It was fairly clear from the early days of the Kimberlin v. Walker, et al. nuisance lawsuit that The Dread Pro-Se Kimberlin’s strategy included putting the older Kimberlin daughter on the stand to testify how she had been injured by TDPK’s reputation. He told Judge McGann during the 1 July hearing on summary judgment that
… I’m going to present that at trial. My daughter’s going to testify, she’s going to get up on that stand and she’s going to cry, and she’s going to say that my friends can’t even spend the night at my house because these guys have told their parents that I’m a pedophile.
One major flaw in his plan was that she was not a competent witness to anything that was admissible concerning TDPK’s claims against us defendants. Judge Johnson tried to explain that to him and to persuade him to avoid subjecting the girl to being put on the stand.
BEGIN BENCH CONFERENCE
THE COURT: Who is your first witness?
MR. KIMBERLIN: My daughter.
THE COURT: Now, what — what is her what’s the purpose of calling her?
MR. KIMBERLIN: She’s going to testify —
THE COURT: You are the plaintiff in this case, she’s not a party.
MR. KIMBERLIN: No, she’s not a party, but she’s going to testify about things that have occurred to us, things that have occurred to her and the harm that’s occurred to her about —
THE COURT: In terms of —
MR. KIMBERLIN: — and she’s going to talk about —
THE COURT: In terms of what? I mean, that has occurred to her? I mean —
MR. KIMBERLIN: She’s going to talk about my wife and she’s going to talk about the fact that I’m not a pedophile, that I don’t — I mean, she needs to testify. She needs to talk about the harm. She’s been bullied out of two schools because of the things these guys have said.
MR. OSTRONIC: Unless there’s a direct connection, I mean, it’s —
THE COURT: How are you going to prove that, though?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, I’m going to put her on the stand and let her testify about the things that have happened at school because of the things that are online.
THE COURT: You mean, things that have been said to her?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Things that have been said to her, things that have been done to her, things that —
THE COURT: That’s total hearsay. How is it admissible under the rules of evidence?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, it’s not hearsay if what happened to her as a result of it occurred.
THE COURT: Look, if it’s an out-of-court statement, and obviously, these were statements that were made out of court, things people said to her — deputy, you can bring somebody out. I don’t care who.
MR. KIMBERLIN: I’m not going to ask her — your honor, I’m not going to ask her what other people said. I’m going to ask her what she said and what happened to her, and I’m going to ask her about my wife, and I’m going to ask her about —
THE COURT: But what is the segue? How does it connect to these defendants? See, you’re going to have to prove what each one of these individuals did, and what is she going to testify that any one of these men did to her?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, that they posted stuff —
THE COURT: You can’t say they.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Okay, that — and I will get to that. I’m going to call each one of these defendants as a witness, and I’m going to show that — I mean, I would like to get my daughter done first, you know. If they want me to put them on the stand first, then —
THE COURT: Well —
MR. KIMBERLIN: — and show that they’ve called me a pedophile, and that’s been on the Internet, all over the Internet, every single day for years —
THE COURT: Well, that’s up to you, I mean —
MR. KIMBERLIN: But I would rather put her on the stand —
THE COURT: But I’m concerned about a 15-year-old child.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, she has been through this. She has lived it.
THE COURT: But what I’m saying, what is she going to say that — I’ll just use Mr. Akbar. What is she going to say he did?
MR. KIMBERLIN: She may not say anything that he did, other than that he posted tweets on the Internet that I’m a pedophile.
THE COURT: How can she testify to that?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, I’m not saying that she’s going to testify to it. I’ll say she will testify that she was bullied out of two schools in Montgomery County —
THE COURT: Because of him?
MR. KIMBERLIN: — because of these guys.
THE COURT: Because of him?
MR. KIMBERLIN: I’m not saying because of him, but because of what they said on the Internet, and —
THE COURT: The conspiracy count is gone, so you won’t be able to use they.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Then I won’t say they. I will say, you know, they defendants, they called me a pedophile on the Internet, that this was used and read — I have to show that this was publicly put out there —
THE COURT: You do, but I don’t know how you’re going to do it through your daughter.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, I’m not going to do it through my daughter. It’s just that I’m putting her on the stand first. I’m going to do it through them. I’m going to show that they did this —
THE COURT: Maybe you should call them, because what I’m hearing is, I don’t know what it is she can — you need to say — there’s four defendants left, you need to show what each one of them did, not they.
MR. KIMBERLIN: All right. But can —
THE COURT: You’re going to have to connect the conduct to each individual man.
MR. KIMBERLIN: I understand, and that’s why I’m just trying to lay the foundation first, and then let her go and —
THE COURT: But you’re going to have to do it through admissible testimony. I mean —
MR. KIMBERLIN: Okay, I will.
THE COURT: — she can’t just get up there and testify about what was going on in the family or any of that. Because, first of all, how do you connect that to — it’s like saying, you sat next to somebody and they had a cold, and you caught a cold. You can’t — there’s no segue there.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, because they’re the only ones that were on the Internet — I mean, not they. These defendants were on the Internet promoting this false meme, this false narrative of pedophilia. I mean, defamatory.
