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Trial news update, June 18, 2001

Dear Friends;

Claudia Ayers & Lee Smith reporting, live from OKC. (Harry is currently

meeting with his attorneys regarding closing arguments.)

This is our first day in attendance at the trial, now in the 5th day. Last

Friday, Harry’s attorney’s rested their case and the UF was resuming their

case: continuing with Tonia Baney’s testimony. She didn’t actually take the

stand until about 1:30 today because of Judge West’s attempts to evolve a

settlement between the parties, right through the lunch hour. These efforts

failed and the jury was brought in for continuation of testimony.

Tonia took the stand and was reminded of her previous statements to the

effect that the publication of JANR was an attractive publication which

appealed to Christians. The UF attempted to provide the argument that JANR

was cutting into their market, but this was countered by Harry’s attorneys

who showed they had prerogative to publish the UP with any type of book

cover they wanted. Other publication topics were reviewed and this testimony

seemed neither here nor there as far as helpfulness. Tonia dodged questions

and rambled a great deal, contributing as little as she could whenever she

was cross examined by Harry’s litagator, Murray. She frequently had to be

pressed to actually answer the questions she was asked. She claimed not to

know or remember events or issues a fair amount.

Next up was Ann Garner who gave a personal account of her readership

activities, her friendship with Harry, and how she was in court to testify

about some conversations she had with Harry about her desire to see the UF

and Fellowship work out their differences. She recounted how her

conversations with Harry were such that he said he wanted to destroy the

Foundation, and how Harry no longer felt that Gard was "his brother." Her

image as the kind, soft-spoken healer-leader who felt that Harry had gone

down a negative path was effective. She painted a pretty negative picture of

Harry; it was more opinionated than factual, because she put a spin on the

statements by the way she presented them. She also clearly feels the

Foundation justifiably owned the rights to the copyright. She was an

excellent spokesman for the Foundation and gave the jury a very negative

impression of Harry, even if none of her testimony had much relevance to the

legal issues.

Next called was Barbara Newsom. She took the stand and told how she found

the book, how much it helped her get past the death of her sister, and how

she became involved at the Foundation as a college student, and even as an

employee. She was a close friend of Christy’s and Doc Sadler. Then she

started to recount how her interest in developing a history of the UPs

evolved because of the involvement she had with the voluminous journals and

manuscripts of Doc Sadler. After the Doctor’s death, she and Christy

organized these materials, putting them in order and so forth, and working

with them every day. Suddenly Harry’s attorneys asked to approach the bench

and all the attorneys on both sides, plus the court reported had a little

discussion with the judge (we could not hear the conversation of these 7

men). When it was finally over, after maybe 10 minutes, then Steve Hill (for

the Foundation) said: “No further questions,” and Barbara stepped down.

There was a 15 minute recess.

Barbara was then brought back and told that the line of discussion that they

had originally started was over, and now they would take up a new topic.

This included her description of how the papers were presented in a process

involving 3 phases: including an initial presentation of papers; then, based

on Q’s & A’s the rest of the papers were delivered (including the Jesus

Papers); and then she claimed there was a clarification period (through

1942) where papers were amended and condensed (including the Jesus papers).

Her testimony was challenged as hearsay by Harry’s attorneys and the Judge

asked the jury to ignore it.

Harry’s attorneys recalled Harry to the stand to rebut some of the previous

testimony, including previous deleterious statements by Les Tibbels, Tonia

Baney and Gard Jameson. Harry rebutted Gard’s earlier testimony that he gave

$1500 to Asoka to pass on to the defense fund of JJ Johnson by saying that

his (Harry's) records show no payments on behalf of JJ, but only to

Kristen’s attorney. Harry also remembers that when Asoka was subpoenaed to

give the names of those who made donations to Kristen, this event was known

as the “round 'um up and brand them move,” and that even Gard said: “That

would include me.” Harry also was asked to read from a letter he wrote to

Gard saying how he would always have high personal regard for Gard, but that

he was bound by his convictions to break the Foundation’s control over other

readers. It was a thoughtful and warm letter and it seemed to cast Harry in

a much warmer and understanding light than the previous testimonies had.

