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CHAPTER ONE
"Let him speak! Let him speak!" All the people in the courtroom were yelling. There were 65+ cops in and around the building and snipers on the surrounding rooftops.
"This courtroom is closed!" BANG went the gavel and Judge Dorothy Baker ran down the stairs back into her chambers. Dorothy Baker looks like a spawned out singer in some downtown flophouse bar. Mid-to-late forties, heavy smoker, very lined face. She has a wasted look to her.
"The courtroom is NOT closed! People do not leave this courtroom!" I said, and began speaking on the record about all this corruption, while Judge Baker hid in her chambers.
All of a sudden the door to the jury room opens up. It reminded me of when I was a kid, down at the coast. There was a kind of a fish, a flounder fish, a perch. It gave birth to live babies. They'd sorta spurt out, one, then another and so on. I looked up and—pop, then pop, pop— 12 red-faced police officers had been hiding in the jury room. In single file they emerged from the jury room, silently, and walked out the courtroom exit. Everything stopped and everybody watched. They thought this terrorist was going to take over, but we were very orderly people sitting there, and me speaking.
About that time Judge Baker re-entered the courtroom all disheveled, looking like she'd been shot out of a cannon.
"I want to make a record here," I said. I had all my files.
"I'm canceling the hearing to have you examined to see if you can aid and assist in your own defense," Baker responded.
"No! I want to make a recor-" I was forced down, face down, on the council table by the guards. They put the handcuffs on behind me. My 82-year-old Mother started toward us.
"You stay back or you'll get arrested too!" the guards warned her as I was hustled out of there. Baker fled the courtroom amid shouts from the crowd.
"You're gonna pay for this Baker! This is tyranny!" said investigative reporter Ed Snook as he left the courtroom.
I am at war with this
corruption, and any time you're at war
it is always a tactical operation. If it becomes solely an
emotional reaction, you cannot organize and you can't plan. For
most of the people I'm involved with, it's emotional because
something has been taken: their children, their lands, their
money—and they're distressed.
Here is a description of the players, how they got involved,
the events that occurred, and how this all came about.
Milton Brown, this thieving little attorney, is the core of the
cancer. He once told fellow attorney Nick Albrecht that he went
to law school to learn how to steal, the viper. He's wiped out
every partner he ever had, at least 10, and many tenants as well.
He's amassed a fortune of between $3- and 4-hundred million
simply by being able to control the legal system. He
has completely corrupted the state government.
There is a good-'ol-boy network that has existed here for years.
Brown was looked at as a pariah even by that group. You
couldn't find a person that had anything other than contempt
for him. He used to work out down at the "Y" where he
wore these pooka shells around his neck, and copper bracelets.
He's about 5-foot 6 or 7, nervous little voice, he's so crooked
that he cannot look you in the face. He controls all this money,
and if you control money in our system, you control
everything. Attorney Milton Brown was Don Kettleberg's partner.
Together, they owned 35 million dollars-worth of property.
Kettleberg confided to friends that, if he tried to
dissolve the partnership, he knew he would be wiped out.
When Don Kettleberg met Janette Kent, she was 22 and he was
45. He was attracted to Janette because she was young, she was
beautiful, she was intelligent and accomplished, she was not
jealous and possessive, and for a guy like Kettleberg it was
ideal. Don had been a womanizer. He had a lot of other
girlfriends, but Janette Kent was unique. She was a good cook, a
pianist—she taught piano—and she was a tremendous ice
skater. Because of her personality, Don could come and go as he
pleased. There was no suspicion on her part about Kettleberg
because she just lived in her own little world. He took care of
her apartment and her expenses, and they had a long 10- or
12-year affair.
Janette had a very unusual personality. She wrote a
multi-national nuclear disarmament agreement when she was in
her early twenties. She excerpted parts of other proposals
written by other scientists and came up with her own proposal.
Then she formed this group called Mission: World Peace, and she
was going to save the world, solve the world's problems, solve
the danger of nuclear annihilation. She was very naïve.
She thought that if her plan was not implemented all humanity
was at risk. She was young and attractive and she'd go out and
speak to these groups, and men always make over young attractive
women! Obviously! And so she thought what she was writing was
great, even though she had only plagiarized all these
world-renowned scientific scholars. But it was her nuclear
proposal, and she became totally committed to it. I think
Kettleberg humored her and went along with it.
Janette had split up with Don about a year and a half before
he died. There were accusations back and forth. Another man had
become involved: Mark Maxin, who was 30 years younger than
Kettleberg. He was attracted to Janette and fomented the split.
He lived in the same apartment complex they did since he was
about 12-years-old, so they took on a kind of parenting
relationship with him. But he was 10 years younger than
Janette. All of a sudden, young boy 12 turns into young man
18-19, and he's enamored with Janette, and she is mentally more
in league with Mark than with Don Kettleberg.
Kettleberg had a drinking problem and cirrhosis of the
liver. He had a very rough complexion and was getting dermabrasion
treatments. Dr. Charles Hahn was his treating doctor.
Doctor Hahn was also his business partner in Battleground
Mobile Home Park in Battleground, WA. He owed Kettleberg about
$50,000 in what is called a capital account. Hahn owned one
third and Kettleberg owned two thirds of that mobile home
park.
When you are partners like that and the partnership has
expenses, then each partner has a capital account that he
has to keep filled in order to meet the needs of the
development enterprise. Hahn was down about $50,000 in his
capital account. He was behind on payments, and Kettleberg was
putting up his money for him. Like most doctors, Hahn was always
pressed for money because of his living style. They have a
girlfriend and a nice home, a Mercedes and all these
toys, so they're always tapped out.
Kettleberg knew he was terminal early in 1985. In
discussions with Jack Blampe, a former business partner of Milton
Brown and Kettleberg, Jack believed that Dr. Hahn was injecting Don
with a toxin to aggravate his failing liver condition and speed up
the process. Later, when we acquired Kettleberg's medical records,
we discovered one of the last entries written there by Dr. Hahn:
"Do not resuscitate."
Milton Brown didn't think there was anyone out there because
Kettleberg had been adopted and he was not married. However, he
had an adopted sister named Doreen Moriarty. Kettleberg was
terminal, so the Moriartys were called. I don't know whether
they arrived in time to see him still alive or not. They came
up to Portland within a few days of his death and moved into
his house up in Mountain Park thinking that, since there was no
one else, Doreen Moriarty would inherit the estate. Doreen's
husband was a city councilman in one of the cities down in the
Los Angeles area. He owned a fireworks business there and
had gotten caught in a kickback scheme, bribing inspectors to
look the other way. He was being tried for some criminal
charges and was on his way to prison at the time.
Kettleberg died May 25th, 1985. Four days later, on May 29th,
Carolyn Brune, Milton Brown's secretary and alter ego, acting as
the personal representative of the Kettleberg estate, gave Brown
Kettleberg's power of attorney. Actually, Carolyn Brune was not made
personal representative until at least a month later. With that
power of attorney, fraudulently given and fraudulently obtained,
Brown cleaned out Kettleberg's bank accounts and safety deposit box
and picked up all of the other Kettleberg estate assets.
Carolyn Brune is a physically attractive woman, 45,
blonde hair, very mindful of her attractiveness and plays on
that. Reportedly, she was a play toy for Don Kettleberg. But she
worked for Milton Brown and was on his payroll. Legally, Carolyn
Brune could not give her boss power of attorney over an estate
over which she was not personal representative. Brown just had
her do it as if she were.
The Moriartys removed all they could of the personal
property from the house and tried to find other property. One
of the daughters took Don's car, and they went around and picked
up what other assets they could. They were looking for money
to keep Doreen's husband out of prison. When people are
stressed for money, you can control them with very little.
That's how Brown operates, and he's a master at it.
It was decided that Doreen Moriarty would be the personal
representative of the estate, but there were liens and
judgments against her husband. They found out that if she were
personal representative, her husband's creditors would be able
to get the assets. She resigned in order to have everything
passed to her children so there would be no claims and her
children's inheritance could be protected. The Moriartys then
returned to California.
Milton Brown installed Carolyn Brune as the personal
representative of the Kettleberg estate and had her appointed
by a judge. Carolyn Brune disputes that. She says Doreen Moriarty
was the one who agreed to have her appointed personal
representative. But it was all controlled by Milton Brown. With
money he controlled everything. They decided on a value for the
estate and Carolyn Brune posted a $3 million performance bond,
guaranteeing her services and accepting liability.
Brown engaged attorney Bob Chidester, who was
a nobody in the legal community. He was a flunkie for Milton
Brown and did any work that Brown didn't want to handle, a
pick-up-crumbs sort of a thing. He was brought in for that
purpose. Chidester had a drinking problem and was not a strong
personality. Milton Brown and Carolyn Brune were just
going to run this thing through the system, with Brune
as personal representative and Chidester as the attorney
for the estate. She and Bob did everything that Brown wanted.
They figured it would be easy because there was no one around.
It was going to be Carolyn Brune and Milton Brown taking down
that whole estate.
Don Kettleberg was 57 when he died, and Janette Kent was
35. She was in Salt Lake and, although they had split up, they were still
in touch with one another. Don was supposed to get back to her, and
when he didn't contact her she started looking around and found
out he was dead. She first thought he had died in a car accident and
called Gary Michaels, a local architect and friend of Kettleberg,
to ask what he knew about Don. Michaels hadn't heard that
Kettleberg had died. He had dinner with Kettleberg a few
months earlier, at which time Kettleberg confided to him that he
had written a will.
"Well, did you get a copy of the will?" Michaels asked
Janette.
"No," she said. Janette was not looking for the will. She
was simply looking for her pictures with Kettleberg.
Memorabilia. She did not know that she had been named.
"Well, I'll go down and check because Don told me he left
everything to you." So Gary Michaels went down and found out
that the estate was being probated as an intestacy, meaning,
without a will. Gary phoned Janette.
"You better get an attorney. I think I smell a rat." That
was in late summer of 1985, and that's when Janette hired attorney
Farris Booth.
Brown knew there was no way the Moriartys could mount an
attack, to do what I'm doing, trying to recover the Kettleberg
estate. The husband was already a crook and was on his
way to prison. The Moriatys came up looking for money to keep their
appeal process going. They went through the house,
stripping it of valuables. There was no way that they could
ever even begin to penetrate the fraud.
When the Moriartys returned in October of 1985, Brown fired
Chidester. He thought there might be a challenge and knew he
couldn't use Chidester. He didn't want to lose any more assets,
so he hired Guy Marshall. Guy Marshall was in the firm of
Tooze/Kerr/Marshall, which had been Tooze/Kerr/Peterson. The
Peterson was Ed Peterson, Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme
Court. Marshall had been guilty of defrauding a client, and
there was a lot of heat on him. That case was in progress
before Brown contacted him, but it made no difference to Brown
because Brown always wants someone who is crooked. Those are
the only people he will deal with! However, once Guy Marshall
was convicted, his partner, Michael Gentry, came in and has been
there now for 16 years protecting the theft, ostensibly as the
attorney for the estate. Marshall was named first, but he went
to jail. The Tooze/Kerr/Marshall firm was on board at that time,
though, and they have been there ever since. I think it's
Tooze/Kerr/Schenker now that Marshall is off the marquee.
Brown also got attorney Gar King, who is now a US District
Court judge, to represent Dr. Charles Hahn, Kettleberg's
personal physician and business partner. Brown drew in these
attorneys of good repute early on. They thought there would be
quick money. Gar King is in his early sixties, dapper looking
guy. He gives the impression that he knows what's going on. But
he's as controlling and treacherous as they come.
Once Milton Brown got them, he exposed them to his
liability, because the act of one is the act of all. This is what
people do not understand. When you have a conspiracy or a
theft, the act of one is the act of all. By involving other
attorneys and judges, Brown exposed them to his liability. But they
all had to maintain the appearance of conducting lawful proceedings.
There is a money cartel that is the ruling elite in Oregon.
As told to me by a former Multnomah County commissioner,
Brown is related to some of the members of that money cartel.
Brown's original name was Bronstein, Milton Bronstein. It was not Brown.
This moneyed elite basically controls everything. Its members
control the media here, The Oregonian, Oregon's
largest newspaper, and they control all of the courts. They do
not have a name. They are not an open organization.
But they've controlled the court systems for about 20 years.
