previous next

161
information, so I don't see any problem with
it. Okay?
THE WITNESS: 1969, J.D., cum laude,
graduated first in my class in law school,
Suffolk Law School in Boston. 1971, master of
law from NYU.
BY MR. HILL:
Q. And any publications to your credit?
A. I've written many articles, including one that was
cited as authoritative for the Supreme Court of the United
States.
Q. Pro bono work?
A. Where do I begin. I am a charter pro bono
mediator for the United States District Court for the 7th
District of New York. I handle about four or five cases a
year.
And in their mandatory mediation program, I
served as a charter member of that program, also a charter
member of the Eastern District of New York Federal Court
Mandatory Arbitration Program, which I serve pro bono as an
arbitrator.
I've served on many, many committees and bar
association groups, was asked by the A.B.A. to be one of, I
believe it was, four people who did the presentation on
comparative law at the joint annual meeting of the A.B.A.

162
and the Bar of the United Kingdom that was held in 1985.
I have for many years served in various
capacities with the First United States Trademark
Association and the International Trademark Association,
done pro bono work for that organization, including writing
position papers to support legislation before congress,
Amicus briefs.
I have been for, I can't even remember how many
years, one of the editors of the Trademark Reporter, which
is the law review-style publication of the International
Trademark Association.
Q. And to what state bars do you belong?
A. New York.
Q. And to how many bars of the federal district court
do you belong?
A. I have been privileged to be admitted, either full
admission or pro hac, to argue cases in -- at last
count -- 53 federal district courts or divisions, different
ones, in this country from one end of the country to the
other.
Q. And of the 13 Circuit Courts of Appeals, how many
courts are you a member of?
A. I have argued cases in 9 of the 13 United States
Courts of Appeals. I am a charter member, in fact, of the
11th Circuit Court of Appeal; when it was first

163

established, I had long been a member of the bar of the 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals.
Q. Now, all of the courts whose bars of which you are
a member of, is that by virtue of having tried cases before
those courts --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- or simply by virtue of application?
A. No, no. It's by virtue of having applied for
membership because I was actually arguing a case.
It's not, you know, an application of
admission, you just get to have a certificate if you
haven't been there. You actually need to be arguing a case
to get the admission, even pro hac.
Q. And by estimate, how many cases have you tried
over your career, Mr. Rosen?
A. Well, between the cases I tried for the federal
government when I got out of law school and the ones I've
tried in private practice, I would say, counting trials,
preliminary injunction hearings and cases I sat as a
judicial officer, probably 500.
Q. And when you look at your clients, how would you
describe your range of clients?
A. They really run the gamut from small to medium to
the largest. I've represented probably ten of the fortune
50 in this country. I've been privileged to represent

164

three foreign governments. I was appointed Special
Attorney General by the governor of the Virgin Islands.
I've represented the government of the Virgin Islands in
litigation. I've represented the government of West
Germany prior to the re-unification of Germany.
I have represented the Trusteeship of Palal
(ph) when the United States gave them their independence
and ceased to protect when they were a possession of the
United States.
Q. Have you ever testified in a court before as a
witness?
A. Dozens of times, mostly as an expert witness, not
as a fact witness.
Q. Mr. Rosen, I want you to move us along as quickly
as you can, but can you give us the background to take us
up to the first meeting on March 28th.
A . Sure. Step number one, call from Wally Pope, got
great news, Merrett's gone, Minton's got a new lawyer,
Howie.
Q. Tell me about him, Wally.
A. Good guy. He's honest. He's not going to
tolerate any kind of crap. You know, he's everything that
Merrett wasn't.
Great news, Wally, look forward to meeting him.
Next call, spoke to Howie, said he would like

165
to talk about settling Mr. Minton's position as a defendant
in the liability -- in the breach case.
I said, okay, let me call the clients, see
what -- I presume we certainly want to do that. Let me
call the client, get back to him.
I called the client. The next
conversation -- Howie, Pope and Rosen -- Mr. Howie, of
course we'd be interested in sitting down and talking about
a settlement of the breach case; however, let me give you
some background.
In 1998, we spent a lot of time with Mr. Minton
and his then-counsel and came that close to a global
settlement of all litigation. It was too bad it fell apart
at the last minute. We did settle the one case that
brought it about, and that was the FACTNet case in Denver.
From our perspective, we would prefer, if your
client is willing, to sit down and have a global discussion
to get rid of all of the disputes between us.
If he wants to do it, fine. If he doesn't want
to do it and he wants to talk about just this one case,
we'll be happy to do it.
Mr. Howie says, "Thank you. I will talk to my
client, get back to you."
The next conversation I don't think Mr. Pope
was on at this point. I think Mr. Howie was kind of

