I stopped into Undernet tonight and while I knew I wouldn't be warmly received I was still very surprised by some of the charges levied against me.
The most amazing one to me was that I had turned over all my video tapes to Scientology. That is simply not true but it is seen by those accusing me to have been a clear case of treasony on my part.
If you were to look at what actually happened you would see that I was ordered by the court to turn my tapes over to the court and be put into the hands of the Special Master. The Judge then decided what from those tapes would be turned over to both sides.
I have been shooting video since 1999. Many of my tapes were shot long before the LMT ever existed. They remained at my home in L.A. When I moved to Clearwater, I had the choice of working from home or setting up my equipment in the LMT offices. I chose to work out of the LMT because I believed I wouldn't feel connected with my friends if I wasn't in the building with them.
That decision seems to have been an important legal point but it became moot because it and all the other legal issues surrounding the tapes were never aired in court.
It was important because I have always contended that the tapes belonged to me and were not the property of LMT. Certainly none of the tapes prior to the LMT's existence should have been considered LMT property and yet ultimately they were without my ever having a change to argue the point in court.
Since I moved my tapes into the LMT building, I have since been told that "they were under the control of the LMT" and should have been turned over as discovery but during the years on 2000 and 2001 none of us ever believed that was the case.
At one point I even submitted an affidavit to the court stating that the raw tapes were my property. I expected the following day to get served a subpeona by Moxon and Kobrin demanding that I turn over my tapes. That never happened. The requests continued to be made for the LMT's tapes.
When we were faxed a copy of the FACTnet injunction, everyone at the LMT felt we were about to get raided by Scientology. We felt the doors were going to be kicked open and everything seized. I asked John Merrett to takes my tapes into custody so they would be safe.
When these hearings started, the demand for the tapes reached its peak. Just as Bob was forced to answer the questions he had avoided answering time and again, I was forced to turn over the tapes.
John Merrett was called to the stand to testify about the tapes. I had talked with him the year before about the defenses we should use including jounalistic priviledges and so forth but we never had a day in court to do so. Now the judge was demanding the tapes be turned over.
I told John to take the tapes with him. The judge was in no mood to be hearing about journalistic arguments or anything else. I told him if she demanded the tapes he should turn them over. I knew they were to be turned over to the court and kept in the control of the Special Master. They were not in Scientology's hands. At least I felt they secure that they would be preserved and returned to me.
John tried to assert all the privileges and arguments we had discussed a year prior but the judge didn't want to hear any of it and had him escorted to his car to retrieve the videos from his trunk. Here is the testimony:
21 Q And the videos that you now have in yourJohn offered my assistance to sit with the special master and help organize the tapes. I did so because I felt I could help the court sort through the hundreds of hours of video. I spent five days at the Special Masters office with someone at my side as I identified the individuals and time frame of the tapes. I tried to show what tapes were shot before the LMT existed and which were shot after. None of it mattered to the court.22 possession which you claim are Mark Bunker's, are these the
23 original videos that were ordered to be produced, original
24 unedited videos?
25 A They are not videos ever ordered to be produced.
198
1 Q Are they the original unedited videos taken by2 Mark Bunker while he was working at LMT? Yes, or no?
3 A That can't be answered yes or no.
4 Q Are you denying that the videos that you took out
5 of LMT were videos that were taken by Mark Bunker, or LMT
6 employees at LMT?
7 A Well, you compounded the question up again. Can
8 you --
9 Q Can you answer it?
10 A -- ask it once more in a relatively
11 straightforward manner?
12 THE COURT: Frankly, I'm just letting this
13 fellow go. I wouldn't normally do this. I really
14 wouldn't. By now, I would have been really beside
15 myself. But I'm just going to let this go this
16 time. So just do the best you can.
17 MR. MOXON: Okay. This is why we had Judge
18 Beach at the depositions because --
19 THE COURT: Well, no, it really isn't that.
20 Normally, I wouldn't put up with this for a minute.
21 I am allowing it in this case for reasons that ought
22 to be obvious to all concerned. Apparently, they
23 are not, because I see the same behavior occurring.
24 I might suggest you just do the best you can to
25 answer his questions, compounded, uncompounded.
199
1 A The videotapes were taken by Mr. Bunker.2 BY MR. MOXON:
3 Q Okay.
4 A Many of them, he tells me, were taken prior to the
5 formation of the LMT. Many of them, he tells me, are
6 personal family videotapes.
7 Some of them are videotapes that were taken during
8 the time of his association with the LMT. They include the
9 videotapes which he edited and created videotapes which --
10 which were the source of videotapes that he created and put
11 on the LMT website, or created and turned into videotapes
12 for distribution by LMT.
13 Q By the way, Mr. Bunker doesn't have any family in
14 Clearwater, does he, or in the Clearwater area?
15 A Mmm, he has. Intermittently they have come down
16 here.
17 Q Do you possess any other videos, any other
18 unedited videos, which were taken by Mr. Bunker or any other
19 LMT employee?
20 A Other than what?
21 Q Other than what is in your possession right now?
22 A No.
23 THE COURT: Well, that is kind of a bizarre
24 question.
