeling that you were going
9 to put all of us in jail.
10 THE COURT: Well, I found out where the six
11 years came from. That was about the first time I met
12 you all. And I was real annoyed because Mr. Minton
13 wasn't showing up for a deposition, and you all wanted
14 sanctions. And I said: You all don't know how I
15 play. This is how I play. I'm not going to find
16 somebody who could pay the money. You know, as far as
17 I'm concerned, we'll put him in jail and if he wants
18 to stay there for six years, it wouldn't matter to me.
19 THE WITNESS: There you go. I knew you said
20 that.
21 THE COURT: Well, Mr. Minton always appeared
22 at depositions, I guess, because nobody asked me to
23 put him in jail for that except for one unsworn
24 contempt.
25 THE WITNESS: Yes.
0946
1 BY MR. LIROT:
2 Q See, I think you testified --
3 THE COURT: I don't recall that he didn't
4 show up at a deposition. I recall other things.
5 MR. FUGATE: The deposition he didn't show
6 up to was in front of Judge Baird, I think is what --
7 THE COURT: Okay.
8 THE WITNESS: Yes, not in front of you.
9 THE COURT: Right. As I said, he must have
10 taken heed for that.
11 THE WITNESS: Oh, he did. He did. That's
12 why we're here.
13 BY MR. LIROT:
14 Q So --
15 A So Mr. Minton asked -- I believe Mr. Rinder, I
16 assume it was Mr. Rinder -- if he could get a copy of that
17 transcript. And --
18 Q This is all on Friday the 12th?
19 A No, no, no. This is Sunday.
20 Q Well --
21 A This is Sunday, because Jesse was going to come
22 back over. Jesse had called and said that he wanted to
23 come over and see us on Sunday. And we were really glad,
24 you know, come over and have dinner or whatever.
25 Q So that's Sunday the 14th. Well, on the 13th he
0947
1 meets with you at the hotel?
2 A No, on Friday.
3 Q On Friday the 12th, correct. And he meets with
4 you. And were you in the restaurant at the time, or did
5 he --
6 A Yes.
7 Q -- come up to your room?
8 A I believe at that -- on Friday -- I met them both
9 downstairs, as I recall. Actually, I may have been -- I
10 may have joined them -- I think I may have arrived at the
11 hotel and joined them downstairs, so I don't know --
12 Q Okay. When you say that, was it Jesse and his
13 girlfriend and Mr. Minton?
14 A Unh-unh (negative).
15 Q Or just Jesse and Mr. Minton?
16 A Just Mr. Prince and Mr. Minton.
17 Q Okay. So they were already downstairs either in
18 the restaurant or someplace else, not in the room?
19 A Right, right. We met in the bar. They were just
20 waiting for me to go in to dinner.
21 Q Okay. And apparently this was -- Jesse is
22 already aware that Mr. Minton is taking a certain change of
23 position relative to the Church. And then --
24 THE COURT: He knew that on the 9th when he
25 was in court.
0948
1 MR. LIROT: Exactly, Judge.
2 THE WITNESS: He knew that before.
3 THE COURT: Well, he certainly knew it as of
4 that night.
5 THE WITNESS: For sure, but he had known it
6 for months, your Honor.
7 BY MR. LIROT:
8 Q Well, how did he know about it for months?
9 A Well, not -- I should say for a couple of months.
10 Because he knew that we were initiating settlement.
11 Q How did he know?
12 A I had told him. I think Mr. Minton had also told
13 him. He was very excited. He was happy. He said great.
14 You know, he wanted to -- this is what he told us. He
15 wanted to be a music manager, he didn't want to do this
16 litigation anymore, he wanted his life back. And he said
17 many, many times to Mr. Minton that he was really glad that
18 this was happening.
19 Q When did you first start to talk to him about
20 this issue?
21 A Probably in -- somewhere in the middle of 2001.
22 Q So you're saying about June 2001, you were
23 already telling Mr. Prince that you had decided that you
24 were going to set the record straight and try to get
25 yourself extricated from all of this litigation?