They're powerful enough to threaten, blackmail, or pay off
judges and attorneys. Judges are not put into place
unless they pass political muster with this powerful group, which
also puts in their preferred politicians—all of our politicians from
Hatfield on and further back. If you're not approved
by that group, you are never allowed into the system. Anyone
who gets into the system and does not go along with the
operation or the power structure they've set up, is forced out.
They always control the courtroom because, in a commercial culture
such as ours, that's where all the wealth is controlled. Milton Brown
could control the court because he knew who was calling the
shots and was close to them.
Vera Katz is the present mayor of Portland. Prior to this, she was a
state representative, and then BINGO! She became
Speaker of the House in Salem. During her tenure as Speaker
of the House, all this "New World Order" legislation came out,
this "Goals 2000." Katz went from being the Speaker to being the
Mayor of Portland. Mayor is considered a step up from Speaker
of the House because it includes a staff. As mayor, she controls the
police department and all the agencies. Vera Katz and Beverly
Stein, who's the Chair of the County Commissioners, are cut from
the same mold as state senator Kate Brown; they're all ardent feminists.
They have implemented this total control regimen that has us all by the
throat. They control the administrative agencies as well as
the executive agencies.
I went on inactive status with the Oregon State Bar in the
beginning of 1987, so I'd been on inactive status for almost a
year. When you are on inactive status you don't have to pay
those malpractice insurance premiums. I had taken a year off,
kinda like a sabbatical. I wanted to go down and see Krishna
Murti's home. I'd just been stressed out. They'd foreclosed on
an apartment house, and I was in the process of losing my
houseboat. There was a lot of stress on me, so I took this
time off.
In December of 1987, when I was just getting ready to go
back on active status, I met Janette Kent socially at Lido's
restaurant at 11th and Stark. I stopped in there one evening,
and she was there. She said she was the heiress of the Don
Kettleberg estate. Kettleberg had died suddenly 2 ½
years before, and he had left no living relatives. There were
reports by witnesses that Kettleberg had left her the estate.
But when they went to the safety deposit box, it was empty.
Everything had been cleaned out. She told me briefly about her
case and asked if I would help. I knew who Milton Brown was.
I knew he was a pariah in the legal community because he had
this horrible reputation of being so corrupt. I didn't know him
well, but I knew he was a crook. I knew Kettleberg slightly. I'd
talked to him a couple of times. I said I'd check into it.
One of the names she gave me was Gary Michaels, who was
a local architect that I knew. He was the partner of a fellow
who lived down at the Portland Rowing Club, and he also worked
out at the "Y," so I saw him there from time to time.
I was hired in December of 1987. Janette had not personally
been to court, but she had hired investigators to monitor some
hearing that pertained to the case, and she had hired Farris
Booth, a prominent attorney. I knew him as an instructor in law
school and had the highest regard for him. He was a member of
one of the largest and most prominent law firms: Higgins, Booth
and someone else. When he got involved with Janette Kent, he
acknowledged that Brown was a crook. but soon even he was trying
to undermine her case. Kent's witness Glen Haddock said Booth
slept while his deposition was being taken.
"Yeah, you got a good attorney," I would have said, not
realizing he had become a crook. Farris Booth got turned by
Brown. He was in Brown's pocket already. Janette's investigators
were Ken Keller, a former District Attorney, and another fellow
from a regular firm. They were reporting that Farris Booth was
sleeping during the depositions and that he was lying to her.
Booth was making representations about what was going on
and she, through her investigators, found out that it was not
so. Booth supplied her with one set of documents, and through
the investigators, she had another. One set he presented to
her said this is what the evidence shows, and he represented
that to be fact. The investigators came up with another set
that showed that Booth had deleted portions of it and had altered
and fabricated it. Janette was back in Salt Lake when one of her
investigators told her that she had better fire Booth because he
was working against her out here.
And so, Janette Kent returned to Portland and confronted Booth
at the Tai Peng restaurant, the Chinese restaurant out by Tigard.
He claimed health conditions and financial stress to mask his
treachery and duplicity. He embraced and kissed her and tried
to romance her. Janette thinks that everyone is in love with
her anyway. She has no problem with vanity or self-image. She
thinks she's a goddess. It's amazing how delusional people can
be. But, she didn't fall for Booth's con job. She fired him. Janette
then went to one or two other attorneys, and they would express
interest, only to turn and betray her. I was about the third or
fourth. When I met her, Janette had been on this odyssey for about
a year and a half. Brown was systematically buying off every
one of her attorneys. Brown never approached me because I knew
him, that thieving little viper. I knew what a horrible
reputation he had. And I had known Don Kettleberg, too.
Janette Kent was well educated, had an academic bent,
good learning skills, and could express herself well. But she
had other very distinct personalities that could lock into place. She
could be like a little girl and would go down to Oaks Park and
get on the rides with the kids.
"Whee-ee-ee-ee!" Now, she's childlike. Then, she can turn
around and walk onto the stage, sophisticated, intelligent, serious,
and give a well-researched address on nuclear arms.
She seemed to have no idea of what was going on around
her, and when you tried to explain something to her over and over
again, you can see it was just not penetrating. She
could not understand something she had not actually
experienced. And even if she had experienced it, she
would reject it if it conflicted with her favored perceptions. Kent
would have temper tantrums. At times she'd get me in the car
and start carrying on, and I'd have to reach over and turn off
the key to stop the car because it was so ungodly to have this
creature there, just roaring. At other times she'd throw
things at me because she had this frustration and this enormous
rage over not being given what she's entitled to.
"I wonder sometimes why he'd get so mad he'd put his fist
through the wall?" she told me now and then about Kettleberg.
Well I know very well why he would do that! But to her, it
didn't even click. If a concept was not in her head, it did not
exist. Egocentric, Janette saw herself right at the center of her
world. Everything radiated outward from there. In her
perception she was always right whenever she spoke, like any
other spoiled child. They have no patience because they're
indulged. They think that whatever they think is what is
important. She would drink a lot too. Heavy boozer. She would
get delusional and could not respond to questions, and her
temperament was such that she had no ability to sit back and
listen to something being discussed if she was not in charge.
Always, she had to be the center of activity.
Being as close to her as I was under the circumstances, I
realized someone had to take on the adult role of seeing that
something got done. An adult role does not mean that you have
your way. An adult role means there is a goal that you're
trying to achieve. Your focus is on achieving that goal.
Everything you do is out of necessity for achieving that
goal, using the actors that you have available, as in a military
campaign. To my horror, what I have found is that you have
to deal with the emotional upheavals of every one of your
soldiers. They have to vent someplace and they want to
vent on whomever is nearest to them, just like a spoiled
child kicking and having a temper tantrum.
I'm accustomed to being in the military and responding when
the sergeant shouts.
"Fall out! Fall in! Grab your arms!" My response is not in
opposition.
"NO!! I'm not going out there!" Off you go to the brigade!
You are kicked out because you're not emotionally capable, and
that applies to virtually everyone in this war that I'm in.
"People, I'm at war with this corruption that's going on. It
has us by the throat!" I tell them.
The rules of law that I learned in law school,
the very concept upon which our whole culture is based,
which is unique in the history of the world, is that the citizens
are the sovereign authority of this country. Under the
Constitution, before a government agency can
do something to a person, they have to give that person equal
protection of the law and due process of law. It's not optional
for them. Fair hearing. Impartial judge. That has now been stripped
out of the system. It does not exist. And people need to get
over this idea that,
"That's MINE!"
People, listen. I don't care what you think. THEY'VE GOT
IT! And the only way they're going to give it back is like
when a wolf has your little baby.
"C'mon wolf," you say. "Give it back, ple-e-a-a-se?
I've worked hard all my life, wolf. I worked hard to raise that
baby."
And do you think he's going to give it back? No! You go over
with a club and a blow torch and a pair of pliers, and you put
so much pain on that creature that is stealing something of
yours, that it is such a shock and causes him so much
pain, that the pain of keeping it is greater than the pain of
cutting it loose. And that applies across the board to all
animal life. It applies to people, too. We started as a colony
and what has happened here is that the money powers have been
able to completely reassert control over the colonies.
I thought that my difficulty would be in getting Janette Kent
declared the beneficiary. There was a question as to whether or
not Janette was the sole beneficiary of the estate, and I was
having trouble finding an attorney that would take the case. I
couldn't fight it because I was still on inactive status. First
I went to Marvin Nepom, a prominent attorney here in Portland.
"No, I'm too busy," he said.
Then I called Jack Kennedy, who was the partner of Gar King
and another prominent attorney in town. I had him as an
instructor at North Western University, and he was very strict.
His students were not allowed to write one minute overtime on a
test. He was watching, making sure. They would impose on the students
this moral ethic that they professed with such fervor and, of
course, I believed that it was so. Little did I know!
He put me off to Gary McMurry, whom I knew slightly, and I
did get McMurry to take it. Gary McMurry was an accomplished trial
attorney but he wouldn't spend any money on the case at all. He
said he wouldn't do it unless I stayed and did all the legwork on it.
Gary McMurry was in his late 50's at the time. He looked like
a gray-haired owl to me. He has this little beaky nose,
glasses, and speaks very perfunctorily. He's very mechanical,
extremely opinionated and egotistical, but he is a good trial
attorney. I've known the guy for 30 years. McMurry said he was
only concerned about the probate, not about going after Brown.
There was 4½ million dollars in the estate at that
time. McMurry wanted his fee based only on the 4½
million, not the other assets. He later tried to get Janette to
settle for $100,000.
The case went to court in May of 1988. This first case was
simply to decide whether or not Janette Kent was the beneficiary. I
thought the difficult issue would be to make Kent credible. She
was so distraught that she could not be responsive to
questions. I never met anyone more frustrating to work
with in my life. She was very naïve and idealistic,
spoiled and indulged by Kettleberg.
"You've got to do, Janette, whatever McMurry says in that
courtroom," I said over and over again.
"Gary, I've lost control of Janette. I befriended her and
she doesn't pay any attention to what I'm saying any more. I
don't know that I can control her. That's one thing that I
cannot guarantee," I told her attorney Gary McMurry.
"Oh, don't worry Roger," he said. "I'll take care of that,"
he assured me as he looked over his glasses with an all-knowing
smugness. And then I saw him with her in his conference room.
She was saying something and he, his fist clenched, responded
through gritted teeth,
"You SHUT UP or I..!" And another time, I spotted him walking
across the park with her, and he took his briefcase and slammed
it down.
"NO, damn it!" he said to her. He didn't have it under
control. At last I was able to assure him.
"Gary, she will answer questions. I've got her so she'll be
responsive." That was a big question mark, whether I could get
her to be responsive. At trial time, she got up on the stand and
was able to speak.
Gary Michaels, the architect, was what you would
call a star witness. Absolute integrity and good recall, a
professionally recognized and respected member of the
community. He said it all: that he'd met with Kettleberg, that
Kettleberg knew he was terminal, and that he had left everything to
Janette. The other witnesses were all solid. Milton Brown was a basket
case. After stammering through his testimony, he had to rest three
times before leaving the courtroom. The first time, leaning on
Kent's table, ashen-faced, he uttered in a weak, barely audible
voice,
"Hi Jenny."
All Brown's witnesses were totally discredited, and Janette
Kent won. She was awarded the entire estate, worth $35,000,000 at the
time, by Judge Crookham. Personal representative Carolyn Brune
filed an appeal.
Judge Crookham had a basic integrity to him. It would have been
easy for him to rule against Kent. He went on to become
Attorney General of the state of Oregon for awhile. I
believe he was appointed when someone went on to the Supreme
Court. I think when he got down there and found out how corrupt it
was, he just finished the term and retired. We tried to
get him involved as attorney general to prosecute the case, but
he wouldn't do it.
When Janette Kent was awarded the entire estate, all of a
sudden her attorney, Gary McMurry, changed his tune. Originally,
he didn't want to put any money into it and didn't want his fee
based on any of the assets.
"Oh no, I'm entitled to 40% of everything," he now says. But
before we won, he tried to get her to settle for $100,000! He
then became hostile to me. In September of 1988, right after we
won the case and McMurry turned on me, we hired attorney
Norman Lindstedt
There were two documents which Judge Crookham signed.
One was the Constructive Trust, which he placed on all the properties.
The other was a Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, a
separate document. We had the one creating the constructive
trust. We were not given a copy of the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.
"...to turn it over, forthwith." was the wording in that
missing document requiring Carolyn Brune and Milton Brown
to release the estate to Janette Kent.
