IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA, IN AND FOR PINELIAS COUNTY CIVIL DIVISION
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, INC.,
Plaintiff,
vs.
CASE NO.: 00-002750-CI-20
DELL LIEBREICH, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Lisa McPherson, ROBERT MINTON, and THE LISA MCPHERSON TRUST,
Defendants.
BEFORE:THE HONORABLE W. DOUGLAS BAIRD Circuit Court Judge
REPORTED BY: ALICIA M. PEREZ Deputy Official Court Reporter Sixth Judicial Circuit Notary Public, State of Florida at Large
PLACE: Pinellas County Courthouse 315 Court Street Clearwater, Florida 33765
DATE: Tuesday,April 9, 2002
TIME: Commencing at 1O:lO a.m.
---------------------------------- CONTEMPT HEARING (continuation) ---------------------------------- Pages 1-36
ROBERT A. DEMPSTER & ASSOCIATES Official Court Reporters Post Office Box 35 Clearwater, Florida 34617-0035 (727) 464-4858 443-0992
2
APPEARANCES
FOR THE PLAINTIFF: F. WALLACE POPE, JR., ESQUIRE Johnson, Blakely, Pope, Bokor, Ruppel & Burns, P.A.
Post Office Box 1368 Clearwater, Florida 33757
SAMUEL D. ROSEN, ESQUIRE Paul, Hastings, Janofsky &
Walker, LLP 75 East 55th Street, Room 503 New York, New York 10022
FOR THE DEFENDANTS: BRUCE G. HOWIE, ESQUIRE Piper, Ludin, Howie & Werner, P.A.
5720 Central Avenue St. Petersburg, Florida 33707
THOMAS J. DANDAR, ESQUIRE Dandar & Dandar, P.A.
Post Office Box 24597 Tampa, Florida 33623-4597
LUKE CHARLES LIROT, ESQUIRE Luke CHARLES Lirot, P.A.
112 East Street, Suite B Tampa, Florida 33602
ALSO PRESENT: ROBERT MINTON
**********
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INDEX Page TESTIMONY OF ROBERT MINTON Direct Examination by Mr. Rosen. . . . . 4 Cross-Examination by Mr. Howie . . . . . 24
CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER. . . . . . . . . . . . 36
INDEX TO EXHIBITS PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT NO. 1 Photostats of checks written to Ken Dandar or Dandar & Dandar . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT NO. 2 Motion to Amend Complaint . . . . . . . 11
PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT NO. 3 Excerpts from the Deposition Testimony on October 11, 2001, of Robert Minton ... 12
PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBIT NO. 4 Excerpts from the Deposition Testimony on October 12, 2001, of Robert Minton .. 15
4 PROCEEDINGS
THE COURT: What are we doing this morning?
MR. ROSEN: Your Honor, as you know, this is the date and time set for the continuation of the contempt proceedings involving Mr. Minton.
I believe we can get this wrapped up, if I can have the Court's indulgence for a few minutes, and with the consent of Mr. Minton's counsel, Mr. Howie, I want to recall Mr. Minton to the witness stand for a few minutes to continue the testimony he gave before you earlier in the contempt proceeding and I believe that we will be able to then come to a conclusion on the contempt. So, if I could have Mr. Minton take the stand.
(THEREUPON, THE WITNESS WAS DULY SWORN BY THE COURT.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Minton, recently you engaged Mr. Howie as your counsel?
A. That's correct.
Q. Mr. Howie has, I believe, as he advised Judge Baird, he's advised you the best course of action for you is to tell the truth and to cooperate fully and honor subpoenas and court orders?
5 A. That's correct, he has told me that.
Q. And are you prepared to do that?
A. I am, sir.
Q. Mr. Minton, I'm just going to take a few 5 minutes, very short, to go over a couple of matters with you.
Item number one, with respect to the money that you paid to Mr. Dandar, Ken Dandar or his firm, to defray the expenses of the wrongful death case, you're aware that that's one of the critical issues in this case here before Judge Baird?