0949
1 A No. In at least August of 2001, I was telling
2 Mr. Prince that I thought the wrongful death case was badly
3 off the rails, that it was endangering Mr. Minton. I
4 didn't talk to him about why, but I told him -- I told him
5 that I wanted to contact Ms. Liebreich and --
6 THE COURT: Ms. who?
7 THE WITNESS: Ms. Liebreich, the --
8 THE COURT: Oh, yes, okay. Yes.
9 A So Mr. Prince was aware. And Mr. Prince was also
10 saying to me and to Mr. Minton as early as August 2001 that
11 he also didn't want anything to do with the wrongful death,
12 he didn't want anything to do with Ken Dandar, he was very
13 upset with Ken Dandar for the affidavit that Mr. Dandar had
14 Jesse sign after -- in order to -- because Mr. Dandar
15 wanted to file the severe sanctions motion. He was
16 extremely upset about what Mr. Dandar had done at that
17 time.
18 BY MR. LIROT:
19 Q Okay. So at least he knows that you certainly
20 changed your position as of the middle of 2001 and now he
21 shows up and it's April -- April 9th, and he hears
22 Mr. Minton testifying and gets so depressed that he leaves.
23 Then on Friday, April 12th, he comes to the hotel, meets
24 Mr. Minton. You arrive. What was discussed then?
25 A Well, as I just said, we told him that we were --
0950
1 we wanted to extricate ourselves from the situation that we
2 had gotten ourselves into. Jesse was very glad. He wanted
3 us to talk to him about it. We told him -- excuse me -- we
4 told him that -- and we were a little bit gentle about
5 this, but we told him that it was, you know -- that
6 settlement couldn't occur until the record was set
7 straight.
8 And I say we were a little bit gentle about this
9 because we felt that it had been -- well, it had been a
10 very, very difficult thing for Mr. Minton and myself to
11 come forward and basically put ourselves at the mercy of
12 these two courts in order to set the record straight. And
13 based on the difficulty that we had had --
14 THE COURT: I'm sure your lawyers told you
15 that at least I as a judge, and I'm sure Judge Baird,
16 somebody is going to have to relay this information of
17 all these criminal accusations going back and forth to
18 the state attorney's office.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes, your Honor.
20 THE COURT: That certainly must be done.
21 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
22 A And we were not sure and I'm still not sure what
23 would become of us for having done this, but -- but we felt
24 that the alternative to coming forward and setting the
25 record straight was a whole lot worse. And so we felt that
0951
1 we really didn't have a choice but to do what we were
2 doing. And so --
3 Q Well -- and I guess my question would be then,
4 you told Jesse to meet you again on Sunday and that you
5 would have the statements made by Judge Schaeffer about his
6 credibility? What happened?
7 A No, Mr. Lirot, that's not what I said.
8 Q I don't know. I'm asking the question. You
9 haven't testified to that yet.
10 A Yes, I did. Yes, I did, but I'll say it again.
11 So we were -- as I was -- just to finish my last sentence,
12 we were a little bit gentle about all of this with
13 Mr. Prince because we knew or we had reason to believe that
14 it was going to be an even more difficult reversal,
15 basically, for him.
16 And so we were being a little bit gentle about
17 it, and plus the fact that he still seemed to be not fully
18 recovered from what seemed to have been a fairly serious
19 breakdown of some sort from what he had described on
20 Tuesday, and also what his girlfriend had described.
21 So --
22 Q Well, who was paying Mr. Prince at this time?
23 A Mr. Minton.
24 Q Still paying him up through April 12th?
25 A April 4th --
0952
1 Q April 4th.
2 A -- was the last check, and I actually wrote a
3 check to Dee, his girlfriend, for $588, I think, the day
4 of -- at testimony of -- or, the day of -- one of the days
5 before Judge Baird in his hearing.
6 Q Sometime before --
7 A So that was even more recent.
8 Q -- the 9th?
9 THE REPORTER: I'm sorry?
10 THE WITNESS: I said so that was even more
11 recent.
12 MR. FUGATE: I object to the interruption,
13 because I didn't hear.
14 THE COURT: I didn't either. I'm sorry,
15 wait till -- I think she wasn't quite done.
16 A What I said was that payment to her was even more
17 recent to her than April 4th. So -- so we felt that it was
18 important for Mr. Prince to understand how the Court felt
19 about his credibility and that perhaps if he understood how
20 the Court viewed his testimony that it might be a good sort
21 of an introduction for us to be able to talk to him about
22 the process of recantation. And that was the reason
23 Mr. Minton wanted to have that transcript of Judge
24 Schaeffer's -- I believe it was March 8th --
25 THE COURT: I don't know.
0953
1 A -- hearing.
2 THE COURT: It was the hearing on the severe
3 sanctions, probably, that was heard.
