First Impressions

Now you know the jest of my case so I'll share something else with you.  My first weeks following the trial, while incarcerated at Lew Sterrett (Dallas County Jail) I was in a state of shock somewhat...I suppose it could be called culture shock.  Up to this time I had never visited or really known somebody in jail.  And here I was living there.  My first impressions reflect my fear and became one of my book excerpts as follows:

     For anyone who believes hell is on earth, they only need to spend one week locked in a county jail to affirm their belief.  The justice system is based on fear and power, no compassion whatsoever.  No wonder it grows, no wonder rehabilitation is practically non-existent and the return rate so high.  Repeat offenders abound and carry their felony records as if they were a badge of courage.  The more felony raps or "paragraphs" of prior and current offenses listed on their indictment papers, then the higher their status.  They trade blame on crimes as if they were dealing in the commodities market.

     Fire is everywhere, in the tanks of general population, among the single cells and  within the holding cells.  Meanwhile the court rooms are sizzling - the fire held down in an attempt to emulate respect.  The sizzling is nothing more than the sounds of manipulation coming from all directions: the courts, the prosecution, the defense attorneys and the alleged criminals.  Its a wonder if ever a word of truth is uttered in the hissing environs.  How can anybody recognize truth or for that matter justice with all these layers of deceit?

     On the outside of the courtrooms, back in the big holding cells, there is a hellish cacophony.  Throughout there are erupting volcanoes spewing out hatred and bitterness; the burning lava sliding over everyone in the cell and spilling out onto the guards.  Interspersed are the individuals threatening God's wrath and proclaiming the end of the world is here.  While underlying all is the uneasy rhythm of the street talk, a dialect which is barely discernible as a derivative of the English language.

     If you are looking for a quiet space to center yourself before meeting with the Judge it will not happen.  To stay in silence and search for that peaceful place inside yourself cannot last long.  The inmates do not like silence, if you are not willing to share in the constant patter and discuss your case then it is presumed you are a baby killer and your life is in imminent danger.  As a matter of protection you enter your "confidential" information into the data base designed and disseminated by the inmates so you can be placed in the appropriate slot among them.

          Narcissism is rampant.

          Entitlement unbridled.

          Anything for negative attention.

As time went on I found a small number of women I felt comfortable with, things seemed to settle down somewhat, or I finally became acclimated and was able to go about my days with less fear.  I learned that fear had a paralyzing quality to it and would not allow me to move out of danger if necessary.  Mostly I read and read and read.  I allowed this time to become an educational opportunity.  I remembered in the busy-ness of my life before all this I quite often said I did not have enough time to read as much as I'd like, and wished I had more time.  I needn't remind you of the old saying...Be careful what you wish for!  Sometimes, while incarcerated I'd even pretend I was in a nunnery....silly I know... but finding that quiet, peaceful place inside became my survival.

    

ALWAYS....Follow the Money!

By now you are probably asking "What's all this hub-bub about a Separate Property Partition?  Why is it such a hot issue in this case?"  Now listen up you men who are always thinking of ways to protect assets and especially listen up you women who may need to understand this someday or add this protection to your own portfolio.

Many of you know about Separate Property coming into a marriage, and how it can be maintained as separate in a community property state as Texas.  This is about creating Separate Property once you are already married.  In the case I am familiar with it is done frequently with real estate developers where the banks and other lenders are requiring personal guarantees during the construction phase.  By doing a Separate Property Partition it allows the guarantor to carve a piece of community property out and split it with their spouse equally thus creating two equal Separate Properties, one for themselves and one for their spouse.  That way if real estate development deals go belly-up and the guarantee is called by the lender(s), they can take the community property and the separate property of the guarantor but the separate property of the guarantor's spouse is still in tact and can be used to support the family.  Pretty good risk management, you say?  Yes, it is.  There was another purpose though, in the instance in which I am familiar.

The above reason for this partition is the one the spouse hears.  The real reason I saw this instigated was once these partners get wealthy, quite often they go looking for the trophy...thus facilitating a divorce.  Guess what divorces do?  Tie up the partnership when the partner is living in a community property state.  A divorce can prevent a real estate deal from being sold, by tieing it up for years, thus keeping all the partners of a deal from realizing millions in profits.  All it takes is one partner going through a nasty divorce (these divorces literally take years)....and where there is a trophy involved I guarantee you there is some nastiness.  So, to prevent this, once there is a property separation, all new real estate development deals are done in the guarantor's separate property.  Over time the old deals are either sold or go back to lender.  As a consequence, it is usually a surprise when the spouse files for a divorce and finds out most the deals have been in the other's separate property and all along they believed the corpus of their community property was growing by millions from the investment profits in these development deals.  The deals were not happening in community property after all so it happens there is really nothing to get other than their own separate property and perhaps the old homestead.  You see, it seems everything comes down to money, right?  If there are no child custody issues, divorce at this level of wealth is just about money.

That's why it surprises me in the statement to the police, it was said that the false accuser was not watching his accounts as he was "distracted by his divorce".  What was his divorce about, where custody was not an issue, if not about money?  Correct, it was entirely about money so if he was distracted with his divorce, wouldn't he be distracted TOWARD his money?  Of course he was, he was already a micro manager of his money, the divorce process only amplified his focus.

What makes this particular situation even more precarious, you ask?  My client's wife called me in January 2003 (see timeline) to tell me she was going to bust his separate property because in the second partition, which she said she never agreed to, he pulled all real estate investments into his separate property, giving them a nominal value and taking his equal share of cash out of the community property, leaving practically nothing in the community property.  Some of these deals went on to see significant profits very soon after (or before) the transfer....if we only knew the actual date of the agreement.  Yet in her testimony at my trial she agrees we had that conversation and she said those things to me but then five minutes later goes on to say she would sign anything to save her marriage.  Hmmm, well, which is it?  She did not agree to it or she did?  She was not questioned further.  The jury was left to wonder what all that was about since no one explained to them the significance of the 2nd Separate Property Partition and how I was placed smack in the middle of it.