"Well, you've just been declared the beneficiary of whatever is
left of Kettleberg's estate." This is what they told Janette Kent.
The Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law ordering Brune to
turn the estate over to Janette "forthwith" didn't turn up
until Jack Salter found it six years later.
CHAPTER TWO
I thought our problems were over. Milton Brown was a
licensed attorney who knew the law. The court imposed a constructive trust on
the Kettleberg estate assets. A constructive trust says that
anyone who holds those assets is a trustee. The only link to
ownership that Milton Brown had was possession. The assets
were in his sole possession. If you run into a store and scoop up
some merchandise, to everyone else you have ownership because
you have possession of it. But to the store owner, you have only
possession. Legally, you have no ownership rights or interest.
And that's the position that Brown created for himself.
Brown had petitioned the court to appoint his secretary, Carolyn
Brune, as the personal representative of the estate. Brown
then had Carolyn Brune give him a limited special power of
attorney. By virtue of having the personal representative of
the estate give him power of attorney, he incurred a fiduciary
duty toward the beneficiary of the estate, i.e., Janette Kent.
When the court imposed a constructive trust on those
assets, he became a trustee because he was holding those assets.
Because he had an attorney/client relationship with the estate
and was a trustee of its assets, I thought he had no way to
get around that responsibility. He didn't get around it. He just corrupted the
system. As a trustee of the assets, he had a fiducial duty
toward the beneficiary, so he set about to make himself the
beneficiary. Brown was controlling absolutely everything. He had
a fiduciary duty to Janette Kent, and it was his duty to act in her
best interests. If there was a conflict of interest—such as
trying to get stock that was hers—then in a lawsuit, he could not serve
as attorney for her estate because he had an obvious conflict.
This is what is so frustrating for me; it's hard for me to
believe. but it's a fact. The rule of law, to which they all
give lip service, does not apply in our system. They do
whatever they want to do. You file your documents and do whatever.
They will say whatever in adversary proceedings, and going into
the court you will make a legal argument. You will not allude
to the lack of integrity of the judge if you're out there
practicing because you are a part of the system. If you attack
the judge, he's going to turn you in to the Bar, and they're
going to put a thunderbolt through you, as they did to me. Most
lawyers are intimidated by the Bar. So they come into court and
argue some abstract legal principle.
"I'm entitled to it," the principle would affirm. Whatever the
principle happens to be, it's an abstract legal principle!
"He was born there. The law recognizes thus and such." They
make these legal arguments based on some abstract set of facts.
The real facts in the case are never presented because the
attorneys, the parties that are framing the issue that's being
discussed in the courtroom, do not state the real facts. People
do not realize that. Compound that with the fact that the
judge and the attorney on the other side have already gotten
together, and all the attorneys have gotten together. They've
already decided the outcome before you ever even enter the
courtroom. It is simply a show trial. There is no genuine
litigation going on. The judge has already decided what the
facts are and what the conclusion is going to be.
Three months after Janette Kent won her case, the Bar filed a
complaint against me. Once she started fighting in court, the Bar
Association started disbarring me. I was being run through the
disbarment proceedings while I was helping Kent. Every time I
went any place, I was catching flack.
"Well, you've got trouble with the Bar don't you, Weidner?"
Absolutely groundless charges were filed in September,
1988, claiming that I had entered into a business deal with a
client. There was no evidence that party they were referring to was
a client at all. They went back to an event that had occurred
eight or nine years earlier. I had facilitated a business transaction with
a fellow by the name of George Milges. I knew George. I'd worked
in the fire department with him. He was an investor.
"If you ever have anything that looks good let me know," he
had said. So I told him about this.
"We have a business in which people want to invest," I told
him.
"Well, I will loan." He dictated the terms, and I drafted the
document. Another fellow was putting up property, and the
company was signing a note, so we had a secured loan. Well, the
company went upside down and the property depreciated in value,
or there were problems with it, and so Milges came back after
me because I was a part owner of the company. I had been given
the part ownership as a consideration for doing the legal work. I
didn't negotiate anything, I just drafted a note. I was not his
attorney.
So, the Bar paid off Milges $200,000 from my insurance policy
when he sued me civilly, claiming that I was his attorney. Doug
Hamilton, Milges' attorney, threatened me to go along with it
or be reported to the Oregon State Bar. The Bar, this good ol' boy group,
took $200,000 on my ticket and paid that off. When I was
represented by the Bar, of course, I was naïve as could be.
"Well, you have to go along with whatever we say," they said
to me. And so they paid off Milges on my policy. My premiums
then skyrocketed to around $15,000 a year because of the
surcharge for paying off that claim.
It had taken three-to-five years for that incident to get settled,
but the payoffs had been completed two or three years earlier. The
Bar then decided to go back and use that incident. Now they were
going to disbar me on the same case on which they paid off. I
knew what they were thinking.
"My god, Weidner's out there! We've got to get rid of him!"
In December, 1988, three years after Kettleberg's death and
after Kent had won, Carolyn Brune, Milton Brown's secretary and
the personal representative for the Kettleberg estate, filed a
complaint against Milton Brown for an accounting. To cover the fraud,
they had to have a complaint showing that she was
doing something to try to recover the misappropriated funds. The
scheme was to sue Brown and then settle in Brown's favor. It
was a very lightweight complaint. This is what they do. They
keep control of the assets, control of the proceedings, and
force you to go through all this made-up litigation. If you
go down to the courthouse today, you'll see probably 10 to15 feet
of files that have accumulated in this case to protect the
theft. Such is the enormity of it.
I'd gone through a series of attorneys before getting to
Norman Lindstedt. I knew Brown was a crook, but I didn't know
that Norman Lindstedt was also a crook, or I would never have hired
him. Lindstedt tries to play this accommodating sort of
pleasant guy. He is treacherous because he can appear so
proper. He goes to church. He's well-groomed, about 5 foot 9,
silver hair, mindful of his physical appearance and
maintains a big ego. He is dangerous because he feigns
propriety. The vicious hypocrisy of the man! He had his client
Janette Kent by the throat and was throttling her so he can
steal a half million dollars. That's what he ended up taking
out of that estate, plus paying the Bar Association another 40
or 50 thousand dollars to defend himself against us. We were
trying to force him to comply with the rule of law. I realized
that we were having difficulty getting any attorney to become
involved, particularly after Lindstedt got involved. Somehow, they
all knew the fix was in.
Carolyn Brune appealed the decision from 1988, and it
would be a year until that case would be heard—in September of
1989. During that interim it was agreed that Janette Kent's attorney,
Norman Lindstedt, would be named co-personal representative. At the
time, we thought he was on our side, working with us. He advised us
concerning possible action or inaction of the courts, since it was on
appeal. He was oh, so deftly leading us right down the primrose path. So
Janette agreed to his appointment as co-personal representative
of the estate and signed an agreement with Lindstedt that he
could not settle without her consent.
In March or April of 1989, attorney Ken Renner, from one of
the big law firms downtown, took my deposition for the Bar.
Afterwards, we got on the elevator together.
"I'll never do one of these again!" he said as he banged his
fist on the wall inside. He knew that I was being set up, that
he was just a hired gun.
The Bar complaint was heard at the trial panel level in June
of 1989. They had no evidence. At the trial panel level, the
first of two levels, if you are going through a disbarment or
disciplinary action, you get three judges. Two are attorneys, and
the third is someone from the community. They'll go out and get
a teacher or some other respectable type to make it look like it's
fair. If they recommend more than a six-month suspension, you can
appeal that to the Supreme Court. In my case, they recommended a
three-year suspension, insuring an automatic review by the Supreme
Court. Martha Hicks, a politically-correct, feminist yuppie, was prosecuting.
Martha Hicks was your stereotypical, professional feminist bureaucrat.
Hair a little bit below her ears, tight small facial features, plain looking,
neither attractive nor an unattractive woman. She's as treacherous as
they come. She would prosecute her mother. She'd prosecute Mother Teresa if
she was told to. Just absolutely, totally amoral.
Carolyn Brune's appeal was heard in September of 1989. It
was the personal representative's appeal of Judge Crookham's
ruling. In a de novo review, the Court of Appeals found for Kent.
Janette Kent was again awarded the entire estate as the sole heiress.
Carolyn Brune's attorney was Michael Gentry. If Gentry were a
dog he'd be a poodle. He affects a kind of choir boy presence.
He makes a good appearance, and he's bright. He's
very glib and deft at putting forth his legal position. But
he's absolutely as corrupt as they come because knowing
that all of this thievery's going on, he has been actively
participating in it and protecting it.
Norman Lindstedt was Janette's attorney. Judge Mary Dietz
and two other judges sat on the three-judge panel in the Court of Appeals.
Mary Dietz just looks like a nondescript middle-aged attorney
to me. There's nothing unusual about her. They upheld Crookham
and ruled for Kent. When we attended the appeal, we were still
unaware of that document, the Findings of Fact and Conclusions
of Law, which ordered them to turn over the estate "forthwith."
After it was affirmed on appeal that Janette was the sole
beneficiary of the Kettleberg estate, suddenly there was
a 180 degree turn by everyone. I was being attacked, verbally.
All the attorneys were hostile to me. Behind my back, Lindstedt
was saying that I was crazy, that I was off my rocker. I went
to probably 10 or 15 attorneys, and some became involved.
"Oh yeah, we're with you Roger." And then, all of a sudden,
they were trying to shut me down.
"He's got some trouble with the Bar," they were telling
Kent. They started this whispering campaign to try to discredit
me.
When Carolyn Brune filed the complaint against Milton Brown,
we wanted Lindstedt to amend it to include a racketeering
complaint and add Janette as party plaintiff. Brune's complaint
against Brown was only a ploy. She had been on Brown's
payroll for at least 6 months
after Kettleberg died. Although she no longer worked openly for
Milton Brown, in reality she did because she was being
paid by the estate, and Brown had control of the income it
generated. As personal representative, she picked up two-
or three-hundred thousand dollars from that estate
"I do not have the authority to bring a racketeering
complaint against Milton Brown," Lindstedt informed us. "I have
no authority to do that."
In 1989, after the appeal was won, I started going through
all the records. I went down to Michael Gentry's office, and he let me
look at them. When I mentioned that to Lindstedt, he was
surprised that Gentry would let me see the records. He got this very
perplexed look on his face.
"He DID?" It had not yet clicked in my head that they were
all in this together. I had taken video depositions of the
investigators that had been working for Kent. It was
devastating to the other side. I wanted Lindstedt to look at
those video depositions. He lost the set I gave him, and on the
next set, something broke.
"Well now, Roger, I agreed with Brune we won't be taking
any of these documents home," Lindstedt said. He was trying to
intimidate me, not directly, not violently, but he was trying
to make it uncomfortable for me.
"Don't come in here and order my help around," he'd say. I
hadn't been. He was trying to create issues and was not
pursuing Brown. He was talking settlement with him. Based on
what he was saying about the properties, it was apparent he
had no knowledge of the extent of the fraud. In fact, one of
Helen Solem's documents mentions a telephone conversation with
Lindstedt, in which he was stunned when she told him Brown was
skimming 25- or 30-thousand dollars a month from just one of
those properties.
"...a MONTH?" he had said. He was trying to seal this thing
up. I now know that he and Brown had entered into three secret
agreements.
Between September of 1989 and June of 1990, Brown started
producing documents that were all obviously forged. There were
four different buy/sell agreements, eight or nine corporate minutes, and a
note for a million dollars—14 documents in all. Kettleberg's
signature had been forged on all 14 of them. It was definitely
the same hand wrote them all. They were laughable forgeries,
except for one, which was quite well done. It gave me some
concern when I first saw it. Right away, we were challenging
them. Dorothy Layman, who looks like a fifty-year-old office
secretary, and another woman were the handwriting
experts.
I became aware by October of 1989 that Lindstedt had been
turned by Brown. When I realized he was fighting us, I filed
a petition to remove him as personal representative. We were
fighting early on, when he said he was going to settle with
Carolyn Brune and release her bond. As soon as he said he was
going to settle, we started pushing him.
"Lindstedt, maybe you better resign," being nice at first
but then ratcheting it up. At one time, he said that he wanted
to resign as soon as possible.
"Please draw up the papers," he said to attorney Joe Rieke.
But then he wouldn't resign. He kept saying he would, but he didn't.
In late 1989, October or November, when he announced he was
going to settle with Carolyn Brune in March of 1990, we
demanded that he resign.