4 THE WITNESS: Yes, exactly.
5 A So what we had in mind was that -- because Jesse
6 had said that he wanted to come and see us. And we had
7 said that we wanted to see him, we were good friends, we
8 were glad that he wanted to see us. We suggested that we
9 have dinner together on Sunday.
10 And I believe that the package was delivered in
11 the afternoon when we were -- before Mr. Prince got there.
12 But in any case, that was the reason --
13 THE COURT: Ah, we're back now, this is
14 where the question started, the package.
15 THE WITNESS: Yes, yes.
16 THE COURT: This is the package you got.
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 THE COURT: All right.
19 MR. LIROT: So --
20 THE COURT: Don't just go on. I want to
21 hear about it now. So the documents came.
22 THE WITNESS: So the documents came.
23 THE COURT: All right.
24 A And so that was what it was. It was -- it was
25 Judge Baird -- I mean, Judge Schaeffer saying these things
0954
1 about Mr. Prince. And --
2 BY MR. LIROT:
3 Q Well, wait a minute, I'm truly confused here.
4 We're talking about --
5 THE COURT: Oh, my God, I hope we're not
6 going to have it all repeated.
7 MR. LIROT: No, no, no.
8 BY MR. LIROT:
9 Q On Friday the 12th --
10 THE WITNESS: I promise I won't.
11 THE COURT: All right.
12 BY MR. LIROT:
13 Q Friday the 12th, you have no documents. So is
14 this Sunday that these documents are provided to you?
15 A Yes --
16 Q Okay.
17 A -- the transcript of that hearing.
18 Q All right. Were there any other documents sent
19 over to Mr. Minton that he had that he pointed out to
20 Mr. Prince on Friday the 12th?
21 A Not that I know of. The --
22 MR. FUGATE: Excuse me, I object to that.
23 There's nothing in the record that documents were sent
24 over on the 12th.
25 THE WITNESS: Oh, sorry.
0955
1 MR. FUGATE: I think she's talking about
2 Sunday the 14th.
3 THE COURT: Right.
4 BY MR. LIROT:
5 Q Okay. Let me ask you this. You got your
6 documents on the 15th from Mr. Fugate. When did Mr. Minton
7 get his records? Because I believe your testimony was he
8 got his records sometime before that.
9 A I believe that wasn't my testimony. I believe my
10 testimony was pretty clear, several times, that he -- very
11 many times -- that he got his documents the same day I got
12 mine from Mr. McGowan, when Mr. McGowan was with me. I was
13 given some documents, and Mr. Minton was given some
14 documents on that day.
15 The document that he was given or provided with
16 on Sunday the 14th had nothing to do with anything except
17 getting ready to try to talk to Jesse about what he was
18 going to have to do to recant.
19 Q So --
20 A And --
21 Q And who delivered these documents?
22 A I'm not sure.
23 Q Well, who did you ask to have them delivered to
24 you from?
25 A I believe he asked Mr. Rinder.
0956
1 Q Okay.
2 A And I believe someone just left it at the desk.
3 But now we were at the Radisson Hotel.
4 Q Okay.
5 A And I believe somebody just left it at the desk.
6 But anyway, so Jesse came.
7 Q Is it safe to say somebody from the Church?
8 A I would assume.
9 Q You asked Mr. Rinder --
10 A I would assume.
11 Q Either somebody from the Church or some courier
12 service brings you over some documents, but it's at the
13 behest of Mr. Rinder?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Okay. So --
16 THE COURT: At the behest of Mr. Rinder?
17 THE WITNESS: Well, at Mr. Minton's behest
18 of Mr. Rinder, who then must have behested someone
19 else.
20 MR. LIROT: It's a repeat behest.
21 THE COURT: Okay. I got it.
22 BY MR. LIROT:
23 Q All right. So did Mr. Minton pick these
24 documents up, or did he wait until Jesse got there and then
25 you all walked over to the desk and got them? Did he have
0957
1 them before Jesse arrived?
2 A As I recall, they were in the room. That's my
3 recollection.
4 Q Okay. So you're downstairs, you arrived,
5 Mr. Prince --
6 A No, no, no. No. No, no, no, no. That was
7 Friday.
8 Q Okay.
9 A Okay. On Sunday, we had moved over to the
10 Radisson, and we were in Room 503. If you saw the posting
11 on the Internet that said where we were staying and our
12 room number, Jesse got it wrong.