As you may recall in the previous timeline blog I talk about how I was questioned on exposure items to client's divorce during a transition meeting on October 15, 2003.  Now that you understand everything about Separate Property Partitions, in particular the intent behind them, I think you'll agree with my stated concern of these three items:

1. Client's wife had no legal representation in the 2nd property separation and was now questioning all the real estate deals taken out of the community property causing an enormous disparity (years later) in the values of their once equal separate properties.
2. All the partnership and corporate interests were listed as a nominal value on his transfer of these assets to his separate property when in fact there were on-going sales supporting a much greater value.
3. My client's unwillingness to provide me with the executed document so I could complete the schedules required by the divorce attorneys - proper allocation of sale proceeds based on effective date was in question.

To further clarify the issues related to this partition, just a couple weeks before the trial (now 2007) I searched for the document as my understanding is it had to be filed with the county and I figured out my trial attorney was doing no investigative work.  Going through the records in downtown Dallas I found both partitions, the first partition filed in the late 80's and the 2nd partition filed in the late 90's.  When comparing the two I found many differences.  The first partition was prepared by an estate/family attorney.  Whereas the second one had been hacked up, I presume by my client, having his secretary cut, paste and type and I came to wonder if it was even a legal document...because it was reciting family law codes which I doubted were even applicable, given the deletions and additions.  It became clear to me why he would never give me the document to support this 2nd partition.  My attorney touched on the authenticity of her signature and the nominal values but the significance of all this was not driven home to the Jury.  Further, when she volunteered she was paid plenty in the divorce, that was not the issue...the issue was the motive of my client when the divorce started and as it became heated up.

All this leads into the significance of the Motion in Limine filed 10 days before my trial and how it is the prosecution was able to keep motive for the false accusations out of my trial.  Following is that Motion:

This document did not come to my attention until about 2 months ago when a friend of my husband's was researching my case.  He also found that all of the testimony from my trial and pre-trial hearings has been taken out of the public records and is being help in the DA's office so he was unable to review that.  My own trial attorney never told me of this Motion.  So, during my testimony I was constantly interrupted by prosecution and not allowed to tell what happened.  It sure did not lend to my credibility in the eyes of the Jury.

At least all of this is coming to light now....for that I am grateful.  What is interesting is that I, the defendant, wanted everything out in the open, nothing to hide and begged for the involvement of the Feds.  Typically it is the defendant who is trying to get Motions in Limine and it is typically the defendant who is fighting like crazy during the pretrial hearings to keep prior actions out of the trial.  In my case it was the false accusers who were spending large sums of money and energy doing that, as if they were the defendants.  I am told my case has been very atypical....I don't know.  What I do know is there were three of us who knew the details of these transactions...my client, his business partner and me.  And, it took awhile for me to figure it out, I was just trying to correct the allocations, thinking that is what everybody wanted.  Apparently, that is where I made my mistake!

A TIMELINE IS IN ORDER!

By now you know the trial and all that led up to it was a travesty of justice.  It seems it is as good a time as any to set out a timeline showing the events I have shared and adding a few illuminating details.