"If you do not resign, Lindstedt, we are going to file a
racketeering complaint against you in federal court."
Attorney Nick Albrecht was hired. Nick Albrecht is 250
pounds or so, 5 foot 10 or 11. He likes German military
instruments of war and looks like a dissipated German Count.
Albrecht had worked for Milton Brown for a long time, so he knew the
insides of Brown. He took a long time shaking the label that
he'd worked for Brown. When he went into court, he became
intimidated. I didn't trust him either. When you hire them, they
always want money, and as soon as they get the money they go to
sleep on you. From the first, I got a video camera in there to
make sure that, if Lindstedt did not resign, Albrecht would file
a racketeering complaint against him.
I had Janette Kent file a racketeering complaint in federal court
against Lindstedt and Brown. As soon as Lindstedt got wind of
that, he amended Carolyn Brune's suit to include a racketeering
complaint listing all of Brown's fraud. He filed that in early
1990. Later, he called and said he wanted to add Janette as a
party plaintiff, and we agreed. He went into Ancer Haggerty's court
and filed a petition to have her added, saying that she was an
indispensable party and must be added. Haggerty agreed. As soon
as Judge Haggerty agreed, Lindstedt went into Judge Don Londer's
court in March of 1990 and filed a motion to dismiss the
complaint with leave to refile within a year, saying that the judge
would not allow a set-over because there had been a new party
added. There was no alternative but to dismiss.
My Supreme Court disbarment trial was also scheduled, at
first, in March, for the same time that we had the hearing
before Judge Londer, who was trying to dismiss the complaint
that had been filed against Brown by his secretary, Carolyn
Brune. Janette and I went into Londer's court and challenged
that vigorously, saying we were prepared to go to trial. Londer
denied the motion to dismiss. So the case was on. Then we went
back into Haggerty's court to have Haggerty sign the order that
he'd entered. He'd said that Kent could be added, but he never signed
it. So we prepared the order for him to sign making her a party
so Lindstedt could not settle without her signature. Lindstedt then
came into the court and argued that she could not be added—exactly
the opposite of what he had previously argued—and
Haggerty went along with it. Haggerty had gone both ways. I
don't know if he ever signed either one of those. Might have
signed the second one.
The basic premise of the suit, what was it designed to do,
was to create litigation. Brune was showing that she was suing
Milton Brown. She claimed that there was a buy/sell
agreement between Kettleberg and Brown, which there was not.
The document had been forged. She said it was a valid document but
that Brown had done something wrong: he didn't account for his
own assets.
"You're going to have to pursue this to include the assets
of Milton Brown," said the judge. It was a made-up kind of a
complaint. They were just creating litigation so you'd have to
come in and plead your case. It gave the judge the opportunity
to tell you, "No." This is how they do it. They just made up
this claim that Kent had only been "declared" the beneficiary.
Judge Lee Johnson referred to her as the "residual legatee,"
meaning that she was just entitled to what was going to be left of
the estate once all the attorneys were paid, which of course was
going to leave her with nothing. Brown was the author of all this. Judge
Crookham had already ordered the properties be turned over to
Janette.
I began gathering groups of people to start coming into
court with me in June of 1990. The Bar Association decided to
convene the Supreme Court for my disbarment trial at the
Lewis and Clark Law School, in front of 300 students, to
maximize my embarrassment. There would be no back-up facility,
and no back-up recording. I wanted witnesses. I prepared a
motion for an in camera hearing and filed it at the last
minute to throw them off. An in camera hearing is a
hearing in chambers with only the judges. I knew most of them, and
I intended to confront them.
"Listen, goddamnit judge, I'm going to make a record out
there, and even if you don't want to hear it, I'm going to do it! You
understand that?" That's what you do in the backroom.
"This bullshit is gonna stop out there. This is a sham." You
go after the judge. Everything in the courtroom goes on the
record. In camera, you talk to him off the record. The judge can
threaten you too, but not when you're doing what I'm doing.
"We're not going to hear this," he may say.
Before court convened, as I stood outside talking with my
supporters, a court clerk came up to me with a note written on
a little green napkin.
"Tell the parties and Weidner," it said, "that the motion
has been denied." This was a formal hearing, and the judge was
sending me napkins, outside the courtroom, telling me that a motion
has been denied.
"Who gave this to you?" I asked.
"Judge Ed Peterson."
Ed Peterson's very bright. He was the Chief Justice of the
Oregon Supreme Court and president of the Chief Justice
Association of the United States. So, there's nothing wrong
with his legal ability. The unfortunate part is, he's crooked. But
he makes a very good impression. He can be very charming and
gracious. Peterson was in on this early on. He's a former
partner in the Tooze & Marshall firm. It used to be Tooze,
Kerr & Peterson. He has the same kind of treacherousness as
Norman Lindstedt, though he's probably a brighter attorney than
Lindstedt.
"I do not want to hear any kind of response other than on
the record, in the courtroom," I said. Another clerk came up a
second time and I told her the same thing. I communicated to
the court reporter that I definitely wanted a copy of the
transcript of the proceedings. When Peterson entered the
courtroom and sat down, he leaned over the edge of the bench and
spoke quietly.
"Mr. Weidner, your motion has been denied." The clerks told
him that I would not accept this note on a napkin.
Just before the hearing, when we were walking in, I noticed
Justice Fadely looking at me. I saw this glint in his eyes,
almost like a gleam, and this strange look. He was looking at
me because he knew what I was doing. Fadely was a former state
senator. Savvy, politically. Dick Unis, one of the 7-member
panel, whom I knew fairly well as a trial court judge, had this
funny look on his face, too. He's about 5 foot 10, a very
athletic guy, bald on top, very high intellect, extremely
knowledgeable about law systems. One of the best trial judges
in the state of Oregon. He could rank above everyone else
because he was so knowledgeable. In the past, I had tried
several cases in front of him. It was a pleasure because you
weren't reacting to some thick-headed judge sitting there. He
was way ahead of you. He had gotten a copy of this motion for an
in camera hearing he realized this was a political
prosecution. He resigned from the Supreme Court shortly
thereafter. Chief Justice Ed Peterson left also. Fadely was
removed.
This time, I got a chance to defend myself. They didn't check
the facts. There was no evidence at all. One of my supporters
told me he saw the court clerk intentionally foul the tape of
the proceedings. But the law school was videotaping as a
student activity. I went up during the lunch break and sat down
beside that cameraman.
"Are you going to be here?" I asked. "I want to make sure
that nothing happens to this film." While I was sitting there
Ed Peterson entered the room and eyed me, obviously perceiving
what I was doing. He knew this was a political prosecution and
that I understood what was happening. Court reconvened, and I
made my final arguments.
"There is no evidence that I was George Milges's attorney. This is a
totally political prosecution. There is no basis for it at all.
The only reason for it is because I'm working on that
Kettleberg case." They had no evidence whatsoever that I had an
attorney/client relationship.
"No misconduct," the Supreme Court ruled after the hearing,
and the charges were dismissed.
The basic dynamic that is in place in the system is a
complete corruption of the judicial process. You do not have a
constitutional government. You have a police state in place,
with state-appointed, government-appointed magistrates in
there. If they are against the system they are jettisoned out,
even if they're on the Supreme Court, like Fadely. They're
jettisoned out of the system and attacked. Fadely was a former
Supreme Court justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. He was there
at my first disbarment trial. Fadely came up to me a few years
later at a press conference, after he had been removed from the
Supreme Court.
"Roger, I didn't vote with them to disbar you," he said. He
was jettisoned off the Supreme Court because he wasn't going
along with them. Ostensibly, it was for pressuring an aide for
sex. He was accused of having an affair with one of the gals
that worked there. She said he was using his office to pressure
her. Sexual harassment. But that would have been fine had he
cooperated with the good ol' boy network. I didn't realize the
depth of that network until I got into this. In the brothel
down there, you're paying your dues and you're protecting the
system. You can do anything you want. You can murder, anything.
I made application with the Bar Association to get back on
active status. Once we hit on that case and won it, I
thought I wouldn't have to go back to work. But then it started
dragging out, and although we'd won the case, we couldn't gain
access to the assets. I wanted to get back on active status
before they succeeded in disbarring me.
"Well, you're going to have to submit to a psychiatric
examination."
"For what reason?" I asked.
"Well, there's been a report," said the fellow who worked
for the Bar, Jeff Shapiro was his name. I was insistent and he
became very perplexed with me.
"Who's putting up this requirement?" I asked.
"The board of governors," he responded.
At the time, Bill Crow was the President of the Oregon State
Bar. I knew him. He'd been a teacher of mine in law school, so I
called him. He was very cordial.
"Who required this? On what basis are they requiring this
referral?" I asked.
"Martha Hicks said they were concerned about your mental
stability," he replied. Of course, it was actually because I
was involved in the Kettleberg case. I had started clamoring
about this corruption. I was making these wild charges about
judges being corrupt.
"Oh! You must be nuts!"
I had to see a doctor to be reinstated as an active Bar
member, so I went to the office of the doctor in Cedar Mills
for the examination.
"Your appointment is not scheduled for today, Mr. Weidner,"
the receptionist purred. "You're not to come in today. You're
to come in tomorrow."
I returned the next day. Again, she said it was the wrong
day. I thought she was trying to antagonize me. I thought it
was intentional.
"Well, I was told today and I want to know why. Let me see
that book," I said, as I reached across the counter for her
appointment book.
"You can't see this book!" she cried, retreating with the
book. I thought they were trying to get me agitated so I would
cork in their office. They try to provoke you so they can write
up a report.
"Weidner was in here ranting and raving."
That doctor wouldn't see me anymore.
CHAPTER THREE
The objection hearings to the final accounting of Personal
Representative Carolyn Brune started right after that in Judge
Lee Johnson's court. Lee Johnson is the probate judge, the
former Attorney General of the state of Oregon and a former
Court of Appeals judge, so he has this vanity. He's crooked,
incompetent, he's a drunk, he is mindless, a despicable human
being. Johnson is probably 5 foot 10, weighs about 250 pounds,
very dissipated, pot-bellied, heavy jowly face. He's in with
the money elite. He is shamelessly and horribly corrupt. I
would give him zero in every category. Minus, if you could put
a minus. He has no memory. His brain's been pickled by alcohol.
The people that worked for him said that he'd have booze on the
bench. He has no intelligence. He's become so corrupted that's
it's just a matter of putting on a pretense.
When a person submits a final accounting the other side can
object and there were strenuous objections. We wanted to expand
those hearings to include the claim against Brown.
"I'm not going to hear anything against Brown." Judge
Johnson said that 16 times.
There was a series of 8 to 10 hearings beginning in June,
1990 and continuing to February, 1991. We were moving to block
those hearings because we had filed an action against Milton
Brown that was scheduled to be heard in November of 1990. Two
hearings and we could settle it all, once we had our action. We
planned to file a motion then move for Summary Judgment on it
and all the facts that we had developed about the forgery and
the fraud. No fact that we ever put up was ever disputed. It
was always some procedural thing.
Milton Brown is in possession of trust assets. This is what
people lose sight of. The judge imposed a Constructive Trust on
all these assets. Brown, by operation of law, is a trustee of
all Kettleberg assets that are in his possession. He also, on
his own, had his secretary give him a power of attorney as the
Personal Representative of the Kettleberg estate. When you
perpetrate that kind of a fraud on someone you have created a
liability.
Our racketeering complaint was just to implement Judge
Crookham's order, to take possession of all the assets. We did
not yet know about the order of Judge Crookham to turn over all
the assets "forthwith." But I knew that they were trust assets
as of the date of Kettleberg's death. We were asking that they
be turned over, that we be given possession of them because
they were Kent's properties. As of the date of Crookham's order
that property was hers. Milton Brown was Kettleberg's partner
so it was half his also but he has a duty to account for the
assets, for the property that he has in his possession.
Ordinarily, when you can't come to a settlement, the assets are
sold. They're liquidated. That's the remedy for that kind of
situation. He could buy her out. If it had gone as it should
have, all the properties would have been appraised and one
party given the opportunity to buy out the other party. You
mortgage them and pay off the other party. That's the way that
you resolve those kinds of situations. I was beginning to
realize that no matter what the evidence, because of the
corruption, we could not get them to obey the rule of law. We
could not get the judge to order him to do anything.
