30 August 2001. Thanks to Anonymous.
This is Day 2 of Jim Bell's testimony at his trial in Western Washington District Court, Tacoma, WA. Bell was convicted on two counts of interstate stalking and sentenced on August 24, 2001 to 10 years in prison and fined $10,000; see: http://cryptome.org/jdb-hit.htm
See Day 1 testimony: http://cryptome.org/jdb040601.htm
Additional Bell testimony will be posted in the near future.
Typographical errors are in the original.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
AT TACOMA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Docket No. CR00-5731JET
)
Plaintiff, ) Tacoma, Washington
) April 9, 2001
v. )
)
JAMES DALTON BELL, )
)
Defendant. )
VOLUME 2
TRANSCRIPT OF TESTIMONY OF JAMES DALTON BELL
BEFORE THE HONORABLE JACK E. TANNER
SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE, and a Jury
APPEARANCES:
For the Plaintiff: ROBB LONDON
Assistant United States Attorney
601 Union Street, Suite 5100
Seattle, Washington 98101
For the Defendant: ROBERT M. LEEN
Attorney At Law
Two Union Square
601 Union Street, Suite 4610
Seattle, Washington 98101-3903
Court Reporter: Julaine V. Ryen
Post Office Box 885
Tacoma, Washington 98401-0885
(253) 593-6591
Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript
Produced by Reporter on computer.
I N D E X
TESTIMONY OF JAMES DALTON BELL:
Direct (Continued) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
MOTIONS:
Defendant’s Motion to have Defendant
Examined Mentally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Denied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Defendant’s Motion for a Mistrial . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Denied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Defendant’s Renewal of Motion to have Defendant
Examined Mentally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Denied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike Defendant’s
Testimony if all Government’s Questions are
not Answered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Motion to Withdraw as Attorney for Defendant . . . . . . . 164
Denied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
(Defendant present.)
MORNING SESSION
(Jury not present, 9:50 a.m.)
THE COURT: Did you have a motion, Mr. Leen?
MR. LEEN: Yes, Your Honor.
Your Honor, I think that the defendant is suffering from a major
mental disorder. He has accused me of threatening him, and he
is developing connections of random events, as if I’m involved
in – well, colluding with the government and the court and
government in general to deprive him of a fair trial. And he
insists that – and he insisted this morning, in fact, when I
came into court that I was threatening him.
This arose out of a meeting at the Federal Detention Center
yesterday. It took place about, between 8:30 and 10:30, 11:00
o’clock in the morning, and at the end of it, the defendant told
the day officer, or the officer in the visiting room, that he
had been threatened, and he continues to say that.
I put a declaration under seal, which I have given a copy only
to the defendant and the court, as to my version of what
happened and why I believe that the defendant is not competent
at the present time.
I’m asking that he be examined. The court has heard his trial
testimony. It goes beyond his trial testimony to extreme
agitation, as well as these fixed beliefs of illegal behavior
going back to 1996.
Thank you.
THE COURT: Does the government wish to be heard?
MR. LONDON: Your Honor, obviously I’m at somewhat of a
disadvantage because I don’t know what the nature is of some of
the factual assertions made in what has been filed under seal,
but I can say this. To the extent that it appears to involve
accusations against Mr. Leen of collusion with the government,
those accusations have been made by the defendant before, and in
fact they were made as early as December before Dr. Johnson
undertook his evaluation of the defendant. Dr. Johnson was
apprised of those sorts of allegations prior to meeting with the
defendant and examining him, and I think that they do inform, to
some extent, his conclusion that the defendant was, while
perhaps presenting certain clinically diagnosable conditions,
nonetheless –
THE DEFENDANT: He did not say that, sir.
MR. LONDON: -- nonetheless competent to stand trial.
THE COURT: I think the record should reflect that this
court has observed Mr. Bell both before the start of the trial
and continuously during the trial. It appears to me he knows
what he’s doing. He knows right from wrong. He understands the
nature of the charges against him, and if he wanted to, he could
assist his attorney. But it appears to the court that he wants
to do it his way. He wants to tell his story his way.
So the motion will be denied.
Mr. Bell, I understand you are having some problems whether you
should appear or not?
THE DEFENDANT: My microphone isn’t on, sir. Do I
speak to you directly?
THE COURT: Oh, I can hear you.
THE DEFENDANT: Okay. I will speak loud enough so
everybody in the court – yes, there are some serious problems
going on.
THE COURT: As to this courtroom, what are they?
THE DEFENDANT: Well, as of yesterday morning – well,
you say this courtroom, sir?
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE DEFENDANT: Just within the walls of this
courtroom, or are you referring to the trial process?
THE COURT: In front of the jury. Because the jury
decides innocence or guilt.
THE DEFENDANT: I understand that.
THE COURT: Has anybody threatened you within the
confines of this courtroom?
THE DEFENDANT: Other than a death threat I received
yesterday – or I was relayed yesterday morning concerning – my –
I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to speak at this point for just a
moment.
There is a desire to have me not speak of at least two
incidences in 1997 involving a Valdez Maxwell and a Billy
Martin. Valdez Maxwell, about 6 – June 15, 1997, overheard and
relayed to me a threat, a death threat. He’s – Mr. Maxwell is
not responsible for the contents of that threat. He – Valdez
Maxwell is a nice guy.
Billy Martin was a local thug in Kitsap County Jail. He
communicated a death threat against me – it’s hard to remember –
the July or August time frame of 1997. I was in a very – I was
very depressed during that period of time, particularly due to
the first threat that was delivered to me.
I’ve been told that I cannot speak of those incidences despite
the fact that the threat apparently did come from government
sources originally, those two threats. That leads me to
conclude – well, my state of mind for the last three-and-a-half
or so years has been thoroughly based on those incidences and my
reaction to them. Records will show that I was extremely
depressed in 1997, particularly at Kitsap County Jail. I was –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell, I’m talking about now. I’m not
talking about 1997.
THE DEFENDANT: Yes. I was threatened –
THE COURT: You’ve been in this court since last
Tuesday.
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: A week ago.
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Tomorrow..
THE DEFENDANT: Yes. Physically –
THE COURT: I’m asking you –
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: -- has anybody, since you’ve been in this
court, or in the marshal’s quarters downstairs, has anybody, by
name, threatened you in any way?
THE WITNESS: Within the four walls of this courtroom,
no.
THE COURT: I’m talking about the United States
marshal’s quarters downstairs where you’ve been confined.
THE WITNESS: You mean the temporary confinement?
THE COURT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: The four cells down there.
THE COURT: Yes.
THE DEFENDANT: No, no one has spoken – I have – or
correction. I have discussed the issue a few minutes ago with
one U.S. marshal, a few minutes ago, concerning the threat, but
I was discussing the threat. It was not reported to me.
THE COURT: All I’m asking you, has anybody, on behalf
of the United States Attorney’s office – by name now – or any
United States marshal that’s come in contact with you threatened
you in any way?
THE WITNESS: I would rather not answer. I apologize
with respect to the U.S. Attorney’s office. Marshals, no.
Marshals are professional people. They are – they do their job
quite well. I’m not aware of any –
THE COURT: Has anybody in the United States Attorney’s
office –
THE DEFENDANT: I do not –
THE COURT: -- or connected with them, that you know by
name, threatened you –
THE WITNESS: I do not know –
THE COURT: -- personally?
THE WITNESS: I do not know the names of the personnel
in the U.S. Attorney’s office. I would not know who they were,
if they were to contact me directly.
THE COURT: Has anybody in this courtroom, from time to
time, or any of the witnesses, or anybody else that you can
think of, threatened you in any way?
THE DEFENDANT: As to the witnesses, never. Most of
the witnesses were people that I have never met or seen before.
A few exceptions, of course, were my – certain of my friends,
and, of course, they have never threatened me. There were other
people – no. No. The witnesses in this trial so far have never
threatened me. It was not those people who gave me the threats.
THE COURT: All right. Is there any reason that you
should not continue before this jury?
THE DEFENDANT: I – I’m not an expert in legal ethics.
I’m not an expert in court procedure. I’m not a lawyer. I’ve
never had any formal legal training. For me to answer that
question, I’d have to conclude, would require me to know a lot
about legal ethics that I do not know. I’m not a lawyer.
I think there probably is a lot of problems with my continuing
if I’m not allowed to say my piece. If I’m not going to be
allowed to say my piece, as the threat indicated, then this
proceeding is probably going to have to stop. If I’m allowed to
speak my piece about many incidences that occurred, testimony
that will – I will be happy to give, but it will take at least
six hours, I believe, if properly considered.
THE COURT: Mr. Bell, you do not run the courtroom.
THE DEFENDANT: I realize that.
THE COURT: Do you understand that?
THE DEFENDANT: I realize that.
THE COURT: Is there any reason now that I shouldn’t
call the jury in and continue?
THE DEFENDANT: I think there’s a great deal of reason.
THE COURT: Well, give me one.
THE DEFENDANT: I’ve been threatened. I do not have
legal representation this morning.
THE COURT: Do you want to remain in the courtroom?
THE DEFENDANT: Do I want – I do not feel any threat –
any immediately physical threat in this courtroom. There are
plenty of witnesses, nothing is going to happen. I’m happy to
remain in the courtroom. It’s not physically within the four
walls of this court that I would be attacked. So, physically I
have no problem with staying in this courtroom right now.
THE COURT: All right.
Ready for the jury?
MR. LONDON: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay. Bring the jury.
THE DEFENDANT: I – I apologize. I still do not
believe this proceeding should continue under the current
circumstances.
THE COURT: They are going to continue, sir.
(Jury present; 10:01 a.m.)
THE COURT: Good morning.
(Some jurors respond “Good morning.”)
THE COURT: Be seated.
Continue direct examination, Mr. Leen.
MR. LEEN: Thank you, Your Honor.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continuing)
BY MR. LEEN:
Q. Mr. Bell, Counts 1 and 2 accuse you of stalking, interstate
stalking, on October 23rd, 2000. Count 1 says that you
stalked Mike McNall, and count 2 says that you stalked Jeff
Gordon. So would you tell the jury what you did on October
23rd, and why you did it?
A. I would like to precede my answer with a comment that
yesterday Mr. Leen delivered a death threat to me on behalf
of the federal government against myself and six other
members of my family if I talked about certain things that
happened in 1997 to me at Pierce County and Kitsap County
Jail.
June 15th, 1997, a man named Valdez Maxwell, who is a nice
guy, delivered a – nicely reported the knowledge of a threat
to me. A person named Billy Martin a couple months later
delivered a threat to me that he proved was from the federal
government.
I’m currently under coercion here. I do not trust this man
to be my attorney. He’s continuing to answer questions. I
will continue, I guess, to answer his questions under the
circumstances, but I have no legal representation here at
this point. Frankly, I’m scared.
I reported this to 20 attorneys over an unmonitored attorney
phone line at SeaTac Federal Detention Center yesterday,
including communications to my other attorney, Mr. Solovy,
(206) 621-8777.
I’m very bothered. I’m very scared.
Could you please re – could you repeat the question, please?
Q. The question I asked you was, in count 1 and count 2, you’re
accused of interstate stalking.
A. Yes.
Q. Count 1 says Mike McNall, count 2 says Jeff Gordon. And the
government said that you did this on October 23rd. So I
would like you to tell the jury what you did on October 23rd
and why the actions – why you took the actions you did.