• December 1999  Non-profit corp ("The Noah School Project, Inc.") was filed with the state of Texas.
• 2000 - 2002  Provided a free to the public - Speaking Series while researching the market plus best treatments and strategy.  Training for eventual school was on-going at my home.
• January 2001  Filed application for 501(c)3 - Federal Non-Profit Determination.
• October 2001  Received Non-Profit status from IRS and began search for appropriate school site.
• April 2002  Signed lease for school.
• April - June 2002  Obtained approval from city to build out special purposes school.
• June 2002  Began construction.
• October 2002  Construction completed, school opened.  Client's/contributor's divorce process commenced.
• November 24,2002  CBS aired The NOAH Project segment on Evening News (national coverage).
• December 2002  Meeting with client's divorce attorneys to determine what information and schedules I would need to provide.
• January 2003  After receiving the December 31, 2002 financials on a timely basis my client's wife called informing me she was going to "bust" his Separate Property and apologizes for all the extra work that would cause me, knowing I was also busy with NOAH.  The details of all Separate Property transactions plus bank/brokerage statements had to be reported from inception (1988).  In the case of investment in real estate development deals - walk forward increases on both cash and tax basis, plus all supporting documents of the legal entities and their transactions.
• January - October 2003  Continued to work for clients, plus direct the school.  Repeatedly asked client for 2nd Separate Property Partition so I could make needed adjustments to allocations based on effective date of partition.  Client never actually allowed me to have the signed partition (or even a copy as support in the accounting records).  This was very unusual and created an error in allocations.
• July 2003  Called to a meeting with my client and his divorce attorney.  The attorney reviewed with me everything I knew about my client's two partitions to create Separate Property and all activity since inception, asking me to diagram on a board in the conference room.  He told me to stop sending things directly to wife's attorney but send everything to him from that point on.
• July or August 2003  Client says this is when he found out about "theft" according to his deposition in the civil suit.
• August 2003  Client tells me of threatened litigation regarding his collaborative divorce.
• August 2003  Business trip to Washington DC to meet with NIH regarding research grant for NOAH.
• September 2003  Meetings with client's business partner to discuss recasting of client's contributions to debt. This was to help him with his divorce issues.  Treating his contributions as a start-up cost that could be recouped through NIH research grant funding.  He had me prepare several amortization schedules, varying the term and rate, saying the client would review and decide which terms he wanted.
• October 1, 2003  Conference call with client and his business partner saying he could no longer fund NOAH as he was in trouble with his divorce.  They gave me the choice to continue with NOAH (either keep it going or reorganize it) or go back full time with them and let NOAH close for good.  I chose to stay with NOAH and agreed to a 3 - 4 week transition period.  I was given a list of work priorities to do during the transition period.  There was a parent training meeting scheduled for that evening.  I canceled the training and called an emergency meeting of key parents, Board members and business consultant group.  The main topic was how do we keep the school open in the short term.  Many of us left that meeting with assignments.
• October 2003  Transitional meetings with client's business partner throughout the month.   
• October 3, 2003  Clients had their corporate controller rent a U-Haul (in his own name) and along with another business associate pick up their file cabinets and oldest files from my garage at 7:00am.  Later that day I had my first transitional meeting with client's business partner, at which time he instructed me to provide a resignation letter, which I did.  Parts of that resignation letter were recovered from computer but date at top of letter was removed as were my words of gratitude for all the years of working for them.  Did a dead battery pick those things to delete?
• October 7, 2003  At trial (2007) Contributor testified this is the date he found out about "theft" and froze his personal accounts.  In contrast to Contributor's deposition saying July or August.  In further contrast to police report and statement provided by Contributor's business partner saying "some time in October".  You'd think their "memory" would have been best for the police report but instead the exact date comes four years later in my trial.  Curious?
• October 11, 2003  Date of contrived confession.  Not found in the computer, but a letter I wrote on that date to Reese Technology, saying just the opposite was recovered from the computer. 
• October 15, 2003  Meeting with client's business partner to go over their personal tax returns.  At this transitional meeting I was asked to explain all exposure items of client's divorce.  For which I named three major issues  related to the 2nd Separate Property Partition of which I was further questioned about each.  In addition I named two other items having explosive potential in the divorce proceedings.
• October 15, 2003  Follow up meeting with key parents, Board members and business consultants to communicate our progress on search for emergency funding, meetings with local foundations, timing of payables and a brainstorming of what else we could do.
• October 25, 2003  Meeting with Contributor's business partner to go over strategy regarding meeting with Texas Tech and Reese Technology in Lubbock.  The Lubbock trip was to discuss emergency funding, moving the school and families to Lubbock and the purchase of the NOAH assets and transfer to Lubbock.  I was instructed to bring that list of NOAH assets to the meeting for review by the Contributor's business partner.  He kept a copy.
• October 26, 2003  That evening flew to Lubbock with a business consultant for meeting next day as referenced above. 
• October 27, 2003  Meetings all day in Lubbock.  At the end of day it was determined they could not fund fast enough to keep The NOAH Project open in Plano or move the school and families to Lubbock.  Their money would not be available for about nine months.  So we knew on our flight home that we would need to close the school the next day in order to cover payroll and most of accounts payable with remaining money in operating account.
• October 28, 2003  The last day of school for The NOAH Project.  At end of day we had a joint meeting with parents and staff so they could more easily transition their children's programs to their homes, setting up on-going work for employees as they left NOAH.  All parents were called during the day (prior to the meeting) to tell them what was decided about the school and to prepare them to move programs to home setting.
• October 29, 2003  The NOAH Project files were packed, desks cleared out, preparing for the furniture and equipment move the next day to Contributor's storage as they were going to keep assets  for us while we worked on reorganizing the school with new funding.  Many of us, including NOAH friends worked late into the night.
• October 30, 2003  The Contributor's business partner showed up with four of the largest commercial moving vans of a major moving company along with their moving professionals.  They worked from 8 in the morning to almost 10 at night.  Now tell me that was only $20,000 of assets as he testified in my trial!  He probably spent $20,000 on the move itself!  The same night I received a call at home from insurance agency, partially owned by Contributor.  They were trying to get me to extend the Director's & Officer's policy for which I did not approve.  Although, they chose to go ahead and extend it and pay for it out of agency funds.
• November 2003  Tied up loose ends of school as best I could.  Worked with business consulting group on reorganization, preparing an investment package.  I worked on book about The NOAH Project.  Went to New Mexico for Thanksgiving to be with my family.  My dad had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer earlier that year. I decided to move out there for a few months to be close to my dad while working on book and reorganizing NOAH, plus had to move out of Plano home since I was no longer earning income from clients (now ex-clients).  I had been packing since early October (with help from several friends) knowing I would have to move to a smaller place.
• December 6, 2003  Moved last truckload of furniture - left Plano that evening.  
• December 9, 2003  My parents received call from DPD detective saying I was being charged with theft of money to fund school.  The detective called me back at their home once my dad was able to reach me, my phone wasn't set up yet.
• Remainder of December 2003  Received several calls at my home from detective.  He was always calling me a liar no matter what I said.  I asked him to get the computer, knowing there would be evidence on the computer of correspondence and contribution calls.  Plus documentation on the Contributor's financials statements and supporting schedules regarding contributions.  In addition to bank reconciliations with same information. 

There is the timeline of initial events in a nutshell.  Some nutshell, right?  If you've made it this far, you probably need a break...I know I do.  I have spent the day writing this and it feels as though I've relived it.  I have so many good memories of the school, the creation of the school itself, the kids, their unique personalities and their progress, the parents and their enthusiasm and love for their children, and our staff was extraordinary, an inspiration unto itself.  We taught and ran the school on the 3 E's.  Energy, Excitement and Enthusiasm.  Those were at the center of all we did, we wanted the most for our kids and in the process we received the gift of growth and joy for ourselves.  As I look back I will remember the best and going forward I know I'll get through this.  One thing I forgot to do at the time, but its never too late....that is to give God all the Glory.  That school would have never existed without Him.  He was so very present as we watched the miracles of transformation in each of those special childrens' lives.  I am grateful for the time we all had together and will never regret a moment of it as I continue to work towards clearing my name.