13 THE COURT: He probably didn't go to the
14 Internet. I don't go to the Internet; he doesn't go
15 to the Internet. I guarantee you, probably most of
16 us -- probably nobody goes to the Internet.
17 A Well, Mr. Prince went back and informed
18 Mr. Dandar's people where we were staying and had it posted
19 on the Internet.
20 THE COURT: Well, I'm not going to attribute
21 that to Mr. Dandar. I think that there are some folks
22 here that are fairly -- what should we call them? I
23 don't know, whatever I would say. But anyway --
24 MR. LIROT: Renegades.
25 THE COURT: Well, they're -- they're --
0958
1 THE WITNESS: Loose cannons.
2 THE COURT: Yes. And I don't know why
3 anybody would want to post Mr. -- I can't imagine why
4 a lawyer would want to post Mr. Minton's room number
5 for those people.
6 THE WITNESS: Nor could I.
7 THE COURT: So, now, some of the -- I mean,
8 there's some people that feel very -- I hate to use
9 the word "rabid." It's so bad. People who feel very
10 strongly --
11 THE WITNESS: Fervent.
12 THE COURT: Fervent. You were one of them.
13 I mean, there are people that feel very fervent about
14 one side or the other, and so they say hateful things
15 about the other side. But I don't know that a lawyer
16 trying a case would necessarily want to let somebody,
17 a rabid -- a fervent person know where somebody else
18 is staying.
19 THE WITNESS: I think "rabid" is good.
20 THE COURT: Rabid. I guess somebody will
21 say that I -- I guess I can't be charged with what I
22 say in court. Fairly rabid people. They were
23 fairly -- as I said, I went back and reread some of
24 the things that Mr. Minton had said --
25 THE WITNESS: Oh, that was rabid.
0959
1 THE COURT: -- on the Internet.
2 THE WITNESS: This --
3 THE COURT: That's what I said. Whatever
4 this person sent me in the mail couldn't begin to
5 compare with some of the Internet postings, if that's
6 what you call them, that I read.
7 THE WITNESS: He regrets those, your Honor.
8 And so --
9 BY MR. LIROT:
10 Q So this is Sunday, and we're in Room 503.
11 A Right. And --
12 Q And Jesse comes up to your room?
13 A Yes. I was in the room, and Mr. Minton was in
14 the room. And Jesse came up, and I -- we were waiting for
15 him, and -- excuse me -- I was very glad to have -- that he
16 was coming over. I was worried about him.
17 And I stuck my head out the door, and I saw him
18 coming from way down the hall -- or, not the hall, but the
19 balcony thing. And I went down to the end of the balcony
20 walkway and met him. And then we came -- we walked
21 together back to the room.
22 Q Was he alone, just him?
23 A Yes.
24 Q Okay.
25 A And I was asking how he was doing and was he
0960
1 okay. He smelled like alcohol. He was very intoxicated.
2 But -- well, I just -- you know, Jesse -- well, in any
3 case, he was very intoxicated and still didn't seem like
4 himself, and he was talking a little bit slurry.
5 Q How was it left on Friday? "Jesse, come on back
6 on Sunday, and we'll have something for you to look at
7 so --"
8 A No, Mr. Lirot. You tried that before, and it's
9 not what happened.
10 Q What did happen?
11 A We had a good dinner with him on Friday night,
12 and we -- and he left. And then I tried to call him on
13 Saturday -- or, I mean, I did call him on Saturday. He
14 wasn't home. I called in the mid afternoon and spoke to
15 one of Dee's -- Dee is his girlfriend -- one of Dee's
16 children, who said that he and Dee were gone and they said
17 they weren't going to be back all day.
18 Well, then on Sunday, I -- as we were walking
19 back to the room, I said, you know, "What did you guys do
20 yesterday?"
21 And Jesse said: "Well, we were just around the
22 house all day. I was just working outside and stuff."
23 Well, then I knew he was lying because he hadn't
24 been there all day and his -- the little boy wouldn't have
25 any reason to lie. So it was my feeling when Jesse said
0961
1 that that he was lying and that there was something really
2 wrong. But, you know, I wasn't sure -- I just thought that
3 he was not in good shape. I didn't -- I didn't think that
4 he was, you know, doing -- well, in any case, so we went
5 back into our room, and we sat down and --
6 THE COURT: Are we still on trying to get
7 what these documents --
8 THE WITNESS: I'm there right now, your
9 Honor.
10 THE COURT: Okay.
11 THE WITNESS: I'm there.
12 A We sat down in the little living room part of the
13 room, and we started talking. And Jesse was seeming a
14 little bit -- just not himself. He was just not acting
15 like the person that we had known before. He was acting a
16 little bit surly, a little bit challenging. But again, he
17 was drunk, so we weren't sure why.