Harry was then cross-examined by UF attorneys, who asked about his opinions

and some things he had written or said about the Foundation. Harry admitted

he had said things he regretted and that he has let his temper get the best

of him at times. They then pulled out their biggest gun of the day and asked

him about an E-mail he wrote to a friend (which someone had copied to the

General Council) in which he made reference to his desire to drive a yellow

Ryder truck up to 533, a la Tim McVeigh. Harry went to some pains to express

his regret for ever having written such a misguided statement in attempted

humor and that he would never hurt any other human being. This obviously did

not help Harry’s case, even though, again, it has nothing to do with the

issues of copyright law.

We don’t know how this E-mail came into the hands of the UF attorneys, but

clearly it was intended for one of Harry’s friends. It was a dark humor jab

that was just part of an E-mail, but the UF jumped on it and it has hurt

Harry because the jury will remember it, no matter how irrelevant to the

case law.

The UF rested after bringing up the yellow Ryder truck statement and the

jury was told by the Judge that they would be coming back tomorrow to

deliberate. They would hear closing arguments, then they would hear his jury

instructions and that they were not to come to any conclusions until they

heard as much. The judge speaks effectively with the jury and shows that he

respects them with the way he talks to them. We were unable to discern any

jury response to anything said all day. They appeared to listen attentively.

Their eyes always looked as exhibits were presented. Who knows how they view

all these Urantia “things” like statements about sleeping subjects, high

orders of angels, contact commissions, stories about Adam and Eve and about

Lucifer, revelations, etc. They may think all parties are absolutely nuts,

or may be getting ready to buy books of their own. There is no way to know

how much they really get or understand. They don’t talk, they don’t emote.

After the jury was gone, the UF attorneys disclosed to the judge (and all of

us)where they had been attempting to go with the Barbara Newsom’s testimony.

They told how she had been prepared to testify about some things that she

had shared with them for the first time last Friday night. She had never

shared any of the following with anyone else before, but thought maybe she

should now. Had she been allowed to, before the jury, she would have shared

some new information about the sleeping subject that she herself knew

because of her early involvement as a volunteer and short time employee at

the Foundation working for Christy. She had complete familiarity with Doc

Sadler’s complete personal files, including his day by day journal and other

paper’s and articles. After he died, she and Christy had organized these

items and had them stored in Christy’s locked file cabinet in a back room of

her residence on the second floor at 533. They were going to write a

detailed history and use these materials, except that on December 30th,

1979, Christy announced to the Trustees that her files had “disappeared”

from the locked file. But Barbara stated that she immediately wrote from her

personal memory of these items all that she could remember, covering 30

pages, which she presented to the UF attorneys and which they wanted to

include in this trial as evidence that the sleeping subject was aware of the

events and activities of the contact commission, which included publishing

the papers, and that all this as just fine with him (implied collaboration).

This, of course, would help their case that the “author” was performing a

commissioned work, one of the tests for copyrightability.

The judge threw this testimony out as inadmissible, but it was an astounding

story (and not very believable, by us). We have already dubbed it, the

“secret document file that disappeared” theory that would have given UF

enough evidence to prove its involvement with the contact person as a

collaborative work. Barbara's attempted  testimony was a last minute effort

by UF to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

At the end of the day, opposing attorneys attempted to persuade the judge

that he should make a judgment ruling “as a matter of law”.   He denied both

attempts and stated this matter will go to the jury tomorrow after closing

arguments (beginning about 10am).  He again impressed upon all parties that

a settlement would be his preference for resolving this case.

We will send out the verdict (if the jury arrives at one.

Big Breaking News: Harry just came home and reports that the big news is

that UF has agreed that "the patient is the legal author of the Urantia

Book."

This is our summary of events for today. Tomorrow we hope to report the

verdict.

Claudia and Lee