166
talking to me directly.
The next conversation is, "I want to ask you a
question. My client just told me that Mr. Minton's about
to be added as a defendant in the wrongful death case."
I said, "Oh, yeah? How is that?"
And he proceeded to tell me a story about Judge
Schaeffer had directed the church attorneys in that case to
name Mr. Minton, and if not she was going to name him or
something like that, very vague.
"Can we talk about that?"
I said, "Of course. I told you, I'm willing to
talk about any and all disputes, whether they're in
litigation, about to be in litigation, whether we're
thinking about it, anything we've got on our minds,
anything you've got on your minds. The only way to do a
global settlement is to put all of the cards on the table
and let's get it worked out so we never have to talk to
each other again."
The next one, he calls me back and says, "Okay,
my client wants to talk about a global settlement."
All right. We're going to set up a meeting in
Miami or here. Somewhere in Florida. It might have been
here, but for some reason I remember Miami.
Great. Let's coordinate dates. We couldn't
get a date together.

167

At that point, we' re then in here before Judge Baird on a -- I think it was a scheduling conference or something. Maybe it was contempt. I don't remember. It was the middle of March. I met Mr. Howie for the first time in Judge Baird's antechamber. I think Wally introduced me. I shook hands.

I said, "It's a pleasure to meet you. My buddy Wally here who I trust has great judgment. He says you're a very straight guy. Look forward to working with you."

Mr. Howie goes in and makes this pitch on the record to Judge Baird, "I'm in the case now, you know, the prior counsel is gone, and I will do everything I can to straighten out Mr. Minton and make sure that no more games, you know, that he'll make the discovery, he'll testify honestly," et cetera.

I believe the Court at that point even asked me -- because it came up in the context of an adjournment or something. It was either an adjournment of Mr. Minton's deposition or an adjournment to the continuation of the contempt hearing.

And the Court turned to me for my position.

I said, "Judge, you know, Mr. Pope tells me that Mr. Howie is an honorable guy. I heard what he just said. I think we should give him a chance. I'm willing to consent."

168
And we had a discussion about scheduling. We
compared calendars. Okay. We're going to
resume Mr. Minton's deposition on April 8th. And then I said to Judge
Baird, "You know, I'm very optimistic and hopeful that this
works, but I don't know if Mr. Howie is going to be
successful, so can we schedule a continuation of the contempt
hearing for the morning of April 9th?
And I'11 be candid. I want Mr. Minton knowing
on April 8th that if he doesn't do what Mr. Howie says,
he's coming back here to face incarceration the next
morning."
And Mr. Howie agreed to it, and I guess Judge
Baird's calender allowed it, so that's the way it was
scheduled. April 8th, deposition. April 9th, resumption
contempt hearing against Mr. Minton on the subject of, I guess, incarceration.
Q. And then what happened?
A. I got a call from Mr. Howie that Mr. Jonas was going to be representing Mr. Minton in
negotiations. I had never met Mr. Jonas, but I talked to him in the past, very familiar with his firm. We've had a good deal of litigation with Hale and.Dorr on the other side.
I called him. I said, "Steve, I understand we're getting together."


169
We talked about the location. Why go down to
Florida? You know, you get on the shuttle. I said, I'll
bring my clients in, and we can set up a meeting. We
compared notes as to dates, set the meetings.
I said to him, "Steve, you know, we're coming
in hopeful that we can reach a global settlement. If we
can, fine. If we can't, you know, we'll see how far we can
go.
"If you would like, we'll prepare an agenda of
what we want in advance, and if you could prepare an agenda
of what's on your mind."
You know, this is like a gripe list, you've got
to straighten this out or that out, whatever it is.
"If we could exchange them before the meeting,
I think that would be productive. Then we could come into
the meeting knowing when the meeting begins what each
side's list was of proposals, demands, whatever you want to
call it, gripes.
Steve said, "I think it's a great idea, but
I've got a scheduling problem. I don't know when I'm going
to be able to meet with Minton. If I have a chance to meet
with him before, I will call you, and we'll prepare an
agenda and I will exchange it with you."
And he said, "I'm not sure it's going to happen
because the scheduling is tight. It may have to wait until