18 And so Bob, Mr. Minton, began to tell Mr. Prince
19 about Judge Schaeffer's -- about the hearing before Judge
20 Schaeffer. And right away, Mr. Prince got very defensive,
21 and unfortunately when he got very defensive, then
22 Mr. Minton got a little bit edgy.
23 And so then Mr. Minton said: Listen, Jesse, you
24 know, this judge is -- doesn't think you have any
25 credibility at all.
0962
1 This isn't a quote, but this is basically what he
2 was saying: Judge Schaeffer doesn't think you have any
3 credibility to you at all, and, you know, you've got to
4 read this testimony about what she said.
5 And Mr. Prince said -- and by now he was really
6 acting surly. And he said: "Well, listen, Bobby, I don't
7 feel like sitting here reading it. Why don't you read
8 it -- why don't you tell me about it," like that.
9 And so then -- I mean, you have to understand
10 that these are two guys that have been really, really good
11 friends for a long time and have been through a lot
12 together. And so for -- for Mr. Prince to be talking to
13 Mr. Minton like that was really -- you know, just stunning
14 to Mr. Minton and to me. And so -- but, you know,
15 different people react in difference ways to being stunned.
16 I react by going, "Wait a minute, what's going on?"
17 Mr. Minton reacted by getting fairly angry.
18 And so he said: "Okay. Well, let me tell you
19 what she said. She said that you don't have any
20 credibility, that she doesn't think Ken ought to use you as
21 his expert, and that she's going to put you in jail," or
22 something like that.
23 Well, at that point, Mr. Prince stood up, and he
24 said -- I don't know, something like, you know, "Nobody
25 said I'm going to jail. What are you doing saying that I'm
0963
1 going to jail?" or, you know, something like this.
2 And I said, you know, "Look, you guys, why don't
3 we go downstairs and get something to eat," because I
4 figured food would be good.
5 BY MR. LIROT:
6 Q Had Mr. Minton been drinking that day?
7 A No. No, not that I remember.
8 Q Does Mr. Minton drink?
9 A Yes, he does.
10 Q Sometimes to excess?
11 A He has.
12 THE COURT: Well, what does that have to do
13 with anything?
14 THE WITNESS: He's just trying to impeach
15 Mr. Minton.
16 THE COURT: Well, no, he's not trying to
17 impeach Mr. Minton. In fact, you know how I get at
18 the end of the day? Annoyed? That has nothing to do
19 with this, unless Mr. Minton is, A, intoxicated while
20 he's testifying or close thereto, or at the time of
21 the event. So we don't need to get into his drinking
22 habits.
23 A So we went downstairs at my suggestion. And by
24 now both Mr. Prince and Mr. Minton were very on edge. And
25 we sat down in the restaurant of the Radisson and --
0964
1 THE COURT: Have you asked a question? I
2 mean, we're just going on and on and on here. Are you
3 going somewhere? What is it you want to know? What
4 happened next? Is that it?
5 MR. LIROT: Judge, I want to know what
6 documents were referred to, and obviously I haven't
7 had much success cutting the witness off without being
8 chastised.
9 THE COURT: Well, Lord, all you have to do
10 is ask me: "Not responsive, your Honor."
11 "Sustained. Stop. We don't need any more."
12 This is your show. Run it. I don't mean
13 "show."
14 BY MR. LIROT:
15 Q What documents were in the hotel room on the 14th
16 that Mr. Minton showed Mr. Prince?
17 A As I said, the transcript of the testimony from
18 October 8th.
19 Q And that's it?
20 A I don't know of anything else.
21 Q Were there -- there wasn't a big, thick 11-inch
22 pile of documents that Mr. Minton pointed out to
23 Mr. Prince?
24 A I've got to tell you that's an hallucination,
25 Mr. Lirot.
0965
1 Q Okay. Was there any mention of the Armstrong
2 lawsuit to Mr. Prince when he was in your room on the 14th?