First there were the hearings on the objections to the final
account of Carolyn Brune. That stretched over 5 or 6 hearing
dates. She and Norman Lindstedt were the Personal
Representatives of the estate. As Personal Representative she
makes an initial account of what the assets are, what she paid
out, then she submits a final account. She posts a performance
bond, which guarantees her service. She had posted a 3 million
dollar bond. That final account then is when the other side can
protest the final accounting and charge her if she has
embezzled or otherwise misused funds or assets. Following the
objections to the final account of Carolyn Brune were the 3 or
4 hearings on the Lindstedt/Brown settlement agreement Brown
had entered in. Lindstedt had signed an agreement with Brown to
sell him all the assets for a fraction of their value. But
Lindstedt had signed an agreement with Kent that he couldn't
sell the assets without her consent.
In the 10 hearings from June, 1990 until February, 1991,
Judge Johnson's behavior in court was threatening. I could see
what he was doing. He was restricting witness testimony. All
evidence that he didn't want to hear he would just ignore.
"I'm not going to hear that! You sit down and shut-up!" He
was running police-state courts. Johnson referred to Janette as
a residual legatee. That means that after everything is paid
you get whatever is left. That was not in compliance with Judge
Crookham's order but that's how Johnson was characterizing it,
forcing her through all this new litigation against Brown. This
was all a make-up pretense to allow a litigation so they could
cut Kent out. Brown had hooked enough people and he'd hooked
the system. When Brown and his parties were put on the stand
Johnson protected them by sustaining objections to any
questions they were asked.
I spoke at one of the hearings, July 26th of 1990, when I
was called as a witness. We were talking about the gross
under-valuation of these assets by Brune in her account. I was
called to testify as to the actual value of these assets. This
was about properties. I had been in real estate development and
I'd done these syndications so I was knowledgeable. Johnson
summarily ruled that I was incompetent.
"Well, I'm not incompetent," I said.
"Mr. Weidner!!" he shouted.
"I am not incompetent," I replied.
"Well I'm ruling, Mr. Weidner, that you are incompetent to
enter any opinion about these properties."
"Well I'm not incompetent, I'm-"
"MISter WEIDner. I'll have you taken out of here!"
"Well, I'm going to make an offer of proof, right here and
now," I said. "I'm going to be making an offer of proof in this
courtroom."
Nick Albrecht was standing at the counsel table, his eyes
just like saucers, watching this go on. I could see that Judge
Lee Johnson and attorneys Norman Lindstedt and Michael Gentry
were simply running this through the system.
"I can impose sanctions on you Mr. Albrecht if I find your
client Janette Kent's claim is frivolous!"
He sat there seething while I made that offer of proof
concerning the actual value of those properties. That was the
first confrontation and his first act of open hostility toward
me. I thought that I would break through all the opposition I
was encountering by putting on this offer of proof.
Around November of 1990, during the hearings concerning the
final accounting of Carolyn Brune, Norman Lindstedt,
co-personal representative of the estate and Janette Kent's
attorney, was trying to settle with Brune for $11,000, the
improprieties in which she had engaged. It was just a set-up
deal. Brune created a situation where it could be claimed that
she entered into some improprieties concerning the estate. She
had allowed Kettleberg's sister and niece to take the car and
she sold off some of the assets, little ones, just to make
something to have this miniscule situation there. That was a
breach of her duty so she agreed to pay 11 thousand dollars to
the estate. It was just a pretense. She was being penalized.
They were surcharging, fining her. That was the ruse that they
were using to have a hearing. While she was settling for 11
grand Brown had actually been taking much much more than that
out of all of this. Milton Brown was skimming huge sums of
money. The properties are all still there. He's still
collecting the rents as he always has. All that there's been is
a little paper game, a little charade in a courtroom with Judge
Lee Johnson, Norman Lindstedt, Milton Brown, Carolyn Brune and
Michael Gentry, all just saying empty words to achieve an
objective. We were, of course, challenging her accounting. They
had to have a hearing on the settlement. They couldn't have it
against Brown so they used Carolyn Brune. They listed the
assets as being worth a million and a half dollars and Brown
then was going to buy those assets-Kettleberg's half. They
grossly underestimated and put the assets at just a fraction of
their worth, pennies on the dollar. That's how they were going
to run this thing through. That hearing then, after it had
passed, all subsequent judges said the settlement hearing with
Carolyn Brune was a full and complete hearing of all these
issues. I was trying to figure out some way to put the brakes
on this judicial thievery.
"I'm warning you Lindstedt," I said threateningly, "get out
of this case."
"Now Roger, don't..." my supporters were getting on me for
getting on him. We were doing the probate, some further
proceedings, and Lindstedt, who was supposed to be representing
Janette but was saying everything in favor of Brown, Lindstedt
was up at the counsel table speaking, openly lying.
"I tried to bifurcate this. I wanted to bifurcate this
hearing but Roger and Kent would not allow me to do that."
Bifurcate means to split into 2 parts the action that was
pending. Kent and I had been asking him to bifurcate and he had
agreed to do so, the action against Carolyn Brune and the
action against Milton Brown. Separate actions. One against the
Personal Representative for her final accounting and the other
against Milton Brown for converting the estate assets to
himself through forged buy/sell agreements. I was sitting as a
spectator listening to Lindstedt saying exactly the opposite of
what we had agreed. The proceedings had reached a point at
which they were going to sell all the assets to Brown for a
fraction of their value. He was absolutely lying. Everything he
said was to protect Brown. I couldn't stand it. Our case was
going down the tube so I stood up.
"He's lying. Every word that's coming out of his mouth is a
lie!"
"Mr. Weidner! Guards!! Take him out of here!" When I stood
up I anticipated Judge Johnson would have me removed from the
courtroom. The guards took me out of the courtroom instantly.
They didn't arrest me, they just removed me. That was the first
time I was physically taken out of the courtroom. This
opposition was building.
Lindstedt had signed a settlement agreement with Brown. But
Lindstedt was Janette Kent's attorney and had signed an
agreement with Kent which stated that he could not settle
without her consent. The question was, did Lindstedt have the
authority to settle and did Judge Johnson have the authority to
set aside the settlement agreement. The agreement itself says
that it's subject to court approval.
We hired attorney Mike Morris who subpoenaed Milton Brown
into court and subpoenaed his records. Mike Morris is 5 foot
10, slight build, a bright attorney. He has a nervous,
rapid-talking demeanor about him. He seems embarrassed about
what he got into, but not much backbone to do anything about
it. Brown came into court and didn't bring any records and he
was there without his attorney. Lindstedt then came in and said
that he had settled with Brown. Lindstedt was trying to settle
and sell all these assets to Brown for 2.1 million dollars. I
found an investor named Bob Jarvis. He used to own Jarvis Jeep
here in Portland and he said that he would loan Janette 2.1
million if she could be named personal representative. We were
fighting them on that.
"I want Milton Brown to submit the records." said Mike
Morris. Brown stood up.
"That wouldn't be fair! I don't have my attorney here to
defend me!" This is Milton Brown in the courtroom saying this.
Milton Brown IS an attorney.
"Yeah, that's right. I'm not going to make Brown produce any
documents. I don't think I have the authority to set aside this
settlement," says Judge Johnson. Don't try to make any logic
out of it. They were just putting on the pretense of judicial
proceedings.
"But Mr. Lindstedt has signed an agreement with Kent saying
he cannot settle without her consent," said Morris.
"Well, it's too late now. It's done, the settlement is
signed and I have no authority to set it aside," said Judge
Johnson.
"Well, it says right here judge it's subject to court
approval," Morris said and Johnson just gave him a blank look.
We'd caught him flat-footed. He didn't have a comeback.
"Well, ok, we'll have a hearing to see if I have the
authority to set this aside." It was so obvious that Judge
Johnson was just using this as a pretense to get out from under
the pressure. Kent had been awarded the estate. These were her
properties. Judge Crookham had ordered Brune to ".turn them
over forthwith." After all this threatening that was going on
during these hearings, Johnson decided to have a hearing to
determine whether or not he had the authority to set aside the
settlement agreement that Lindstedt had entered into with
Brown. That was just a pretense. The agreement itself said it
was subject to court approval so he had an absolute right to
set aside something that was subject to his approval! It was
just a charade. It's just words stated to make up an issue, to
talk about something other than the facts in the case.
What we didn't know was that there were 3 other secret
agreements that Lindstedt and Brown had signed together. Brown
was trying to hush that up and get this settlement through
because he had Johnson wired. WIRED! We were fighting trying to
keep that from happening. Those secret agreements were found in
1993 or 1994 by Jack Salter after the trials and hearings were
over. Lindstedt was supposedly representing Janette but he
signed these secret agreements with Brown that Brown would pay
him 1½ million dollars for all the assets of the estate.
In consideration for that, if Brown had to defend himself
against Kent because we were coming after him, then Lindstedt
had to agree to reimburse Brown for those expenses and attorney
fees out of the 1.5 million. This was part of one of the secret
agreements they signed that didn't turn up until Jack Salter
found it a few years later. That was the core of the agreement,
the payment of this certain sum of money, virtually nothing in
comparison to the value of the properties. Brown was going to
get it all back anyway for his legal expenses. Lindstedt was
hired and legally bound to fight for Kent but he was working
for Brown. Lindstedt was seen huddling with Milton Brown in
court. Huddling with him! After he'd filed a racketeering
complaint against him! Incredible.
One of the assets that Brown got back in the deal was a note
he had previously signed to the estate for a million dollars
that he owed Kettleberg, so he's off the hook to pay that
million dollars. Money came in on these different checks from
Brown and here's where it went.
500 thousand dollars went to Norman Lindstedt.
150 thousand dollars went to the Bar Association's
Professional Liability Fund to pay the attorneys who were
defending Norman Lindstedt.
300 thousand dollars went to Michael Gentry, the attorney
for Carolyn Brune.
200 thousand dollars went to Carolyn Brune for her fees for
being Personal Representative.
All the cash that came in, every bit of it, went to those
people who were fighting Janette Kent tooth and nail to protect
Brown-working for Brown-who were supposed to be working for
Kent! All of them! Carolyn Brune has a fiduciary duty to the
beneficiary of that trust. Michael Gentry, the attorney for the
estate, has a legal responsibility to Kent. Norman Lindstedt
certainly has a responsibility to her. The estate had no cash,
just assets. It had these properties that it owned. Brown
picked up assets that are today worth 100 million dollars. They
have a market value of 50 million and the income that Brown
diverted from those assets is another 50 million.
All of a sudden, it's a fait accompli and we're saying
Lindstedt has no authority to sign that agreement, Johnson says
he has no authority to set it aside, it's an outrage and we're
pounding on the doors then.
In February, 1991, I sent out notices to people.
"Lindstedt, Brown and Johnson are trying to steal the
Kettleberg estate. Show up." This was going to be the showdown,
in that courtroom, February 19, 1991.
My father had been the Deputy Fire Chief in Portland for 10
years and as a young man I worked as a fireman for 12 years
while I attended college and law school. So, I sent out notices
to all these firemen and I had standing room only in the
courtroom that day, maybe 70 people there.
"Just fill up the jury box," I said, when the room was full.
There were 8 retired fire chiefs sitting in the jury box. It
was a very impressive group.
"Oh shit!" I heard Gentry say, when he came to the door and
saw the crowd.
I thought we were in a position to apply so much pressure
that they could not just run this steam roller over us, that
they would have to observe regular courtroom etiquette. When
Judge Johnson saw the crowd he wanted to take all the parties
back into his chambers.
"Janette do not go back there," I said, grabbing her arm.
"These are public hearings. We want this to go on in front of
this crowd." He had to have her back there because she was one
of the key parties.
Lindstedt, Gentry, Mike Morris, Greg Hartman and Nick
Albrecht were there. Morris, Hartman and Albrecht were
attorneys for Kent. Greg Hartman is about 6 feet tall, erect,
somewhat stiff, very good trial attorney, dark wavy hair,
mindful of his appearance, makes a good physical appearance and
he's talented. He was in one of the big firms downtown, Durham
& Bennett. It's now Durham & Hartman so he's a name
partner in there. But he knows this is going on and he's not
doing anything about it.
Janette's attorneys went in the back for a few minutes
without her, then returned. Because Kent would not go they had
to come back out into the courtroom. And then it was just like
a volcano erupting. When Judge Johnson began roaring Janette's
attorneys started brandishing their marshmallow swords.
"Before we proceed," Johnson said, "I want to tell everyone
here that I have observed Mr. Weidner's conduct during these
hearings and I find his conduct outrageous and unprofessional."