170
the meeting."
I said okay.
I made a comment to him. I said, "Look, Steve,
there's one other thing. We need a confidentiality
agreement."
I said, "I don't want to start off on the wrong
foot, but I spent a lot of time trying to roach a global
settlement with Mr. Minton in 1998 in Denver, and we had an
oral agreement that these were confidential settlement
discussions."
We didn't get a global settlement, but we
settled an enormous copyright case in Denver with
Mr. Minton.
Except the thing that bothered us is -- and
bothered me -- is that the next couple of days after that I
started reading stuff on the internet of what happened in
this meeting.
I said, "Steve, we can't take this. You know,
this is not good faith. I want confidentiality. If we're
going to have an open discussion, you know, a frank
discussion -- here's what you want, here's what I
want -- you know, my side, your side -- I don't want to
have to read about this on the internet."
He says, "I couldn't agree with you more."
He says, "If I were involved in Denver, that

171
wouldn't have happened."
I said, "Great. Let's make sure it doesn't
happen now. But I want to tell you something. My client
has got such a bad taste in its mouth from what Minton did
last time, I'm going to ask you to put it in writing.
"And I'm also going to ask you to put in
writing specifically -- not just that there will not be
disclosure, but that there will be no internet postings,"
because that was the hot button last time.
He sent me a draft of a letter agreement on
confidentiality. I think I might have called him, might
have had some minor wordsmithing.
He sent me another draft. I looked at it. I
called him. I said, you know, Steve, I just realized that
this language which I've put in in all confidentialities
for almost thirty years, suggested to me by a judge is, you
know, you will not disclose -- you know, no one will
disclose anything of what happened at this meeting -- and
it's a very prosaic term -- except as required by
compulsion of law or process.
And I use that language literally hundreds of
times in confidentiality agreements.
And I said to Steve, "I just noticed that that
language or something like it is not there."
He said to me, "Don't worry. We understand

172

each other. Obviously, if a disclosure is required by law
or a subpoena, of course you make disclosure."
I said, "Okay, as long as we understand each
other, I'm signing the letter now, I'm faxing it back to
you. I will see you for breakfast in my office on the 28th
of March."
Q. And did some issue ultimately arise regarding
disclosure regarding the March 28th and 29th meetings?
A. Yeah. The very first time that the issue arose
here before Judge Baird, Mr. Dandar made some statement
about the confidentiality agreement -- and I think it was
pretty immediate -- I got up and I said, "We waive it."
Now, that would have been within the context
of, you know, compulsion of law or process. When a witness
is on the stand, of course confidentiality is not a defense.
Q. Now, the first meeting on March 28th, where did
that meeting take place?
A. In the conference room down the hall from my
office.
Q. And I think you named the participants before, but
just to get it clear on the record, who was present from
Mr. Minton and his group?
A. Minton, Brooks and Steve Jonas.

Q. And on behalf of the church, who was present?

173
A. Rosen, Yingling and Rinder. That was in the room.
There were others there, but they were the only ones in the
room.
Q. And you stated you were representing four clients
at this meeting.
A. Correct.
Q. And were representatives of your client there in
your offices?
A. Yes, three of the four. One of them was -- the
representative of Religious Technologies Center who would
have been there had some emergency in California, was
available by phone.
The representatives of Flag and a
representative of Church of Scientology of California were
not in the meeting room but were in a caucus room down the
hall.
Q. All right. Do you have a recollection generally
about what time this meeting started on Thursday the 28th?
A. It was in the morning, 9:30, 9:45, something like
that.
Q. And can you just walk us through, tell us who
said -- as best you can recall -- who said what first and
then what followed.
A. I'm not really good enough to do that, and some of
these meetings kind of merge in my mind, so don't hold me

174
to the specific order, but I know Mike started with
some -- Mike Rinder started with some introductory remarks,
which I think I've already given to Mr. Dandar -- we would
prefer a global settlement. We really just want
disengagement. I think that you want the same thing. You
know, let's see if we can do it.
And he raised this issue about, you know, all
of the damage that Minton and his people have done to the
church. He talked about the need to correct the record; we
can't leave this stuff out there.
And then kind of like a segue in terms of
introduction to me said, "And Sandy is going to tell you
about the financial damage that you've done," you know, and
he turned it over to me.
And as I went through those notes, that took
probably a half an hour, because each one -- some of them
Minton knew nothing about. All of them, Jonas knew nothing
about. So, you know, we had to go through and explain
them, you know, what they were, as to each item.
Q. So when Mr. Rinder turned the meeting over to you,
what you had was Defendant's Exhibit Number 5 to this
hearing which is the notes that you had written prior to
the hearing, talking points.
A. Yeah. They were notes of my use in terms
of -- you know, my notes as to what I was going to say.