3 A Not that I recall.
4 Q Was there ever any mention of any threats being
5 made to Mr. Minton as part of this overall --
6 A No.
7 Q -- global settlement?
8 A No.
9 Q Okay.
10 THE COURT: This is on this last night, this
11 Sunday --
12 MR. LIROT: This is Sunday the 14th.
13 THE COURT: -- that we're talking about?
14 Okay.
15 BY MR. LIROT:
16 Q So -- so as I understand it, you point out -- or,
17 Mr. Minton summarizes Judge Schaeffer's views or statements
18 regarding Mr. Prince. And things get a little heated, and
19 you suggest everybody go downstairs and get something to
20 eat?
21 A Correct.
22 Q Okay. What happened next?
23 A Okay. So then what happened was we sat down at a
24 table. There was a woman with a young child sitting at a
25 table next to us. Mr. Prince starts -- and by now,
0966
1 Mr. Prince is having another drink, and now he's getting
2 very loud and very drunk. And he's telling -- and he's
3 sitting across from Mr. Minton, and I'm sitting, you know,
4 watching these two.
5 And Mr. Prince starts telling Mr. Minton this
6 whole story about how when -- when he was in Scientology,
7 he was awakened at 4:45 in the morning and he was summonsed
8 to Mr. Miscavige's office -- that's the head of
9 Scientology, your Honor -- and everybody was there in their
10 dress uniforms and, you know, all the head people of
11 Scientology. He named a lot of different people. And they
12 were all in the room, and they wanted him to go to the RPF.
13 That's the Rehabilitation Project Force, which is where
14 Scientology sends people when they screw up.
15 And he went back to his room, and he got a couple
16 of guns. And he brought those guns --
17 THE COURT: Is this the place that's been
18 referred to as out in the desert?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes. Well, yes, he was out at
20 INT. That's what they call it.
21 THE COURT: What was it?
22 THE WITNESS: INT, short for
23 "international."
24 THE COURT: Okay.
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0967
1 Q So he gets boisterous, and you have him thrown
2 out, right?
3 A Hang on. No, no, no, no. You have the wrong
4 story here. Absolutely that is not what happened,
5 Mr. Lirot. So then --
6 Q Let me back up. I appreciate your thoroughness
7 in responding to my questions. Why is Jesse part of this
8 deal? Why does he have to recant anything?
9 A He doesn't.
10 Q Well, why do you care about him?
11 A We cared about him a lot. He was our friend. We
12 were afraid that he was going to end up being caught
13 between these two ships, basically.
14 Q Obviously, he disagreed?
15 A He obviously -- he seems to now. He didn't act
16 like he did up until a few minutes -- I mean, I didn't
17 quite get to the part where we realized what was going on.
18 But up until a few minutes later from where I ended off the
19 story, we didn't know that.
20 And if -- if Mr. Prince doesn't want to recant,
21 if Mr. Prince doesn't want to get himself out of legal
22 trouble with the courts, that's up to Mr. Prince. We used
23 to think that it was up to us because he was our friend and
24 we've helped him out of other pretty serious legal
25 problems.
0968
1 Mr. Minton paid for his whole criminal trial when
2 he got caught with drugs. And, you know, it was sort of
3 our habit to take care of Mr. Prince when he got in
4 trouble. And we were planning on helping him again.
5 Q Was that part of this global settlement that was
6 discussed at these other meetings?
7 A Never came up. His name never came up.
8 Q What -- what do you know he said that was
9 untruthful in any testimony that he gave?
10 THE COURT: Oh, dear. I mean --
11 BY MR. LIROT:
12 Q I guess I'll ask it this way. What did he need
13 to recant?
14 THE COURT: I mean, I don't know what all
15 she knows -- I don't know if Mr. Prince has filed
16 affidavits, Mr. Prince -- I don't know if she knows
17 when he's testified, where he's been. Can we just ask
18 that in general terms? I mean, maybe he's given a
19 bundle of depositions. How many did he give?
20 MR. LIROT: I don't know if he's given any.
21 Has he given any depositions?
22 MR. DANDAR: Two depositions -- one long,
23 seven-volume deposition.
24 MR. FUGATE: And he's filed a number of
25 affidavits.
0969
1 THE COURT: Okay. Seven volumes. How many
2 pages do you suppose that is?
3 MR. LIROT: Longer than I have the energy to
4 go over today, Judge.