A. I apologize. October 23rd.
Q. 2000.
A. On that particular date, I did some more research that I ad
been doing all during the summer concerning various names of
people that had followed me on Father’s Day Sunday, I
believe it was June 22nd, 1998, looking into why their
vehicles had been following me. Apparently their vehicles
had been taken in an impound lot, I suspected, and had
actually been used by federal government people without – of
course, without the knowledge of the actual registered
owner.
Q. Well, you didn’t know the name of Mike McNall on – in June,
did you, Mr. Bell, during 1998?
A. June of 1998? No. Not – I only learned Mr. McNall’s name
when I ordered Ryan Thomas Lund’s case file, criminal case
file, from Tacoma court in about Setpember of 19 – or of
2000, last – yes- -- last year. I ordered his case file and
I found out that Mr. McNall was the investigator involved in
a case.
Q. But I was asking you why on Ocotober 23rd, 2000, you took
any action directed toward Mike McNall. Can you answer that
question?
A. Okay. I – one of the things that I did, and, again, I don’t
recall the specific date, but I –
Q. Try and focus on October 23rd, because that’s the date in
the indictment.
A. Yes, I understand that.
I was aware of Mr. McNall’s – I was aware of Mr. McNall’s
association with the Ryan Lund case. He was the person who
was listed as part of the search on Ryan Lund on – on July
2nd, 1997. He was the person who wrote up the application
for the search warrant for the house of Ryan Lund. I – he
was there with – Ryan Lund was there when the search was
done. Mike McNall personally talked to Ryan Lund. A nine-
shot New England Arm – Arms 22-caliber pistol was found at –
in Ryan Lund’s house. Ryan Lund was a four-time violent
felon. Violent felons are prohibited from owning firearms.
Q. Mr. Bell, I think we went over that yesterday –- or the
other day, and you pointed out he got a very good,
extraordinary sentencing. But I want to know why, on
October 23rd, the government says that you crossed over from
Vancouver into Oregon for the purpose of injuring and
harassing Mike McNall. Is that true?
A. No, absolutely not.
Q. Then why did you – did you go into Oregon from Vancouver on
October 23rd?
A. October 23rd?
Q. Yes, sir.
A. I went over, and I may have done some shopping on the way.
Many people in Vancouver, Washington, where the sales tax is
seven percent, frequently go over to Oregon where the sales
tax is zero percent and they do shopping and they visit
other things. I used to live in a place called Aloha,
Oregon. Most of my friends are in Oregon. And I’m very
familiar – Vancouver and Portland are sort of like basically
the same big community.
Q. So you have friends who live in Oregon also.
A. Oh, yes. Many – you know, a number of friends and –
Q. Did you do any investigative activities of Mike McNall on
October 23rd? maybe is that the day that you went to
someone’s residence that you might have thought was
connected to him?
A. The last known address that I had for Mr. McNall was a place
that has been spoken of before. The address is one of the
five pieces of information I don’t recall at the moment.
Q. Is that on the Clackamas Road, that address?
A. Yes. Yes, the Clackamas Road.
Q. We saw a picture of the long driveway and the two houses.
A. Yes. Well, and the fact that I didn’t see it from an
airplane, yes, that happened to be the, the house.
Q. Mr. Groener and Mr. Andrews.
A. I didn’t know the name Groener at the time. There was – I
knew the name Andrews from my other research, and I believe
there was a reference to Andrews on the mailbox. I – as I
recall it.
Q. Did you think Mike McNall lived there on October 23rd, 2000?
A. I didn’t know. That was his last known address for me. I
wanted to speak to Mr. McNall about the Ryan Lund case,
because I did not know for sure which particular person had
told Ryan Lund to assault me that day back on November 25th,
1997. I felt that, based on my vague understanding of
government procedure, perhaps Mr. McNall was Lund’s handler.
Lund was obviously a government informant based on my
paperwork, my research that I’d done. But I didn’t know
whether he was the informant for Mr. Lund.
Q. Okay. So that’s why you –
A. Or –
Q. – wanted to talk to him. But why –
A. Sorry.
Q. Now, you’re trying to talk to him at home. Now, maybe
that’s the thing that’s causing some people to be disturbed.
Why did you want to talk to him at home rather than
officially at his office or on his telephone or maybe you
from a pay phone, something like that?
A. I didn’t know for sure whether or not it was Mr. McNall. I
suspected Mr. – he was the only named agent involved in the
search. I suspected Mr. McNall was part of – or was the
person who talked to Lund. But it could – the federal
government is a large organization with many, many people,
and it could have been someone else. I did not know, if I
had walked into, let’s say, the ATF office in Portland, I
didn’t know that that would ring sufficient alarm bells to
tell the person who was the contact for Ryan Lund that Jim
Bell was looking into the case. I felt that it was
possible, Mr. McNall was not the person guilty of telling
Mr. Lund to attack me. And if so, I felt it was vital to
get ahold of him by means other than to officially walk in
or call in and leave telephone records. I suspected my
phones might have been bugged at that time based on the fact
that I was talking about on the Internet a lot of this
research. This was not a secret research. Dozens – at that
point it was on the Internet, hundreds – no, thousands of
people at that point had known. I had originally –
Q. The Cypherpunks list?
A. Yes, the Cypherpunks list. Many of my suspicions were
reported in about June or July of 199- -- or ’98, of – to
the, what’s called the Cypherpunks list which you’ve heard
of. A thousand members at various times. It’s also been
written about by a person who is not here, Declan McCullagh,
a journalist who testified a few days ago.
Q. Were you in communication with him prior to October 23rd
about this investigation?
A. Oh – Mr. McCullagh? Yes. Frequently.
Q. So are you saying that your intent when you went to the
Groener, what we know as the Groener residence, was not to
endanger or harass Mike McNall, that was not the intent you
had?
A. Absolutely not. I wanted to find out – I wanted to ask him,
nicely, do you know about Ryan Lund, and – I would – and I
would tell him that I believed that Lund assaulted me on
government orders, and I would ask for him – a comment, does
he know, and if he didn’t know, I would say, “Could it have
happened without your knowledge, Mr. McNall?” and probably
the answer to that would be yes.
Q. Did you – did you think you were committing a crime by doing
this?
A. No. I was trying to – well, virtually, I was trying to
prevent a crime or to identify a crime. I was trying to
find out –
Q. What were you going to do with this information? If you
could establish your theory, what were you going to do with
the information?
A. I was going to talk to journalists. I was – I already knew
about Declan McCullagh of Wired News. I would have relayed
this to John Branton of the Columbian who reported.
Q. Is that the guy who testified?
A. Who testified, Branton. And there were other people in the
Portland Oregonian that I was going to tell this material
to. My extensive research last summer was intended to
support all of my allegations, and I, I drove by addresses
of vehicles – of – that were last registered owners of
vehicles who were following me and I knew the people
involved didn’t know what went on, but I wanted to find out
if there was a pattern to the vehicles that had been
following me on Father’s Day Sunday 1997, and it turns out
there was. Despite the fact I wans’t even close to
Clackamas County on that particular day, June 22nd, 1997,
virtually all the suspicious vehicles that were following me
were registered from Clackamas County. I drive through
Clark County, Multnomah County, and Washington County, and
only – and the vehicles that were suspicious were all
registered, surprisingly enough, in Clark County – or
Clackamas County. And when I eventually did my research
last summer, I was not able to find even a single one of
those vehicles at the last registered address. I did not –
Q. Mr. Bell, let me ask you – let me ask you one other question
about the trip on October 23rd when you went to the Groener
residence. Did you go to the residence of a – of a Barbi
and a Jeff Gordon? Did you go to that residence at all that
day?
A. At the time I didn’t know – I don’t recall the specific
first name, but, yes, I did.
Q. You went to that residence?
A. Well, I think – if – other than the ambiguity involved, I
don’t know. But I –
Q. Well, what I’m trying to find out is, did you take some
action towards them with the intent to – to them or –
A. No.
Q. It says just Jeff Gordon, so I don’t know which –
A. No.
Q. – Jeff Gordon we are referring to, but did you focus on any
Jeff Gordon that day?
A. No. I was doing a lot of road trip research, and, again, I
had been doing it for many months, and that was just another
one of the addresses that I was looking into. I figured I
would ask the Jeff Gordon who happens to be here those very
same questions. But I –
Q. Did you go to any other destinations other than the Groener
farm residence?
A. There was a – there was an address of an Eagle Creek, Oregon
– I believe that was the name. I knew it was no longer the
address of the particular Gordon he is referring to in
Tualatin, Oregon.
Q. Okay.
A. But I was just being thorough about my research. I wanted
to – in effect, I was trying to collect all the jigsaw
puzzle pieces so when I put it together I would eventually
get the whole picture. I did not have the whole picture. I
was acting as a one-man investigative agency with very
severe limitations on my ability to do this research.
Q. So whatever your purpose, you say it’s investigative, it
wasn’t to injure or harass, that was not your purpose?
A. No. I visited many locations last summer of people that I
had no intention of even contacting. People I fully were
aware were – had no knowledge of this. I simply wanted to
get all the jigsaw puzzle pieces together so that I could
show the picture of what actually happened.
Q. Okay.
A. I did not – I did not want to involve them other than to be
able to collect the data as to all of those vehicles that
were following me on Father’s Day Sunday. At that time I
was very – well, I was being followed around on Father’s Day
Sunday 1998.
Q. Okay. Now, on October 31st, count 3 ways that you used a
facility of interstate commerce for stalking. And the
government has introduced a piece of paper with some blue
writing on it, and there’s also a copy that is black writing
that’s a facsimile, and according to Jeff Gordon’s
testimony, that was received at the IRS office – and I’m not
even exactly sure where, perhaps Portland – and it was in a
response to a letter that was earlier written to you. Now,
do you know – can you speak to that?
A. I think you’re referring to a fax. Yes, I think I recall
that.
Q. Do you want – do you want – was your – did you send a lot of
faxes, or was that the only one? Did you send it – let me
ask you that first. Did you send it?
A. Well, other than the fact you haven’t shown it to me, I’m
recalling a particular fax that, yes, I did send.
Q. Okay.
A. I don’t want to agree to a fax that I haven’t even seen, but
I do recall a fax that I did send, yes.
Q. Did it relate to some items that had been seized from you?
A. Yes. It –
Q. And the return, it discussed about the return of them?
A. Yes. The government had had a lot of my property for the
preceding four years, almost four years, that was taken
originally on April 1st, 1997. As of that point, I had not
received back two computers, which I still haven’t received
back, even as of today. And there was also a matter of four
guns that I had had on April 1st, 1997, and they, of course,
couldn’t return it to me because at that point I was a
felon, but they – but there is a procedure where I tell them
to whom I want them delivered.
Q. Is that where you said you wanted Mr. East to be able to be
your designee?
A. Yes. My friend Bob East, I was perfectly happy to give him
the guns. Yes.
Q. Okay. You don’t have the guns yourself, do you?
A. No.
Q. Even when you were out, you never did get them back.
A. No. I’ve never – I’ve never seen them since, since Bobby’s
got them from them.
Q. Now, it says that – so did you send a facsimile on that
subject matter? Without having to look for it right now,
did you send a facsimile from Vancouver to – into Oregon for
the IRS office?