175
Q. All right. And you say you spent about 20 or 30
minutes going through your presentation?
A. Yeah, I think so.
Q. Now, at the time you were making your presentation
and through the entire day on March 28th, tell us again
what the tone of that meeting was like.
A. Civil. I mean, jokes were flying from both sides
of the table. I remember one, there was talk
about -- well, okay, you know, we may be able -- if we can
bring about a resolution of the wrongful death case -- and
I turned to Mr. Minton, and I said, "Well, look at the
sheet. Look.at the second line -- you know, how much is
budgeted to spend to finish the case -- you can save our
clients that money, you get a gold star.
"And not only will we give you a gold star, but
when we talk about a monetary component to this settlement,
we're going to give you credit for that."
And everybody kind of laughed. And later on
when there was a discussion of Wollersheim, I remember
Mr. Jonas saying something about, and if he speaks to -- if
Minton speaks to Wollersheim and gets the settlement to
this one, does he get a gold star also?
And I said, "Yep, he can earn a couple of gold
stars by making these problems get resolved."
So it was very light banter. I mean, it was

extraordinarily friendly. Nobody raised their voice.
There weren't any untoward language and incendiary words
like perjury.
Q. Now, even as you sit here today, has there ever
been a RICO complaint drawn up against Mr. Minton?
A. Not even the first page of it.
Q. How many caucuses were there on the first day of
March 28th?
A. There was one caucus after we presented the first
presentation, and the other side went to the caucus to
discuss what we just told them. Then the meeting resumed
and there was a lunch break.
In the afternoon, there was a meeting starting
after lunch, then there was a caucus, then there was
another meeting. And there might have been a fifth
session. I just don't remember.
Q. Now, you are outside of the group meeting on March
28th two times; am I correct?
A. Twice, correct.
Q. The first time you were out, approximately how
long were you outside the group meeting?
A. I think it was about ten minutes, maybe fifteen
minutes.
Q. And on the second occasion you were out,
approximately how long were you outside the group meeting?

177
A. The second occasion, I didn't step out. What
happened was we returned from lunch. Everybody was ready
to get started. And I was dealing with a problem -- an
emergency matter for another client.
So I said to Mike and Monique, "Go ahead and
start without me. I have to deal with this, and I will
join you."
So it was maybe five or ten minutes that I was
late getting to the session into the conference room for
the session that started after lunch.
Q. All right. Now, in order to give the Court some
idea as to exactly how much time, approximately, the amount
of time that was spent together as a group -- not counting
lunch, not counting the caucuses, but the amount of time
over the entire day of March 28th -- approximately how much
time was spent together as a group, the Minton group and
the church group?
A. We sat across the table for what I would estimate
to be two-and-a-half, three hours.
Q. So the meeting on March 28th, in substance, with
all parties together, was two and a half to three hours?
A. Something like that, if you add up all of the
pieces of the sessions, yeah.
Q. Now, at some point during the day on March 28th,
did Mr. Jonas present the agenda for the Minton group

A. Yeah.
Q. What did he say?
A. Yes, he did. After the first caucus, we got
together again, and there was some discussion about they
had some additional questions about things we were talking
about, and there was discussion about that, and then
Jonas -- I think he was reading from something -- but he
said, okay, we have a proposal or we have a list to present
to you of what we want.
And I went like this and picked up my pen, and
I was ready to write something down. And the first thing I
heard was, "Mr. Minton has spent a lot of money -- invested
a lot of money in the wrongful death case -- and he wants
you to reimburse him the money he gave the estate."
I just dropped my pen and swivelled my chair
around, you know, demonstrating -- politely -- my disgust
for that to be a demand, that we should reimburse
Mr. Minton for how much money he funded in the case.
The next demand was even more bizarre. In my
mind, anyway.
Demand number two was that the church bring
about the end of Mr. Minton's problems in Nigeria.
I said, "Steve, I haven't got the slightest
clue what you're talking about. What problems in Nigeria?"
And he looked at me and said, "Well, Mr. Minton