5 THE COURT: Who took that one? Mr. Moxon?
6 MR. MOXON: No. Mr. Dandar has a lot of
7 them.
8 THE WITNESS: I think Mr. Weinberg took one
9 of them, and Mr. Rosen took another one.
10 THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Rosen seems to be
11 longer than either of you all.
12 MR. WEINBERG: He was announced as an
13 expert. I can't remember how long it was. We took a
14 couple of days of deposition. And then a lot of time
15 passed, and there were some other depositions which I
16 didn't do, but I can't remember what the dates of them
17 were.
18 THE WITNESS: But there was one with you at
19 the --
20 MR. WEINBERG: At the Hyatt.
21 THE WITNESS: -- at the Hyatt in Tampa.
22 MR. WEINBERG: And you were there.
23 THE WITNESS: Yes.
24 BY MR. LIROT:
25 Q So --
0970
1 THE COURT: Notice I didn't ask you all to
2 give me all those depositions. Seven volumes, I can't
3 do it.
4 MR. WEINBERG: I didn't think you wanted to
5 read those.
6 THE WITNESS: No.
7 MR. DANDAR: Three full days in November of
8 '99.
9 THE COURT: Okay.
10 MR. DANDAR: Two days in May of 2000.
11 THE WITNESS: In Denver. There was one of
12 them in Denver.
13 MR. DANDAR: That's another unrelated case.
14 MR. WEINBERG: Remember, your Honor, this
15 came right after Mr. Prince filed his affidavit about
16 end cycle and all these things. And then we were
17 allowed to take his deposition. And you might
18 imagine, the case having expanded, that he became a
19 central focus as far as we were concerned.
20 THE COURT: I just said I don't want to read
21 anymore. I'm not going to ask you all anymore for all
22 the depositions because you give them to me and I get
23 frustrated when I'm halfway through and think, "Oh, my
24 God, I can't believe I said I would read all of them."
25 BY MR. LIROT:
0971
1 Q So bottom line, Jesse, he didn't take your
2 suggestion or your advice on doing anything, did he?
3 A No.
4 Q And he ended up -- he left the hotel, no deal.
5 Safe to say?
6 MR. FUGATE: Your Honor, I object to "no
7 deal." I didn't hear any conversation about a deal.
8 THE WITNESS: Right.
9 A That's really not accurate.
10 BY MR. LIROT:
11 Q All right. He left the hotel and basically said,
12 "I'm not interested in following in your path of working
13 this case out or being in any way --"
14 THE COURT: That isn't what either he said
15 or she said or Mr. Minton said.
16 THE WITNESS: No.
17 THE COURT: So the deal is, Counselor, you'd
18 better just ask her what was said. Ask her what was
19 said by Mr. Prince. And then we'll ask Mr. Minton,
20 and we'll see if we get anything close to the same.
21 Don't you try to suggest it. You weren't there.
22 MR. LIROT: I wasn't there.
23 THE COURT: Either ask --
24 MR. LIROT: I wasn't there.
25 THE COURT: Either ask or lead.
0972
1 A Do you want me to tell you?
2 BY MR. LIROT:
3 Q Tell me.
4 A Okay.
5 THE COURT: Preferably lead. But since you
6 haven't, go ahead.
7 MR. WEINBERG: Did you say "leave" or
8 "lead"?
9 THE COURT: "Lead."
10 MR. WEINBERG: I thought you meant "leave."
11 THE COURT: "Lead." Leading questions are
12 sometimes good.
13 A So Mr. Prince finished this whole story about
14 drawing these guns on these people. And then he said to
15 Mr. Minton something like, "I don't want to go down that
16 road with you, Bobby."
17 And Mr. Minton took that -- felt -- took that as
18 a threat. And he said, "What the hell are you talking
19 about, Jesse?"
20 And Jesse said, "You've become a Scientologist."
21 And that was when we understood that Jesse was
22 not with us and -- anymore. And so then some other words
23 were exchanged, and then Mr. Minton said, "You need to
24 get --"
25 Oh, oh, and this other thing that was happening
0973
1 was, he was using a lot of profanity, and Mr. Minton kept
2 asking him to stop because this woman and her child were
3 sitting right there and Mr. Prince just kept getting louder
4 and louder. And it was my feeling that he was just really,
5 really drunk.
6 And so I -- and so Mr. Minton got really mad and
7 said, "You need to get up and you need to leave this hotel
8 right now and I never want to see you again."
