The #JudgeBrendaWeaver saga, Part X - the fight against access to the tampered court audio file in the Louisiana doppleganger case

In my previous blog, the Part IX of the #JudgeBrendaWeaver series, I published a comparative table with a Louisiana case where an attorney was punished for PROVING that court audio records were tampered with - in order to protect a judge who failed to disclose her own financial interest in the real estate company who she assigned to deal with equitable distribution of a couple's real estate in a divorce proceedings.

Here is that story in documents.  I publish these documents as a cautionary tale of what Brenda Weaver and her crew of accomplices may be up to next, following the example of Louisiana Judge Phyllis Keaty and her crew of accomplices.

Here is the first request, a peaceful request by an attorney to a court reporter to prepare a transcript of a certain hearing in a divorce case.

Here is attorney Christine Mire's 

request to court reporter Kathy Mathews:

The stenographer responds as peacefully and gives the attorney a cost quote for the transcript.

The attorney obviously paid for the transcript, received it, reviewed it - and found it troubling, because it contains something that she did not hear happening in the proceeding where she was present.
  She asks either for a copy of an audio, or, to accommodate the stenographer and save time for everybody involved - simply to come and listen to the audio at the stenographer's office.

Well, that's what Mark Thomason in Georgia had to sue for - simply to listen to the audio of a public court proceeding that was reportedly made public (only not to him) to the Sheriff's department to listen to and laugh, around a water cooler.

Here is what attorney Christine Mire in the doppleganger case in Louisiana asked the stenographer to do:

And here is what the stenographer did - asked for a delay of disclosure, and got on the defensive claiming that she values her professional integrity and considers such a request a challenge to that integrity.

After several delays were given to the stenographer, and she was nowhere near complying and providing access to the audio file, attorney Mire moved for a deposition of the stenographer - and that was all done as a due diligence process in preparation of a motion to recuse the presiding judge Phyllis Keaty.  Since attorneys are severely punished for making "unfounded false accusations" against judges, attorney Mire had more than enough reasons to establish any discrepancy or irregularity (or criminal conduct, as in tampering with court records), through documentary evidence and testimony of witnesses.

So, attorney Mire, asked court reporter Kathy Mathews to come and be deposed under oath regarding the audio file.

The stenographer asked for yet another delay - now for a delay of the date of the deposition:

Attorney Mire agrees to change the date.

Moreover, attorney Mire accommodated the stenographer even further - she offered to release her from the duty to testify on a subpoena if she simply provides a certified copy of the audio.

In answer to that reasonable offer, the stenographer sues Christine Mires client to block him from access to the audio file, and, for that she hires Susan Theall,

who:

• represented the opponent of Christine Mire's client in a divorce proceedings under a very interesting circumstance: she actually employed the presiding judge's law clerk as her secretary!;
• represented Christine Mire herself in the past as Christine Mire's divorce attorney;
• employed Christine Mire; and
• was her close friend

Here are interesting details about Susan Theall revealed in testimony of Christine Mire in Christine Mire's attorney disciplinary proceedings (where Susan Theall, Christine Mire's former own attorney, employer and friend, testified already as a judge who replaced Phyllis Keaty on the bench - while Phyllis Keaty moved to greener pastures, to an appellate court):

First of all, why would a law clerk of a judge not be FULLY employed by a judge.

Why would it be even allowed for a law clerk of a judge to be employed in any other capacity by anybody else.

Why would a law clerk of a judge be allowed to be hired AS A SECRETARY - and by whom? - by an attorney appearing in front of that same judge in court?

Knowing that law clerks do research and advise the presiding judge on how to decide a case, it is completely inappropriate to have that same law clerk PAID by an attorney for one of the parties - and that is exactly what was happening in this case.

For that alone, Susan Theall was supposed to be DISCIPLINED as an attorney and, likely, disbarred - instead of being elevated as a judge herself.

But - the testimony was happening after Susan Theall actually became a judge

- as Mary Priest became in the Georgia case, as an obvious payoff for her frivolous behavior helping to cover up of tampering with court audio by judge Brenda Weaver.

By the way, Susan Theall is now running for the appellate court - the same court where her friend and co-conspirator Judge Phyllis Keaty is seating, and shamelessly panders to the public her supposedly high ethics and integrity:

So, after Susan Theall was caught in paying off the law clerk of the presiding judge through an additional "employment" as a "secretary" and got off the case, Susan Theall was hired by the court stenographer to represent that court stenographer in a case that the stenographer brought against Christine Mire's client, to block him from access to the audio file - which obviously could not show any disclosure of the conflict of interest by Judge Keaty, for the simple reason that such a disclosure never happened.

It did not work though.

A subpoena duces tecum was issued against the stenographer, signed by Deputy Clerk of the Court.

In an email to Kathy Mathews attorney Mire explains that it is her duty to her client to prudently discover information pertaining to recusal of a judge in the pending divorce proceedings.