A. I had a phone number to which I sent the fax.
Q. Okay.
A. Where it actually went, whether the number was forwarded,
sent somewhere else, I do – I have no knowledge for sure. I
do know, as I recall, that it was a 503 area code phone
number. 503 is the area – used to be the area code for
years back for all of Oregon. More recently it’s been
limited to the northwestern corner, the Portland metro area
and so forth. The other area of Oregon is now 541, I think.
Q. Where were you physically when you sent that facsimile?
A. Standing in my basement in the largest room at the north
wall of – standing in front of the fax machine.
Q. So you were in Vancouver and sent a fax to the 503 area
code?
A. Yes. Unless –
Q. So you don’t – so you don’t take issue that whatever, that
that fax went interstate, or probably went interstate?
A. Telephone forwarding is very odd. I have the technical
background to understand that. When you call an 800 number
locally, it could go literally next door. You don’t even
necessarily know where it went. I assumed it was going to
go to Oregon, but I obviously have no personal acknowledge
how it went, but it probably went to Oregon because of the
503 area code.
Q. All right. Now, did you do that with the intent to put
someone, and I guess this would be Jeff Gordon or someone at
the IRS office, in fear of death or serious bodily injury?
A. No, I didn’t.
Q. To him or to his family?
A. No, I didn’t.
Q. All right. Would you comment on the message, then, because
the message says that you would like to either go by with
you or your designee –
A. Yes.
Q. – to his office or maybe to his home.
A. Yes.
Q. And so some people might think that this is – that this
needs explanation.
A. Okay, and I would be happy to supply an explanation.
I was talking to my attorney on another matter, an appeal of
the issue that I was convicted of a few years ago.
Q. That’s Mr. Solovy?
A. Mr. Solovy.
Q. You have no problems with him?
A. None, that I’m aware of.
Q. All right.
A. Mr. Solovy. He had received communication from a fax, I
guess, and he sent me a copy of it, I guess, that said that
if I didn’t pick up – not me pick up, but have my – those
guns picked up by November – I believe it was November 1st,
they would be destroyed, on November 1st. Now, it didn’t
say this on this particular fax. The fax that I received a
copy of from Mr. Solovy had actually been sent many months
before, but I was in verbal contact with Mr. Solovy, and
Solovy said that he had recently been told that if the guns
weren’t picked up by somebody, my designee, they would be
destroyed. Well –
Q. Now, you knew you couldn’t have the guns yourself.
A. Oh, certainly, yes. I was a felon at that point, and I
still am.
Q. Okay.
A. I was convicted.
Q. So what was your purpose in sending the fax with the message
that it had on it?
A. My purpose was to – well, my purpose was to inform the
people who were threatening to destroy my guns or – guns,
that, yes, I do want – I want them to be sent back and I’m
accepting a designee do it. When I was getting ready to
write the message, I happened to notice that the date was
October 31st, 2000, which happened to be Halloween, and I
made a little joke that’s been vastly overblown. And I
wanted to make sure that they were aware – very graphically,
because I only heard about that on October 31st – that I
didn’t want the guns to be destroyed. I wanted them – I
wanted to arrange for their return.
Q. All right. So that was your intent of sending a fax?
A. I wanted to make sure the guns didn’t get destroyed, that’s
right. They were aware that I was making provision to have
them sent or picked up by somebody. That somebody turned
out to be my friend, Bob East, the man who testified a few
days ago, yes.
Q. All right. And count 4, it says that on November 3rd, 2000,
you traveled across the state line from Vancouver into
Oregon with the intent to injure or harass Scott Mueller.
A. That’s right.
Q. This is the trip to Bend, Oregon.
A. I remember the indictment says that. Yes.
Q. Now, when you – first of all, when you left Vancouver, was
your purpose to go to Bend? I mean, was that the purpose of
the trip?
A. In general, Bend, yes, that’s true. It was a road trip. It
was – my friend John Copp, who drove his own vehicle, and I
was inside of it, likes to go on long road trips. We
usually go on forest roads, but he likes to drive around and
go camping and such, so he and I – I knew that he wouldn’t
mind a trip of a hundred plus miles, and we both enjoy it,
so, yes. The purpose of going over there was to visit Bend.
I hadn’t been to Bend –
Q. Were you –
A. Sir, let me answer.
Q. I’m sorry.
A. I hadn’t been to Bend for over ten years. I did a lot of
caving in the Bend –
Q. We discussed that the other day.
A. In the Bend area.
Q. The John Naro Caves, is that the name of it?
A. What’s that?
Q. The John Naro Caves.
A. I don’t recall that. There’s a Lava River cave, there’s a
Boyd cave, there’s a – there’s a few other caves that I
frequently visited – or in the mid ‘80s, I visited in Bend
Oregon. Southeast of Bend, Oregon, usually.
Q. What’s important to this trial is, what was your intent
regarding visiting the Mueller residence or taking
photographs of the Mueller residence or writing down tab
numbers? Was your intent to injure or harass him?
A. No. No. My intent was simply to figure out why there were
get – there were being odd problems with the Oregon DMV
data. Inconsistencies in names, inconsistencies, two people
at the same address. The reversed names.
Q. And when you got that information, that’s the information
that you sent back to John Young?
A. Actually, I sent it to the Cypherpunks mail list, and I
believe at the time John Young was probably a subscriber to
the Cypherpunks mail list. I didn’t specifically want to
send it back to him. I wanted – there was an ongoing
conversation, you might say, on the Cypherpunks list and I
was simply adding my research to that issue.
Q. You mean this was just a piece of a thread of a larger
conversation that was going on?
A. A much larger – well, a number – you know, a number of other
people participated. John Young had said, I have an odd
address out of a government database for an organization
called ISTAC. It refers to somebody with a little letter
cia, and that seems rather unusual. And he wanted to know,
does anybody know about a – if there is a CIA installation
in Bend, Oregon.
And I just happened to have access to data, and I looked
into the – what I knew, based on the databases of the Oregon
DMV. And I found odd inconsistencies, errors. Declan – or
the name in the database was Deforest X. Mueller. Mueller.
The name in the Oregon DMV database was Scott Deforest
Mueller. There was also a vehicle registered to a Forest
Scott Mueller. At the same address, there were two – a man
– apparently a man and a wife both named Ashe.
If I had just seen the CIA reference in the original thing,
I would have said, oh, you know, ho hum. But when I saw the
various inconsistencies in, in the DMV data, that peeked my
curiosity dramatically and that made me want to visit, take
a look, find out if this was actually a business or a
residence. It turned out it was a residence. It seemed
rather strange that any government person would be
publishing his home address, as if it were his business
address, and that’s basically what it was.
Q. And then you took the photos and –
A. Yeah, I took a couple photos and – at that point we visited
two addresses, took photos, and then we went to the top of
Pilot Butte or Hill in the center of – now it’s in the
center of Bend, it used to be on the edge of Bend, and I
looked at the city, which has grown dramatically in the last
ten years. And just – at that point it was getting late.
It was totally dark, and John and I drove back, and he
dropped me off at – at my residence in Vancouver, and I
assume he went home.
Q. So you didn’t contact Mr. Mueller personally?
A. No. And I had no intention of it. Even if I had seen
somebody in the, you know, in the driveway or the front yard
of these residences, I had no intention of even approaching
them. Because that wasn’t – I didn’t – well, I would have –
frankly, I was trying to avoid even the implication that I
was trying to bother these people.
Q. Okay.
A. It wasn’t the person that I was concerned with, it was the
data that I, I found out, and I was trying to resolve, why
is an address labeled CIA in Bend, Oregon, and why did it
appear to be a residential address.
Q. So this is unrelated to the Mr. McNall and Mr. Gordon and
Ryan –
A. Totally and completely unrelated. This has nothing to do
with the Gordon/McNall thing.
Q. Okay.
A. It was something I did to check out a very curious set of
facts that I had managed to dig up.
Q. Now, on November 10th, count 5 says that you traveled across
the state line, again, with the intent to injure, harass
Mike McNall, and I – I believe that on November 10th we’ve
seen – for that day we’ve seen a video of your movement,
that you went back to where Mr. Groener and Mr. Andrews
live. Is that correct?
A. Yes, that’s right.
Q. What was your purpose of going back to that residence since
you knew that Mike McNall didn’t live there?
A. Okay. I had a very specific purpose, and I also had a very
specific purpose –
Q. Or didn’t you believe Mr. Groener the first time? Did you
think he was lying to you?
A. Please, let me answer the question.
Q. Okay.
A. This is involved, but, frankly, it makes sense.
I had visited there a few days earlier. I had talked to a
person who I didn’t know his name at the time. It turns out
to be Mr. Groener. I believe he testified that I was there.
A few days after that, my residence was searched. I had
done, as far as I knew, nothing to justify to have my
residence searched.
Q. A few days after when, you mean after November 3rd but
before November 10th?
A. I believe that’s – again, I don’t recall the specific dates.
I can recollect it, but –
Q. Is that the chronology, though?
A. Yes. But, please, let me continue.
All I had done is I had dropped by the residence and said,
I’m looking for Mike McNall, and – well, I dropped by, and I
drove down this long private road. And the reason I drove
down the private road is because it’s a rural area. It
turns out there’s no place to park. There was a two-lane
road, and there was a driveway, and there was literally no
place to park by the side of the road. There’s a big, not
only a ditch, but a hill there. It was like I couldn’t park
there without blocking the road, and the road was very, very
curvy there, and it would – and I had to drive down to
physically find a place to park. And I was openly, openly
trying to find Mike McNall. I had no problem. I didn’t
want potentially somebody in the government agency who had
done something wrong to find out, but it wasn’t like I was
trying to keep my research secret from the average man on
the street.
So I drove down, parked in front of the house. The driveway
was not marked. It was not no trespassing or anything like
that I could see.
Q. You said private road. Did you see a sign that said private
road?
A. The only thing that I saw – well, there was a piece of, a
flap of metal that was bent over onto itself. It might have
been a sign. I mean, you know how pranksters deal with
things like that. There was a – there was a – what looked
like sort of a nailed-on piece of metal, the flap was bent
over on itself. That’s all I saw. I didn’t try to bend
back the metal to see what the thing said. But it looked
like it might have at one point been a sign, but I didn’t
want to fiddle with it because I didn’t – I mean, that
wasn’t my purpose for being there.
I drove down and nobody was there. There were two houses.
I assumed that maybe it was – one of them was a rental. I –
Q. You’re talking about the past one. I’m asking you now about
– you’ve explained that. But what about –
A. I don’t think – actually, I haven’t explained what I’m just
explaining now. I have not had the opportunity to explain
what happened that day, and I would like to.
Yes. On that day, during – or about November 3rd – he gave
me the date – I did drive down, park, knocked on the door of
the bigger house. There was no answer. I think there was
one vehicle in the garage. Not – there was room for two,
but there was only one vehicle in the garage. Nobody was
home.
I walked over to the smaller home, and it didn’t really have
a clear front. It’s hard to explain. The door didn’t – it
didn’t have the porch thing or the porch arrangement to know
for sure whether that was the front. I knocked on the door
that I saw. There was no answer. I then walked around the
back to try to see if maybe I was knocking on the wrong
door. I wasn’t.
So I came back, and just then apparently a man had arrived
in a car, or – and he asked me what I was doing there.