9 Well, okay, but he was angry, and Mr. Prince was
10 really drunk. And so I walked out with Mr. Prince to try
11 and talk to him about what had happened and, you know, get
12 him to go in and apologize to Mr. Minton.
13 But instead, Mr. Prince, as we were walking
14 towards his car, he started yelling and saying, you know --
15 you know, "Bob's never done anything for me."
16 He -- well, he was using a lot of profanity, and
17 I was just really shocked at what he was saying, because I
18 mean, you can say a lot of things about Mr. Minton, but you
19 can't say that he's not done a lot for Jesse Prince. That
20 you cannot say. And for Mr. Prince to be talking that way,
21 it was just stunning to me.
22 And so I just stopped, and I just figured that he
23 needed to go home and get some sleep and sober up.
24 Q So you took him to his car, and that was the
25 end --
0974
1 A Well, I didn't take him. He just walked on to
2 his car.
3 Q All right. And then you went back and joined
4 Mr. Minton?
5 A Yes.
6 Q All right. Now, did you speak with Mr. Prince
7 after that?
8 A Yes. The next day he called me.
9 THE COURT: Are we at a good stopping point
10 or are we about to end with this or do we have a lot
11 more?
12 MR. LIROT: Judge, after we go through this,
13 I wanted to go through the deposition -- not the
14 deposition, but the affidavit. This would be a good
15 stopping point.
16 THE COURT: The affidavit?
17 MR. LIROT: The 22-pager, and then I'm done.
18 THE COURT: Okay. All right.
19 THE WITNESS: Your Honor -- your Honor, can
20 we find out if I will be done tomorrow?
21 THE COURT: I don't think you will. I mean,
22 we just took a long time getting through one evening.
23 He's going to go through that 27-page [sic] affidavit.
24 There's a lot of stuff in there. I bet it will be
25 days.
0975
1 MR. LIROT: No, Judge, I won't make it last
2 days.
3 THE COURT: What's that?
4 MR. LIROT: I won't make it last days.
5 There are a number of questions I think are
6 relevant --
7 THE COURT: I'm not -- trust me, as I said,
8 I'm not trying to cut you short. It just seems like
9 it's taking an awful long time to get whatever it is
10 you want out.
11 So I don't know if you'll be done tomorrow
12 or not. Why? Is there somewhere you need to be the
13 next day?
14 THE WITNESS: No, your Honor.
15 THE COURT: Just tired?
16 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
17 THE COURT: If you're tired, understand
18 this. When you're done, I'm not. So there you go.
19 THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I'm sure you're a
20 lot more tired of this than I am.
21 THE COURT: All right. You can count on it.
22 We're going to stop for the day. Oh, I did
23 want to --
24 MR. McGOWAN: Judge --
25 THE COURT: Yes, we were going to talk about
0976
1 the --
2 You can step down.
3 I wanted to take up that motion, but you
4 know what? I'm tired, and I don't feel like doing
5 justice to a legal matter, so --
6 MR. McGOWAN: That's fine.
7 THE COURT: -- can we do it in the morning?
8 9 o'clock?
9 You all don't have to be here. We'll take
10 up this legal whatever it is that they want to object
11 to. Who was it who produced? They did.
12 You're all welcome to come, but if you
13 don't, this is going to be a legal argument.
14 MR. McGOWAN: What time did you tell
15 Ms. Brooks?
16 THE COURT: 9:30? Is that okay?
17 THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
18 THE COURT: Is that okay with you all? Do
19 you think half an hour, we can do the motions?
20 MR. McGOWAN: That's fine.
21 THE COURT: Well, we're going to take up
22 this motion at 9, so --
23 THE WITNESS: Better be here.
24 THE COURT: This has to do with your income
25 tax and LMT's tax returns, so you might want to be
0977
1 here for it.
2 See you all tomorrow at 9 o'clock.
3 (Court adjourned at 5:07 p.m.)
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0978
1 STATE OF FLORIDA
2 COUNTY OF PINELLAS
3 I, Debra S. (Laughbaum) Turner, Registered Diplomate
4 Reporter, certify that I was authorized to and did
5 stenographically report the foregoing proceedings and that
6 the transcript is a true record.
7 WITNESS MY HAND this 14th day of May, 2002, at
8 St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, Florida.
9
10 _________________________________
Debra S. (Laughbaum) Turner, RDR
11 Court Reporter
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