The Dorean criminal trial has begun...

[Judge Roy Bean]

Let's see... where to begin...

I'll take "Contempt Citations" for $100, Alex.

[neodemes]

"Prosecution shoots self in foot...news at 11"?

[Demosthenes]

Hmmm. I'm thinking you all are too addicted. Perhaps the humane thing would be to cut your supply off cold turkey...

[neodemes]

Hmmm. I'm thinking you all are too addicted. Perhaps the humane thing would be to cut your supply off cold turkey...

Not if you value your kneecaps.

[Nikki]

Hmmm. I'm thinking you all are too addicted. Perhaps the humane thing would be to cut your supply off cold turkey...

We know where you live AND we are in control of the prople who are protecting you.

Don't make us go all neanderthal

[Judge Roy Bean]

Hmmm. I'm thinking you all are too addicted. Perhaps the humane thing would be to cut your supply off cold turkey...

It would be, indeed.

(But coming from someone who displays a cat wearing a citrus fruit helmet as an avatar one can only imagine how far around the dial the cruelty meter goes.)

[golf_en_fool]

For the record my number was never called and I was released from service and am happily back at work.

When I got home I had to figure out what these “Fine Citizens” were up to.

That being said I'm in the Bay area and received the dreaded “Jury Summons” and had the displeasure of sitting on some very uncomfortable wooden benches on Monday as a perspective Juror. I found the most interesting voir dire question wasn’t any that the Judge asked but the one and only one the defendants asked, “Do you think all loans need to be repaid?” Glad I didn’t get called, I’d have given them the death penalty right then and there. Although one moron in the empanelled group did raise his hand when the question had to be asked in the reverse (too many hands to count as first stated) “Did anyone believe loans didn’t need to be repaid?” but back peddled nicely when questioned by the Judge.

You all say these guy’s aren’t very bright, what about the ones that fell for it. Their only mistake was greed and failure to execute an exit plan in a timely manor. But that seems to be most criminal’s problem.

I can’t believe this case will last 5 minutes let alone 5 weeks. I think they know they’re going to get fried and are just abusing the system and the tax dollar pool.

Prison jump suits and defending themselves, must be rocket scientists!

[Demosthenes]

Welcome to Quatloos, Golf!

Be very very happy you didn't get put on the jury. They were bored to tears today.

[Demosthenes]

Day 3

Ponytail and The Lump were once again in drab khaki, although the undershirts were a pretty peach color today. Kurt’s hands were visibly shaking so some reality might be getting through.
The OCC expert witness did much better on cross. His flippant personality gave way to professional competence when trick questions came from Kurt. He has no respect for scammers and some subtle contempt came through nicely. Johnson introduced his first (and only so far) defense exhibit – an OCC warning about debt and mortgage elimination scams from 2003 (go Kurt…) Ponytail seemed to think the jury would be impressed that the OCC never published a warning on the Dorean Group (who didn’t exist yet when the 2003 OCC alert was published.)

Johnson’s defense plan seems to emerging. From what I can see, he seems to believe that willfulness is a necessary element when it comes to bank fraud, mail fraud, and contempt of court. His line of questioning with every witness has focused on whether they thought his beliefs are sincere.

Kurt pushed hard to get OCC guy to say that it isn’t a scam if the scammer uses himself as a guinea pig, that he isn’t a con artist if he believes his scheme will work. OCC guy not only didn’t bite and made a good strong statement that even if a conman suffers from his own scam, it’s still a scam.

I was the only person in the audience in the early morning (not surprising when court starts at 7:30 am) but Johnson’s father was there for most of the day in his jeans, ponytail, and Birkenstocks.

[Demosthenes]

Day 3 (Continued)

The next witness was client Jeffrey Smith. At the judge’s advice, the prosecutors are now telling the jury which count applies to which witness. Mr. Smith is count 3. Smith is 47, college grad, wife and three kids, and works in the special finance department (euphemism for getting loans for people with bad credit) at a car dealership.

Bought a home in 1999, refinanced in 2004, and a coworker told him about Dorean in late 2004. Flea was his salesman. He got into to Dorean simply because he wanted to get out of mortgage payments. He paid Flea the $3,000 fee, did the “process,” and when his title appeared clean, took out another $100,000 loan. He paid $73,000 to Dorean’s overseas account.

At the end of the day, Smith lost about $50,000 in the deal, and lost his home in a foreclosure. H e contacted an attorney, who told him he’d been scammed.

During the “process”, he thought Kurt and Scott were lawyers, because they talked the talk, just like the prosecutor.