A. I'm aware of that.
Q. And you're aware that the amounts that had been testified to and checks produced of monies paid by you to either Mr. Dandar or his firm total approximately 1.3 million dollars?
A. Yes, sir. I'm aware of that.
MR. ROSEN: If I may approach, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr Minton, does Exhibit 1 represent photostats of checks that you wrote on your personal account and you signed -- addressed -- made out to either Dandar & Dandar or Ken Dandar for purposes of defraying the expenses of the wrongful death case?
6 A. Yes.
Q. Now, Mr. Minton, you're aware that one of the acts of contempt that you were charged with was that you were asked if there were any additional payments that you made to Mr. Dandar or his firm beyond those reflected in Exhibit 1 and that you refused to answer that question. You remember that's one of the issues of contempt?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Sir, are you prepared to answer the questions today?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would you do so. Are there any payments made by you to either Ken Dandar or his firm over and above those that 1.3 million reflected in personal checks of yours?
A. Just let me clarify one thing. The checks that you put in front of me in terms of Exhibit 1, this is a sample of those 1.3 million -- Q. All of them are not there, they are just the ones we have, but beyond the 1.3 million of personal checks that you signed made out to either Ken Dandar or Dandar & Dandar for purposes of defraying the cost, the expenses of the wrongful death case, did you, sir, provide any additional monies for that purpose to either Ken Dandar or the firm of Dandar & Dandar?
7 A. Yes, I did.
Q. Will you tell us, please, what you did?
A. I caused two checks, one in the amount of five hundred thousand dollars to be issued to I believe it was Ken Dandar and around May of 2001 and an additional check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars I caused to be issued to Mr. Dandar in February or early March, late February, early March time frame of this year.
Q. And were those checks of the same kind, mainly checks drawn on your personal account and signed by you?
A. No, sir.
Q. What kind of checks were these?
A. These were checks that were issued by Union Bank of Switzerland.
Q. The New York office of that bank?
A. No, the Zurich office. They were payable -- no, they were issued by the Geneva office of Union Bank of Switzerland. I think they were payable at Union Bank of Switzerland New York.
Q. So these are in the nature of bank checks that don't have a depositor's name on it like Robert Minton, but have the name of the bank?
A. Correct.
Q. And both of these checks, five hundred thousand andtwo hundred and fifty thousand, were made out to whom,
8 sir?
A. I believe they were both made out to Ken Dandar.
Q. Can you tell me how it came about by way of discussion with Mr. Dandar, Ken Dandar as to how you came to issue these two checks for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars total?
A. Well, sometime in Springish of 2001, Mr. Dandar said, you know, he needed money to continue with the case and basically bring the case to trial and, you know, he requested that I get him some money. And, you know, and he said that he wanted to do this in such a way that it didn't appear that the money came from me.
He mentioned several reasons why he didn't want it to appear to come from me. Number one, that the wrongful death case was getting to be extremely messy because of my financial contributions to the case.
Secondly, that he did not wish to run this money through his trust account. That he had another means of hiding this money from the Scientologists as well as some of his employees.
He mentioned specifically Michael Garko and Tom Haverty where I think Mr. Dandar was trying to, as he explained to me, trying to cut back on payments to them in order to conserve money to continue the case.
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Q. Did Mr. Dandar say anything to you on the subject of whether you should or should not disclose these payments?
A. Yes. He said, you be known that they appear from recently as March he said, you know, that these should not you and you shouldn't -- as know, I haven't revealed these payments to the Court and you shouldn't reveal them to the Court.
Q. Now, Mr. Minton, there then came a point in May of 2001 that you were served with a duces tecum subpoena for deposition in this case which then resulted in contempt proceedings, contempt order, do you remember that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. That duces tecum subpoena, and I quote from the May 22 subpoena at paragraph one, required you to produce "All documents relating to payment by you or by the Lisa McPherson Trust to Ken Dandar, Thomas Dandar or the law firm".
You did not produce anything relating to these two checks you're telling us about today did you, sir?