Perfectly reasonable question under the circumstances. And
I said, “I’m looking for a guy named Mike McNall.” He says,
“Well, I don’t know.” You know, “Who are you?” And I – and
I said, “I’m an acquaintance. I’m an acquaintance.” And he
said, “Well, I don’t know. There used to be a guy who lived
there,” he said, “some time ago. I occasionally got the
mail for him.” And I said, “Oh, okay. So he’s no longer
here,” and “fine.”
At that point, I said, “Well, okay.” I think I may have
asked him whether he knows where McNall lived. He said he
didn’t. So at that point I said, “Okay. Well, thank you
very much.” And at that point I went back to my car, got in
my car, wrote down the fact that I talked to a guy at this
particular address.
Q. Is that the spiral notebook that we’ve heard about?
A. Yes, I believe I was writing on that spiral notebook.
Q. What was the purpose of you keeping a spiral notebook?
A. Well, despite the fact that I’m computer literate, I didn’t
happen to have a laptop computer at the time, and so I had
to fall back on old tried and true methods. And spiral
notebooks work just as well – I shouldn’t say just as well.
They work pretty good.
Q. These are your notes of your research?
A. Oh, yes. Yes. I’ve been taking that – that book had been
filled out with research I took – I made as far back as May
of last year, yes.
Q. May. So shortly after your release you started the
notebook.
A. Yes, that’s right. I basically looked into – I collected
jigsaw puzzle pieces, in effect. Names, dates, places,
addresses. I recognize fully that most of these, many,
many, many dozens of addresses, if not hundreds of
addresses, had no relationship at all to anything. They
were jigsaw puzzle pieces to fill out, not only what I
alleged, but the entire background associated with it.
People that wouldn’t even have known about this – these
things. People who might have lost a car, being seized by
the government, but was later on used to follow me, let’s
say. I didn’t know for sure these people didn’t know, but I
strongly suspected they didn’t know. But I wanted to be
able to document, I wanted to be able to find the vehicles
later on that had been following me and demonstrate that,
no, the current own – the last registered owner was not the
current owner, for example.
Q. So if someone said that you weren’t being accurate, you had
your notes there.
A. Oh, yes. I wanted to have a – I wanted to fill out the
entire jigsaw puzzle with lots of data, and I wanted to be
able to explain it to people like you, and I poured over it
for a long time. That’s the reason I’m able to tell you
without any notes whatsoever the names, dates, places,
addresses involved. I can tell you a number of registered –
well, let me – companies, individuals.
Q. I just asked you about – I wanted to get an examination of
the notebook, and I think you have, but –
A. Yes.
Q. So, but that was back on the 3rd of November.
A. That’s right.
Q. And I was asking you about November 10th. Now, between the
3rd and the 10th, was your house searched?
A. Yes. I think it was on the 6th. It was on a Monday. It
was definitely on Monday, and I think the Monday was the
6th.
Q. And did you feel – what – and was the search, the fact that
the search took place, did that have anything to do with the
fact that you went back on the 10th, or –
A. Oh, very much so.
Q. Will you explain that, please.
A. Because, of course, I racked my brain, I think – I thought,
I hadn’t done anything to justify having the house searched.
All I – well, basically I visited some addresses and did a
little bit of research. And I thought, what could possibly
– I knew – I mean, I had no reason to believe that anything
I had done in Bend was a problem, and so forth. And I came
to the conclusion – well, not really a conclusion, but the
best hypothesis, and I have a scientific background, as you
know. My hypothesis at this point is that the person that I
met at the Mike McNall residence actually knew Mike McNall
or who he was or where he worked, and as a cons – and also
would have known, perhaps, that Mr. McNall was extremely
secretive about his address. Remember, I had gotten his
address from a DMV database – actually, a few years ago DMV
database. Mr. McNall’s 2000, year 2000 address, was
actually the Federal Building in Portland, Oregon. I knew
his address from back when he was willing to have his
address listed in the Oregon DMV data list.
The person who ultimately, Mr. Groener, who testified to
have known that man presumably knew that Mr. McNall was an
extremely secretive person and didn’t want to have his name
known, certainly not in the telephone directory and not even
in a DMV database. So I suspected that this particular man
– reasonably, he didn’t do anything, I guess, wrong, or I
suspected he didn’t, contacted the people he knew, perhaps
Groener directly, and he may have embellished the story a
little bit, made it sound a little bit more ominous than it
really was.
Or, I didn’t really suspect that. I’m fully aware that
these federal government people dramatically overstate
reality. If you were to read the original complaint, you
would – it would make me look awful. These people are
masters of the half truth and the implication and the
insinuation. They will take -–as I said once to somebody,
they would turn Santa Claus into a misanthrope, an angry old
man, and they would turn the Grinch into a saint. They
could turn – and they could do it without officially lying
because they know they can. They get away with it every
day. Every document that comes out of these people has
those –
Q. Did you feel that the search warrant was based somehow or
another on your visit on the 3rd of November, is that what
you’re saying?
A. I felt it had to be. That was the only thing. I had – I
had openly talked to this man. I had told him who I wanted
to see. This man asked me my name. I gave him my name, Jim
Bell. He asked for my phone number, and I gave him my phone
number. No problem there. I had no problem identifying who
I was. I had an open reason to be there. I was trying to
talk to Mike McNall.
And, in fact, as an example of this misrepresentation, in a
later document I read that I had in fact asked the person,
that Mr. Groener – or not asked, told him my name and
address. And the implication, the suggestion in the
document by the government was that I had, by telling him
that, was I was trying to intimidate him. No, no. I didn’t
tell him my name until Mr. – the person, the guy, Mr.
Groener, asked me. I didn’t intend to bother anybody,
including Mr. Groener. I just wanted to talk to Mr. McNall.
That’s all I did that day.
Q. Okay. So you told us that your purpose to talk to him
wasn’t to injure or harass, but what about your – on
November 10th, you were in Vancouver and you went into
Oregon again, didn’t you, on a trip? We saw it on the
screen.
A. Yes.
Q. What was your intent then to go back to the same place where
you knew he wasn’t at?
A. Yes.
Q. That’s my question.
A. Because I came to the conclusion that the search of my
residence was – or could have been justified by that
incident or – I don’t even want to call it an incident, just
that event – I was afraid that either the person that I had
met had himself distorted or embellished or he had talked to
somebody and the government people had pumped up the
implications of what I was doing there to make it sound
vastly more serious than it really was. And it wasn’t
serious at all. I was just looking for that guy.
Q. So now you know, though, that you’re not going to go see
Mike McNall. Why do you want to talk to Mr. Groener? Do
you want to ask him about it or something?
A. Because I knew that Mr. Groener, the per – the person I met,
who later on I found out his name was Groener, knew the
truth about what had happened, the pre- -- that, I guess it
was on November 3rd. He knew that he had asked me for my
name and a phone number. He knew that I, I didn’t act
threateningly. He knew that I, I left immediately after
taking some notes. I mean, you know, he knew this stuff,
and I knew that he knew this stuff. And I was afraid that
his words had been distorted, and I wanted this man, Mr.
Groener, to talk to a reporter that I’ve been talking to for
a number of years, Mr. John Branton of the Columbian. So –
Q. Now, there were three notes that said, “Please call John
Branton at the Columbian” with a telephone number, each in
baggies that were found at the place.
A. Yes.
Q. Is this – is this how you wanted him to – is this what you
did to get them to contact Mr. Branton?
A. Yes. I left the notes around 12 midnight, and let me
explain why I drove at 12 midnight.
It was about nine o’clock that I called John Branton of the
Columbian at his home address, you know. He actually lives
very close in the area to my residence. And I said, “Mr.
Branton, I believe that the government has pumped up what
happened that day as a justification for searching my
house.” I suspected the government – because I know the
government people liked – they like to arrest people on a
Friday, I was afraid that on the next day I was going to get
arrested.
Q. Why do they like to arrest people on Friday, sir?
A. Keep them over weekends, incommunicado so they can’t talk to
the media, talk to the press, talk to their family.
Q. Okay.
A. So I knew at eight o’clock or nine o’clock that night that I
needed to get the truth out. I needed Mr. Branton to be
able to talk to those people, or one of them at least, the
one that I met, talked to, and I didn’t know particularly
who it was necessarily. I didn’t know the name Groener at
the time, you see.
Q. So you didn’t know which house particularly he was
associated to, is that right?
A. No, he didn’t – he didn’t walk into a house. I had left
before he even physically walked into a house. I did not
know for sure what he had done or who he had talked to. He
mihgt have talked to other people who lived there, and I
figured I would be thorough and I would leave a note on
every car so that everybody who leaves the next morning –
Q. Uh-huh.
A. – would know that I wanted them to talk to John Branton.
You see, because it was so late and I didn’t even know the
phone number of these people, Mr. Groener or the people who
lived in the other house, I couldn’t very well go down there
that night at nine or – well, ten o’clock. It would – it
would have bothered them, of course. You don’t want to have
somebody show up at your house at nine or ten o’clock. At
the same time, I couldn’t have really go down at like seven
– six or seven in the morning and wait for them to leave. I
mean, I – because there was no place to park at the road.
But I did need to communicate with these people, very
important, so that – so that John Branton could talk to
them.
So I, I quickly concluded that the only thing, my only
option at that point, to get the word out quickly enough,
was to leave notes on the cars at night, you know – I had no
choice – and say for them to call John Branton.
So I called John Branton. I said, I’m talking – I’m going
to go leave people notes and I’m going to – these people
will be calling you. I’m telling you now because that’s –
you know, I want you to know when these people call on notes
left in their cars, why they are calling and the
circumstances involved.
Q. All right. Did you – so your purpose for going to Oregon on
November 10th was not to injure or harass Mike McNall.
A. No. I was trying to get the truth out about what I had
actually done on November 3rd, 2000; that in fact I hadn’t
don anything unusual to Mr. Groener. I hadn’t acted
threateningly. I hadn’t acted in an odd fasion. And I
needed to get the news people, the newspaper people,
Branton, for example, to talk to these people and verify
that because I wanted to show that whatever justification
was used to search my residence on the 6th. It would be
shown to be wrong.
Q. Now –
A. I was desperate to get the information out quickly. I knew
I may have only had a day more to do it. I didn’t know I
was not going to be arrested the next day.
Q. You thought you were going to be arrested the next day.
A. Right. I knew it was possible that I might be. It turns
out, I think I was arrested on the next Friday after that.
Believe me, I’m well aware of that interesting tactic, that
Mr. Jeff Gordon is fully aware of. If he testifies, he will
tell you.
Q. Why – okay. So, now, what was your intent of writing an
email to the Internet which the subject matter was Mr.
Anonymous say good night to Joshua, or Joshua say – do you
remember there email –
A. Yes.
Q. – that we’ve heard testimony about?
A. This is related to something that I did, which admittedly
was a mistake. I wanted to be able to demonstrate that the
government was doing close-in surveillance of my residence,
and I – including physically mounting a very tiny camera on
a house nearby and wa- -- watching. I mean not watching
with the eye, but with perhaps a motion-sensitive recording
system, and I will explain that later, what the implications
of a motion-sensitive recording system means.