179
apparently is the subject of a criminal investigation by
whatever the equivalent is to the attorney general of
Nigeria."
So I looked at him and said, "You don't think
that Church of Scientology controls the Nigerian
government, do you?
"I mean, I don't get.this. You're asking us to
stop the attorney general from investigating Mr. Minton?"
I said, "Come on, that's a non-starter. What
are we talking about here?"
And if there was one time during that entire
day I probably got a little hot and expressed my outrage,
that was it, because I felt we were just wasting time with
those kind of demands.
Then he got down to some other demands which
seemed reasonable. Whether they were agreeable or not, I
don't know.
But he said, "I got this building right next to
the church in Clearwater. I paid $300,000 for it," or
something like that.
"How about if we work out a deal as part of
this that the church buy the building from me?"
All right. Well, I didn't know if they wanted
to do it or not, I didn't respond to it, but at least it
was a demand that was in the ballpark, had some logic to

180
it.
And he went through a couple of other things that he had.
He asked for clarification as to whether the resolution of the wrongful death case was going to be a condition of a settlement.
And I think it was Mike Rinder who said, "No. We would strongly prefer a global settlement which includes the settlement of all cases. And you're not getting out of that case until the case goes away."
And I added the same thing, "You're not getting out of the breach case by Judge Baird until that case is resolved."
And that was it. They asked for a lunch break, and we went our separate ways to have lunch.
Q. Okay. Now, after lunch, what if anything do you recall by way of discussions that might be noteworthy
A. Well, after lunch when I rejoined the group, there was nothing -- it seemed like people were repeating themselves. There were statements that were made that I already heard earlier in the day.
There is not one thing I can capture to say to you that this was something brand new that, you know, I had not heard earlier.

I did hear that -- at some point in the

afternoon - that they were - Minton was going to make an
earnest effort to see -- to talk to Dandar and Dell and see
if he could bring about a resolution with Dell of the case.
I remember that in the afternoon -- again, this
was repetitive -- Jonas asked Mike Rinder -- it must have
been the third time -- he asked him, "Is the resolution of
the wrongful death case a deal breaker here?"
And Mike said, no, you know, we really prefer
it. I mean, I really want to have a deal that includes
that case, but, you know, it was not a deal breaker.
Q. Now, during this meeting on the 28th, were there
any implicit or explicit threats made toward Mr. Minton or
any member of his group by you or any member of your group
A. Not even anything approaching a threat.
Q. To your understanding, was Mr. Minton threatened
in any way?
A. Well, Mr. Minion felt threatened, and he expressed
that even more so, I think, on the afternoon of the 28th
and even more so the next day. And the next day it really
came out.
Mr. Minton felt very threatened. He didn't
feel threatened by us. He felt very threatened he was
going to jail. He was really agitated about the fact that
he had a criminal contempt proceeding that was coming up
before Judge Schaeffer where I think somebody said that it

182
was the judge that started the proceeding, you know, as
opposed to a party, that the judge directed the criminal
contempt motion to be filed. I'm fuzzy on this. And he
had this proceeding before Judge Baird.
There was no question that Minton was very,
very concerned about the consequences of his perjury and
the consequences of what two judges in this county were
going to do to him. He didn't make any secret about that.
Q. But you were not the source of any threats to
Mr. Minton?
A. Not, not at all, only to the extent that he can
say I caused it because I'm the one that filed and pursued
the contempt remedies against him in this court.
Q. And your clients were not the source of any
threats to Mr. Minton?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. Now, on March 29th -- and back on the 28th, about
what time did you all break on the 28th?
A. 4, 4:30, five o'clock.
Q. Did you offer to allow Mr. Minton's group to
continue to stay in your offices there in New York and use
your facilities?
A. Yes. Steve actually said to me, "Okay, we've had
a long day. We've said a lot. We need some time to digest
and think about this, and I want to reflect on what