A. No, I didn't.
Q. Can you tell us why you did not produce them?
A. I didn't have copies of them, number one, and Mr. Dandar had asked me not to reveal that those checks came from me.
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Q. Sir, I understand you didn't have copies but as the one who caused the checks to be issued, if you wanted to get copies from the bank, you could do that, correct?
A. I didn't have a relationship with that particular institution.
Q. Okay. You then appeared in this Court on October 4th of 2001 in connection with a contempt proceeding that was originally scheduled to be your sentencing before Judge Baird, right?
A. I believe that's right.
Q. And at that time you advised Judge Baird that you would testify. You would testify honestly and purge yourself for the contempt, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. As a result of that there were -- a deposition of you was scheduled for a week later, October llth and October 12th, is that correct?
A. That's correct.
Q. Did you again, did you have any further conversation with Ken Dandar in relation to that deposition on the subject of disclosing these checks?
A. Not at that time, no.
Q. How many different times did you have conversations with Ken Dandar on the subject of not disclosing these checks?
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A. At least six or eight times.
Q. Have you now, sir, purged yourself of that contempt by fully testifyjng truthfully as to the item identified in paragraph one, namely any and all payments made to Ken Dandar, Tom Dandar or the law firm?
A. Yes, sir, I have.
Q. Let me address one other issue with you. Sir you're aware that the key issue in this case -- I shouldn't say issue, the key fact in this case is a motion to amend the wrongful death case to add five certain parties that was filed by Mr. Dandar on September 7th, 1999. Are you aware of that, that that's what this case is about?
A. Yes, I am.
MR. ROSEN: May I approach, Your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. ROSEN:
Q. Just so it's part of the same record, I have marked as Exhibit 2 a copy of that motion and it bears a date of September 7, 1999.
Now, sir, in context of the advice or instructions given to you by Judge Baird on October 4th and the advice given to you by your new counsel, Mr. Howie, you understand that to purge yourself of contempt, you must not only comply with the subpoena by showing up, but you must testify truthfully. Do you understand that?
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A. I do.
Q. Do you understand that showing up for example and giving false answers ,under oath is not a purge of contempt?
A. I do understand that.
Q. Okay. Mr. Minton, did you then appear for deposition on October 11th and October 12th?
A. I did.
Q. And during that deposition were you asked questions on this specific issue of whether you had any conversations with Ken Dandar or any other attorneys for the wrongful death point on the subject of this motion, namely adding parties to the case; were you asked those questions?
A. I was.
MR. ROSEN: May I approach, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. ROSEN: Your Honor, what I've marked as Exhibit 3 for this hearing are excerpts of the deposition of Mr. Minton taken pursuant to your order on October llth and October l2th. Exhibit 3, I believe is October llth.
BY MR. ROSEN:
Q. Mr. Minton, if you'll turn to the first page, please. At the bottom, starting on line twenty-three of
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page 393, you were asked by me specifically, did you have any discussion with Mr. Dandar at any time, meaning after November of 1997 on the subject of adding defendants in the wrongful death case and the answer you gave was no, is that right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Turning to page 395, you were asked on line seventeen, and the first you found out about it, it being the amendment to the wrongful death case, that it would complicate the case was the addition of Mr. Miscavige as a defendant, and you said yes.
And then continuing on you were asked the first you found out about this was after it had already occurred meaning after the motion had been filed and you said yes, right?
A. I said I think so.
Q. Okay. And continuing on, you were then asked by me, do you think that you had any knowledge that Mr. Dandar was looking to do or seeking to add Mr. Miscavige, do you think you had knowledge of that before the Court allowed him to be added, and you answered I might have heard about it, but I don't remember hearing about it.
And then I asked you, so you were against it? In any event you communicated to Ms. Brooks that you were not happy about it because it would complicate the case and
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you basically said yes, I mean it would add a lot of time to the case and therefore cost money. And I asked, did you communicate that to Mr. Dandar and your answer at that time was no, is that right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Turn to page 400, please.