Q. Why the email? Why did you send the email?
A. I felt that I was – effectively, I was being electronically
stalked. That is to say, all my emails on the Internet were
being read. In itself that'’ perfectly easy for even you to
do. Not emails, but posts in public areas. Anybody can go
to a site called deja.com – d-e-j-a – and look for my
Internet address and find out every Usenet post I’ve ever
posted. That’s not surprising or difficult, but I believed
I was being watched physically and electronically watched.
I wanted to be able to demonstrate to prove the electronic
watching and the elec- == and the physical watching, and I,
I composed an idea on how I was going to do that. I was
going to provide evidence that the camera would provide to
the government, that they would have, they would be
desperately willing to use to – and it would reveal
inadvertently in some method in the process of a sarch.
What I did was, I did something that was frankly wrong. I
visited an address, which has been temporarily mentioned,
and I looked in a mailbox and I saw a couple of what looked
like bills or statements or something. And I am not going
to tell you that I didn’t take those bills. It had some
information; I wrote the information down.
Later on I went home, and I very theatrically stuck paper in
a fireplace insert in the – in the back family room of the
main floor of my house, a wad of paper. Okay. I kneeled
down, stuck it in, and I lit it. This was adjacent to a
large glass window that faced out over the area that I
believe the camera was able to see. My thinking was this:
They would eventually learn of my email, they would
eventually –
Q. The good night Joshua?
A. They would track down the fact that I had written down this
information. They would put two and two together, and they
would – and if I was – if my theory was correct – and,
again, I’m a scientific person. I solve problems with the
scientific method. I concluded that they would
inadvertently reveal the fact that they knew that paper was
burned on that night in that fireplace insert, but they
wouldn’t openly come out and say it, but they would do
something very critical that would tell me that in fact the
information about the burning had gotten done.
It turns out that exact – that exactly that happened.
During the search, the female agent, named Julie Anderson, I
– I later on found out it was Julie Anderson – she asked my
mother totally out of the blue, apparently, despite the fact
that the warrant didn’t mention it, she asked, “Could I look
in your fireplace and take a sample of what I find there?”
My mother, who had no knowledge of any of this, said, “Sure.
No problem.” My mother later on said to me, “She did an odd
thing this morning. She asked to look, to take a sample of
ash from inside the fireplace.”
At that point, inside of my head, bingo. I concluded that
that was the reason for looking in the fireplace, to find a
sample of this burned paper which they would have believed I
took that night.
However, a few weeks later in a phone call to my mother, I
made another tactical error. My mother had a stroke three-
and-a-half years ago due to some pressure involved with the
government’s relationship with me, and I wanted to make sure
that she remembered the fact that Anderson had asked her for
ashes in the fireplace. And I said – excuse me. [Witness
takes a drink of water.] I said to my mother over a
monitored phone line – I knew it was monitored at the time –
but I said to my mother, “Please remember that that female
agent asked you for the ashes or for the contents of the
fireplace because it’s very, very important,” I said to my
mother. The fact – “I cannot explain to you why it’s very
important,” but it was very important.
Well, it was overheard, of course, by the people doing the
monitoring, and they came – they did a similar amount of
thinking, and they concluded that the reason that it was
important to me is because they had been doing that
surveillance that I told you about and they had to have an
explanation. They devel- -- they needed it, an explanation
as to why it was that they looked in the fireplace.
Q. Let me just ask you one last question, Mr. Bell. Why –
A. Mr. Leen, there’s about six hours more of testimony. I
could give names, dates, places. People following me on
Father’s Day Sunday. They were ...
Q. I’m sure the government will ask you about that –
A. Mr. Leen –
Q. – on cross-examination.
A. – Mr. Leen, you do not represent me at this point.
THE COURT: To the witness. To the witness.
THE WITNESS: I apologize.
Q. (By Mr. Leen) Why –
THE COURT: What’s the question?
Q. (By Mr. Leen) Why do you believe that the government would
spend such vast sums of money to monitor you?
A. Why? I have no idea the amount of money that they’ve used.
I keep getting my words misconstrued. Even my own attorney
there, who I don’t think represents me anymore due to the
threats. I have never said that they are expending vast
sums of money. For all I know, we’re talking about a
relatively tiny number of people involved here. Certainly,
by the size – by the standards of the government.
They’re probably not expending vast sums of money, but I
believe that they decided that because of what I wrote many
years ago they were going to set up a system, a practice of
looking into me, because they couldn’t – they couldn’t
destroy what I wrote. Do you understand? They could not
destroy it. On the Internet things last forever. The only
– they could kill me, but killing me wouldn’t have helped.
It wouldn’t have done them any benefit to kill me. In fact,
it would have made things far worse.
What they – the only ting they can conclude is, they needed
to discredit me very seriously. That was the only tactic
that they had left. They couldn’t kill me, they couldn’t
destroy my work. They had to discredit me. And when you
want to discredit somebody, you need to know a lot about
them, you need to do a lot of very serious research. You
need to do a lot of observation, and with that observation
maybe they thought they would eventually find something that
Jim Bell could be discredited with. And I believe that was
the reason that they have done virtually all of the
surveillance they have done on me.
Q. Do you think that you committed any crime?
A. Other – other than the incident about the mail, ah, traffic
laws, I don’t know.
Q. Do you think you committed the five crimes in the
indictment?
A. Certainly not those. It has later been hinted that my use
of Oregon DMV database information is inherently illegal.
As of 1997, various laws were passed to prevent people from,
I guess, or – relating to the use of that information. I
used that information to protect myself. I used that
information to look down addresses of cars that had been
following me and found out that the people who last owned
the cars were not the people involved. I used that
information as a protective measure against threats made.
We have at least four or five more hours of testimony where
I will relate names, dates, places of information I looked
up. I don’t remember individual plates, but I remember
names of people, registered plates, incidents of following
me on Father’s Day Sunday. I could point out – I have drawn
various maps last week, being ready to relate to you in
detail following incidents that occurred: Following me in a
car on Father’s Day Sunday and in the four or five days
previous. Government agents that showed up at odd places,
at parks in Vancouver, Washington. Various – things that I
took data on and later on verified last summer.
If Mr. Leen stops this line of questioning at any time in
the next four or five hours – and I hate to take up your
valuable time. There’s a lot to say.
THE COURT: Mr. Leen, any other questions to this
witness?
MR. LEEN: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You may – we will take a 15-minute recess.
The jury is cautioned, please do not discuss the case among
yourselves or with anyone else.
Please go to the jury room.
(Jury excused; 11:00 a.m.)
THE COURT: Anything to take up before the recess?
MR. LEEN: Well, Your Honor, we’ve come to a problem
because I really have nothing further to ask the defendant
and he insists that he has hours of more things to talk
about. But I – if that’s not a problem with the court, then
I guess I have nothing further.
THE DEFENDANT: It relates to my state of mind, why I
believe things were happening that I –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell.
THE DEFENDANT: Thank you.
THE COURT: Is the government ready to cross-examine?
MR. LONDON: We are, Your Honor, and I don’t anticipate
that it will be very lengthy.
THE COURT: All right. Fifteen-minute recess.
(Recessed at 11:00 o’clock.)
(Jury not present.)
THE COURT: Ready for the jury?
Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Bring the jury.
(Jury present.)
THE COURT: Let the record reflect the jury has
returned.
Cross-examination, Mr. London.
THE WITNESS: My microphone – is my microphone on?
Thank you very much.
Before I am cross-examined, I would like to make a
statement.
THE COURT: Just a minute, sir. There’s no question
put to you.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE COURT: What is the question, Mr. London?
CROSS-EXAMINATION
BY MR. LONDON:
Q. Mr. Bell, just before the break you were asked if you
committed any crimes, in your own mind you believed you
committed any crimes in this matter. I think that you said
that other than the theft of Jeff and Barbi Gordon’s mail
and possibly the use of some DMV information, you don’t
believe you committed any offenses in this case. Is that a
correct or fair characterization of what you said?
A. I would like to say that at this point I’m not represented
by counsel. Mr. Leen does not represent me. I’m wondering
whether it’s proper legally and ethically for them to even
question me without representation. Mr. – an attorney is –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell, do you understand what the
government just asked you?
THE WITNESS: Yes. But I want to explain –
THE COURT: Do you understand it?
THE WITNESS: I’m not – I will voluntarily answer some
questions from the prosecutor because as a jury you have a right
to hear answer – many more answers than they are willing to let
you hear. But at the same time, I’m not waiving my Fifth
Amendment right against – because I do not have representation
in this trial. Normally when you think of testimony, cross-
examination, there’s a guy over there who is supposed to
basically look out for my rights. That – Mr. Leen simply does
not fulfill that function –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell.
THE WITNESS: -- in this courtroom.
THE COURT: Mr. Bell.
Will the jury please go back to the jury room.
(Jury excused; 11:20 a.m.)
THE COURT: Mr. Bell, do you intend to answer the
questions put to you by the government?
THE WITNESS: I intend to answer voluntarily, but
without waiving my Fifth Amendment rights.
THE COURT: I didn’t ask you that.
THE DEFENDANT: I am not a lawyer, sir. I do not know
legal ethics questions. I do not know whether my position –
even my position here is proper and ethical and – under the
circumstances. I’m a legal quagmire here. I have no formal
legal training. I haven’t been to a day of law school. I do
not know the legal circumstances I’m finding myself in at this
very moment.
THE COURT: After that, do you intend to answer the
government’s questions?
THE WITNESS: I intend to voluntarily answer some
questions of the government.
MR. LEEN: Your Honor, the defense would move for a
mistrial.
THE COURT: A mistrial will be denied.
MR. LEEN: May I renew my motion that the defendant be
– that we adjourn and that the defendant be examined mentally?
THE COURT: That motion will be denied.
MR. LONDON: Your Honor, I’m going to move that if the
defendant does not answer all of the government’s questions on
cross-examination, then his testimony on direct examination be
stricken and the jury told to disregard anything he said.
THE WITNESS: I believe that’s improper since I’m not
represented at this point, sir, but that’s a vague legal
question that I don’t really understand.
THE COURT: Bring the jury back.
MR. LEEN: May I move to withdraw again, Your Honor?
THE COURT: That will be denied.
(Jury present; 11:24 a.m.)
THE COURT: Let the record reflect the jury has
returned.
Next question, Mr. London.
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell, I’m going to ask the question
with – again.
At the end of your direct examination you told Mr. Leen that
you believed you committed no crimes in this matter except
possibly your use of certain DMV information and the theft
of mail from the Gordons at 8300 Southwest Chelan, Tualitin,
is that correct?
A. Under coercion I do answer this question. I believe he’s
mischaracterizing exactly what I said. I didn’t say I had
specifically violated laws. I referred to, for example,
database use as being an alleged issue. I believe it’s a
First Amendment issue. I do get to speak. I have a right
to protect myself with database information, particularly in
the outrageous treatment that I’ve been gotten – been given.
But basically, I’m not aware of any other – anything I may
have done wrong.
Q. Mr. Bell, a few moments ago, you said that you used DMV
information, data, as a protective measure – those were your
words, were they not? – as a protective measure for the
purpose of tracking down cars that you believed –
A. Well –
Q. – were following you –
A. – I did –
Q. – isn’t that correct?
A. I did research in the DMV data for the purpose of
identifying evidence in a long pattern of – of elec- -- of
following and surveillance that I had received over a, a
substantial period of time. Yes, I did that.
Q. And do you recall saying that you did this as a protective
measure.