Susan Theall immediately moves to recuse the presiding judge in the related access to audio action that the stenographer filed (Mathews v Hunter) claiming that Theall represents yet another judge, Judge Mary Broussard, presiding over the access to audio action: 

#SusanTheall also files on behalf of the court stenographer Kathy Mathews a motion for an order of protection and restriction of access against attorney Mire's client:

In that motion, attorney Susan Theall cites to a multitude of reasons why the equipment of Kathy Mathews should not be provided for the deposition - after Christine Mire clearly advised Kathy Mathews that she will release her from the necessity for any subpoenas if she, very simply, provides a CERTIFIED copy of an audio instead of coming and being deposed.

Such a motion was obviously frivolous.  But, since Susan Theall was a friend of judge Phyllis Keaty, employing the judge's law clerk - and in the not-so-distant future, in 2010, Theall showed herself publicly as being "member of online community" supporting Keaty's election campaign -





Susan Theall was never disciplined for her frivolous motion.


Attorney Mire responded to the motion for an order of protection and restriction of discovery and access to the court audio files and cross-moved for sanctions.

In the motion for sanctions, Christine Mire very clearly explained why restriction of access to the audio file was not warranted.


Meanwhile, an additional attorney, Anthony Fontana, joins representation of the court reporter:

Anthony Fontana represents everything, from wills and trusts to sexual abuse to maritime law to felony defense.

Here are two masterpieces that this male attorney has sent to his female attorney colleague, Christine Mire, copy to Judge Phyllis Keaty.

I specifically draw your attention to the language that attorney Fontana

an elderly white guy, uses against his female colleague, a dark-skinned young woman:

Attorney Fontana makes a direct threat against attorney Mire, who was a witness of what Judge Keaty did or did not disclose in court proceedings, and thus did not need an audio to testify about it herself - "These allegations [that Kathy Mathews made "additions" to and/or "alterations" to the trial Court's statements in the official transcripts of the Hunter proceedings] made in public records without you having listened to the tapes first are being taken very seriously by my client.  These allegations are serious and damaging to my client's position as an officer of the Court, to her reputation and business as a Court reporter.  She intends to hold both you and your client accountable for the damages".

First of all, when making such a threat, attorney Fontana knows that his threats are frivolous and inappropriate - because attorney Mire is fully covered by litigation immunity against any claims of defamation against the court reporter.

Moreover, as a witness to what Judge Keaty said in court, she can very well herself testify that "additions and alterations" were made to the transcript, without listening to the tape, and she can use her own personal knowledge as a witness to seek the audio, because the transcript reflects what was not said in court, and that is an "addition or alteration" all right.

On top of that, Attorney Fontana allows himself a completely uncivilized behavior with a younger colleague, a minority woman, calling her letter "pure garbage", specifically because she dared to suggest what was screaming into everybody's face - that Attorney Fontana's client cooked the transcript, and refuses to give access to the audio because it will be clear from the audio.

In two months after the first threat, attorney Fontana escalated the threat and now threatened a criminal action against Christine Mire AND her client - same as it was actually done in Georgia to Mark Thomason and his attorney Russell Stookey.

In his letter, attorney Fontana continues to engage in uncivilized language and to call attorney Mire's legal writing "rantings"

Well, Christine Mire actually WON access to the audio, against tremendous odds, and at a tremendous personal risk to herself, doing her due diligence in preparation of a motion to recuse.

And, she had a technical expert testify under oath as to the actual tampering of the court audio file to put into it a separately recorded audio file where Judge Phyllis Keaty purports to disclose the conflict of interest that she never actually disclosed.

In respect to providing to the public the actual PROOF that:

• court audio files CAN BE tampered with technically, and that
• they ARE ACTUALLY tampered with;

attorney Christine Mire went, to my knowledge, further than anybody else in this country.

And paid for it with a 1-year suspension of her law license.

Christine Mire received only a lukewarm support from her law professor who, while acknowledging that Christine Mire's discipline was caused not by her own actions, but by an existing institutional taboo to never call a corrupt judge a corrupt judge, nevertheless ASSUMED that the majority of judges are honest.

Of course, such an assumption makes no sense whatsoever, at least because judges gave themselves a gift of immunity specifically for their CORRUPT acts on the bench, despite their oaths of office to honestly enforce and uphold U.S. and state Constitutions and laws.


Moreover, judges did not stop at giving themselves the gift of immunity for corrupt behavior, but corrupted their personnel by giving THEM the gift of immunity for THEIR corrupt behavior.

Of course, nothing so persuades one in the integrity of a person as that person's gift of immunity for corrupt behavior to himself and to his close circle of friends and accomplices.  

For the publication of the testimony of the technical expert as to how the court audio file was "spliced"/tampered with in the Louisiana case, the doppleganger of the Georgia #JudgeBrendaWeaver case - which tampering could not possibly be done without participation of the court reporter in whose possession the audio was,

Stay tuned.