A. Yes.
Q. And continuing on, questioning on line eleven, second sentence of the question. Do you have any reason to believe that she, Ms. Brooks, ever communicated your views, your unhappiness about Mr. Miscavige being added to anyone and you answered not that I'm aware of.
I asked you was there any reason you never communicated these views to Mr. Dandar directly. You said yes. I asked why. You said the essence of the agreement with Mr. Dandar and his representations to the Florida Bar that you would have nothing to do to control the case, is that a fair summary of that testimony?
A. That's ,right.
Q. Turning to page 401. I asked you, did you ever communicate to him, and the context is Mr. Dandar, Ken Dandar, that you weren't happy about the course of the case going up by virtue of Mr. Miscavige being added and you said no, you did not communicate that, right?
A. That's correct.
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Q. Then the deposition continued on October 12th.
May I approach, Your Honor? And Exhibit 4 is an excerpt of the transcript of that -- the deposition on that date. Let me first direct your attention to page 629.
I asked you, now did you have any input whatsoever of adding on David Miscavige to the wrongful death case and the A. That's right.
Q. Turning to page 631, and you are now being examined by Mr. Dandar, Ken Dandar, right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And Ken Dandar was present at both days of this deposition on October llth and 12th, is that right?
A. I believe he was, yes.
Q. And when I finished questioning you, Mr. Dandar then began to question you on October 12th, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And on the bottom of page 631, it was Ken Dandar who asked you the following questions: Do you know of anyone who was involved in the decision-making process to add David Miscavige or any other Scientologists or Scientology corporation to the wrongful death case, and you answered, I don't know anybody with certainty. I suppose you and Michael Garko and the Estate, Dell Liebreich discussed it. That's all I can assume.
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And then Mr. Dandar continued on line 9 to ask you, outside of the litigation team, the people who work for you, including myself and my law firm, my client, do you know of anyone else who was involved in the decision- making process to add on anybody to the wrongful death case and you answered I don't know. Is that right?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Every single one of those answers that I have just read on October 11th and October l2th were false, weren't they?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Would you now -- are you now prepared to purge yourself of that contempt and to recant that testimony, sir?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. Will you please tell us the truth as to what happened on the subject of discussions to add, to file a motion to amend to add additional church parties to the wrongful death case?
A. Well, at least the knowledge that I have of it -- Q. I'm only asking you to tell us what you have personal knowledge of, sir.
A. Sometime in July or August of -- what year was it?
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Q. The motion to amend was added September 7th. Was filed September 7th, 1999.
A. July or August of 1999 I flew into town to Tampa airport for the purpose of having a meeting at Ken Dandar's office, an important meeting which I don't remember whether at the time that I knew what the subject matter was, but I was picked up at the airport by Stacey Brooks and taken directly to Mr. Dandar's office, which was very close to the airport.
At that time, present at that meeting were myself, Stacy Brooks, Jesse Prince, Michael Garko and Ken Dandar. And this meeting went on for two or three hours and the sole purpose of the meeting was to discuss adding these additional parties to the wrongful death case.
Q. Who brought up that subject, who first suggested adding additional parties to the wrongful death case, sir?
A. Mr. Dandar.
Q. It was not you or Dell Liebreich?
A. No.
Q. Was Dell Liebreich present at this meeting either in person or by telephone?
A. No, she wasn't.
Q. And prior to this meeting -- withdraw that. Is this meeting the first time that Mr. Dandar suggested
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adding additional defendants?
A. The first time that I'm aware of, yes.
Q. Okay. And did Mr. Dandar then assert the same words of substance, I want to add additional church defendants to this case?
A. He did, and basically the other four people at the meeting gave their views starting with Dandar, Garko, Jesse Prince and Stacey Brooks and finally I was the last one to talk about it. And all four of those were strongly in favor of adding David Miscavige.
They agreed with Mr. Ken Dandar's assessment that adding David Miscavige and these other defendants would force Scientology to pay a larger amount in settlement and get them to the settlement table a lot sooner based on a strategy that they believe had worked in the past in the Fishman case which is another case entirely.