A. It was frankly in self-defense. I needed to know who these
people were, or more accurately, whose cars they were and
why it is they all came from Clackamas County and why it is
that they all happened to be engaged in a road following
campaign against me on Father’s Day Sunday 1998, yes.
Q. So whether it was as a protective measure or in self-
defense, as you’re saying now, can you please explain to us
how or why you had to protect yourself or defend yourself
against Scott Mueller in Bend, Oregon?
A. I’ve never claimed that Scott Mueller had anything to do
with these other issues. In fact, I specifically recall
saying to you that has nothing to do with the other two
instances. I was simply checking out a curious database
thing. It was a day road trip. It was interesting. I got
to see Bend after ten years. Mueller, Mr. Mueller, had
nothing to do with it.
I am sorry that Mr. Mueller got listed in a government
database as – letters CIA associated with him. I was
checking out a curious sequence of data to find out the
truth, and I was willing to go all the way to Bend to check
out these curious database results that I found.
Q. Mr. Bell, you didn’t just check out this information. You
returned from your trip from Bend. You got on the Internet,
and about three o’clock in the morning, you posted all of
Mr. Mueller's personal information to the Cypherpunks site.
You answered John Young, and you announced that you were
outing Mr. Mueller as a CIA agent. Isn’t that correct?
A. That’s hyperbole. The fact is, I hadn’t outed anyone. The
original data was presented in the government database. I
was checking out, with the information I had, the question
of whether or not that original information was somehow
accurate.
I over – I certainly overstated the case. I wasn’t the one
who revealed the address or the odd name or anything. I –
vaguely, I was bragging a little bit. I, I had gotten
information that indicated that there was name problems with
DMV data. Yeah, I did say I outed a C – CIA agent. If I
was talked to by a journalist, the journalist would have
said, Mr. Bell, what you really should have said is I outed
a suspected or a possible or an alleged or a, whatever, CIA
person. That would have been far more accurate. I
apologize for the wording error. It was sort of a joke at
that point, unfortunately.
Again, I’m sorry that Mr. Mueller had his name listed with
the letters CIA. Not his name, but Deforest X. Mueller,
which is sufficiently similar with his own address to make
one think that there was a problem there. That’s what I was
doing.
Q. You’re sorry now, but, Mr. Bell, you told the jury just a
few minutes ago in your direct examination that once
something is on the Internet, it’s up there forever, isn’t
that correct?
A. That’s true. And the original messages that referred to the
government database entry for that particular person was
there forever as well. The address was there forever.
Deforest X. Mueller, that name was there forever.
Literally, anybody could have done the same research that I
did. Nothing that I added made – did anything to stop the
release of information that had already occurred. The
original mistake, frankly, was made by probably somebody
playing a joke, entering information into a government
database somewhere, and that’s the reason for the confusion.
I did not, and do not, have anything against Mr. Mueller. I
wonder sometimes why his vehicles are registered under odd
names, like Deforest Scott Mueller, in addition to Scott
Deforest Mueller, and why two other people were listed as
being at his address. That was very curious. I’m still
curious about that. But I have never felt that Mr. Mueller
– I have never felt badly toward Mr. Mueller. Before he
testified, I had never met Mr. Mueller. I was simply
checking out information.
Q. Mr. Bell, how is it any of your business? Why don’t you
tell this jury why it is any of your business to take
personal information from Mr. Mueller, whether it’s
erroneously transmitted to you in the first place or not?
MR. LEEN: Objection –
Q. (By Mr. London) To go –
MR. LEEN: -- Your Honor. Argumentative.
THE COURT: You may ask the question.
Q. (By Mr. London) Why did you appoint yourself the outer of
Mr. Mueller without checking to make sure that you had t
right? Did you call the CIA and say, “Is this one of your
agents?”
A. Are you going to let me –
MR. LEEN: Objection, Your Honor.
A. – answer the first question before –
MR. LEEN: Objection, Your Honor. He’s asking – he’s
not asking questions –
THE COURT: Back up.
MR. LEEN: -- he’s making statements.
THE COURT: Back up, back up. What is the question,
specifically?
Q. (By Mr. Leen) Why was it any of your business to out Mr.
Mueller or anyone else on the Internet as a CIA agent?
A. Business? That’s not my business. I, I mean, if you use
the term “business” literally, it’s not like a money-making
opportunity. I was curious about an odd report of an odd
database entry.
People do things for hobbies. Some people collect stamps,
some people collect coins, some people play golf. People on
the Internet do things for other people. If I wanted to
find out about something, I would put a message on the
Internet, and I would say, “Does anybody know about this?”
I have done many of that. I have also answered questions in
technical areas that I know about – chemistry, electronics,
computers and such. People on the Internet do that kind of
thing for each other.
When somebody reports an odd database entry, I was motivated
to check it out because I had access to data that could be
used to check it out. Something that relatively few people
would have been able to. Why did I do it? I was curious.
I was – I was mystified, as well as the person who
originally posted the message on Cypherpunks, Mr. John
Young, the person who testified last week. That was what I
wanted to do. I was curious.
Q. Let’s talk about your access to some of those databases. In
fact, you got some of these DMV registration records from
Scott Beketic, correct?
A. The first data disk I bought from – I believe you got the
name wrong. His name is actually Mike Beketic. He may have
a middle name of Scott. I don’t know.
Q. Mike Beketic.
A. Yes. He goes by the name Mike.
Q. Right. Let’s – and you got some of this information from
him, correct?
A. Yes. And the first database disk I ever bought from Mike
Bektic was back in about 1994 or ‘5, I believe.
Q. But you promised Mr. Beketic, did you not, that you were not
going to use this information for anything other than
commercial purposes, correct?
A. No, I didn’t say that.
Q. Mr. Bell, four years ago you got in trouble because, among
other things, you were attempting to harass and intimidate
IRS officers.
A. No, that’s not true.
Q. Well, Mr. Bell, do you need to look at the transcript of the
plea colloquy from 1997 when you told Judge Burgess –
A. Yes.
Q. – that that’s exactly what you were doing?
A. I received a death threat indirectly communicated by a
person named Valdez Maxwell, who was very apologetic. He is
not the person involved. He didn’t – he overheard something
on about June 15th, 1997. He was talking to some government
investigators. He had a problem himself with the IRS. This
was at Pierce County Jail. And he communicated a death
threat to me that said that I had to cooperate with the
government, and that included accepting a plea agreement the
government investigators didn’t like, but it was the best
thing they could get. So I pled guilty to a number of
things I didn’t do. There were a couple of things that –
one thing that I did, one thing that was very arguable, but
there were I think at least two or three others that I
didn’t do, and this man is referring to that particular
thing.
Q. Mr. Bell, are you trying to tell this jury that there was no
basis for your guilty plea to obstructing the internal
revenue laws by collecting home address information for John
Treosti, the case worker assigned to your collection matter
by IRS, Joan Luethe and Lynn Rose, IRS investigators with
whom you had contact? Are you telling the members of the
jury –
MR. LEEN: Objection, Your Honor.
Q. (By Mr. London) -- that there was no basis for your guilty
plea on those facts?
MR. LEEN: Your Honor, can I ask that the prosecutor
ask a question, not –
THE COURT: Do you understand the question?
THE WITNESS: Which one?
THE COURT: Any of them.
THE WITNESS: I’m sorry, my attorney started talking
when I –
THE COURT: Do you want him –
THE WITNESS: He isn’t my attorney, but –
THE COURT: -- to repeat it again?
THE WITNESS: When Mr. Leen started –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell, do you want the question
repeated?
THE WITNESS: Yes, please.
THE COURT: One at a time.
Q. (By Mr. London) Was there any legitimate basis for your
plea of guilty in 1997 when you told Judge Franklin Burgess,
in the room next to this one, that you had been attempting
to intimidate IRS Officers John Treosti, who was assigned to
your collection matter, Lynn Rose, and Joan Luethe?
A. Much of that plea was – was basically fictional. There were
certain small items which reflected the truth. Okay? But a
lot of it was invented or was expanded on dramatically and
they added things that shouldn’t have been added, and I
agreed to it because of the threats, because I was told that
it didn’t matter, if I was guilty of one thing, they could
just add as many things as they wanted.
At the time, I was – I was extremely depressed because of
the threats, and frankly, I, I agreed to it. I agreed to it
–
Q. Mr. Bell, the judge asked you at the time whether your plea
was voluntary and whether in any way it had been coerced.
Do you recall that? If you don’t, why don’t you look at the
transcript, because –
A. No, I remember well what happened that day. I had been
given a pill the previous day. I was groggy and sleepy.
And I could still understand what was going on in the
courtroom. Okay? I do not recall what the drug was. I, I
had asked for something for minor pain. They didn’t tell me
what they were going to give me. And maybe it helped for
the pain, I don’t know, but I was groggy and sleepy the next
day.
Did I – did I answer what – that I was not coerced? Yeah, I
said I was not coerced. Well, frankly, I – if I hadn’t been
coerced badly enough to agree to things that I didn’t do or
things that were vastly over – overstated, I certainly
wasn’t going to tell the truth when I was asked whether I
was coerced. That wouldn’t have made sense. And I was
extremely depressed during those times. Very depressed
because of the threats that had been made to me a few weeks
earlier.
Yes, the plea exists. Yes, it says what he says it does.
No, it was mostly fictional. There were nuggets of truth in
it. Mostly it was fictional. It was written by government
people before they even talked to me about the plea. They
wrote the plea. They asked me to sign it and agree to it.
I did not say anything to them to help them write that plea.
They wrote the plea that they wanted me to sign. No editing
was allowed or possible by me. I was not given the option
of striking out things that were not accurate. They didn’t
give me that option.
Q. Mr. Bell, Exhibit 51 is not the plea agreement. It is the
transcript of your – question and answer between Judge
Burgess and yourself.
A. Yes.
Q. Judge Burgess, in that colloquy, as we say, asked you if the
facts as stated in the plea agreement were correct, and you
said to all of what’s been alleged, that’s true. You were
also asked about whether your plea was voluntary, and you
said it was. Are you here now today to say that that’s a
nugget of fiction?
A. No. He’s accurately saying that then, under threat, I did
say the things in that, that plea agreement were true. He’s
correctly relating the fact that I did say in court that I
hadn’t been threatened to agree. Both of those, those
statements by me were false. Yes.
Q. Did Ryan Lund threatened you? He said you had better take
the deal, correct?
A. Those were approximately his words after he struck me –
Q. And then this morning –
A. – a few times.
Q. – you said that Mr. Leen threatened you, correct?
A. He – more accurately, he communicated a threat and he added
some threats of his own, yes. He threatened to cut me off
after 30 minutes if I discussed the Valdez Maxwell
situation, a person that he has legal dealings with a few
years ago. He also threatened if I mentioned the Billy
Martin incident in Kitsap County Jail a little bit later
after that. And I believe one – and other things that he
didn’t want to come out in court, or he didn’t want to come
out in court was the following, on the following – Father’s
Day Sunday, 1998, and four or five days previous, various
odd incidences of surveillance of me. They do not want me
to speak about those things, despite the fact that I have
about four or five maps there that I would be happy to
explain, a very odd incident that occurred on Father’s Day
Sunday.
Q. Mr. Bell, on Friday we were talking, Mr. Leen was asking you
about Assassination Politics, and you described it, and I
quote, at least half of a joke.