Like the other Dorean clients, Smith’s resolve melted when Kurt started his cross examination and said that he thought Kurt and Scott were honest and straightforward.

On redirect, when the prosecutor reminded the witness about his losses, and asked again if he thought that the dim duo were honest, Smith sat silent for 20 seconds (an eternity in a courtroom ) before giving a wimpy answer. The prosecutor asked the honesty question again, and the wait was even longer for an answer before the witness conceded that Dorean hadn’t delivered on their promise.

[Demosthenes]

Day 3 (Continued)

Next witness was Craig Kramer, County Clerk Reporter for the County of Sacramento. He was qualified as an expert on public documents.

His testimony was quick and clean. County Clerks simply record documents that meet the requirements for filing; they don’t certify or guarantee the legality or accuracy of what’s being filed. The documents being filed by Dorean weren’t proof of any “process” actually working.

[Demosthenes]

Day 3 (even more)

Last witness for the day is Jennifer Holtzer. She’s 24 years old, was the first employee hired by the Dorean Group, and is testifying as part of a plea agreement in which she pled no contest to notary fraud. The government agreed to drop eight felony counts.

The prosecutors are introducing the evidence of the many many mail fraud counts through this witness so, as much as I’d like to whine and make catty comments about the futility of mind numbing document testimony, it’s kind of necessary for this witness.

She started as the receptionist and worked her way up to customer service manager. Her mother was a friend of Kurt’s. In addition to describing how document were prepared and sent through the US Postal system, she made some interesting statements:

• Jennifer was the notary for the office. She, and other employees, also had signature stamps for both Kurt and Scott which they used on all kinds of legalistic documents. She notarized everything, whether she watched it being signed or not.

• Whenever the staff needed to set up another “bond” (you know, the thing that purported to pay off the client loans), they simply printed it off of Word on certificate paper (they had a ream of the stuff), affixed a shiny gold seal, ran it through a Paymaster machine and embossing tool, et voila, they had a valuable bond worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

• She talked a CPA named Todd Ellis: Swanson who prepared stuff for clients. The prosecutors kept referring to him as Mr. Ellis…

[Demosthenes]

The end of Demo’s stay in SF

The prosecutor is still questioning this witness and since there is no trial on Friday, this is the end of my stay in SF for now. I was hoping to be around for Walker Todd, but it’ll probably take place next week, and since the trial is only going on for three days (M, T and W), it isn’t worth my coming back. And so, you all are on your own.

I’ll leave you with some additional miscellany, though.

Heineman has said almost nothing on the record. The judge has warned him that Johnson is not representing him, and he said that he understood.

Neither Johnson nor Heineman have objected to anything so far.
The judge has been smart about protecting the juror identities. They were assigned numbers in the beginning and no names have ever been used in the presence of the defendants or their followers. The judge suggested that this practice is normal.

The defendants have been calling themselves con artists and scammers. One of the prosecutors fell into that trap and referred to the defendants as scammers.

The older prosecutor really doesn’t like me much at all. Can;t win 'em all.

The odd of “not guilty” are slim to none.

[golf_en_fool]

Wanting to appear to be the Macho Type “No Fear” “Fear No Evil”, I will admit not really knowing what type of trial we were showing up for, it was somewhat disquieting when they start handing out pre assigned hand written numbers. Visions of “St Valentines Day Massacre’s” start dancing in your head. When they’re taking roll call by name and you’re answering by number you’re thinking, “Gee any moron outside the window, 19th floor or not, with a parabolic dish has all the answers. Hmmmm maybe I do believe in Roswell, I guess I should have raised my hand on the alien question.

Anyway I still don’t get the Jury number thing although the press paparazzi explanation could be plausible I guess. If they were bold enough to address the jurors by name in the court room God help them with that judge.

[Demosthenes]

The numbers are used because there is a potential risk to the jurors from the defendants and their cult followers. You've read my observations of the trial so far; compare them to the rantings on the Dorean blog. The more you read, the uglier the defendants get.

http://thedoreangroup.blogspot.com/

Example:

Most of you don't understand my tactics or the sacrifices I'm willing to make but in the end you will see that I above all knew exactly what was happening, where I was, and what my rights and duties were. You should look at the witness list. I know half of those people are not adversarial and I know how to handle the other half. I'm insulted that at the end of the game with all the bru-ha-ha that this was all they have. Frankly I'm sensing embarrassment from my enemy. I'm certain Mr. David Hall and his trusty sidekick Bridget Martin can go through the procedures of a trial but they will never be able to make any sense of the content. I am so under-whelmed. I've filed no counter responses to their motions. I am more than content to use their witnesses, their trial strategy, and their expert witnesses. In fact I couldn't have asked for better support. Poor Mr. Alsup finally gets to see the great work of his evil presumptions and what brilliance and money can do with a lie given two years. You know what's funny about these idiots is that they know they have a dog that won't hunt but still they are willing to go through the exercise instead of admitting their error and moving on in honesty and productivity. Their whole plan has been bluff until we surrender. They have no move to make on their own only the pursuit of our consent and agreement to fold. Now their FBI profilers have already told them we won't yet they still mindlessly pursue the plan. Those trained in procedure are blind to any ingenuity to settle a matter. They can't comprehend our settlement offers, they can't comprehend our convictions, and they can't comprehend any adaptation away from their devotions and ritual. Now these are the ones that are kool-aid cult drinkers.

There is much to tell you but it will have to wait until the other side of the finish line. I've written it in other writings to preserve it but I do not want to yet disclose my boast to the retards in the finally of their folly.

Again I want to encourage you to find the promise in our suffering. A blessing is headed your way you could not have obtained through any other fashion. We had to go into the belly of the beast and you had to squirm about in your foolishness until God could correct your vision, calibrate your hope, and lead you to victory. We were never in any danger and all your fears were false. Even if you lost the treasures of this world you will discover that God was preserving them but first He was preserving you. You will know better how to structure your affairs and how to remove those fears and phobias far from you in the future. Let the peace of God that passes all understanding overtake you and before you can exhale from the release of the burden your victory will be upon you. I have seen things and heard things about my enemy and his game you wouldn't suspect but I can tell you that fear is much more problematic than in our camp. Considering all the woes we've seen here that is saying a lot. Maybe FBI stands for Fear Bred Ignorance. Just a guess. WHA? Whining Hopeless Accuser. Just another guess. DOJ? Dunces of Jesting. What do you guys think? Have fun with these idiots and their acronyms I sure am.

[Dr. Caligari]

Johnson’s defense plan seems to emerging. From what I can see, he seems to believe that willfulness is a necessary element when it comes to bank fraud, mail fraud, and contempt of court. His line of questioning with every witness has focused on whether they thought his beliefs are sincere.

Bank fraud and mail fraud do require a specific intent to defraud, and a good-faith belief in the truth of the representations is a defense, so Kurt is not too far off there. (Not that he had any such good-faith belief, or that the jury is likely to believe that he did).

[Judge Roy Bean]

Bank fraud and mail fraud do require a specific intent to defraud, and a good-faith belief in the truth of the representations is a defense, so Kurt is not too far off there. (Not that he had any such good-faith belief, or that the jury is likely to believe that he did).

The problem Johnson will have is that they had lost civil cases before the Kenney trial. And if you go back far enough, even before Dorean existed, a "client" of his earlier trust scheme lost their property to the IRS.

Then there's the little matter of his prior conviction. And he still maintains he did nothing wrong.

But after all, he did say Christ was leading him all the time.

"Johnson" and "Good-faith?" bzzzzzzzt. Oxymoron.

[Dr. Caligari]

The problem Johnson will have is that they had lost civil cases before the Kenney trial. And if you go back far enough, even before Dorean existed, a "client" of his earlier trust scheme lost their property to the IRS.

Are the prosecutors smart enough to put that into evidence?

Then there's the little matter of his prior conviction. And he still maintains he did nothing wrong.

The prior conviction can't come into evidence unless Johnson takes the stand in his own defense.

"Johnson" and "Good-faith?" bzzzzzzzt. Oxymoron.

I agree. My point was only that the judge will instruct the jury that good faith is a defense, and Johnson will be permitted to argue it in summation.

[wserra]

The prior conviction can't come into evidence unless Johnson takes the stand in his own defense.

Can you say "404(b)", boys and girls? Every AUSA can. Over and over and over.

(Yes, I know it depends on the nature of the previous conviction, but I felt like ranting.)

[neodemes]

The prior conviction can't come into evidence unless Johnson takes the stand in his own defense.

If the prosecution is thinking, they will introduce Kurt's own statements (if admissible)

"I have taken on the role of a whistleblower in the American Mortgage Industry because of my prior experience with being prosecuted by the government for securities fraud. I didn't mind doing the time (5yrs. 8mon.) for a crime I didn't commit but I did mind the hypocrisy of the mortgage industry doing everyday what the government convicted me of and there being no interest."

http://www.blogger.com/profile/13144659621472624683