3 (The following takes place in the absence of the
4 jury.)
5 THE COURT: I remind the male persons present not
6 to use the men's bathroom on this floor. It is a while
7 since I reminded you. It is right across from the jury
8 room. You are not to use it. Use the bathroom upstairs.
9 And with that friendly greeting I say good
10 morning.
11 THE CLERK: Jury entering.
12 (Whereupon, the jury at this time entered the
13 courtroom.)
14 THE COURT: Good morning, members of the jury.
15 Please be seated.
16 Again my compliments, you are getting better as
17 we go along. If we keep this trial going from to August
18 and September, you will be here before I am. You will
19 never see the sunlight, either at morning or at night.
20 You may proceed.
21 MS. SCOTT: The government calls Thomas Skonie.
22 THE CLERK: Please rise and raise your right
23 hand. 24 25
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5622
1 T H O M A S R. S K O N I E ,
2 called as a witness, having been first
3 duly sworn, was examined and testified
4 as follows:
5
6 THE CLERK: Thank you. Please be seated.
7 Please state a
nd spell your full name for the
8 record.
9 THE WITNESS: My name is Thomas R. Skonie,
10 S K O N I E.
11
12 DIRECT EXAMINATION
13 BY MS. SCOTT:
14 Q Good morning, Mr. Skonie.
15 A Good morning.
16 Q Can you tell us where you live?
17 A Naperville, Illinois.
18 Q What do you do for a living in Illinois?
19 A I am a manufactures representative in the housewares
20 electronics, business.
21 Q What is the name of the company you work for?
22 A The name of the company is Walter Nye, N Y E, &
23 Company, Inc. 24 Q And what is your position with Walter Nye? 25 A President of the company.
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5623 Skonie-direct/Scott
1 Q Can you describe for us briefly what your
2 responsibilities are?
3 A We represent manufacturers in the housewares and
4 electronics business, we are their contact sales agents,
5 most of these companies do not use a sales force, they use
6 us as an exclusive agent to represent people in their
7 territory, Wallgreens, Sears, Wards, and we are
8 compensated with a commission rate for doing that.
9 Q How long have you been the president of Walter Nye?
10 A I have been the president for 15 years.
11 Q Now, have you ever had any dealings with a company
12 called Who's Who Worldwide?
13 A Yes, I have.
14 Q Did you eventually make a purchase from that company?
15 A Yes, I did.
16 Q What did you buy?
17 A I was nominated to be a member in Who's Who Worldwide
18 and sent in an application fee, for which I received back
19 a plaque.
20 That's pretty much what I got.
21 Q Going back to your first contact, how were you first
22 contacted by the company?
23 A I received a letter or solicitation in the mail 24 saying I had been nominated to be in Who's Who Worldwide. 25 And there was a short application or stub to send back, if
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5624 Skonie-direct/Scott
1 I was interested, which I completed. I sent back, and I
2 was at a later date, shortly after contacted by their
3 representative on the telephone.
4 Q Now, going back to the letter, do you remember
5 approximately when that arrived?
6 A It is about five years ago, so it would be 1994, in
7 that area.
8 Q I will show you Government's Exhibit 67-D, as in
9 Daniel, for Identification.
10 Do you recognize that?
11 (Handed to the witness.)
12 A Yes, I do.
13 Q What is that?
14 A That's the short response that I returned to them
15 with my signature on it saying that I was interested, or
16 would like to be included, or would like some more
17 information. It was a no obligation thing.
18 MS. SCOTT: I offer Government's Exhibit 67-D.
19 THE COURT: Any objection?
20 MR. TRABULUS: No.
21 THE COURT: Government's Exhibit 67-D, for Dog,
22 in evidence.
23 Q Now, Mr. Skonie, if you take a look at the lower 24 right-hand corner of that postcard, do you see a code 25 there in blue letters?
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5625 Skonie-direct/Scott
1 A Yes, I do.
2 Q Can you tell us what that code says?
3 A GA group FM.
4 Q F as in Frank, M as in Michael?
5 A That's right.
6 Q If you turn the postcard over can you read us the
7 postmark on the back?
8 A It is post marked --
9 THE COURT: We don't know these names, so you
10 have to spell them when you get to them.
11 A Elk, E L K, Grove, G R O V E, village, Illinois,
12 September 10th, 1993.
13 Q Now, you mentioned that you received a telephone call
14 from the company?
15 A That's correct. After I filled this out, a person
16 from Who's Who called me up, and we spoke about becoming a
17 member.
18 Q Do you remember if this person was a man or a woman?
19 A A woman.
20 Q And can you tell us what this woman told you about
21 the company and the memberships?
22 A She told me that I had been nominated to be in Who's
23 Who. I asked her whom I had been nominated by. 24 She told me that the nomination was confidential, 25 and she could only tell me that I had in fact been
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5626 Skonie-direct/Scott
1 nominated.
2 She said it was a good organization, exclusive,
3 you know, very nice to be in, prestigious. Would I like
4 to join?
5 And I said, yes.
6 Q What, if anything, did she say to you about how
7 members in general were selected?
8 A They were nominated by other people.
9 Q What were you told you would get for your money if
10 you purchased a membership?
11 A I was to get a plaque. And I was to get membership
12 in this group. The membership was the key thing for me.
13 Q Now, of all the things that were said to you about
14 this membership, what was the most important thing that
15 led you to make a purchase?
