Hearing for Appointment of
Administrator Ad Litem

Bob Minton and RTC -- 13 November 2002


From: ptsc <ptsc AT nym DOT cryptofortress DOT com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Probate Court, November 13, 2002
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:26:12 -0500
Message-ID: <a3c7tu48sju0g4mmumvr7leatf8bjfpds9@4ax.com>

[Fwd from a "fly on the wall"]

Note that this concerns Minton's legal action against Lisa McPherson's
family attempting to remove Lisa McPherson's aunt, Dell Liebreich, as 
representative and appoint someone more friendly to Scientology.

http://tinyurl.com/2p08 has the petition pursuant to which yesterday's hearing
was held.

---

Today, at 2:30PM a hearing to establish Minton's standing as an "interested" 
party in the estate of Lisa McPherson, was to be heard in Probate Court. 
Minton is attempting to establish said "standing" in order to have Lisa's 
aunt, Dell Leibrich removed as Executor of the Estate via a Petition for Ad 
Litem. Ken Dandar, attny for Lisa's family filed a motion to dismiss. Probate 
Judge Greer determined that Minton must first attempt to prove his standing. 
Today's hearing was set for that purpose. Minton's attny, A. Battaglia 
arrived at the CW court house in the company of SCN's local lead Attny, Wally 
Pope. 

Closely behind was SCN's head of Flag OSA, Ben Shaw and OSA Legal, Alan 
Cartrwright, followed by the OSA gophers. Also arriving at the same time were 
several of Battaglia's paralegals. One big happy family.

Prior to the hearing and right until the moment the Judge entered the court 
room, Battaglia conferred with Ben Shaw. Notes were passed between the two 
and Alan Cartright brought books and papers over with more notations.

Minton's attny, Battaglia, has learned quickly the SCN maneuver of ignoring 
the legal practice of actually arguing the motion that was scheduled for 
today. Judge Greer started the proceeding by announcing that he didn't know 
why there were switching gears and expressed how disconcerting this action 
was.

Tom Dandar argued that Minton had no standing. Battaglia presented Minton's 
side via a Power Point presentation complete with hysterically funny clip 
art. Each time he referred to Dandar, a picture of a smiling Ken appeared on 
the screen. If he mentioned Dell Leibrich, her picture appeared. When he 
discussed his client, a smiling picture of Minton appeared. When his argument 
involved all three, all their pictures appeared complete with arrows, boxes 
and clip art cartoon hands holding fists full of cash. When he discussed 
Minton's inability to get an accounting he showed a picture of Minton with a 
giant cartoon question mark superimposed over his face (a la The Riddler). 
When Battaglia described the estate as a runaway train, the court room was 
treated to a large clip art cartoon steam engine train. The entire 
presentation was WAY too reminiscent of David Miscavige's famous 1993 event 
speech about his victory over the IRS. HE TOO used wierd little clip art 
characters in a power point style accompaniment. (Psychs were "wicked 
witches", etc)

Battaglia's presentation went on for over an hour as he showed pages and 
pages of checks and letters between Dandar and Minton. He effectively showed 
that Minton's money was a donation, when what he was trying to establish was 
a LOAN.

With all the work that went into that Power Point presentation, he was unable 
to convince the judge that when a man gives money to a lawyer, he can't all 
of a sudden go to the courts to complain how it's spent. He was not able to 
show the judge one document that showed that the loan was to Dell Leibrich. 
Instead, all the correspondence and docs were between Minton and Dandar.

Battaglia started losing his grip as the Judge reminded him that he had no 
standing or any proof and finally resorted to claiming that the estate needed 
someone in charge who would be more amenable/agreeable to the settlement 
offers from SCN.

Judge Greer will rule in the near future on this.

So, what's wrong with this picture? Comes now Minton's attny, Battaglia, to 
court in the company of and being advised by, SCN. And we're supposed to 
believe he's NOT doing SCN's work?
hah


From: "Jesse Prince" <res1cpaw@verizon.net>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Probate Court, November 13, 2002
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 14:56:28 -0500
Message-ID: <3dd3ffe7@news2.lightlink.com>


    I was at the Probate Court hearing yesterday. PTSC's report is an
accurate account of what happened except he didn't tell the whole story.

    Right after A. Battaglia finished his presentation, the judge went into
the next item which was a motion to dismiss against RTC, by Ken Dandar.
RTC filed a motion similar to the one filed by A. Battaglia.

    Ken Dandar lost a case in Texas brought by RTC, which entitled
RTC to a rather large judgment against him personally and the estate
of Lisa McPherson. Scientology wants the court to remove
Dell Leibrich as the Executor of Lisa's estate and appoint a
new Executor for the estate.

    RTC's argument was similar to the one argued by Battaglia, in that both
feel they have a legal right to protect a financial interest in the estate
of Lisa McPherson.
Ken Dandar argued in response, that like Minton, RTC had no legal standing
to
make the petition Ad Litem to the court. Ken further argued a law that I am
unfamiliar with, the gist of it being, in a wrongful death case, the slayer
can not
bring an action against the estate of the slain person.

    The judge said he wanted RTC and Ken Dandar to file arguments with  the
court within
10 days and he was ready to set a hearing for December 2, 2002, just barely
over a
month before the wrongful death trial starts.

    So on and on it goes.

    Jesse Prince


Life and Death of Lisa McPherson