8433 1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, : CR 96 1016(S-1) 4 v. : U.S. Courthouse 5 Uniondale, New York BRUCE W. GORDON, WHO'S WHO 6 WORLD WIDE REGISTRY, INC., : STERLING WHO'S WHO, INC., 7 TARA GARBOSKI, ORAL FRANK OSMAN, LAURA WEITZ, ANNETTE 8 HALEY, SCOTT MICHAELSON, : and MARTIN 9 REFFSIN, : TRANSCRIPT OF TRIAL 10 Defendants. :March 19, 1998 11 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 9:30 o'clock a.m.
12
13 BEFORE:
14 HONORABLE ARTHUR D. SPATT, U.S.D.J.
15
16 APPEARANCES: 17 For the Government: ZACHARY W. CARTER United States Attorney
18 One Pierrepont Plaza Brooklyn, New York 11201 19 By: RONALD G. WHITE CECIL SCOTT 20 Assistant U.S. Attorneys
21 For the Defendants: NOR
MAN TRABULUS, ESQ. 22 For Bruce W. Gordon 170 Old Country Road, Suite 600 23 Mineola, New York 11501
24 EDWARD P. JENKS, ESQ. For Who's Who, Sterling 25 332 Willis Avenue Mineola, New York 11501
OWEN M. WICKER, RPR OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER 8434
1 GARY SCHOER, ESQ. 2 For Tara Garboski 6800 Jericho Turnpike 3 Syosset, New York 11791
4 ALAN M. NELSON, ESQ. For Oral Frank Osman 5 3000 Marcus Avenue Lake Success, New York 11042 6 WINSTON LEE, ESQ. 7 For Laura Weitz 319 Broadway 8 New York, New York 10007
9 MARTIN GEDULDIG, ESQ. For Annette Haley 10 400 South Oyster Bay Road Hicksville, New York 11801 11 JAMES C. NEVILLE, ESQ. 12 For Scott Michaelson 225 Broadway 13 New York, New York 10007
14 THOMAS F.X. DUNN, For , 15 150 Nassau Street New York, New York 10038 16 JOHN S. WALLENSTEIN, ESQ. 17 For Mart
in Reffsin 215 Hilton Avenue 18 Hempstead, New York 11551
19 Court Reporter: Owen M. Wicker, RPR 20 United States District Court Two Uniondale Avenue 21 Uniondale, New York 11553 (516) 292-6963 22
23 Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript produced by computer-assisted transcription. 24
25 (Case called.)
OWEN M. WICKER, RPR OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER 8435
1 THE COURT: Where is Ms. Haley?
2 MR. GEDULDIG: I don't know, Judge. I can't
3 answer that question. I don't know, Judge. I know she
4 sometimes has difficulty when the weather is bad.
5 MR. SCHOER: Judge, with respect to Ms. Garboski
6 --
7 THE COURT: I can't hear you.
8 MR. SCHOER: I'm sorry.
9 With respect to Ms. Garboski, she called the
10 Court and I received a message from your courtroom deputy
11 to call her back and I did. She is most concerned that he
12 will not be mad at her.
13 THE COURT: Me mad at people that are late? How
14 could you ever get that impression, Mr. Schoer? If I've
15 given anybody that view, they are absolutely correct, but
16 I'm not going to be mad at her, of course not. She said
17 her car will not start.
18 MR. SCHOER: Her battery -- she indicated that
19 she has been waiting for 45 minutes for a cab to show up
20 and a half-hour for a mechanic and whichever one comes
21 first she will avail herself up.
22 THE COURT: Tell her I'm not in the least bit
23 angry.
24 MR. SCHOER: She told me that she doesn't want to
25 hold up the trial and she would waive her appearance until
OWEN M. WICKER, RPR OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER 8436
1 she gets here.
2 THE COURT: And you believe she understands that
3 she has a right to be here, that
she has a right to hold
4 up everything until she gets here.
5 MR. SCHOER: Yes, she has heard Your Honor's
6 instructions throughout the trial. I'm competent that she
7 knows what this is all about.
8 THE COURT: We have another missing defendant.
9 MR. GEDULDIG: I spoke with Ms. Haley the last
10 time she had a problem getting here and she indicated if
11 she had a problem again and she would be hopeful it would
12 not, but apparently it has. As Ms. Garboski, she is
13 prepared to state to the Court that she will waive the
14 trial.