Q. When Mr. Dandar -- when Mr. Ken Dandar at this meeting suggested the strategy of adding additional defendants, church defendants, including Mr. Miscavige, what, if anything, did he say as to his thinking of the reason why he wanted to do this?
A. Well, several reasons. Number one, the two that I just stated, that this would force Scientology to the settlement table sooner, it would likely increase the
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amount of any settlement that would be agreed to and thirdly, he thought this would be a rather sensational act and generate a fair amount of interest in the case.
Q. Did Mr. Dandar say anything on the subject of whether or not, you and the other participants in this meeting could ever disclose the existence of this meeting?
A. Well, yes.
Q. Can you tell us what Mr. Dandar said on that subject?
A. Before Stacy and Jesse and I left, he told us, I think he went down in the elevator with us and walked out to the cars. He told us that, you know, we should never discuss that this meeting ever occurred in any way.
Q. And did he tell you why?
A. No. He didn't explain why. He just said this is not something that I want anybody to know about.
Q. And did you have 'any further conversations thereafter as your deposition was then approaching with Mr. Dandar on the subject of disclosing this meeting?
A. Yes.
Q. When was that?
A. Sometime prior to my deposition. I don't know exactly when.
Q. Tell us what was said.
A. But Mr. Dandar said, do you remember the
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meeting that never happened, and I said no. And he said that's the correct answer.
Q. I wanted to make one thing clear on the record, you've been providing answers with Mr. Dandar, you know we have two -- A. I'm speaking of Ken Dandar.
Q. Am I correct that all of the answers you've given which you said Mr. Dandar relate to Ken Dandar?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. When you then appeared for deposition on October llth and 12th pursuant to Judge Baird's order on the lit: and 12th of last year and you provided the answers that I read to you to the questions, both the ones that I proposed to you and the ones Ken Dandar himself proposed to you, you provided false answers because you were listening to Ken Dandar's instructions that you may not disclose the existence of this meeting?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. One other thing, sir, I want to go back to the bank checks for a moment. When you were served with the subpoena, the May 22 subpoena to produce all documents relating to payments to Ken Dandar, Thomas Dandar or the law firm, did you have any discussion with Ken Dandar on the subject of these two bank checks, whether or not they should be disclosed?
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A. I'm sorry, could you repeat that?
Q. Sure. When you were served with a deposition subpoena and you were going to be questioned about -- you knew you were going to be questioned about your payments made to Ken Dandar, Tom Dandar or Dandar & Dandar law firm, did you have any discussion with Ken Dandar as to whether you had to disclose the existence of these two bank checks, the five hundred thousand and the two fifty?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Will you tell us when that discussion was, sir?
A. This was in February sometime by telephone. I was in New Hampshire. This was after Mr. Dandar had come up with Michael Garko to visit me in New Hampshire.
Q. February of what year, sir?
A. This year.
Q. And could you tell us what was said in that meeting on this subject of your disclosing the existence of these bank checks?
A. Well, I explained to Ken Dandar that my Boston attorney, Steven Jonas, who is here in the courtroom, advised me that I should disclose those checks and Mr. Dandar said, look, I haven't disclosed these checks and you shouldn't disclose these checks. Furthermore, you know, these didn't come from you. You didn't write these checks.
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These came from Fred. Fred was a mythical man that Ken used to refer to me as when he wanted to talk about these checks.
Q. So Fred was kind of like a pet name that Mr. Dandar had for you?
A. It was a pet name for me relative to those checks.
Q. okay. And is that advice or instruction that Mr. Dandar gave you, is that the reason why you never disclosed until today the existence of t:hose two bank checks totaling seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Mr. Minton, have you now -- (do you now feel that you have purged yourself of your contempt, including your false answers as you had told Judge Baird you would do on these matters, the ones that I'm -- A. On those two matters, yes.