A. No, the title was half of a joke. Assassination Politics.
Q. All right. It would be like a sable rabbler, correct, to
remind the other guy that he’s potentially a target? Do you
remember saying that?
A. The term saber rattling has been around ever since there’s
been sabers, you know. The knight, or whatever, shaking the
saber. That’s traditionally referred to – when, for
example, we do a fly-by with a military plane next to China,
as happened recently, that’s a very mild form of what’s
called saber rattling. Showing the flag.
Q. Mr. Bell, you said that the purpose of handing out the
diskette at the common law court meetings was to try to get
some discussion or some feedback on this theory that you had
of Assassination Politics, isn’t that correct?
A. Yes, I said that. True.
Q. Now, in Exhibit 42, which was your email to S. Wills, dated
January 31st, 1997, do you remember saying the following:
“Keep in mind that in a smoothly functioning commonlaw-court
system, the vast majority of offenses will be dealt with
purely with fines, very few people” will actually – or
“would actually get killed, and those people would be the
ones who were really serious offenders or repeat offenders.
. .”
So the idea of assassination politics wasn’t simply sable
rattling, was it, Mr. Bell, it was that people actually were
going to get killed, isn’t that correct?
A. No. I was describing the theory of how society would run if
this –- my essay idea was implemented.
Q. And you described, in fact you said it was sort of –
A. Could I answer the question, sir? I am not done answering
the question.
I also testified previously, on Friday, that this would be
at least ten or twenty years in the future. I did not know.
This is speculation on my part. I was discussing a theory.
Q. And you talked about putting dictators around the world out
of business, correct?
A. That’s one of the effects, yes. The Pol Pots of the world
that kill Ugandans.
Q. You didn’t put Pol Pot on trial in the Multnomah County
Common court system, Mr. Bell.
A. No, I didn’t participate in –
Q. You put tax collectors and IRS agents –
A. Sir, let me answer the question, please.
Q. The question was not done being asked. You did not put Pol
Pot on trial, did you, sir?
A. I didn’t put anybody on trial.
Q. You were a participant –
A. The incident that he’s alleging.
Q. – in the common law court, were you not?
A. I attended a small amount of meetings. Mr. Wilson himself
testified to maybe three. I don’t recall specifically
whether it was three or two or four, but it was about that
number. The only participation I did was I acted as a juror
on one ase. Other than that, I was there to talk to
libertarian friends that I – who also went to that meeting,
to see what was happening, to look into potential
infiltration of the group, and, well, to engage my weakness
of eating pizza.
Q. Exhibit 14, the May 5th – May 5th, 1996, email to
Cypherpunks. You said, “Maybe the most useful task we could
accomplish would be to identify them for later targeting.”
Do you remember writing that?
A. Well, it’s been five years, but it sounds like something I
might have written during that time frame. Probably I wrote
it.
Q. Okay. Exhibit 15, the May 23rd, 1996, email to the
Northwest Libertarians on Operation LocateIRS. Quote, “I
want to propose a project that the LPO . . . and Oregon
libertarians can do, to really help push freedom and shake
up the statists. I propose that the name and address of
every IRS employee in the state of Oregon be identified and
located and published.”
Did you write that?
A. That sounds like something I wrote during that time frame,
yes. But it’s been five years. As far as I can tell,
that’s – that’s probably an accurate recollection.
Q. And “It would also act somewhat as a deterrent to those same
statist agents: These people don’t know exactly what we
intend to do with this information, or what we (or others)
may decide to do in the future. They can well imagine a
breakdown in order sufficient to allow people armed with
such a database to.... well, you get the idea. . . . We
needn’t concern ourselves with these future issues. It is
very likely that these people will be far more pliable and
less abusive in the future if they are well-known.”
Does that sound like something you wrote?
A. Again, other than the fact it was five years ago, that
sounds vaguely familiar?
Q. “We should take advantage of the advent of computers and
databases to do this. I already have a fresh copy of the
Oregon state DMV database, and as I understand it each
registered political party in Oregon is entitled to get,
free, a copy of the voter’s registration database from every
county. The combination of these two databases, plus the
more common two-disk CDROM telephone directories of the US,
should make it relatively easy to find somebody once a name
is identified.”
Do you remember writing that?
A. You mean like the particular day? No. Does it sound like
something I wrote? Yes. Did I probably write it? Yes. I
probably wrote it, yes.
Q. All right. Exhibit 17, the May 23rd, ’96, email to avatar.
Subject, “Operation LocatIRS.”
“Remember, however, that the level of abusiveness that the
average IRS agent thinks he can get away with is strongly
determined by what he thinks may happen in the future if
he’s called to account. Morally, can we forgo a system that
has the prospect of cowing the IRS into at least a certain
degree of submission?”
Are those your words?
A. Again, its sound like something I probably wrote. I don’t
doubt that that was one of the messages that I sent. That’s
–
Q. Exhibit 18, the May 23rd, ’96, email, again to avatar.
Subject, “Operation LocatIRS.”
“Their discovery that the are being catalogued and indexed
may have a substantial effect on them. That, indeed, is the
goal.”
Not your words?
A. That sounds – well, again, you’re picking out five-year-old
emails, but in general, that sounds like something that I
would have written during that time frame, yes.
Q. All right. Exhibit 29, that’s on October 24th –
A. My – excuse me. My microphone – I’m sorry, it was turned
down. Thank you.
Q. Exhibit 29, an October 25th, ’95, email to talltom,
Operation LocatIRS.
“Having a copy of the Oregon DMV database, it occurred to me
months ago that one useful project would be to identify and
locate all the Oregon IRS agents. They way I see it, they
will tend to be less aggressive if they think that many
people know where they live.”
Your words or not?
A. It certainly sounds like something I would have said during
that time frame, yes.
Q. All right. We heard Exhibit 34, the tape made at the common
law court meeting on January 9th, ’97. And you were
overheard on that tape saying, “it might be a little more
psychologically effective if they were to receive their
notices in their” mailbox – “mailboxes at home.” Do you
remember saying that?
A. Yes. After I had consumed one large pitcher full of beer, I
think I did say that.
Q. You say that sounds – this all sounds like something that
you wrote at the time. But, in fact, all of these emails
predated your pleading guilty and going to prison, and going
to prison didn’t really stop you, did it? I turn to your –
A. Are going to let me answer the “didn’t stop you” or –
Q. Go ahead, answer.
A. Well, I object to this kind of questioning, the manner in
which it’s being delivered.
Didn’t stop me? He has to be more specific about what he
was doing – what he’s asking about stopping me. He
obviously wants to stop me in general terms. I think you
ought to be more specific about what the “stop me” portion
of it means.
Q. Mr. Bell, even from prison, in June – June 22nd,
specifically, of 1998 – you were still determined to collect
home address information on federal officials, were you not?
A. After having been threatened at least a couple of times, and
then – and, frankly, stalked, followed, yes, I was
interested in finding – not only government people, but I
was interested in finding out registration information for
vehicles that were following me, even when I knew that the
last registered owner was probably had nothing to do or no
knowledge of the following. I was collecting a lot of
jigsaw puzzle pieces to try to find out what they were up
to, and I believe I found out what they were up to, but they
do not want it to come out, and that’s why Mr. Leen cut off
the – his questioning of me, which he did, virtually, as the
threat came yesterday.
Q. Mr. Bell, Exhibit 60, June 22nd, 1998, from prison, you
wrote your friend Greg Daily: “I can hunt them down just as
well on the geography of the English language as the streets
of Portland.” Does that ring familiar to you?
A. Yes, it sounds like hyperbole, or I was writing a rather
florid letter. But, yes, I believe I recall that. I
believe that it was a handwritten letter. I didn’t have
access to a typewriter at the time. I saw it in among, oh,
3,000 pieces of discovery information that I haven’t been
given the satisfactory opportunity to look at yet. And I’m
not – I’m being denied the ability to look at my notes that
were sealed in an envelope. So I’m working on memory here.
That was one of about 3,000 pieces of paper that I looked at
in discovery about four or five days ago. I’ve been denied
access to it since then. More than four or five days ago.
Six, seven.
Q. Just about a year ago, as you were preparing to get out of
prison or getting out of prison, you gave an interview to
Mr. Declan McCullagh of Wired News. Do you remember giving
that?
A. I probably talked to Declan McCullagh a number of times.
Q. And you knew that what you were saying was very possibly
going to be reported in one of his articles and on the
Internet, correct?
A. Oh, absolutely. It was done over a monitored telephone
line, taped. It was in prison, of course, and they do that.
They tape phone calls from inmates outside. All the inmates
know. It’s not – it’s actually posted. They specifically
say, in some prisons, “We monitor and record this
information.” That’s right. And they warn us ahead of
time. When we arrive there, they say, this material is
being taped, phone calls are being taped and the mail is
being monitored, specifically for two reasons. One of which
is security of the institution, and the other is protection
of the public. Those are the two things they use that
information for, they claim.
Now, whether they – they don’t disclose whether they use
that information for anything else. They don’t tell us that
it’s being used to collect evidence in a trial. But it
appears that they are doing – they did that, and they didn’t
warn people about that.
Yes, I recall that very clearly.
Q. Mr. Bell, I mean, you spoke to Mr. McCullagh fully
understanding that what you were saying to him, wholly apart
from any monitoring of the prison telephone lines, was very
possibly, very probably going to appear in one of his
articles, correct?
A. Oh, absolutely. I knew that Declan McCullagh was in fact a
journalist for Wired News. I had probably talked to him – I
don’t mean talk, physical voice; I’m talking about email –
for year – I don’t know how many years. I don’t know how
far back our communication goes, but, yes, a long time. And
I fully was aware he was a journalist, and I was talking to
him as a journalist.
Q. And he quoted you, “If they continue to work for the
government, they deserve it. My suggestion to these people
is to quit now and hope for mercy.”
A. Yes.
Q. Did you say that to him?
A. That’s a very accurate quote of what I said. Declan did an
excellent job. I have heard no quote of Declan’s that did
not sound to be precisely the way I said it, to the extent
of my recollection. He –
Q. Exhibit 108, May 28, 2000, email to mkepp. It says, “I
guess I’m ‘intimidating’ ALL their agents! Have you read my
essay yet?”
Do you remember saying that?
A. I believe that sounds like something I said. Well, whether
it was –
Q. The essay, would that have been a reference to Assassination
Politics?
A. Well, will you – keep in mind, when you say “said,” there’s
verbally said and there’s written said.
Q. Okay.
A. So let’s be – let’s be clear about this.
That was probably an email message. My response to them, or
– would have been written. But, yes.
Q. Exhibit 110, July 23rd, 2000. You wrote in an email to
someone named Glover, “I am going to DESTROY these suckers.”
Destroy in all caps. “Read my essay again.”
Do you recall sending that email.
A. Yes. But given the fact that I’ve been threatened multiple
times, followed and such, frankly, I was feeling rather
unhappy about these people forcing me to accept a phony plea
agreement that had been violated, virtually every aspect of
it that was written, multiple times. I was – a person would
have to be – not normal to be very unhappy about these
people and how I was treated. Yes, I did say that. I was
very unhappy. There was a problem. They had – they beat –
they mistreated me.
