On Sat, 17 Aug 2002 01:08:30 GMT, hkhenson@cogeco.ca (Keith Henson) wrote:

snip

The small claims hearing in Oakville this morning was a waste of time. The court clerk made an error and put us on as a trial instead of a motion hearing. That put us at the end of the queue when motions with lawyers there are normally first thing. When they finally got to our case Kevin A. McGivney objected to the trial date because he could not get all his witnesses together. So hearing the conflict of interest motion and the motion to compel the police to produce the documents they have claimed justified all they did was put off to Sept. 13. We were assured it would be the first on the docket that day.

I had to leave before any of this happened to appear by phone in San Jose on the NOTs contempt business.

When I was put on speakerphone Rosen had been already argued I should not be permitted to speak by phone since I was a fugitive and there were more criminal charges pending against me in Hemet. I came in with him talking to Judge Whyte about the motion to withdraw the bankruptcy in front of Judge Ware that Rosen claimed should have been in front of Judge Whyte--because they had filed a statement of related case. As I understand it, this motion is essentially the same thing the cult filed close to a year ago and Judge Whyte rejected it. My bankruptcy lawyer's reply to it I hear is really pithy, but he is on vacation and I can't get a copy to post.

According to Arel (who went as an observer) only Rosen and Kobrin showed up. One of the more amazing rants Rosen made before I came on was that I had appeared on IRC--which he represented to the judge as a criminal acronym of some sort. I have to wonder what the transcript of this hearing would cost? The parts I missed might be kind of juicy.

When I got on Judge Whyte said:

"The hearing today was just on a request by RTC for a contempt hearing." After deciding my mention of the URL on www.xenu.net in a posting. . . . . "at least with respect to the issue of an issue of facilitating someone getting a copy of NOTs 34, whether or not you had violated the injunction, I think there is enough issues there that merits an evidentiary hearing. So I was going to set a date for an evidentiary hearing today . . . but obviously for that hearing, if you wish to appear for it you are going to have to come here, you can't participate by phone."

(more in similar vein)

After talking about dates, Rosen advised the court that the motion would take 4-5 hours *if I didn't show up.* Judge Whyte expressed amazement at this time and Rosen explained he would be calling a witness to show how much money RTC had spent. Judge Whyte then said if he did find against me, what would RTC be asking for? Rosen said they would be looking for damages, "But we would also seek an order of incarceration, coercing incarceration . . . that order obviously cannot be executed because I understand Canada will not extradite on such an order, but if and when Mr. Henson returns to the States that order can be executed."

Judge Whyte wanted to know just what the point of the incarceration would be. Rosen said to be sure I would comply with the injunction. Judge Whyte was interested in what I had done to worry them, Rosen replied by bringing up NOTs 56. I am sorry to say I lost it right there and broke out laughing, apologized to Judge Whyte. Rosen ran down after a while and I mentioned to Judge Whyte that I *wrote* NOTs 56. Judge Whyte went into detail about indicating he had read my submission on the topic. Rosen responded by saying that RTC had a NOTs 56, and that it was covered by the injunction, and that the ones in Schedule B were only the ones that were registered. NOTs 56 is according to Rosen an unregistered copyrighted work. But he rambles on to agree with Judge Whyte that a parody is not a violation of the injunction.

Rosen then complained that I didn't send them a copy of NOTs 56.

I asked to speak about this, pointed the court to where it could be located on Google and told a bit about the history of NOTs 56 on the net, originally posted by Martin Hunt back in 1998.

Rosen insisted that they would have to have me in person to determine why if I wrote NOTs 56 I would be asking for a copy? I answered that I had not remembered that it was on the net and I didn't have a copy of it on this machine.

Judge Whyte than asked if I cared what date and I told him not really, he could pick any day he wanted to waste or use it on RTC. Judge Whyte really took offence at my comment.

"You get some thrill out of tweaking them?"

"Your Honour, they are so much fun to tweak."

"You don't have to answer that . . . sometimes I have trouble understanding both sides in this case. Ah . . I just find it sometimes . . . really wondering why you do what you do when the results have been what they have been.

"Your Honour, somebody has to do it."

(Long, long pause and Judge Whyte went back to setting dates with Rosen.)

I then asked if I could brief the hearing and Judge Whyte said yes, but that I would still have to show up for an evidentiary hearing to be cross examined. I explained that there were many other cases where I had pointed people to the same place on Google for years and RTC didn't gripe about those. Judge Whyte said I could have someone represent me at the hearing but that he could not take declarations in the place of live testimony. I also mentioned that the court was being used as a weapon and the budget they had of $350k to go after me.

"Mr. Henson I am not going to get into that with you now."

"Let me indicate that the reason I am issuing the order to show cause is based on the issue with respect to the facilitating of NOTs 34. Based on what I have heard today, I will also consider the 56 issue."

There was a little more about the bankruptcy case and the hearing ended.

Keith Henson