I was standing in the back.
"I'm in the courtroom," I said.
"I see you," he replied.
"Well, if you're going to attack me," I said, "I want to be
able to come up to the stand so I can testify truthfully."
"Well, you've attacked me Mr. Weidner and I'm going to
respond," he said.
"And every word of it is the truth," I said.
"Roger! Roger!" marshmallow sword Morris starts trying to
shut me down.
"Roger! No! Now."
"One more word out of you Weidner and I'll have you taken
out of here!"
"You've done that in the past when I tried to speak the
truth in this courtroom."
"Guards!!" Judge Johnson got up and shot through the back
door into his chambers. Henry Sirbaugh, one of my supporters,
told me later.
"Roger, I saw the guard pull a gun on you."
Henry's 6 foot tall and balding. He was the chief down at
the fire station during the years I worked there. His daughter
Marilyn was a classmate of mine. She was one of the nicest gals
I knew. Henry had size 14½ or 15 shoes. Whenever the
bell would hit, you wanted to make damn sure you weren't in
between Henry and his car. He would fly, and he'd run over
everyone. I was his driver for awhile. He's been friends of my
parents and he's shown up at court for me so, even though he
used to jump on me when I worked down there, I still have a
fondness for Henry because he does speak out about this
corruption and he is a straight arrow guy.
There was a hush in the courtroom. A quietness. Lindstedt
was standing at the counsel table and all the fire chiefs were
in the jury box.
"Now Lindstedt," I said, "tell these people to their faces
what you've been saying behind my back." Behind my back he'd
been saying that I was crazy, that I was off my rocker. They
started this whispering campaign to try to discredit me.
"He's got some trouble with the Bar." they were telling
Kent. He stood there silent.
"You're under arrest," the guard commanded, and off I went.
I couldn't believe they'd be stupid enough to arrest me,
because if they arrest me, they have to try me!
My supporters said Judge Johnson came back into the
courtroom and pointed at Janette.
"Do you agree with what Mr. Weidner did," he said, "because
I'll have you arrested too!" All those firemen gave a growl, an
audible grrrrrrr, and backed him down a little bit.
This encounter I was starting to have with Judge Lee Johnson
reached a crescendo when he ordered my arrest. I was taken into
custody and booked for contempt and held 2 or 3 days. The trial
was set for March of 1991 in Judge James Ellis' court. He was
presiding court judge at the time. James Ellis is a very
treacherous individual. He's close to 70, tall, thin, has kind
of a nervous, quick laugh. When I was in the District
Attorney's office in 1975 Judge Harlow Lennon expressed
concern.
"Roger, go in and monitor Judge Ellis. He's sending everyone
to jail." He was known to be heavy-handed Jim when it came to
divorce cases.
I asked for a jury trial but they said you don't get jury
trials for contempt of court. The courtroom was packed and I
brought a lot of witnesses. By this time Dal Ferry had become
involved. Dal was in his early 80's when I met him. He was 5
foot 8 or 9, graying hair, high forehead and looked like a
professor. He was putting out a paper called the Counterpoint.
I think it first started as a small paper, then became a
newspaper when he got involved. He had a tremendous heart
committed to fighting the corruption and speaking out against
it. He was very supportive, early on, getting other people
involved.
I was stunned when I turned around and saw Lindstedt
standing in the back. I had been confronting him for months
demanding that he resign and now he'd come to testify in my
prosecution. So, they called their witnesses, Lee Johnson and
Norman Lindstedt, to the stand.
"You're a judge and you were conducting your."
"Yes, I was."
"And Mr. Weidner."
"Yes, he was-he disrupted."
That's the types of questions they were asking so, when my
turn came to cross-examine, I started trying to impeach Johnson
by showing that he had no memory of the event, that he's a
contemptible corrupt judge. That's how you impeach. You ask
someone questions—where they were, what they observed, who
they observed—to force them to be precise.
"Well, where was I in the courtroom Judge Johnson when I
made that reply to you?" I asked.
"Well, I think you were sitting in the front, left of
center."
"I was standing in the back," I said. So he had no
recollection of this. I planned to go over it in detail,
turning up as many discrepancies in his testimony as I
could.
"Isn't it a fact." Ellis stopped me.
"The only questions you're going to be able to ask, Mr.
Weidner, are what happened in that courtroom. I'm not going to
allow you to retry the Kettleberg case in here." When he said
that, he shut me down. If I tried to go beyond that I would be
in contempt.
I called my witnesses, who described what they saw and
heard, affirming that I was just responding. As the hearing
continued and I tried to expose Lindstedt's duplicity and
treachery, back and forth objections were being sustained.
"Well," I said, "I have a right to cross-examine him. Let's
go in the backroom and talk about this."
"No, we're not going to do that Mr. Weidner. Ask your next
question," said Ellis. I wanted to go in the backroom and lay
it out for him in a nutshell.
"Listen. They forged this document, stole this property.This
is what's going on here judge. I want this all out on the
record." I would have been saying in the backroom what he would
not let me say on the record in the court. None of the
surrounding circumstances would he allow to be discussed. But
if you go in the back room and if you get the court reporter
back there too, you tell it to him straight. That's what they
were trying to prevent me from doing from the getgo.
"I have a right to cross-examine him," I said.
"Mr. Weidner, if you persist in this you're going to have
the same trouble with me that you had with Judge Johnson." He
was threatening to charge me with contempt if I insisted on
cross-examining.
"Well let's go in the backroom and talk about this judge," I
said.
"What's the maximum?" Ellis asked. It was 6 months in jail
and a $300 fine. BANG!! went the gavel. He couldn't say it fast
enough. So he sentenced me to 6 months in jail, a $300 fine,
and ordered that I was permanently banned from entering the
Multnomah County Courthouse unless I obtained court approval to
come in. I filed a Notice of Appeal and was out on an appeal
bond within a couple of days. This is a standard routine. You
just tell them you are going to file a notice and they release
you, pending the appeal. I didn't go to jail at that time but I
did serve, ultimately, 180 days, the entire 6-month sentence,
for contempt of court.
We kept on trying to go into presiding court and make a
record of the fact that we couldn't get our petition—to remove
Lindstedt—heard in the probate court. Don Londer was the
Presiding Court Judge.
Here in Portland, years ago, they used to have the Broadway
gang. The guys would go downtown and they'd turn their collars
up, grease their hair back, this kind of a cool act. Londer
reminded me of this—that he was once a Broadway gang guy and he
never got over it. He was pleasant but he was very stiff
because of what I was charging, very stand-offish. He was not
intellectual at all and he wasn't a really successful trial
attorney but he was in that little money clique. 5'8" or so,
full-faced, full-nosed, balding, he looked Eurasian, eyes like
Yeltzin. That Eurasian look is from the Tartars and the Asiatic
peoples that overran eastern Europe. They have that look, that
is, the leopard's eyes. When you hear about wolves in sheeps'
clothing, that's Londer. He put on the robe to dignify himself
and he would strut and come in with great pomp when he entered
the courtroom. He had this affected voice. Everything was an
affectation, an act.
When I ran the Consumer Fraud Department in Portland in 1975
and 1976 Londer was trying to become a pro temp judge so he
would be very nice. He'd go out of his way to be congenial when
he saw me because I was in the District Attorney's office and
viewed as having political clout. Later, when he got on the
bench, I had one case with him when he was acting a little
strange. He didn't rule for me but I didn't put 2 and 2
together. It wasn't a big deal. Londer became the Presiding
Court Judge and Johnson became the Probate Court Judge so that
any attempt by the victims to get their cases into court would
have to go through them. Those positions were assigned by Chief
Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, Ed Peterson.
Presiding Court is the court that's going on all the time.
They have what they call an ex parte time when, twice a day,
you can go into court and get on the record. In major populous
areas you have a Presiding Court Judge that handles all
preliminary matters and all case assignments. He is the
judicial director of the court activity. He assigns specific
cases to specific judges. Londer would just assign our cases
back to Judge Johnson or one of the other corrupt
Judges—Abraham, Ellis or Cinoceros—members of this little
cadre, this little gang that was running the court system. That
position of Presiding Court Judge is supposed to rotate every
year because it is so powerful. But Londer became the permanent
Presiding Court Judge in 1985 or 1986 and was there for 14
years or so. I was in front of him quite a few times. He was
Presiding Court Judge so I was trying to get in front of him.
When I would come in and try to make a record he would keep me
from speaking.
"These are MY courts!" says Londer. He was brazen enough to
say that, the inference being that he could do anything he
wanted, let anybody speak that he chose to let speak. I do not
see them as being his courts. That's a courtroom. He just
happens to be working there. He was doing this to try to chase
me off. We were pushing to get a hearing in the Probate Court
on our petition to remove Norman Lindstedt as the Personal
Representative of the Kettleberg estate. Johnson would not hold
the hearing and when I would come into the court to try to
speak he would threaten me with arrest. So, I started going
into Presiding Court with Janette and a crowd of people. I
wanted to make a record that I was being threatened with arrest
by Judge Lee Johnson for trying to go in and have this petition
heard on the record.
"You don't think I'm so hot either do you Weidner?" Londer
said when I walked into the court.
"You know Milton Brown."
"Oh, that was ye-e-a-ars ago." Later he came back in the
courtroom and made an announcement.
"I want everyone in this courtroom to know that I don't know
Milton Brown at all."
Because of the politics, the money and because he was
corrupt he became Presiding Court Judge and in that powerful
position he could protect Brown. He gained that position right
around the time that Brown wiped out Kettleberg and also
Kittelson.
Ray Kittelson was another partner of Milton Brown. He
developed Hazel Dell shopping center in Hazel Dell, Washington.
Brown put up the money for it as a private lender and Kittelson
did all the work. Brown was the money man and Kittelson was the
developer so Brown had control of the accounts. When it was
done, Brown forged some documents and foreclosed on the loan
that he had made to the partnership. By the foreclosure he then
took over the possession of it.
That's what Brown does. He gets control of the rents coming
in. The other partner, when he's developing his property, he
looks at what the property's worth and what's owed on it and
what the net worth is. That's what keeps him like a horse
chasing a carrot. He thinks he's going to get that carrot.
Brown holds that carrot out in front of that partner, he keeps
chasing that carrot and after the horse has done the activity
and created all the wealth Brown takes and eats the carrot.
When they went to court this Judge Herb Schwab, who was a
former Court of Appeals chief judge—according to Kittelson
Judge Schwab and Milton Brown just looked like 2 peas in a pod.
They were just like baby cubs schmoozing with each other while
they stripped Kittelson of that interest.
Now I was getting this violent reaction from Presiding Court
Judge Don Londer.
"Mr. Weidner!!"
"I'm just trying to make the record," I said and I started
speaking on the record.
"I'm warning you Weidner!"
"Well I'm just here to make a record judge that I can't be
heard in judge-"
"WEIDner!! I'm warning you! Report him to Judge Ellis," he
said to the District Attorney on one of these occasions in
November or December of 1991. I'd been sentenced by Ellis to 6
months in jail but there was an appeal pending. I was under
sentence and I had been ordered out of the courthouse except on
business. We went 6, 7, 8 times. Janette and I were trying to
get Judge Londer to act on the petition to remove Lindstedt. I
was trying to make a record, asking him to hear certain
matters.
"I have recused myself from hearing anything about the
Kettleberg case," said Judge Londer. "All those matters have
been assigned to Judge Gallagher."
"Well I want to bring up this petition," I said. "I want to
have this petition to remove Lindstedt heard."
"You can bring that up with Judge Gallagher," Londer
replied. "You can take anything up with him that you want." I
filed petitions and left copies with Gallagher and also with
Londer because I could see what Londer was doing. He was being
evasive and trying to throw me off. So, I went with a group
into Judge Gallagher's courtroom.
"I cannot hear any of these matters pertaining to the
probate," said Gallagher. "I was told by Judge Londer,
specifically, that I cannot hear these matters. You have to go
into Probate Court to get that petition heard."
"Well I can't go into Probate Court because Judge Johnson
will arrest me if I come and try to speak in his courtroom. And
Judge Londer has threatened to arrest me if I speak about this
case in his courtroom," I said. Gallagher was on the bench.
"Well he can't arrest me," he said. So, Gallagher went with
Janette and me down to Judge Londer's chambers. When we first
showed up there Londer was in chambers, we were out in the
courtroom and Gallagher was kinda standing in the door. Janette
was going to go in and talk to Judge Londer and Gallagher just
exploded.