16 A Well, in the business I am in, which is the sales
17 business, it is largely a business, or a great part of it
18 is a business of contacts. The way we grow our business
19 is by meeting new people who may be in positions to, or be
20 affiliated with companies which would allow us to
21 represent them or sell their
goods for them. It is an
22 important part of the business. Most of the new lines or
23 manufacturers are ones we acquire from networking from 24 people we know, or know us, or who we have represented or 25 whom we had business relationships with.
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5627 Skonie-direct/Scott
1 So, first of all, to be nominated, I assumed that
2 because I had represented several large companies at that
3 time, very large companies, and had good relationships
4 with the presidents of those companies at that time, it
5 was possible one of them had nominated. She would not
6 tell me who nominated me. But my assumption was that one
7 of them nominated me.
8 It would be bad for my business to have someone
9 like that nominate me and then for me to refuse it, and
10 then to assume I wasn't interested. That would have been
11 an endorsement.
12 The other thing was it would be a forum for me to
13 meet and grow new business. Perhaps I could be affiliated
14 with a company that we could represent and sell products
15 for them. It is an extremely large part of our business,
16 that's networking process.
17 Q Now, how, if at all, did your belief that you had
18 been nominated relate to your perception that this was a
19 networking tool that you could use?
20 A Well, she -- I specifically asked her how I had been
21 selected to be in this. She said I was nominated. It was
22 my assumption that I was nominated by someone I knew and
23 it would be a good thing for me. 24 It was also, she implied as part of this thing 25 you would get to network with people, or meet other
HARRY RAPAPORT, CSR, CP, CM OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
5628 Skonie-direct/Scott
1 people
. And I assume that that would be very good for my
2 business, too. It seemed at the time that it would be a
3 positive thing.
4 MR. SCHOER: Objection, Judge, I don't believe
5 that that answer is responsive to the question.
6 THE COURT: First of all, please do not make any
7 statements except objection.
8 MR. SCHOER: Objection.
9 THE COURT: Now, I would have asked you what the
10 ground of the objection is, so no harm was done.
11 Your objection is that it is not responsive?
12 MR. SCHOER: Not responsive to the question that
13 was asked.
14 THE COURT: No. You are overruled.
15 Motion denied.
Fair trial? Hardly. Such a sad case history for teaching young people how to judge a case.
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Keep our heroes alive by LIVING, DOING more! Remember 911day.
The Who's Who Worldwide Registry websites are focused on the Who's Who Worldwide Registry tragedy, and the double scandal of government and judicial corruption in one of the most corrupted federal trials and all the many months of media silence regarding this incredible story.
Sixteen weeks of oft-explosive testimony, yet not a word in any of 1200 news archives. This alone supports the claim that this was a shamefully corrupt federal trial; in fact, one of the most corrupted federal trials in our time.
Show your support for justice, for exoneration of the innocent, and for that all-important government accountability, by urgently contacting your Senator, the White House, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Who's Who Tragedy Thomas FX Dunn proving again that he may well be the scoundrel of bad attorneys
Most Corrupted Federal Trials - The Who's Who Tragedy
This site is concerned with the Who's Who Worldwide Registry tragedy, and the double scandal of government and judical corruption in one of the most corrupted federal trials and all the many months of media silence regarding this incredible story.
Sixteen weeks of oft-explosive testimony, yet not a word in any of 1200 news archives. This alone supports the claim that this was a shamefully corrupt federal trial; in fact, one of the most corrupted federal trials.
Show your support for justice, for exoneration of the innocent, and perhaps most importantly, government accountability, by urgently contacting your Senator, the White House, and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Who's Who Tragedy How Thomas FX Dunn demonstrated himself to be the Scofulous Lawyer Of All Most Corrupted Federal Trials
Dirtiest Trials of the Most Recent Century - Justice Has Gone South
How rare it is to find a case that can offer not merely two or three, instead, more than a dozen major reasons for overturning that conviction. Here is a case studied by a respected federal judge for many months, who found that no crime had been committed, and dismissed the case.
Reed Elsevier, Ltd, as the single richest and most powerful publisher in more than one hundred countries around the world,
easily. empirically and truthfully described as one of the most corrupt corporations in all of human history,
perverted the foundations of American justice in the Who's Who Worldwide case with cash, power, and perqs.
Imagine a trial where not ten percent of the proceedings have ANY connection with most of the defendants.
That alone should require a separation of trial. In this case, NOT EVEN ONE PERCENT of the proceedings,
accusations, presented evidence, or accepted facts, had anything to do with the "sales" defendants.
The Who's Who Worldwide case was all about Bruce Gordon, his machinations and his accountant,
and the many companies operated in secrecy by Gordon and Liz Sauter, his true "henchman."
For days and days and weeks and weeks, all the discussion was about Gordon and his actions.
Prosecution witness after prosecution witness exculpated the sales defendants, yet,
this same judge who had previously dismissed the case after months of study,
was under one of the worst pressures any judge can be subjected to:
pressure from the federal court of appeals above him, who, in
New York's bailiwick, remains under the control of....
Reed Elsevier, the most powerful force today
in the American arena of jurisprudence.
This can be fixed by Presidential Pardon.
Call 202-456-1414 to lift your voice.
Most Corrupted Federal Trials Worst attorneys in America Thomas FX Dunn