25 MR. MOXON: Okay.
200
1 THE COURT: Do you have any others, other than2 the one you got?
3 MR. MOXON: That is a bizarre question.
4 BY MR. MOXON:
5 Q Could we please have these videos produced now,
6 Mr. Merrett?
7 A I was attempting -- Mr. Bunker's instructions to
8 me was he was willing to have them reviewed by the special
9 master, but he asked the review by the special master be
10 coordinated with him so he can sit with the master and tell
11 him what they are. Because as I said, he tells me that many
12 of them are family and personal videotapes, and many more of
13 them date from well before the establishment of the LMT.
14 And that is --
15 MR. MOXON: Could we have --
16 A That is essentially a -- a waiver of the bulk of
17 any privilege he might otherwise be asserting.
18 THE COURT: Mr. Merrett, I'm going to order
19 you, as the judge of this court, to produce those
20 videos immediately. And if you want to honor your
21 client's wishes, you go right ahead.
22 I believe these videos have been ordered over
23 and over and over, and I am now ordering you to
24 produce them.
25 When can you do that?
201
1 THE WITNESS: To whom?2 THE COURT: Pardon me?
3 THE WITNESS: To whom?
4 THE COURT: To me. Right here. When can you
5 do that?
6 THE WITNESS: I can do that today. I would
7 like the opportunity to get in touch with Mr. Bunker
8 and explain to him what's going on and get
9 instructions from him.
10 THE COURT: You -- you may do that at your
11 peril. I want them delivered. I have decided they
12 should be delivered now. Where are they?
13 THE WITNESS: They are in my automobile, about
14 two blocks away.
15 THE COURT: Then I would suggest, if you have a
16 cell phone, you do a quick jig on the way to the car
17 to get them and bring them up here. And if you can
18 get your client en route, good for you. And if you
19 can't, and you don't want to bring them up here,
20 then tell me no. But I am ordering you to go get
21 them now and bring them to me.
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am. My client is in New
23 Hampshire.
24 THE COURT: I'm going to give you about 30
25 seconds, counselor, to get going to get those tapes.
202
1 THE WITNESS: Yes, ma'am.2 THE COURT: Madam bailiff, would you go with
3 him, please?
4 THE BAILIFF: Yes, ma'am.
5 MR. DANDAR: Do you need a cell phone?
6 MR. MOXON: Could we take a break here?
7 THE COURT: Yes. Madam bailiff, when he gets
8 those, I'll have them delivered to my office.
9 THE BAILIFF: Yes, your Honor.
10 THE COURT: I'll keep them in custody until
11 tomorrow, because I'm not thinking right just at the
12 moment but for the fact that I want the tapes.
13 We'll be in recess until those tapes are in my
14 office, which will then be locked, and we'll decide
15 what we'll do with these tomorrow. But I'm not
16 waiting for Mr. Bunker -- I mean --
17 MR. WEINBERG: What I would suggest, just for
18 identification, if he could initial and date each of
19 the tapes, then you can identify what he turned over
20 to you.
21 THE COURT: I'll initial them.
22 MR. WEINBERG: Or you can initial them.
23 (Whereupon, a recess was had from 6:05 until
24 6:25 p.m.)
As we did this, one of the people from the Special Master's office remarked "I doubt that the judge will turn any of this over. None of this is relevent." That proved to be not the case.
I later saw a print-out of what the Special Master's office had turned over to the judge and what the judge had approved to be turned over to both parties. It appeared that she turned over about 80% of what I had shot. There was a breakdown of what on each tape was copied and turned over but it was so long that it became depressing to look at so after the first few pages I stopped looking at it in detail and was never given a copy for myself.
Now I'm being attacked because "I turned my video tapes over to Scientology." I don't think that's a fair summary of the events.
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On Sun, 01 Sep 2002 15:51:47 GMT, Deana Holmes <mirele@sonic.net> wrote:
>Mark,
>
>I need to send back the lunch money that you paid for me back in 1999. I
>think $10 should about cover it. If you will kindly provide me with a
>mailing address, I will get a money order in the mail to you. If you think
>I'm going to be indebted to someone who has made a point of trashing me for
>over a year now, you've got to be kidding.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Deana M. Holmes
>mirele@sonic.net
You seem to forget that when I stopped into your undernet chat room the other night, within minutes PTSC had posted an url: http://tinyurl.com/16wk which not only showed my address but also the driving route between my house and Bob's house.
How obsessed is that to not only have looked up such information but to have saved it as a shortcut so it can be quckly accessed? And presenting it to me was to intimidate me or what? I'm trying to think of another reason but it escapes me.
I suggest that if you really need to confirm my address then you should ask the woman who feeds you most of your information because Patricia Greenway served me once here recently when she tried to sue me over the film which failed to get a single nomination for the Oscars in 2001. When she repeatedly threatened to sue me again the other night in her undernet fiefdom I advised her to use the same address.
Thank you for your kind offer to reimburse me. Its really not necessary but, if you must, you can send the ten dollars plus the $250,000 Bob sent to Dandar when you promised to keep your big yap shut. That should almost settle your bill. I'll check with Bob and Stacy and find out how much they sent you for the plane ticket to Clearwater.
Please extend best wishes to your stable of friends who must also wish to follow your lead. Inform them that Bob is ready to accept the reimbursement of $2.5 million from Patricia Greenway and the remaining $2 million from Ken Dandar.
You can include these reimbursements all in one envelope and I will drive them over to Bob personally using the route PTSC has suggested.
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