happened today, so let's break for the day."
And I said, "Well, Steve, you're welcome to,
you know, use my conference room. You can use it all night
if you want to. Do you want any food or anything? We'll
have it sent in."
He said, "No, my firm has an office here in New
York."
I said, "Really? I didn't know that. Of all
of the years I have litigated against Hale and Dorr, it's
always Boston. I didn't know you had a New York office."
He said, "Yeah, it's right across the street."
I said, "Fine, so you don't need my
hospitality. Let's pick a time to get together tomorrow."
And that's what we did. We arranged to start
the meeting again in my office the following morning.
Q. And the next morning, Friday, March 29th, you met
in your office.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Who was present from Mr. Minton and his group?
A. The same six people were present at the meeting.
Q. The same six people. How did the meeting start on
the 29th?
A. Mr. Jonas reported that the evening before he had
spoken to Mr. Dandar. It was either he had spoken to
Liebreich or Dandar had spoken to Liebreich. I'm not

184
exactly clear on what that report was.
Q. Just to be clear on time, meaning Thursday evening
before they left your offices.
A. Correct. And that Mr. Minton was not going to be
able to bring about a resolution. And then they proceeded
to tell us a story which I heard for the first time.
And that was, this was not a surprise that they
failed the evening before, it was not a surprise to them,
because the previous summer, August and September of 2001,
they told us, Ms. Brooks contacted Liebreich to try to see
if she could bring about a settlement and to talk to
Ms. Liebreich about, you know, what did she really want to
settle this case.
And when, as they reported to us, when
Mr. Dandar found out about that, he instructed
Ms. Liebreich never to talk to Ms. Brooks again.
So I was totally unaware of this history, but
we were being told this because this was an explanation for
why they were unsuccessful the evening before in terms of,
you know, making any headway with Mr. Dandar and
Ms. Liebreich, and try to disabuse me, at least of our
belief, that Minton controlled the case -- the money, the
witnesses -- and he was the real plaintiff.
So, you know, I'm like, you're telling me you
can't make the case be resolved.

185

So in any event, they told us this story. And
we kind of looked at each other.
And they said, "You know, we're going to pursue
it. We're trying to set up a meeting with Dell and with
Dandar sometime next week. We're not giving up talking
about it, but I'm being honest with you; this does not look
like it's going to happen."
Q. And what was you all's response to that?
A. I said, all right, let's move on to the next
subject.
Q. You didn't shut down discussions?
A. Absolutely not.
I said, "Okay. What do you want to talk about
now? We've got all of these other items that we're in
disagreement on. Let's talk about them."
And that was the point at which Jonas said,
"Look, we'd like some time."
I said, "Go ahead, take time."
He said, "No, no, no. We want you to agree to
some postponements to give us some more time."
I said "What are you talking about."
He said, "Well, we've got a series of
proceedings that are coming up in Florida next week, ten
days."
I said, "Well, the only ones I know about are

186
the ones I'm involved in, the breach case, you know, April
8th Mr. Minton's deposition, April 9th continuation of the
contempt hearing."
He said, "Well, there are proceedings going on
in the wrongful death case."
I said, "What are they?"
And Ms. Brooks said that there was a deposition
scheduled for I believe it was the following Tuesday of her
bank to produce records, and then there was this contempt
hearing before Judge Schaeffer, criminal contempt.
I mean, I'd heard that that existed. I didn't
know the date. And they told me that that was on for the
5th of April.
And they made a pitch for us to get these
matters postponed, that we should ?? to the extent we could
agree to postpone something like a deposition, we should do
it, to the extent we needed to go to a judge, that we
should go on and on, for example to Judge Schaeffer and
jointly request a continuation.
Q. What was your response?
A. This was in the context ?? I said, you want this
time in order to ?? you're telling us you want to continue
towards settlement. It may not be a global settlement, but
you want to continue on this process of resolving as many
disputes as we can?

187
"Yeah."
"But you need time to work out the resolution."
He said, "Yeah."
I said, "No postponements."
I said, "I've been going at this with Minton
for one year, okay?"
I said, it is now ?? it was Friday morning. I
remember it was Good Friday. It's about eleven o'clock in
the morning, 10:30 or so.
I said, "I'm here all weekend."
I turned to Mike, "He'll stay," Mike Rinder.
I knew Monique was going back home that
evening.
I said, "I've got typists 24 hours a day, 7
days a week in my firm. You want a reporter, I will bring
in a court stenographer."
"I'm willing to sit here with you as long as it
takes. You want to get it done before the first of these
events, which is Ms. Brooks' deposition or her bank's
deposition or something the following week, I will sit here
with you around the clock.
"Let's get it out on the table. Let's talk
about the issues that need to be resolved. Let's agree on
what we can agree on or agree what we can't agree to. But
I'm not agreeing to any more time. I mean, we've heard