THE COURT: Well, my question still is: How does your daughter testify to that?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, she testifies to what happened to her because of this. I have to prove some harm and show some harm.
THE COURT: What’s the segue? How can you prove that what happened to her is a direct result of — I’m using this gentleman because he had the — how do you prove that?
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, if she was bullied out of two schools, if she suffered out of two schools because of people going on the Internet and reading the fact that I’m a pedophile, then that’s harm. That is absolute harm, and I need to show that.
THE COURT: Well —
MR. OSTRONIC: Your honor, I’ll also point out that there’s two other defendants in this case which also he’s alleging the same thing against, so they’re not part of this whole thing, either.
THE COURT: You’re going to have to connect the testimony to a particular defendant, not just broad generalities, okay?
END BENCH CONFERENCE
There was another, much longer, exchange between Judge Johnson and TDPK during which the judge tried to dissuade Kimberlin from putting a 15 year old girl on the stand. He did it anyway, and her testimony was not germane to the case. After she had been on the stand for a while, our lawyer intervened.
MR. OSTRONIC: Objection, your honor. This is —
THE COURT: Come up here.
BEGIN BENCH CONFERENCE
THE COURT: I’ve asked you this question. What does that have to do with the cause of action that you have filed claiming that you, not your daughter, you, were defamed, and that you were shown in a false light? Now, if she was a party, and was alleging that they had said things about her, that would be one thing. But what does she have to do with this?
MR. KIMBERLIN: She was bullied —
THE COURT: Come up.
MR. KIMBERLIN: She was —
THE COURT: Let’s assume everything you say is true. What does that have to do with what you have filed in your lawsuit? You just can’t bring in anything you want to bring in because —
MR. KIMBERLIN: Because these guys defamed me and said I was a pedophile, and it went down to her, and caused her problems.
THE COURT: But you have no cause of action for that. That’s the problem.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well — then I’ll —
THE COURT: She’s not a party.
MR. KIMBERLIN: I’ll stay away from —
THE COURT: Sustained.
END BENCH CONFERENCE
TDPK kept trying to use her to introduce evidence, but she could not testify from her personal knowledge and experience to anything that was relevant. Finally, Judge Johnson had had enough, and he shutdown the questioning—but not before TDPK tried to sneak in a few more questions about the girl’s music career.
THE COURT: You need to do whatever you need to do with admissible evidence pursuant to the rules of evidence and to the law, and I’ve allowed you some — I’ve given you a long leash —
MR. KIMBERLIN: You have —
THE COURT: — I’ve let you run pretty far out there. But I’m not pulling you back in.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Do you want this to stop?
WITNESS: Definitely. Yes.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Is it — do you think it’s hurting you and your career?
MR. OSTRONIC: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. KIMBERLIN: Is it affecting —
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. KIMBERLIN: No further questions.
MR. OSTRONIC: Thank you, your honor. No questions here, your honor.
MR. AKBAR: None at all.
And with that TDPK rested his case.
Disgusting.
Butthurt is not a tort.
As I’ve said before, he’s claiming she was bullied by the butthurt. And I don’t even get how he connected what any of the defendants said to what supposedly happened to her. It’s connected in his mind, but that’s the only place.
(my bolding) Interesting that he’s saying that his being a pedophile is a fact. If I was complaining about “false narratives” I’d being using phrasing such as “reading people saying that I’m a”, or “reading accusations that I’m a”.
Shhhhhhhh.
I was kind of partial to a comment in his opening statement:
MR. KIMBERLIN: “I was convicted 35 years ago of something serious, and at the time it was something I do.”
I’ll leave it without comment…
Oops… correction… (the issues of transcribing)… that should be
“… and at that time it was something I didn’t do.” (p.14 lines 22-24)
with, to me, the interesting part being “at that time”…
The judge kept telling him that he was the only person in the courtroom saying that he was a pedophile – over and over and over. Hinting broadly that if he didn’t want the jury to think he was a pedophile, he probably shouldn’t keep saying it in front of them.
But he did anyway.
That did not matter because it did not end up going to the jury.
But, I am quite sure that BK will twist it to say that this is legal evidence that the defendants kept calling him a pedophile – that nary a day passed where they didn’t! – and that the judge said he wasn’t.
This episode and many other make me wonder why he was characterized as a ‘decent lawyer’ by the Daily Beast. His filings rarely address simple required points. The only rules he understands are those he twists. I think he has floated for a long time on judges who are forgiving of pro se’s or who don’t want to give him any grounds for appeal.
I suspect he has planned some tort involving his daughter for a long time, but somehow missed the simple fact that at her age it must be filed on her behalf by an attorney. Another cock-up by the ‘decent attorney’ Kimberlin.
And I thought I had lousy counsel in my divorce…
I would love to get to the bottom of the mystery of how such a shoddy, disorganized, logic-impaired loser managed to earn near 6 figures doing legal work for the mob. My original thought was that maybe Kimberlin lied about that, but I re-read Citizen K and noticed Singer did have sources besides Kimberlin that seemed to confirm that such work actually occurred. So, did he actually do a better job for them, or did he rip them off? It’s not like mafia men don’t already know how to call a lawyer.