Q. And, sir, is it my understanding from your counsel that to the extent any further participation of you is needed by way of a deposition, a court hearing, anything else in this matter, that you are, of course, to cooperate to appear and to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, Mr. Minton, have you been promised
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anything by way of any payment, any reward -- we'll leave out rewards for the next world, for your testimony today and for setting the record straight so-to-speak with truthfully telling us what happened? Have you been promised anything?
A. I think I've been promised that if I answered truthfully and correctly that you will ask that this contempt be dismissed.
MR. ROSEN: Your Honor, at this point there are -- I would just like to enumerate for you four motions we would like to make. I'm not going to argue them now because I think that first I want to advise you of the motions and then I want to pass the witness if anybody wants to examine.
Motion number one is, it is my recommendation to the Court, I believe that this testimony is truthful, I believe that Mr. Minton has purged himself and with his commitment to cooperate and testify truthfully, it would be my recommendation that the Court withdraw its proceedings against Mr. Minton, including abating what are the ongoing orders or fines payable to the clerk of the court.
The second issue I intend to raise, the second motion is for leave to file an amended complaint against Ken Dandar, the firm of Dandar & Dandar, Mr.
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Garko, of alleged inappropriate course of action based on the testimony you heard.
The third is a motion for disqualification of Ken Dandar and his firm and the fourth is a motion to impound to the Court and not give to us, Ken Dandar and Dandar & Dandar records of bank depositories into which these funds were put. As Your Honor -- I'll address that later, I don't want these records, but we are concerned about securing them.
I will -- those are the motions I want to address, but I think it's more appropriate before Mr. Pope and I address the motions that I pass the witness and allow cross-examination.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. HOWIE:
Q. May it please the Court. Mr. Minton, pursuant to court order, did you appear for deposition yesterday at 11:OO at the law firm of Johnson, Blakely in Clearwater?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did you in fact respond to questions during the course of that deposition?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Were your responses truthful?
A. Yes. I believe we said at the end there was some clarifications that we needed to make, but yes.
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Q. And during the course of that deposition, did you refuse or fail to answer any questions propounded to you?
A. I believe I answered all the questions.
Q. Did you present documents at that deposition pursuant to the subpoena duces tecum in this case?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And generally what were the nature of the documents you presented?
A. Principally, records of payments for legal expenses related to five different cases that were specified within the subpoena.
Q. And specifically that related to paragraph two of the subpoena duces tecum?
A. That's correct.
Q. Did you present all records that you had available to you or in your possession in response to that subpoena?
A. Yes. With the exception of the checks which the Church of Scientology already had.
Q. And was there in fact a stipulation of the deposition to paragraph one of that subpoena that was satisfied?
A. Yes, that was.
Q. Do you feel that you have fully complied with
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the subpoena duces tecum at deposition yesterday?
A. I have complied with it.
MR. HOWIE: Thank you very much. No further questions.
MR. ROSEN: Your Honor, I just want to state for the record, I think Mr. Howie would agree that the deposition was adjourned yesterday. Everything Mr. Howie elicited is fully accurate except that Mr. Minton's deposition did not conclude yesterday. It needs to be continued.
` MR. HOWIE: That's correct, Your Honor.
MR. DANDAR: Your Honor, am I free to ask questions? I know this is a contempt hearing, but to bring up other matters -- may I ask questions at this time?
THE COURT: I'm not sure that you really have any standing at this point. There will certainly come a time when you will, but it appears to me that at least at this point the parties that have standing are Mr. Minton and the Church that's brought this action.
MR. DANDAR: Okay. Thank you.
MR. ROSEN: If there's no other questions, Your Honor, let me then address one or two of the motions I alluded to. Mr. Pope is going to address the
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others.
MR. HOWIE: May the witness step down?
THE COURT: Yes, sir.
MR. ROSEN: The first matter I have already addressed, Your Honor, and that is the recommendation of the Plaintiff respecting Your Honor's course of action for the outstanding contempt.
The second is a motion, my motion for leave to amend. I don't have a pleading. This has come up obviously quite suddenly. I would ask that we be allowed to amend to include claims against Ken Dandar, Dandar & Dandar, Mr. Garko.