A DEAD BATTERY?

August 2005 my trial attorney asked me to provide a list of what needed to be subpoenaed.  Within two days I faxed him a list...which was over two pages long.  The list included (but was not limited to) the contributor's 2001, 2002 and 2003 Separate Property bank statements, financial statements, support for all transactions, individual income tax returns and the computer.   He subpoenaed part of the things on the list that Fall, the computer was included in his subpoenas.  We were told everything would come to us before Thanksgiving 2005.  It did not.  Then I was told to show up a couple times to review the documents prior to Christmas, again they did not show up. 

Finally I was called in the second week of February 2006 to review what they did bring in, which was less than what was subpoenaed and did not include the computer.  My attorney called their civil attorneys asking about the computer.  He was given the run around and for a few weeks nobody knew where the computer was.  It had disappeared!  Then they miraculously found it, kept promising to bring it in, but did not.  This behavior continued until the Discovery hearing on May 26, 2006, when they started their arguments of relevance and privilege.  Privilege is unheard of in criminal cases but guess what?  They continued to argue through out the summer.  I started requesting forensics when I received a list of files and realized much of what I needed was gone plus there were several other peculiarities in the list of files.  In the May hearing I started asking for FBI involvement.  The Judge kept saying her budget wouldn't allow for forensics.  Okay, so I am innocent, want to prove it, but its not within the Judge's budget?  It appears that the DA's office did not take the computer into evidence because then my defense would have a right to all its contents.  Don't ever let anybody tell you prosecution is about truth, it is about winning...plain and simple. 

With regard to forensics I decided the only chance I would have is to get the media involved so I sent an email entitled "Forensics PLEASE", dated August 25, 2006 to my attorney (Birdsall), the prosecutor (Moss, ADA), Judge Faith Johnson, and two investigative reporters, Becky Oliver and Byron Harris, with a followup on August 28, 2006.  The name of the followup email was "Deleted Files".  I have both emails imaged below (you may have to increase your "zoom" level to 125% to read the documents):

As a result of these two emails my attorney told me the Judge was angry and was talking about pulling my PR (personal recognizance) Bond so I would have to sit in jail until my trial.  She said she had never seen anything like it in her 16 years as Judge.  I did these emails because there seemed no other way to get what I needed to prove my innocence and I was not in violation of the terms of my PR Bond.  Although, she could have remanded me for Contempt of Court, but that would have brought attention to my case and that is what nobody seemed to want.

On September 25, 2006 the Judge begrudgingly approved the computer forensics, complaining about what it would do to her budget.  Upon her decision at the Hearing the contributor (my false accuser) stormed out of the Courtroom.

October 8, 2006 I provided a detailed letter of everything I needed the forensics expert to look at based on a revised and complete listing of all files on the hard drive which he had provided.  The computer files were fragmented (files in pieces intermingled with code), they said as a result of a dead battery.  But prior to them allowing the battery to die there was evidence that someone had laid thousands of files on top of mine, crowding my files and causing a complete deletion for many files from the system.  I wanted to see all files then I could determine what they had used to tamper with the evidence.  I was told by the Judge that I would meet with her and  review ("in camera" - meaning outside the Courtroom) all the files so I could explain how the various files related to my defense.  When she lost the election, she postponed my trial due to on-going forensics, and she said, in Court, there was some advantages to losing the election because she sure didn't want to review thousands of files from my computer.

The forensics expert was able to "defragment" many of the files but the date stamps were destroyed.  There were approximately twenty banker's boxes full of recovered files.  I was allowed about one inch of those files, most of which were totally useless.  Even the files that did have information that may have been helpful and raised questions were not used by my trial attorney.  When the new Judge took the bench I was not allowed to view anything "in camera".  The times I mentioned this to my attorney he would just shake his head....he would not bring it up in our Hearings.

To this day I believe there are things in that computer that could have helped my defense even with so much deleted, plus I feel certain I could have figured out how they tampered with those files.  I believe there is a pattern both to what was overlaid and to the date stamps...I am not believing there was a random malfunction causing ALL the problems.  The Court allowed itself to be led by the contributor's civil attorneys.  As a consequence, it was the men who falsely accused me who determined what computer files I was allowed to see and use in my defense.  They expended so much energy and legal fees keeping the computer's contents away from me that I am certain there are things they know I would recognize and be able to use in my defense and definitely information toward the impeachment of their characters. 

TOP QUESTIONS - NEVER ASKED

All that ever had to happen in my trial was for there to be reasonable doubt.  Reasonable doubt was abounding had the appropriate questions been asked.  Following are a few of the top questions - never asked:

1. If I had something to hide - why would I pursue and even go to Washington DC to meet with NIH (National Institute of Health) regarding a multi-million dollar research grant?  With my accounting and audit background I knew full well that NIH, as part of their due diligence, would require audited financial statements with full disclosure from inception since we were a start-up entity.  Part of an audit of a non-profit includes an independent confirmation of material charitable contributions directly from the contributor. Of course, NOAH was auditable.
2. Why didn't my ex-client call the police immediately?  In the depositions he said he discovered the theft in July or August 2003.  In the trial testimony he said he discovered it on October 7, 2003.  With whatever lie you go with, the police did not get a call until mid-November.  Why is that?
3. Why didn't they have NOAH's bank accounts frozen immediately?  There was approximately $100,000 in checking and money market, with another $100,000 in restricted Certificates of Deposit.  The accounts of NOAH were never frozen.
4. Why did they give me a prioritized list of things to do for them in the 3 to 4 week transition period when it was decided I would stay with NOAH (October1).  Why would they allow a "thief" to continue to handle their financial information?  The amount he contributed to The NOAH Project was $3,775,000 over three years....I don't believe I mentioned that thus far.  If you decided to call that stolen...would you continue to work with me and NOT call the police?  Here are the specific priorities I was given for the month of October (the transition period): (1)  2002 Individual Tax Returns (done by CPA firm...I only had review function), (2)   their personal financial statements, and (3) divorce workpapers and schedules.
5. Why did I have several transition meetings with the contributor's business partner throughout the entire month of October during which I discussed and transferred completed work assignments and boxes of files.  Would you give a thief transition time?
6. At one of those transition meetings with his business partner on October 15, at the Whataburger on Coit Rd. in Plano, TX, I was asked what I saw as my ex-client's/contributor's exposure items in his divorce.  I named three major areas and was questioned further as to the details.  Why wasn't that brought up in the trial?  Isn't that a key to the motive?
7. The business partner of the contributor came to my house to get the remaining file boxes and the computer on October 28th.  If I was a thief, why didn't he bring the police or have the police handle it entirely?
8. On October 30th, after we determined we could not get emergency funding fast enough to keep the school open, the business partner came to the school with four large commercial moving vans to take the assets of NOAH saying they "would store them for us".  As it was explained, while we tried to reorganize NOAH, they would store these assets for three reasons (1) to prevent vandalism of said assets, (2) protect against claims from Landlord and (3) protect from claims of other creditors.  He asked me to sign what he called a "receipt" so if the police showed up and I was not present, then they would not be arrested for stealing NOAH's assets.  Why, if I had stolen the money, didn't they have the police confiscate these assets?
9. Why did they get away with saying the value of these assets was only $20,000 when the accounting books and support indicated it was worth well over $250,000?  What did they fill four large commercial moving vans with that only totaled up to $20,000?  If the assets only had a value of $20,000 why bother to go to so much effort?  Because $20,000 is all he recognized on his tax return as recovering.  Hmmm....a slight understatement.
10. The Directors and Officers insurance policy for NOAH expired the first week in October. Remember from the prior blog the contributor and his business partner had ownership in the insurance agency.  Why did someone from their insurance agency call me on the night of October 30th and try to convince me I had to extend NOAH's Director and Officer's policy to cover the end-days and protect the Board from any claims the parents or creditors might make?  When I told her we did not have the wherewithal to pay, she said they would pay it and I told her "NO, do not extend, do not pay that additional premium."  Their insurance agency went on to pay for that extension anyway.  They did not have my permission or NOAH's money.  Where are the papers for this?  It happened but nobody can come up with any signed papers for the extension.  Why not?  Because they do not exist, but the extension was put into place to cover the claim made by my ex-client.
11. Why did the DPD detective testify that it took three months to find me?  Mid-November to December 9th (1st conversation with detective) is only about 3 weeks - why wasn't he questioned about the timing?
12. Why did the detective get away with testifying that my mailbox at home in Plano was stuffed full like I had fled.  I moved out on the Saturday evening of December 6th and he first contacted me on December 9th.  I am certain my mailbox did not get stuffed to overflowing on Monday, December 8th....only one day of mail.  Why wasn't he further questioned?
13. Where are the audio tapes of the telephone conversations I had with the detective throughout December?  He testified I confessed several times.  That was an outright lie that was allowed to stay in. (1) I hadn't been mirandized and (2) it never happened.  How was that allowed to stay in the court records?  If the audio tapes had been entered into evidence, they would tell a very different story.
14. Why was the jury asked to decide if it was my signature on the contrived confession and NOT told that two forensics experts (Dallas County and Denton County) said the authenticity could not be determined?  Further, why wasn't the jury told that I repeatedly requested (in pretrial hearings) that the FBI do forensics on the contrived confession and the computer and was denied.
15. Why were most all my computer files withheld from my defense - claiming irrelevance and /or privilege?  I was not given an opportunity to review (in camera) with the judge those files and an opportunity to explain how they were needed in my defense.  Judge Faith Johnson said that is what would happen but never did.  Why was the computer never taken into evidence by the DA's office?  It had 15 years of files on it....a wealth of evidence for my defense.

The "I DON'T KNOW MEN"

There was a civil suit that paralleled the criminal case.  The two false insurance claims (thus the civil suit) were likely one of the main reasons for the criminal case instigated by my ex-client and his business partner.  The attempt to replace the charitable contributions made to The NOAH Project with insurance proceeds, when his separate property came under attack in the divorce proceedings, cannot be underestimated.  That is only next to the attack on me to make certain I did not reveal where all the skeletons were buried by destroying my credibility.

While on the face it was a collaborative divorce, litigation had been threatened.  Once threatened, within a month and half the charitable contributions ended. That was the time it took them to put the specific scheme in place.  Divorce had been imminent for years, with trial runs, but when there is so much money at stake, the plan requires time and fine tuning of intricate details along with a great deal of estate planning techniques.  It appears The NOAH Project and I became part of that plot (unknowingly) and we were the ultimate scapegoat as well as a significant distraction.  The NOAH Project was not the only dumping grounds for money he planned to recover once divorced it was just the most public.

The late afternoon of October 1st, 2003  I was notified of the end of the contributions and was asked if I wanted to stay with NOAH or go back full-time consulting with them.  Upon my choosing NOAH it appears the final details were worked out over the next six weeks and then the police were contacted.  If there had truly been a theft the police would have been contacted from the start.