15 THE COURT: I would hesitate to do that except to
16 discuss certain questions of admissibility of evidence
17 which I would like to discuss. Do you think she would
18 waive her appearance during that period?
19 MR. GEDULDIG: I do.
20 THE COURT: It actually happens to do with the
21 defendant Gordon. Do you understand that that would have
22 to do with certain admissibility of evidence, Mr. Schoer?
23 MR. SCHOER: That's fine.
24 THE COURT: Then please be seated.
25 I am concerned about, which I was concerned right
OWEN M. WICKER, RPR OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER 8437
1 from the beginning of the case, about the interplay of the
2 Gordon civil judgment and in a moment of, I suppose, I
3 would not say weakness, that would be awful for me to say
4 that -- by the way, I would like to have Ms. Barnes
5 removed from the courtroom during this discussion.
6 (Ms. Barnes exits the courtroom.)
7 THE COURT: My first inclination when the
8 government wanted to introduce the Gordon, rather, the
9 Who's Who Worldwide Reed Elsevier judgment against Who's
10 Who Worldwide was no. I felt it was not relevant, and
11 even if it was the probative value was far outweighed by a
12 jury, no matter what my curative charge was, telling them
13 that the burden of proof was different, that it had to
14 deal with a copyright infringement case, the issues
15 weren't the same and yet they'll hear it. This concerned
16 me very greatly. I thought that this kind of evidence
17 would be classic 403, confuse the issues -- here's Ms.
18 Haley -- good afternoon -- I mean, good morning, Ms.
19 Haley.
20 DEFENDANT HALEY: I'm sorry.
21 THE COURT: And so I precluded it.
22 As I said under 403, I thought it was classic
23 unfair prejudice to expect a jury to understand the
24 difference in the burden of proof, the difference in the
25 type of case, all they would know is that a federal judge
OWEN M. WICKER, RPR OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER 8438
1 told Who's Who Worldwide and Gordon not to do this.
2 I was also concerned with the
time element, this
3 was far late in the name. The judgment was when, in
4 1994?
5 MR. TRABULUS: March 1994, Your Honor. I don't
6 have the exact date.
7 THE COURT: The company closed in March of 1995
8 and they went into bankruptcy shortly thereafter. Much of
9 the evidence of the alleged criminal actions were before
10 that time. So all in all I expressed the view very
11 clearly at that time that I was going to exclude it. And
12 the rule reads and it seems to be classic in this type of
13 evidence, although there are cases and I know there are
14 cases in which they allowed it for specific issues. Every
15 time they allow it they say it is not error or it is not
16 an abuse of discretion. They sort of feathered it all the
17 time. They said we don't like it really, but okay, we'll
18 let it get by because it covered a specific issue in the
19 case.
20 The rule says, although irrelevant, evidence may
21 be excluded if it's probative value is substantially
22 outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of
23 the issues or misleading the jury or by considerations of
24 undue delay, waste of time or needless presentation of
25 cumulative evidence. If there ever were evidence that fit
OWEN M. WICKER, RPR OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER 8439
1 within 403, my view was originally, and I excluded it,
2 then we would get the Sandra Barnes episode and here's
3 where my moment of weakness occurred.
4 Mr. White and Ms. Scott are very persuasive.
5 Ms. Scott comes up with all kinds of cases all the time
6 and Mr. White uses them to great advantage and being the
7 very good lawyer that he is. And so when I said I would
8 allow the Barnes testimony on the question of good faith
9 or evidence of fraudulent intent or whether it was just
10 doing business as usual, and this case, understand this is
11 a close case, very close case. It's a close case whether
12 these defendants went over the line. I'm going to let it
13 go to the jury, but it's a close case, very close.
14 Now, when I decided I would allow the Barnes
15 testimony in if there was evidence of custom and usage and
16 we found in the in camera testimony that not only Marquis,
17 and I'll call them that notwithstanding what they want to
18 be called because I don't know how to pronounce the other
19 one, Marquis Who's Who used lists, I assume they are
20 mailing lists, they didn't call them that, but they are
21 association lists, Dun & Bradstreet lists. While the
22 witness testified that she didn't know about custom and
23 usage no doubt they were a major player and they put them
24 in a brochure which they mailed out to potential
25 customers. My goodness, that's why I allowed it... ...
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 working hard to prove himself 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