"You can't go in there! You go back and sit down right now!"
he hissed at Janette Kent. We then were sitting down in
Presiding Court and the door into Londer's chambers was swung
about halfway open so I could see between the door and the
doorjam. I saw Gallagher bent over whispering in Judge Londer's
ear, figuring out what they were going to do. Those judges are
not supposed to confer at all. They are supposed to be totally
autonomous but this is how brazen they were.
Sometimes Ellis would be Presiding Court Judge so it wasn't
Londer all the time. Ellis is nervous and he would track me.
Once the security gal was standing next to me and I heard Jim
Ellis' voice on her radio.
"He's in the courtroom and he has a camera." When he sees me
coming he runs across the street. I've confronted him in the
elevators.
"People, this is Jim Ellis. He's as corrupt as they
come."
On one occasion I was taken through the courtroom and the
clerk's office was right there. There were these double doors
and I could see through the office door and the second door was
into the chambers. Both doors were standing open and I could
see Londer in there, "kkk, kkk, kkk." and Ellis was in there
with him, snickering like little kids in the judges' chambers
after sentencing me to jail.
"Mr. Weidner I'm warning you! I'm not." Londer
threatened.
"I have an absolute right to-"
"Mr. Weidner!!"
"-make a record in this courtroom-"
"MISter WEIDner! GUARDS!!" and they would come and grab me.
On one occasion the guards arrested me in the courtroom and
started to remove me.
"I'm going to give you one more chance Weidner," and the
guards released me. I was not arrested that day.
One time when I went in with one of these crowds there was
Londer peeking out of the chambers doors. The door would open
and I'd just see an eyeball coming around the edge of the
door.
On another occasion the door was open and Londer was
standing in his chambers looking out to me standing out there
in the courtroom. He nodded to me. I've known him for a long
time and I nodded back. Now and then he'd come out of the court
house and see me outside. I saw him coming out of the justice
center walking up the street one day.
"Hi Roger," he acted friendly, pretending like this wasn't
happening. He recused himself shortly after he started doing
this. He wouldn't hear it.
Londer died a few years ago, way Way WAY too late. I was
going to go to his funeral just to make sure it was him. I
wanted to go get a backhoe and deepen his grave by about 50
feet to make damn sure he didn't come out of there because,
deep down, they're really ok. He's probably one of the best
arguments for abortion that I can think of.
CHAPTER FOUR
In late 1991, early 1992 we went into federal court with the
racketeering complaint against Lindstedt and Brown. We had
early on requested that Lindstedt amend this belated lawsuit
that Carolyn Brune had filed against Brown in September/October
of 1988 after Kent won. We wanted Lindstedt to amend that
complaint to include a racketeering complaint against Brown.
Because that case was 3 years old, it was of long standing and
was due to go to trial soon. There had been no action on it. It
was cover for her. That was the whole purpose of it, the reason
it was filed.
"I have no authority to amend the complaint to include a
racketeering complaint against Brown," Lindstedt said. Later on
we threatened him.
"Resign or be named in racketeering complaint!" When he
wouldn't resign we filed a federal racketeering complaint
against him and Brown. As soon as we filed, Lindstedt amended
Brune's complaint adding what they call an O.R.I.C.O. (Oregon
Racketeering Influence Corrupt Act) complaint against Brown.
What he said he had no authority to do, he did.
When we went into federal court Judge Rettin ruled that this
had all been handled, all been heard by Judge Johnson.
After that we went into the court of Judge Malcom Marsh. I
had a group of maybe 40 people there up in the old court
building in downtown Portland, big majestic federal courts like
the temples of Babylon. Janette's attorney Nick Albrecht was at
the council table. Marsh came swirling into that courtroom.
They swirl their robes around when they take their seats to
create a tension and to try to show authority and mastery. It
is ungodly. You can't get any more ungodly than our judicial
system.
"This has been heard many, many, many times before," said
Judge Marsh, "and I'm going to recount that on this time it was
heard by Judge Johnson, and it was heard by Judge Rettin."
"Well, obviously it's been heard," you would say if you
looked at the paper. But those are just words on paper. They
have nothing to do with the facts in the case. And that's
what's so hard to get through to people.
In the core of a racketeering complaint, there is a criminal
enterprise. There is a mission that is undertaken that is the
enterprise. There are players that are involved in that
enterprise to carry out some illegitimate, illegal end. And so
you name what the enterprise is, to steal this or do that,
convert this, whatever it is, name the enterprise, what it is
and who the parties are.
"Where's the enterprise Mr. Albrecht? Where's the
enterprise?" he demanded and Albrecht could hardly even speak.
His tongue stuck to the side of his mouth and he was making
these gagging, gurgling sounds. Marsh was obviously hostile.
It's so frustrating to me. What I'm describing is just blatant
criminal conduct that people go to jail for all the time that
is not a hundredth as serious as these charges that I'm making.
But because it is so open and there are so many involved in it,
no matter what you say in the courtroom, no matter what the
facts are, you're going to lose.
Albrecht was intimidated by Marsh and he basically fumbled
it. Lindstedt moved to dismiss our complaint claiming the
opposite to the judge that he'd said to us.
"Your honor, I am the Personal Representative of the
Kettleberg estate and as such I am the only person with the
authority to bring a racketeering complaint against Milton
Brown." Marsh went along protecting the good ol' boys and
granted Lindstedt's motion to dismiss.
I was coming out of the courthouse library one day a few
months later and I saw officer Sein, who works as a security
guard in the Multnomah county courthouse.
"Hi, no hard feelings," I said, because he'd been giving me
a hard time down there.
"Weidner?" he says.
"Yes."
"Well I can't let you go. I have a warrant for your
arrest."
"Signed by whom?"
"By Ellis." This was the upshot of Londer's directive to
report me to Judge Ellis. Sein called but they couldn't find it
on their computer so he let me go. This was March of 1992. When
I got home I called Judge Ellis. I've known him for 30 years.
He used to be very friendly. Not any more, of course. I called
his office.
"Judge Ellis?"
"Yes?"
"Ellis, this is Roger Weidner. Have you signed an order for
my arrest?"
"Yes."
"On what basis did you sign that?"
"I have reports that you are causing a disturbance down in
Presiding Court."
"Well, I want a hearing on that right now." Since he had an
order for my arrest I had a right to insist on an immediate
hearing. If an arrest warrant is issued there has to be an
underlying supporting document that states the reason for the
arrest. I was reportedly creating a disturbance in violation of
his orders to stay out of the courthouse except on
business.
"Well, I'm short of staff and I can't find my file."
"Judge Ellis, are you aware that Janette Kent's godfather is
a retired US District Court Judge?"
"Are you threatening me Weidner?" I detected a warning in
the tone of his voice.
"I'm not threatening you, I'm just stating a fact."
Janette's godfather's identity is a well kept secret because we
were afraid that they would bump him off. Because he was a
higher power figure he could exert some pressure on the court.
They thought that he would instigate an investigation and
compel the FBI to become involved.
I prepared a motion, a Show Cause order, for Judge Ellis to
appear in Presiding Court and show cause why that warrant
should not be withdrawn. Again I came in with a crowd of
people. Judge Frank Bearden was now sitting in the Presiding
Court. Frank Bearden is a dapper looking guy, probably in his
mid-fifties. Bright. Sharp. A good-looking male and he has kind
of a diffident personality. He doesn't have a thrusting
personality.
And so we were sitting there waiting, I had 30 people with
me, one fellow brought a video camera and no judge was coming
out. All of a sudden, BAM! The doors flew open and in came
these 4 sheriff's deputies.
"Weidner?"
"Yes?" One of the deputies grabbed my hand and shoved it up
behind my back.
"Well, I'm just wanting to make a record!"
"No! You're under arrest!" and out we went. The cameraman
was filming this. As they were taking me out the door I spoke
into the camera.
"I'm being arrested."
"What are you being arrested for?" asked the cameraman.
"Because of my work on the Kettleberg case."
Down the corridor we went, hand up behind my back, along the
east wall down to the end and around the corner and if you've
ever gone the wrong way down a one-way street you know the
reaction that I was watching. People were just literally
falling away on both sides.
"What are you arresting him for?" inquired my friend Jim
Kight as he made a big motion to step aside. This time I was in
there 21 days, 6 days in solitary.
When they arrest you they ordinarily put you in a concrete
bunker first, with your handcuffs on. They make it
uncomfortable. Initially, you're in an uncomfortable position.
You're anxious to get out of there and so you are
accommodating. In the second phase they put you into a holding
cell. You're not handcuffed but the temperature is
uncomfortably cold and you're just in your street clothes. You
get a single blanket. You're always shifting and turning and
you're very anxious to get out of there. And so you become very
compliant. When they took me out of there they placed me in
maximum security in one of those little cells where they put
the most violent criminals. It was in a protective bay and
there are only 3 cells in that bay. I was given only one hour
out each day, to shower basically. My food was slid under the
door on a tray. It wasn't solitary. Inmates could speak in
between cells and in the other 2 cells one was taunting the
other calling him the freeway raper.
"Freeway raper! Freeway raper!" he chanted mockingly..
"You #%&@$#&% !!" the other cursed and growled
back.
"Freewa-a-y raper! Freewa-a-y raper!" in a singsong
voice.
"Why you #+%&$@# !!" They kept this going back and forth
and I couldn't sleep. I was there from March 9 until I was
released April 1st of 1992.
I started going around the city circulating handbills
through all the business districts, passing out flyers with
pictures and a political cartoon. 'This is what's happening.
They're stealing down there in the court.' I got a call from
pastors Helen and Chet Jones. Chet is about 5 foot 10, my age,
very talkative, demonstrative in his mannerisms, pleasant
engaging kind of an impulsive type of a personality. Very
self-confident and somewhat naïve. Helen had been widowed.
She professed to be a pastor too. She was an attractive woman,
kind of a busty robust type, very serious but pleasant when I
met them. They owned American Showcase. They said they were
calling me to support me. They had bought a farm out in Beaver
Creek, Oregon as a Christian retreat. Jones bought the property
from Cathy Mason, whom they met through the church. They put
down a sum of money and got a 5-year lease/option to purchase
it and then started investing time and money into it. Cathy
Mason was divorced from her husband Don Calkins and in the
divorce settlement the Beaver Creek property was awarded to
Calkins. He was the owner but she had possession. When Cathy
and Don divorced he moved to California. The reason he walked
away from it early on was because of the debt being more than
the value of it. There were 2 or 3 other investors also. One
had a first mortgage the other had a second mortgage. She was
trying to sell it and the agreement was that she would get any
amount over and above what was owed on it. The investors were
to get back whatever their investments were. She wanted to get
out from under those payments so she had to get someone in
there to fix it up and she got pigeons. Mason said Chet Jones
could lease it for 5 years and exercise the option at the end
of that 5 years. He's a carpenter. He and his wife Helen then
started working on it tooth and nail.
Mason was professing such a strong religious belief.
"Oh this is God's miracle work!" Chet fell for it because
he's religious too. But when Lynn Springer, the real estate
agent, signed this lease/option he used some pretense not to
give Jones a copy of that agreement.
"I need to have someone else sign off on this." Springer
says, "and I'll get back to you. I'll have to bring you a copy
of it because I don't have." Well Chet, trusting, didn't
follow-up. Thinking that everything was ok Chet forgot to get
his copy. So he had no way of proving that he had a
lease/option.
So, they just sat back and waited while Helen was fixing up
the garden and Chet was remodeling. Cathy Mason would come out
and stroke them and tell them what a wonderful job they were
doing, fixing up this Christian retreat.
Chet did about $200,000 worth of improvements on it and had
about a million dollars in fixtures stored there. Because of
the work that he did the property was worth a lot more than
what was owed on it. So, Cathy and George Mason filed an FED
action, what a landlord brings against a tenant, and ordered
Jones off the property claiming there was no lease/option. They
claimed that he was just a tenant. There were some hearings
before I became involved. There was a lot of wrongdoing going
on by this Ken Schmidt, the crooked attorney representing Cathy
Mason. Schmidt came and grabbed some documents away from Helen
in Judge Pat Gilroy's courtroom. Gilroy is pushing 280 pounds
at least, very heavily jowled. When he talks he talks like it's
just causing him all kinds of problems to get it out. A mafiosa
kind of talk. I think he's intelligent but he's so corrupt. All
these events were working a hardship on Jones' marriage. Helen
was in a situation where Chet's father was in the store all the
time and antagonism built up. She also questioned Chet's
fidelity, suspicions broke out and their relationship wore
thin.