The men who falsely accused me were real estate developers but also owners in the insurance agency that provided The NOAH Project's Directors' and Officers' policy (D&O), as well as the Property and Liability policies.  It was NOAH's D&O policy where one false claim was made.  The other false claim was with their own employee theft policy.  I had NEVER been their employee as I was self employed from the start of their businesses. 

The law suit relating to the D&O claim never even named me, although I was a Director and an Officer.  The law suit was filed days after the police were notified and was settled (for pennies on the dollar) approximately a year and a half before the trial, although it took some time for them to sign it as they took months working out a confidentiality clause preventing my Board members and ex-employee/officers from talking to me or anybody else about the settlement.  The main thing accomplished by saying they would settle is it stopped the computer forensics at the civil suit level.  As part of the civil suit discovery the insurance company had called for the computer that I had used so they could do forensics.  The fact that my ex-clients had my computer had been an omission on their part and came out during the depositions.  After many delay tactics the computer was turned over to the insurance company.  Just after the computer went to the insurance company and  BEFORE it underwent the forensic testing my false accusers decided to settle.  The threat of forensic testing appeared to be the catalyst for making a settlement of pennies on the dollar. 

It is thought the settlement only covered legal fees so little to no contributions were even recovered by the claim on the D&O policy.  The claim on the employee theft policy was out right turned down since it could not be proven I was ever an employee.  During the trial my ex-client admitted he received practically nothing on the insurance claims as part of his victim statement.  That statement was strategically placed after the conviction so he would never be questioned as to why his claims were not successful.  In fact I was told the insurance company settled on the D&O policy to "get rid of the bottom feeders", the insurance company knew they were lieing, it was obvious in the depositions...they just couldn't get them to go away any other way without expending a great deal more money.

The depositions relating to the civil suit were hundreds of pages long with my ex-clients and their company controller making several verifiable lies.  My trial attorney refused to investigate the lies I marked (with additional information) in the depositions, so nothing about the depositions was brought up in the trial.  In fact, placing those three depositions side by side, the answers among them were not even consistent.  They didn't agree among each other as to my job responsibilities, the date they supposedly found out about this or what they did within their own work responsibilities.  Sometimes they even changed their answers within their own deposition when a question was repeated.  Plus the false testimonies they made in my trial did not match the lies in the depositions.  But you know the old adage...people who lie cannot keep their stories straight.  My trial attorney also refused to bring up the inconsistencies between the civil case depositions and the trial testimonies.  One difference that was very obvious:  in the depositions they could "not recall" as a response to well over a hundred questions, thus they became known as the "I DON'T KNOW MEN".  In contrast,  in their trial testimonies (2 years after the depositions) they had answers to everything asked and had obviously been coached.  The choreographed performance by prosecution and state witnesses could have won Oscars.  As I sat at the defendent table I felt like I was at the movies...what was said coudn't be further from the truth and the jury bought their drama. My attorney played right into it, he could have brought out the lies,  all the inconsistencies and hundreds of questions that should have been asked were never asked.  Had he only been prepared and willing to defend me there would have been a different outcome.  It would appear my trial attorney joined the club of the I DON'T KNOW MEN.

My next blog will line out a list of the top questions that were never asked in the trial....and then, what about that computer?

WHAT'S THEIR MOTIVE?

When this happened, the first thing that came to me is WHY?  Why are these men doing this?  There must be a mistake.  I worked years for them, respected confidentiality, worked through nights and weekends if that is what it took to get a project done.  Took phone calls in the middle of the night when they worried about their investments and the financial markets.  I was there when they weren't sure if they could trust the banks and wondered if they should bury their money in the backyard to keep it safe.  These men were so focused on their money and watching every little penny even their ex-wives had to fight for years to get divorce settlements out of them.  These men defined MICRO-management when it came to their money and anything they invested in over the years.  So why were they doing this?  I was in the process of leaving them and placing all my energy on The NOAH Project and its growth...the three of us knew that was coming.  There was an on-going joke over the years...."If you ever decide to leave us, you know so much, we'll have to kill you."  It seemed funny at the time but now it wasn't funny at all....were they serious?  Were they doing this in the form of assassinating my character?

In December 2003 I had several phone conversations with Detective Zuczek (pronounced: Zoo-check) from DPD.  I could tell by his responses to my questions and requests that he didn't know much about white collar business or the other possibility is he had already decided I was guilty so anything I had to say was of no use. Then everything went silent. The next I heard from him was on April 5, 2004 when the Detective called and said there was a warrant out for my arrest, the Grand Jury had indicted me.  Forty eight hours later I was arrested and spent 7 days incarcerated while a bond was put in place.  During those 48 hours I had engaged an attorney to take my case.  As it turned out he also did not know much about white collar issues and had a fraud investigator in all our meetings to translate my business-speak.  A few weeks into this I found out he would have to hire somebody else to conduct the trial as he had failed to mention to me that he was not a trial attorney.  I knew I was not getting proper representation from this man who was negotiating a plea on the side (according to his assistant) even though I told him we had to go to trial, I would never plea to something I did not do.

I visited with a friend and his wife one evening to go over all that had happened.  He was a retired Air Force intelligence officer and had stayed connected to the intelligence community.  He immediately checked into other attorneys and found that one of Dallas's best white collar defense attorneys was Mark Perez. On my friend's recommendation and a meeting with Mr. Perez I moved my case to him.  My friend, on the other hand, started an open Internet chat for me.  He would sometimes ask me specific questions and other times he would tell me to just type in the chat everything that came to my mind that happened over the 20 years I worked for these men.  He said to focus on anything that would give rise to the reasons they would set me up.  In other words, anything I knew that they would not want others to know.  Also, anything that I remembered that was odd, or out of place....anything that just stood out.  He also questioned me extensively on all the details of my case.  I printed out all of these chats and organized them chronologically in notebooks.  The Internet chat dialogues sit about a foot high.  I have always had a photographic memory of events which certainly revealed itself in the dialogues.  I charted things when asked and flow-charted organization structures so the details were clear and easier to understand for all those reviewing this information.  I was under the impression that my friend had included others in the questioning of me and processing the volumes of information I provided.  The chats were done over a period of about a year.