Or perhaps it was to buy contact to his drug sales network? Or the work was perfunctory and easily accomplished?
The second explanation seems fishy since I think mafiosi are in regular contact with lawyers already, whether or not they’re in jail. So why throw tens of thousands of dollars on some thirty-something bomber when they could use the same money on someone actually good? There almost has to be something else going on here.
Because he is actually pretty good at achieving his goals, which is eating up the clock, muddying the waters, causing his opponents to spend time and money.
Apparently, we as a country decided that we should give inmates who have nothing but time free and unfettered access to the courts and whatever legal resources there are. Well meaning people thought that they would be allowing the incarcerated the ability to put on their defenses. BK found it to be the ultimate troll. Hey, let’s sue a US Senator!
The question is what did the mob or whoever pay him for? Did they pay him to defend Fat Tony from a murder? No, likely not. If they paid him to defend people from criminal charges, I am sure they did not get their money’s worth. But if they hired him to gum up the courts, to harass prosecutors and judges, to muddy the waters on cases and individuals – well, they probably got some value.
“and she’s going to say that my friends can’t even spend the night at my house”
my friends…my house…
Hmmmmm…..
Off topic, here’s a link to a blog with an interesting discussion of why many parents won’t allow sleepovers. Most of the commenters concur that sleepovers are not a good idea.
http://www.howdoesshe.com/terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-parents-who-wont-allow-sleepovers/
Interesting. Let’s assume that the only things the parents found out were that 1) he set bombs, including one in a school parking lot during a game, and two people were severely injured, 2) he has a guy convicted of possession of child porn filming music videos in which children appear. That’s it, nothing else.
What parents in their right minds would allow sleepovers with knowledge of just those two undisputed facts?
It’s amazing how in one breath he describes himself as a “good father” then goes on to use his daughter for his on selfish reasons. Nothing she could have said would have been admissible other than, “He never touched me” and since the defendants were willing to stipulate to that (funny how these men have more concern for his daughter then he does isn’t it?) there was really no reason at all to put her on except to cause her pain and maybe, just maybe, pull at the emotions of the jury to cloud the facts.
I said yesterday that he knew he could not win on the fact and I thought he tried bringing in a bunch of unrelated stuff to play on the juries emotions. Here we see he was willing to put his daughter up there for the same reason regardless of the trauma it may have caused her.
This exchange later makes me shudder:
MR. KIMBERLIN: Well, first of all, the first one is that they made a false statement. It’s false that I’m a pedophile.
THE COURT: Of course a daughter is going to come in and say that her daddy is not a pedophile. That is the most self-serving comment ever. It’s like a mother comes in and says “My” —
MR. KIMBERLIN: Let them come and – let them attack her and say –
THE COURT: I am not going to let anybody attack a 15-year-old.
He could care less if he put her up on the stand and she was “attacked” as long it would stop him from being “attacked”.
Some people should just never have children.
I really believe he WANTED her to be attacked. It goes back to the fact that he needed the jury to be emotional since facts were not on his side. How anyone could call this man a friend. Oh wait, he does have a pedo very excellent friend. I guess that’s the kind of person that can call Brett “friend”.
And he will not hesitate to continue to use her to meet his ends. The poor thing. It’s disgusting.
It is very hard to find anything whatsoever about him that is not disgusting.
And a lawyer who likes to hear himself talk would have probably fallen for it.
But a good lawyer knows when to ask no questions.
It’s extremely upsetting the improprieties he subjects her to for his own selfish purposes.
Does anyone have anything on Kimberlin v. Wilson, et al.?
Kimberlin was suing a Washington Times reporter and The Washington Times for, surprise surprise, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It is related to the case he filed against Senator Hatch.
That case lasted 3 and a half years. There is a history of motions to compel discovery. Direct orders from judges to abide by the rules in a time certain. And ultimately, dismissal with prejudice.
About what time period was this case, Earl? (going to look it up)
Here we go: http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/lomkjmkm/district-of-columbia-district-court/kimberlin-v-wilson-et-al/
Ruh roh.
Onlooker got that much from RECAP – and dug in some more. Originally BK sued Wilson along with Hatch. Wilson wrote an op-ed in the Washington Times and in that op-ed, it said that BK had been allowed to travel abroad and to participate in the Singer book by the Parole Commission due to contacts in the White House (this would be the Clinton White House).
While the court dismissed the case, BK later took it up again against Wilson and the Washington Times.
So here we have the “air cover” theory appearing almost ten years ago. The Hatch case took 2 years to dismiss. The Wilson case took three and a half.
These cases were the same old thing – BK shutuppery. They were all dismissed, but only after costing people time and money. No doubt suing a newspaper helps cause editors to decide on what should be reported.
Here’s what – James C. Wilson of that address is an inventer who holds a few patents, for a key labeling system, and voting machines. http://www.google.com/patents/US1038810
Actually, I don’t really know about the voting machine one. The key-write system is his. But I could see a paranoid person drawing a bead on Wilson assuming a grand conspiracy.
Very silly, since that patent is from 1912