this too much."
And that was the very first time in the meeting
that the meeting turned, let me say, less than cordial.
Ms. Brooks went ballistic, and she started
screaming at me, you know, "I can't believe how
unreasonable you are. Bob is sitting here, he's telling
you that he wants to make peace. He's going to do whatever
he can to make peace. And you won't give him the
opportunity, the time he needs."
I said, "The time he needs is right here. I
will sit with him. Mike will stay here. I will sit with
you, your Counsel. If it's going to get done, there's no
reason why it can't get done this weekend."
And, like I say, if looks could kill, I mean, I
think I would have been a dead man at that meeting.
But Steve said, "Calm down, Stacy."
And he really had to restrain her. He said,
"Let's talk. Give us a few minutes to talk."
So we left them in the conference room, walked
back to my office. And a few minutes later, Steve called
me, you know, on the phone in my office and said, "Look, I
just want to tell you that we're leaving."
I said, "Are you leaving and coming back
later?"
He said, "No, we're leaving," and then he hung

189
up. I walked out of my office and around the corridor. I
was going to say goodbye and at least shake hands with
them, you know, with the three people.
By the time I got to the corridor, they
were
gone. And that was the last time I ever had any words with
any of the three of them, Jonas, Minton or Brooks.
Q. Now, prior to these meetings on March 28th and
March 29th, had you ever met before with Mr. Minton?
A. Yeah, in 1998 ?? I think it was 1998 ?? we
attempted get a global settlement at that time, in Denver.
The occasion was we had a case coming up for
trial, a big copyright infringement case that Mr. Minton
was not only funding the Defendant Mr. Wollersheim, he was
funding the defendant's lawyer, Mr. Leipold, and he was
funding all ends of this case.
And we had a discussion at that time ?? we had
some serious discussions at that time in an attempt to
reach a global disengagement, and they didn't work out, but
we did reach the ?? you know, a partial settlement.
We got a consent judgment, a permanent
injunction that was entered by the District Court in
Colorado.
We got a consent to a monetary amount of
damages, and we even agreed we wouldn't even try to enforce
it, so long as there was compliance, you know, with the

190
injunction. I mean, it was a relatively simple good faith
to bring about that settlement.
Q. Now, subsequent to those meetings in 1998 to work
a settlement in that case in Colorado up until March 28th
of 2002, had you had any meetings with Mr. Minton?
A. I think the only time I ever saw or said anything
to Mr. Minton is when he was in the deposition chair or
when I saw him in the courthouse here, when we would go in
the men's room or something like that, and that would only
be hello.
Q. And since the Friday, March 29th meeting with
Mr. Minton up until this very day, as you sit here on this
witness stand, have you had any meetings with Mr. Minton?
A. No communications of any kind.
Q. Now, did any member of your group on March 29th,
that Friday, attempt to extort or make any threats to
Mr. Minton?
A. Absolutely not, sir.
Q. At any time during the meetings on March 28th or
on March 29th, did Mr. Jonas ever accuse you or any member
of your group of attempting to threaten or extort his
client?
A. Absolutely no.
Q. At any time during these two days on March 28th
and March 29th, did Mr. Minton ever complain that he felt

191
threatened or extorted by you or any member of your group?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. Did Ms. Brooks ever make such a claim?
A. Not to my knowledge.
MR. HILL: Can I have a moment, Your Honor?
THE COURT: Certainly.
MR. HILL: Your Honor, those are all of
the questions I have.
(Thereupon, this transcript continues
directly to Volume II.)


192

1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
2
3

4 STATE OF FLORIDA )
5 )

6 COUNTY OF PINELLAS )
7 I, Susan M. Valsecchi, Registered Professional
8 Reporter, in and for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, State of

9 Florida:
10 DO HEREBY CERTIFY that I was authorized to and
11 did stenographically report the foregoing proceedings and
12 that the transcript is a true and complete record of my

13 stenographic notes.
14 DATED this 1st day of September, 2002, at

15 Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida.
16
17

18 [signed]

19 Susan M. Valsecchi, RPF
20 Registered Professional Reporter

25

end