During this time I had to change attorneys once again.  Mr. Perez was asking for an additional $50,000 to go to trial.  My family and I could not come up with that.  In fact, as you saw in a previous blog, for a time I had to move to a homeless (transitional living) shelter because we were all out of money.  The court recognized me as indigent (unable to pay legal fees) and appointed an attorney for me.  From the start Mr. Birdsall did not want to listen to the details of my case, was argumentative and said he did not know how to present my case to a jury.  He tried to withdraw from my case and I asked he be taken off my case but both requests were denied by the court.  Since he repeatedly told me he did not know how to defend me I gave him a copy of all the Internet chats I had accumulated on my case, highlighted with the most pertinent points.  Because he wasn't willing to listen to me I thought he might be willing to read.   He kept it but refused to read it and gave it back to me shortly before the trial.  Within those chats were the detail time lines of all that happened in the events of my case, questionable actions over the years of my clients' (false accusers) and an outline of how to proceed with my defense.  I would tell him this every time he told me he didn't know how to defend me but still he would not read it or give me the time to go over all the details with him.  In fact his argument when he tried to withdraw from the case was that he did not have time for the case and we had a conflict of strategy.  Several times my husband and I asked him what his strategy was but he would not answer. 

I had almost four years of continuances and pre-trial hearings.  During that time all that I needed for my defense was either thrown out as "irrelevant" or "privileged".  The men who falsely accused me were allowed to choose what I could use in my defense which was nothing of any value and they knew it.  Their civil attorneys ran the show in the pre-trial hearings, the prosecutor was just a mouth piece for them.  Further, the man who knew my case inside and out, my friend who conducted the Internet chats, was never even called to testify on my behalf.  When I asked my attorney about him the day before the trial was to start...he just responded, "He doesn't know anything." He never even talked to him, much less subpoenaed him as a witness in my trial, as I had requested.

I will explain more in the next blog about depositions from the civil case that ran parallel to my criminal case.  Also coming...what happened to the computer?!  Until next time....

The NOAH Project

The NOAH Project was very different.  It received attention from CBS out of New York before it was even opened.  A reporter, researching autism treatment programs, read our website and insisted on doing a piece on us.  He seemed as anxious to see us finally open in October 2002 as several of the parents were.  Within just a couple weeks after opening the filming crew and reporter came down from New York City.  They spent a day filming us: our students in their program, many of the parents were interviewed and I also answered several questions.  The segment aired nationally on November 24, 2002, between 6:00 and 6:30 PM, with John Roberts as anchor.  As a result of the televised segment with CBS Evening News we had hundreds of calls and were able to create a waiting list of families from around the world who wanted their child to attend.  In fact, we started discussing the build-out of an international school with a local developer (an associate of my clients) who had multi-use land and wanted to develop an entire international community around the school.  Her vision for Dallas was that of becoming an international center for medical research and she felt this would be a great boost with autism ("a medical mystery") on the rise.

It was a long road in the development of this school.  While the vision for the school came in an instant, the work needed to bring it to fruition took some years.  During 1998 and 1999 I did the initial research, wrote articles in local magazines and had meetings with the attorney to get the organization set up and the Board members in place.  In December 1999 The NOAH Project's non-profit Articles of Incorporation were filed with the State of Texas. Following that filing we (the initial Board members) had brainstorming meetings, did market research and strategy planning, plus provided a free public speaking series.  The attendance at the speaking series was sometimes as high as 500 people.  Its purpose was to provide families, educators and therapists with an alternative way of working with our special kids, in addition to teaching about special nutritional and diet needs for these children and special therapies such as Auditory Integration Training.  We built community in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, a place for sharing ideas, discussing challenges, supporting one another and constructing the most positive attitudes and beliefs about our children. 

The Federal non-profit status, called a 501(c)3, was approved by the Internal Revenue Service in October 2001.  The man who anonymously contributed to the school and made it all possible was named in the application for the 501(c)3 as the major contributor. The determination from IRS and his willingness to contribute allowed us to move forward with the school, seeking an appropriate site.  It was another year, October 2002, before the building was completed and the school opened.  The building specifications were extensive and considered "special-use" as all the childrens' individual play/work rooms were sound-proofed, every two rooms shared a bathroom and all rooms were monitored constantly.  Each child's room also had an observation room attached and outside of every two rooms was a computer station for the recording of each session with the child.  The security system was state of the art because these kids are known as escape artist, even under the best of supervision.

Because of the one-on-one method of working with each child and the intense training and feedback required for each child facilitator/teacher it was a costly program.  We knew this and budgeted for this from the start.  The program included meeting with each child's parents every two weeks, goal setting meetings every week (the children were progressing very rapidly) and constant feedback sessions to the facilitators as well as the parents if they were wanting to be trained so as to continue the program at home in the evenings and on the weekends.  The annual cost per child to run their program was $100,000.  We decided on an annual tuition of $20,000 with the remainder to be absorbed by contributions initially, then research grants, foundations and additional individual contributions once up, running and observable.  It was the belief of the major contributor that NIH, universities and foundations would best be able to understand our program and the differences from the public school system if they could actually observe it in progress.  Thus the order of the funding priorities was set and the business plan in place and well documented.