It's obvious here, Your Honor, the abuse of process, conspiracy and tortious interference with a contract. I would ask permission 'to certainly file that amended pleading.
I would also ask, based on the testimony today, that rather than making a separate motion, that I be permitted to plead punitive damages in the amended pleadings. And then Mr. Pope has one or two matters to address.
MR. POPE: Your Honor, we filed a motion to disqualify the firm of Dandar & Dandar and the individual attorneys for misconduct. May I pass these cases up to the Court?
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MR. DANDAR: Your Honor, I would object to it.
MR. LIROT: I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Luke Lirot and I'd like to enter an appearance on behalf of Mr. Dandar.
As I understand it, the motion was simply provided to their office yesterday on April 8th. The motion doesn't set forth with any specificity what the particular allegations are. I've looked at it, it's one paragraph long. I think this Court is well familiar with the rule of pleading with specificity what the basis for disqualification is. I think the general statements do not comply with that rule.
I move ore tenus since we haven't had an opportunity to review any of this to ask that the motion be stricken, that they file a motion that provides some specificity to what it is they are alleging here today. And that we be given an opportunity to evaluate the motion.. Respond to whatever allegations they have to make before this motion is heard by the Court.
It wasn't cleared on anyone's calendar. I think in all fairness, in light of the complexity, that would be the best course of action.
MR. POPE: I can't disagree with that, Your Honor. I think he's entitled to a more detailed
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motion and I'll gladly afford it to him.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. LIROT: Thank you, Judge.
MR. POPE: May we consult with your secretary about setting a date for a hearing?
THE COURT: Oh, yeah. You got anything else?
MR. HOWIE: May it please the Court. Concerning the matter of sentencing, since the motion is withdrawn, I take it, and obviously we stipulated to that withdrawal of the motion, I did not know whether the Court would be prepared to proceed with an adjudication on the merits of the contempt or not proceed at all. Whether the motion to withdraw had been granted.
THE COURT: All right. Plaintiff has filed a motion to withdraw the contempt against Mr. Minton?
MR. ROSEN: No, Your Honor. The motion that we're making because at this point you have given us the relief that we were entitled to as the victim and what remains of the sentencing, of the penalties on the contempt, are really the Court's prerogative in terms of incarceration and payment of running fines to the clerk of the court.
I didn't believe it was appropriate for me to purport to withdraw those actions. I believe that is
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Your Honor's prerogative. We have no request for leave before Your Honor. We have nothing to withdraw.
MR. HOWIE: Given that the Court has ordered this matter for sentencing, we ask for a determination by the Court finding that pursuant to the purge provisions of the court order issued on or about March 14th, that the Court finds that Mr. Minton has in fact purged himself of contempt and that the Court will not proceed with sentence.
THE COURT: I'm going to take that under consideration. There is a lot that's gone on here over a long period of time. I have some very, obviously serious concerns about manipulation of the process and the responsibility of the parties involved.
I appreciate the fact that Mr. Minton has come up here and extensively cooperated with the Plaintiff and with the Court in getting this matter resolved, but I want to take it under consideration at this time.
MR. HOWIE: Your Honor, I would merely add that the purge provision is related directly to Mr. Minton's appearing to cooperate with the subpoena duces tecum. Simply ask the Court to consider the
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testimony presented today.
In addition, Your Honor, I have advised or we have discussed the provisions based on -- 7.07 of the Florida Statute concerning recantation. I merely wish to place on the record, protecting my client that -- what recantation that has not yet occurred as of all points will occur pursuant to affidavit or other testimony in this proceeding.
MR. ROSEN: Your Honor, I only have one thing to add to the comment that Mr. Howie made and observation made and that is as follows: My client, more than anybody else has suffered through this in terms of time and expense. I will say one thing that I think is critically important in terms of your consideration. If it weren't for Mr. Minton coming forward with his testimony, I don't think there's a chance in a million that the truth ever would have come out.
If you look at the nature of the testimony with all of our efforts of discovery, both in this case and the wrongful death case before Judge Schaeffer, there is no way on God's earth we could have, for example, discovered, found that check, those checks coming out of the Swiss bank.