Calkins felt terrible because of what was being done to
these pastors. To remedy that he came up from California and
sold to me, on a promissory note, his interest in the property.
Don Calkins is about 5'10, sandy blond hair, a little bit
heavy. I was still unable to get on active status with the
Oregon State Bar so I couldn't fight for the property unless I
owned it and the pastors wanted me in the courtroom. I gave
Calkins a promissory note for 20 thousand dollars and he gave
me a bargain-and-sale deed transferring his interest in the
property to me. I became the legal owner of the property. So
then I told Helen and Chet Jones to stay on the property
because I'm the owner of it. Officer Terrence Shaeffer came out
and ran them off at gunpoint claiming that Judge Alan Jack
signed an order to clear the property. I can't believe I could
be as naïve as I was. Jack was involved early on. He told
Jones that he was the door to his property. Jack was a central
player in this.
In June 1992 I went out there with one of Chet's associates,
Jim Gordon. Gordon was a religious devotee of Helen and Chet
Jones and hung around and worked around the store for the
religious side of it. He was in the house while I was across
the street, talking to a neighbor. As I was relating the story
to the neighbor a police car pulled up. I think the cops were
just sitting down the street watching the property because I'd
told the Joneses to come back. I opened the gate, walked inside
the fence and stopped.
"Who are you?" I said to this officer standing there.
"My name is officer Shaeffer. Who are you?"
"Well, my name is Roger Weidner and I'm the owner of this
property."
"I'll mace you! I'll mace you! You're under arrest!" he
said, putting his hand on his gun. He arrested the two of us
for trespassing. We were held, booked and released. After I was
arrested Cathy Mason filed a trespassing complaint against me
and the trial was scheduled for September 17th of 1992.
In the meantime there were several hearings for Chet and
Helen, beginning in July. Judge Sidney Brockley had been very
treacherous. 5 foot 10 or 11, blond hair, round high forehead,
he kinda reminded me of Torquemada, Inquisitor-General of the
Spanish Inquisition. When he watches these events go on he has
this little bit of a rocking motion while he's watching. He
will cut you to pieces too. He'll hang you for the slightest
heresy. When you call him corrupt, that's heresy.
Ken Schmidt was the attorney for the other side. Ohhh, that
viper! Ken Schmidt is probably 60-years-old, kind of a mousy
face, narrow set eyes, always assessing what's going on. He
masterminded this deal to steal that property. Schmidt is
ruthless and outspoken. You wouldn't want him to be standing
around at a social event because he is overbearing in his
mannerisms, talking loudly and disheveled in his
appearance.
The judge was John Lowe and the trial, which lasted several
days, took place in the Clackamas County courthouse. Lowe is
about 6 foot one, soft-spoken, red jowly face. He looks like he
suffers from high blood pressure or like he's embarrassed about
something. His wife Cathy Lowe is a state Representative. Lowe
is a politically correct unprincipled attorney, who got his job
because he goes along with the good-ol'-boy network. He has
that mentality.
When Cathy came to court-ohhh, she had this horrible illness
and she had to be lying flat out on the floor there in the
courtroom behind the counsel table. She was playing that she
had to lie down for some reason and her husband/boyfriend,
George Mason, was rolling his eyes. The Masons claimed there
was no lease/option, that Chet and Helen were renting tenants,
that she gave them notice and was entitled to possession. They
said that I was claiming an interest in that property but that
I had no interest in it.
Ken Schmidt, this snake, the attorney for Cathy Mason, was
asking them questions and telling them the answers under his
breath during the hearing. Judge Lowe was just sitting up there
paying no attention.
"Schmidt," I said, "you're not."
"Oh, everyone does it!" It was a charade. I cross-examined
Cathy Mason and just devastated them.
"Isn't it a fact that you." she was denying the
lease/option.
"All this remodeling work that he did?"
"Yes."
".and he was just doing that you think to enrich you?"
"Well I don't know why he was doing it. He was just fixing
the place up." She was being evasive.
"Why would he be out there fixing the place up, doing all
these capital improvements on it, if he's just a month to month
tenant?"
"Well, I don't know. You'll have to ask him that." That kind
of answer.
At the end I was sure we had won because all the facts and
evidence were so overwhelming. Chet Jones and Jim Gordon laid
it all out. The private contractors, who owned the mortgages,
were called as witnesses too. The Masons and their cohorts had
all been impeached. They admitted it all though they denied
signing a lease/option. But Cathy Mason prevailed. Judge Lowe
ruled in her favor, ignoring all the evidence. I was in a state
of shocked disbelief.
The only time that innocent honest people come to court is
when something has been wrongfully taken from them. When you're
in a corrupt system the courtroom is the shearing shed because
the only time the crooks come to court is to take something!
They've got the system wired. The judge's advantage in ruling
against the evidence is that he gets paid to rule against it!
Someone is paying him off. Also, because it's so unusual the
kind of thing I'm doing, and I'm under so much stress, I often
don't have the time to compile detailed questions. Just to get
the event to happen takes so much energy. It's very
fatiguing.
After the hearing Schmidt offered me his hand to shake.
"I do not shake hands with thieves, Schmidt." Our little
group looked at him and the guards gave him escort service out
of the courthouse.
They took over a million dollars in property from the
pastors. Witnesses saw Cathy Mason and others scooping up all
of Chet's property while the sheriff protected them. The
pastors had stored a lot of their store fixtures and equipment
there. Those were all fungible assets and there is a ready
market for them. Schmidt and Mason sold the fixtures and
equipment, everyone was paid off and Schmidt got all the
leftover money in attorney fees, that's how ruthless they were.
That's always how it works. Chet said it looked just exactly
like a battle zone, with everything stripped out of there.
Cathy Mason is a consummate con artist. She posed as a
fellow church member and, you know, they just drip with this
sanctimoniousness.
"Oh we love God and we love you and we all just love Love
LOVE!!" until they see something to snatch and grab and then
WHAM! They grab it.
"MINE!" That's what they do, just like little kids. Their
bodies get big but they act just like little spoiled
children.
I thought pastors would be peaceful people but they ended up
being anything but pastors in their behavior toward one
another. In her mind, because of his foolishness Chet had
impoverished them by allowing that farm to be taken and she
thought he should provide for her. Chet was indignant that she
was upset with him. They started fighting viciously with each
other, they divorced and became horrible enemies.
CHAPTER FIVE
In September, 1992, I was tried in Judge Steven Maurer's
courtroom for criminal trespassing. I had this group of people
with me and when we walked into the courtroom there were 7 or 8
armed guards sitting in the jury box with their feet up on the
railing.
Maurer is another one in the mold of Ed Peterson, David
Buono and Norman Lindstedt. Well-groomed, mannerly, 5 foot 10
or 11, keeps himself in good shape, maybe 170 pounds, fair
freckled complexion, light red hair, intelligent and this
nervousness when I'm around. I've seen him out on the street.
He will pace back and forth like he's distracted all the
time.
There was rumbling discontent in the courtroom that day. The
District Attorney was prosecuting me for trespassing on that
land. Maurer would not let me go into the history of how Jones
had been defrauded of that property.
"The only question here is whether or not Mr. Weidner was on
that property. That's the only question. We're not going to go
into all the rest of this," said Maurer. I was trying to say
something and he'd keep interrupting, trying to shut me down,
to prevent me from making a record.
"A piece of paper doesn't make any difference. Only was Mr.
Weidner on that property." I had the document that showed the
transfer of ownership.
"It makes no difference what's on that piece of paper. The
only question in this trial, Mr. Weidner, is whether you were
on that property." The piece of paper he was referring to was
the bargain-and-sale deed that I had from Calkins. He continued
with this high-handedness, restricting testimony and blocking
evidence. He did the same thing Jim Ellis did when he tried me
for contempt.
"Now Mr. Weidner, we're not going to try that Kettleberg
case. The only question here is whether or not you spoke up in
court," Ellis had said.
"No, now the only thing we're going to be talking about is
what went on that day that Mr. Weidner was arrested." My
supporters were protesting, not real boisterous, just reacting.
Maurer and the DA would go into a flurry.
"Any outbursts and I will clear the courtroom!" Maurer said.
He did not clear it, he just threatened.
They brought Cathy Mason as a witness against me. I
cross-examined but only about the event. When I would start to
try to go into the background and extenuating circumstances,
which had a direct bearing on the event, the other side would
object and Maurer would sustain it. Cathy Mason didn't have to
show any paperwork of any kind that she had a right to do what
she did. He did not allow me to expose her duplicity and
treachery. So that's how they worked that, that little dog and
pony show that goes on.
"Objection sustained."
"Well I have a right to."
"Mr. Weidner."
"Well I have a right to cross-ex-"
"Now Mr. Weidner."
He was just insistent that I not bring up anything
meaningful and he was threatening to the crowd. He was poised
like a snake. Real stiff. Just like a cobra. When I go in the
courtroom and I see the judge has that look, he's got his head
down and he's kinda looking up, I know he's in the pocket of
the other side. They sit up there poised and everyone knows, by
the posture, that snake is poised to strike. And they get that
vacant look, just like those snakes in India that rise up and
sway back and forth. That's just exactly what these vipers look
like. They have to create an environment of intimidation. They
don't say it but by their behavior they do it. Everything they
said in the Bible is true. The whited sepulchres.
I was only allowed to call Chet Jones. I was not allowed to
call Helen Jones, his wife. Maurer was restricting the
witnesses and restricting testimony. He told the jury,
basically, that it made no difference who owned the property.
The only question was whether I was on the property. Lowe had
awarded it to the Masons and had ordered Jones, and anyone
associated with Jones, to stay off the property. He was
enforcing that prior order, refusing to allow me to challenge
the issue of ownership so the jury could consider that.
Obviously, he should have been letting me do everything, put on
the whole case. At that time I was not exploding. I was always
intent, giving the judge the benefit of the doubt rather than
openly challenging him.
People think that in a jury trial they have a better chance.
But the jurors just sit like little children with the judge.
Whatever the judge tells them, they comply unquestioningly. The
jury convicted me. He sentenced me to 10 days in jail,
psychiatric evaluation, $100,000 bail and I was walked right
out of the courtroom to the jailhouse. I did the 10 days in
solitary in the high security center there in Oregon City. When
I went to this Doctor Davis for the psychiatric examination I
took 6 people with me.
"You can ask me any questions that you want to Dr. Davis
but, because this is a political prosecution to which I'm being
subjected, I want these people to witness." He wouldn't examine
me.
One morning my name was called.
"Weidner!"
They have a big plexi-glass wall with little holes cut in
it. I walked over and was handed a subpoena from Barry Adamson,
Milton Brown's attorney, calling me into court in Multnomah
county on October 2nd, 1992. Now Milton Brown, this little
murderous thieving viper, whom I've chased out of the courtroom
previously, confronting him, is the last person in the world
that wants to see me in a courtroom. He was subpoenaing me into
a courtroom in Multnomah County, while I was in jail in
Clackamas County. It was a set-up. I felt that a trap was being
set to shut me down permanently because of my activities. I was
going all around town, passing out flyers and talking to
everyone I could. You know the kind of response you get-none
from the people you know. Everyone that is comfortable runs
off. I had been ordered by Judge Ellis to stay out of the
Multnomah County Courthouse except on court business. Because
there was this order of exclusion I was subject to being
arrested for coming in. But I was subpoenaed in. I might be
arrested before security knew I'd been subpoenaed. If I did go
into the courthouse, and if I did not go into the courthouse,
either way, I was subject to arrest. So, I decided to go into
presiding court and make a record of that fact.
When I entered the courthouse I sensed this stress and this
nervousness in the air. I and my supporters, this big crowd,
went down to courtroom 210, the courtroom to which I was
subpoenaed, to see what was going. There were 3 or 4 guards
around the door.
Some of us were heading back down to presiding court when I
saw Bill Keyes, whom I've known for years, coming out of Judge
Abraham's courtroom. Keyes is 260 pounds or so, 6 foot one or
2, full freckled face, dark red hair and in years past he would
try to act friendly.
"Oh, how ya doin' Rog..." showing a friendly personable
side, but he's a lapdog kind of a guy.
"Judge Keyes, come here I want you to talk to these people,"
and he ran onto the elevator. I | 