I wanted you to have a good picture of the school and the program before getting into the details of my case and the drawing of time lines and events.  This is something the jury was not allowed because of the Motion in Limine which did not allow us to talk about the school, the children, their progress or ANY "bad acts" of the two men who falsely accused me, including the bad act of falsely accusing me!!  The prosecution filed this 10 days before trial....that Motion guaranteed the prosecution a win for many reasons which I will discuss further in future blogs.

Take a tour of The NOAH Project below....

Child's program, she is looking in one way mirror at herself

Child's program

Child's program, great eye contact, a great invitation to our world!!

Child's program

Child's program - the best way to make that connection is to wholeheartedly join.  When we join they are no longer in their world alone. They are not forced or told to look at us, we are positioned to get eye contact and we make sure that eye contact (sometimes just fleeting) is the most welcoming and non-judgemental connection.  We never move against a child but go with them.

Gymnasium

Observation room, outside each child's work/playroom, with one-way mirror looking into room

Monitor room, 2 people watching all rooms all the time, rotate personnel every hour to stay fresh

Computer station for recording session's data outside child's room

Children's work/playrooms on both sides of hallway, computer station outside. The purple rooms are the observation rooms, the shorter cubicles are the computer stations, and the child's rooms are just beyond (attached to) the observation rooms. All sound proofed so as to quiet their environment.

My Nate working with teacher at computer - increased his speech

My Nate walking with a teacher, good eye contact, trusting relationship

     

THE NEW YEAR IS HERE!!

It's time!  It's time to get this case done...it has now lasted over seven years.  I'm sure all of you have outstanding things that need to get finished.  Join me in resolving to just get it done this year.  Now is the time.  Get it done and move on.  I think that is what I want most, to just move on with my life.  It's hard to believe two men and their lies could effect so many lives.  It changed the events and direction of my life forever. It has effected all those who are close to me, most especially my two boys, my husband, my mom and sister and all those who have helped my family and I  in so many different ways.  And I can't forget the negative influence it had on my dad's deteriorating health before he died.  You know it had to have effected all those who falsely testified, and all the others who were drawn into the scheme one way or another....that number is far greater than the few who lied on the stand.

One of the things I think about the most though is how it impacted the kids (and their families) who attended The NOAH Project.  Many of you do not know how this all started.  I will tell you. 

I developed, along with a core group of Board members, a special school for children with autism, which was designed to eventually include kids with ADD and ADHD as well as other learning differences.  The school was named The NOAH Project.  It incorporated the best therapies and methodologies, including special gluten and casein-free diet and nutritional intervention.   One man, Eric Williams, the Director of Reese Technology of Lubbock, Texas testified it was a state of the art [school/program], he had seen nothing else like it any where in the world.  He described it as in a class all its own.  We took a program that had always been home-based and put it into a school setting.  The program results had always been reported in an anecdotal way.  We were changing that by recording the details of every session in computers outside each child's play/work room and accumulating that data for research.  We were pursuing research grants with NIH (National Institute of Health), in partnership with several Texas universities.  With regard to the universities, talks and plans had progressed furthest with Texas Tech University (Special Ed) and Reese Technology in Lubbock, but we were also in discussions with University of Texas - Austin (Special Ed) as well as University of Texas - Southwest Medical School in Dallas (Child Psychiatric Dept) and had just begun talking to medical people at Baylor in Dallas. 

Everybody was impressed with what they saw at the school and the initial progress of all children who attended the school.  Children who had never talked in their life (even the 10 -12 year olds) were now speaking in meaningful phrases and occasional sentences.  All the children were making progress that was believed would never happen....connecting in ways that previously seemed impossible...calling out Mom and Dad's name for the first time, making eye contact, playing interactive games, laughing and interacting in the most spontaneous way.  Miracles every single day.  These were kids who previously had been obsessed with the most rigid of routines and never chanced even fleeting eye contact, rocking back and forth for hours, flapping their hands, or even screaming for long periods of time with their hands over their ears.  With the program we were able to quiet their environment and be there with them, joining them in their world, in the most unobtrusive way.  Building trust and eventually a bridge over to our world.

I directed this school on a volunteer basis while I continued to do my accounting and finance business.  I had worked with my clients for approximately twenty years.  Originally we all worked together in the Trammell Crow Company, but as they left Crow and started their own companies I worked on a consulting basis for them and their companies.   As an anonymous donor one of those clients agreed to fund the school in its build-out and initial operations while we were securing grants and other charitable contributions.  I also contributed approximately $50,000 each year.  I was surprised when he called me one day and said he could no longer fund due to his divorce.  We scrambled trying to obtain emergency funding while we took the extra time needed to get grants in place.  Parents and board members alike came forward in this endeavor, nobody wanted to see the school close.  We did have to close the school after one year of operations and amazing results just 30 days after the notification from my client.  My clients and I had decided to do a one month transition period (coinciding with that 30  days) where I finished work for them, then continued on with the school, trying to keep it open or reorganize it so we could reopen.

You can imagine my surprise and shock when I received a call from a Dallas police detective, about a month after the closing, saying I was being accused of stealing the money to fund the school.  I immediately told the detective to obtain the computer and its records from my now ex-clients.  He did not do it.  That was the beginning of Dallas County's attempt to hide my innocence at any cost, in favor of the very wealthy and influential men of Dallas County, my ex-clients.

And that is how all this began.  I will continue to blog the details.  I have received the go-ahead from my habeas attorney to "blog-away" with regard to my case.  Everything I am telling you here is part of public records.

At The NOAH Project one of our main beliefs was: A relationship building, intensive, one-on-one, child-led program is a key to opening the doors to emerge from autism.............