There is no way we could have discovered what
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happened in this meeting that Mr. Minton testified to on the subject of amending the complaint, so to the extent that that is a relevant factor in Your Honor's consideration, I would represent that in my view, we would never have found this out but for Mr. Minton disclosing this information to you today.
THE COURT: I understand that, and I appreciate it.
MR. ROSEN: The last item that I wanted to make, we wanted to make a motion for Your Honor to order Mr. Dandar and the firm of Dandar & Dandar to immediately deposit to the Court under seal the records of the deposits, whether the depositories that money went into respecting these two checks.
We're not interested in seeing checks out of the account, we want Your Honor to see that. And the reason why I say that I don't want to see it at this point is because the Second DCA has in effect a stay order respecting our request, not of Mr. Minton, but of the Estate for production of records showing receipt of payments by anyone.
So the Estate has the protection of the stay order that it need not comply with discovery. I'm not asking for discovery, I'm asking that Your Honor order these records be impounded. I think based on
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the testimony you heard today there is certainly a more than likely, more than reasonable possibility that if you don't do that immediately, those records are going to disappear.
Your Honor, there's one part of Mr. Minton's testimony, and that is the statement that Mr. Dandar said he had a way to hide this money.
MR. LIROT: If I might respond to that. I think the appropriate motion and notice would be required. We are obviously not going to take lightly to these accusations. I assure the Court that no records will be destroyed.
In all candor, in light of the Second District Court of Appeal's decision, I think we need to look at exactly what is being asked for, but the impact of that is that no records will be destroyed. I'd like this to be noticed up and a motion filed and we'll do this appropriately with the right procedures to get this resolved.
THE COURT: I think that's the way it has to be done. This whole thing is very disturbing. Very disturbing. Just when I thought that it couldn't get any more bizarre, it gets more bizarre. Anything else?
MR. ROSEN: Can we have an order directing that
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these records, if counsel is going to take possession, we're only talking about possibly one record -- .
THE COURT: File your motion. Set it for a hearing, and we'll resolve it. These gentlemen are officers of the Court. They have been put on notice by the Court and certainly in these proceedings that these records are significant. I expect them to be retained and, you know, I would hope at the very least that there is enough professionalism that they aren't going to be destroyed or somehow damaged or disappear.
Do I have that assurance from you, Mr. Dandar?
MR. DANDAR: Yes, Your Honor. These records were requested by them a long time ago. Everything has been stayed.
THE COURT: I'm not talking about revealing them, I'm talking about destroying them.
MR. DANDAR: The records are there. The records are there. There is no intention on our part -- like I said, if I would have time to cross-examine Mr. Minton, it may clear some things up.
THE COURT: You'll have that opportunity.
MR. HOWIE: Is the status of sentencing, that is continued, or is the Court taking it under
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advisement?
THE COURT: I'm taking it under advisement.
MR. HOWIE: And therefore we should simply await final order?
THE COURT: Yes. Anything else? You need to file the appropriate motions and get them on the calendar.
I'm starting a three week jury trial, actually starting Monday. It will go I don't know how long. If need be, we may be able to work some time in and I'll talk to Claudia about that.
(THEREUPON, THE PROCEEDINGS WERE CONCLUDED AT 10:55 A.M.)
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STATE OF FLORIDA ) COUNTY OF PINELLAS ) I, ALICIA M. PEREZ,. Notary Public, State of Florida at Large, do hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings were taken before me at the time and place set forth in the caption thereof; that the proceedings were stenographically reported by me in shorthand, and that the foregoing pages, numbered 1 through 35 inclusive, is a true and correct transcription of my said stenographic report.
I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a relative or employee or attorney or counsel of any of the parties hereto, nor a relative or employee of such attorney or counsel, nor do I have any interest in the outcome or events of the action.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto affixed my official signature and seal this 10th day of April, 2002, at Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida.
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Alicia M. Perez Deputy Official Court Reporter