Q. Mr. Bell, in 1998, in front of the same judge, Judge
Burgess, who took your guilty plea, supposedly the one
that’s been coerced, you had a hearing for – on allegations
that you had violated conditions of your supervised release.
Do you remember that?
A. I recall that.
Q. You were in court with Judge Burgess for how many days,
three days?
A. Two days. It was on May 21st, 1998, maybe, and June 2nd or
3rd of 1998. I’d been waiting – excuse me. Correction,
1999. I had been waiting eleven months for a probation
violation hearing, which I can tell you is virtually
unknown. Probation violation hearings usually occur with
two, three weeks of arrest on a probation violation charge.
Q. Mr. Bell, in the two days of those hearings, did you ever
once say to Judge Burgess, “Your Honor, I want to withdraw
that guilty plea. That was coerced”?
A. No. The reason I didn’t was because that wasn’t the
question that the – that judge, Burgess, was there to judge.
He was there to judge the probation violation issue itself,
and as far as I was concerned, I was still under threat. I
was working, in effect, within the system.
The question involved was simply whether I had violated the
probation. The issue of the previous threats, the violation
of the plea agreement, were in fact explicitly not allowed
for me to discuss. They would have cut me off, just like
Mr. Leen cut me off by not asking questions. They would not
have allowed me to use that hearing to reopen these previous
issues. They would have said that’s not relevant, Mr. Bell,
we are only talking about the probation violation.
Q. Mr. Bell, you didn’t even try, did you?
A. I was under threat by –
Q. Who was threatening you, Mr. Bell?
A. The threats were the threats that had been delivered two
years previously.
Q. Was Judge Burgess threatening you? Was Judge Burgess part
of the conspiracy against you?
A. Not that I – not that I was – well, let me answer that as
accurately as I can.
I would not have known whether or not he was threatening me
other than if he had said it in open court, and, of course,
there is a hard working stenographer here, and would have
been there, and I think was there, taking down all the words
at that time. I – Judge Burgess certainly wouldn’t have
made any such threats, and I certainly wouldn’t have found
out about any such threats that I could directly attribute
to Mr. Burgess under those circumstances. So, no, I have –
Q. Mr. Bell, you pled guilty in 1997. A number of years went
by. A number of years have gone by. In fact, as of this
day, have you filed a motion to withdraw your guilty plea in
1997?
A. I have asked my previous – or, no – another attorney named
Jonathan Solovy, who had prepared the appeal on the
probation violation charge, the appeal which was filed on
January 15th of this year, I asked him – I said I wanted him
to do that, and he said, “Well, that’s not what my job is
for,” he says. “I was appointed to do the appeal, and
that’s all.”
Q. Mr. Bell, you have filed what we call pro se motions
throughout this case, if not the other cases, have you not?
You filed your own motions with the proper legal form right
from the Federal Detention Center at SeaTac. Have you not?
A. Let’s – let’s – please explain the term to the jury “pro
se.”
Q. By yourself, without your lawyer’s help.
A. Yes. Under normal circumstances the attorney handles filing
motions – sorry about this.
Q. Please continue your answer.
A. I will. I will. I just –
(Witness has a drink of water.)
A. Under most –
THE COURT: Just a moment.
Jury, please go to lunch. Do not discuss the case among
yourselves or with anyone else over the noon recess. Be in the
jury room at 1:30.
(Jury excused.)
THE COURT: Mr. London, why do you leave the podium
when you’re asking a question?
MR. LONDON: Well, I’m sorry, Your Honor, I actually –
THE COURT: What do you mean you’re sorry? Why do you
say you’re sorry? Don’t do it.
MR. LONDON: I won’t do that anymore. I was getting a
document.
THE COURT: Do you understand?
MR. LONDON: (Nods head.)
THE COURT: 1:30.
Anything to take up before the noon recess? Either party?
MR. LEEN: Your Honor, I would ask that the court
caution the prosecutor just to ask one question rather than
multiple questions and then we all have to go back to what the
first question was.
THE COURT: Counsel.
MR. LONDON: That’s taken – well-taken, and I will be
more careful.
THE COURT: Oh, boy. Court’s in recess. 1:30.
(Recess.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
(Jury not present.)
THE COURT: Ready for the jury?
MR. LONDON: Yes, Your Honor.
MR. LEEN: Yes, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Anything to take up before the jury comes?
MR. LONDON: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Either party?
Bring the jury.
(Jury present, 1:34 p.m.)
THE COURT: Let the record reflect the jury has
returned.
Continue cross-examination, government. Witness is still
under oath.
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell, on October 24th, 2000, you sent
an email posted to the Cypherpunks site. This was the “Say
goodnight to Joshua” email, Exhibit 141.
You had just gotten back from your excursion to the home of
the Gordons at 8300 Southwest Chelan, Tualitin, and McNall’s
former residence on South Clackamas River Drive, and you
published this email to the published list knowing full well
that Jeff Gordon, or somebody like him, was probably reading
your public postings on the Internet, correct?
A. I was suspecting full well, not knowing. I had no personal
knowledge, but I strongly suspected that given their extreme
interest in me for the preceding few years, they would –
they couldn’t be kept from doing something like that.
Q. And you would learn from reading the Gordons’ mail that they
had a son named Joshua, correct?
A. Yes, that’s true.
Q. And as far as you knew, you had the Jeffrey Gordon that you
were looking for, this man right here, correct?
A. No, actually not. I suspected that he was probably
somewhere else. But the one that I found was a possibility,
one of a few.
Q. All right. So in your mind it was possible that you had the
right Jeffrey Gordon and that you now knew that he had a son
named Joshua, correct?
A. Well, actually, like I say, I was doing a test. I wanted to
see if I got – a scientific – the scientific method by which
I used, you formulate a hypothesis and you do various tests
on the hypothesis to determine whether the result matches
your theory.
My theory, I had come close to what I thought would be the
truth, so I did a test to find out whether I got the
reaction that I thought I would get, and so I posted to an
area an unaddressed email which had information that
virtually literally nobody else in the world would
understand unless they had been electronically stalking me
or following me. That message means nothing to somebody who
doesn’t have the information that I had or who had been not
– not following me around. I knew that if I got the, quote,
unquote, proper reaction to it, it means they have been
basically spying on me, following me, and they knew perhaps
where I was going and so forth. I was trying to determine
whether or no they were doing that. And they later verified
through the various of their actions that they were in fact
following me and reading that mail. So I –
Q. Okay –
A. This is effectively a scientific test, but it’s done in a
nonscientific arena.
Q. You could have performed that same scientific test by simply
putting in that email the address 8300 Southwest Chelan,
right? Wouldn’t Agent Gordon have been able to recognize
that as his address if it was the correct one?
A. No, I had no – I had no desire to cause undue problems nor
reveal more information than I wanted to reveal. I wanted
to see whether or not they would show an indication that
they knew what I was doing even before having seen that
particular address. If they were doing the extensive
research during last summer that I suspected they were
doing, they knew where I had gone at the time I had gone
there and not days or even weeks later, like, oh, they’re
only now willing to admit.
So I was doing a test, and it was a – I think effectively a
productive test, and I designed it to make sure that it
didn’t bother people ahead of time, people who were not
involved, to a greater extent than what I did. I’m sorry if
it wasn’t a perfect test, but it was a useful test.
Q. And do you think it wasn’t something that would have caused
Agent Gordon some concern to see on the Internet that you
now knew he had a son named Joshua?
A. No. If you look clearly at the note, it says nothing about
Jeff Gordon here. It could have been referring vaguely to
Mike McNall, let’s say, or anybody else in the telephone
directory. There is nothing in that note that mentions Jeff
Gordon. Nothing at all.
He obviously had more information than he’s willing to
admit, and Mr. – Mr. London in his questioning forgets that
it was simply an unaddressed message that doesn’t mention
Jeff Gordon or any other name except Joshua. And Mr. London
just revealed to you that it was Jeff Gordon that knew about
– or Mr. London obviously believes Jeff Gordon knew
something about this message beyond what the message itself
said. He revealed information there. That’s the reason for
scientific tests. In this case, in a nonscientific arena.
Q. In Exhibit No. 143, your October 25th, you got an email from
John Branton of the Columbian newspaper. He quotes you, “I
did a road trip a couple of days ago which probably worries
the Feds. Talk to Jeff Gordon of the Treasury Department
and Mike McNall of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms (Portland office.)” Did you tell Mr. Branton that?
A. I’m seeing a blue screen here. I would like to read the
whole thing, if I may.
AGENT GORDON: 143.
MR. LONDON: 143.
THE WITNESS: Can the jury see that?
MR. LONDON: They can if we publish it for them.
THE WITNESS: I would appreciate it if they would, if
you are going to ask questions about it.
Q. (By Mr. London) Do you see that email in front of you?
A. Yes, I do, on the screen.
Q. Do you see where it says what I quoted, “I did a road trip a
couple of days ago which probably worries the Feds”?
A. Uh-huh, I see that.
Q. Did you write that?
A. Sure.
Q. Does it say anything there about research?
A. Sure.
Q. Does it say anything there about research?
A. The word research? No.
Q. Does it say anything there about investigating anything?
A. No. I told Mr. Branton many times before over the previous
four months that I was doing an investigation. It isn’t
necessary for me to reiterate the same word over and over
again. Mr. Branton was very familiar. I had sent him
probably dozens of emails over the previous five or six
months, ever since I got out of prison, middle of April 19 –
or – the year 2K problem – 2000. The year 2000.
Q. So five days later, on October 30th –
A. Yes.
Q. – Exhibit 163, you publicly posted an email to the
Cypherpunks list about libertarian principles, and then you
said, “And there are no ‘statutes of limitation’ on our
response to these people regardless of current law.” Is
that correct?
A. Certainly. That principle does not involve concept of
statute of limitation.
Q. “Now would be an excellent time for anyone to go to their
county voter’s registration office, and order a copy of the
voter’s registration database for current and future use.”
Did you also write that part of the email?
A. Sure I did. I wrote that.
Q. There wasn’t anything there about research, was there?
A. No, I didn’t use the word research.
Q. All right. Let’s look at Exhibit 171. This is a fax that
you sent to Agent Gordon from your home in Vancouver to his
office in Portland, the one where you let him know that you
could come by his house the next night. Where in that fax
is there any indication that the purpose of your wanting to
come by his house is to privately discuss the Ryan Lund deal
or any electronic surveillance that has been done on it?
A. Nowhere, because that was not the function of my sending the
fax. The function of my sending the fax was to respond to a
threat to destroy guns, valuable guns. Rather than that, I
responded that I was arranging to have them handled. And
that was the purpose of the fax. The subject of
surveillance of Ryan Lund was not a problem of this issue.
Q. You knew he did – that Mr. Gordon did his business at his
office, correct, and that it’s not appropriate to do
business from your home when you’re a public official?
A. Mr. Gordon apparently does his business in a number of
locations, particularly people’s houses where he visits them
to intimidate them, as he has intimidated a number of my
friends and family. Mr. Gordon clearly does a lot of work
outside of his office.
Q. Are you capable of understanding the distinction between a
duly authorized law enforcement officer who is given powers
by the government to investigate matters and a private
citizen who decides to take things into his own hands?
A. Take – I disagree with the premise of the question.
Q. Well –
A. Let me answer –
Q. Let me –
A. – the question –
Q. Do you –
A. Let me answer the question.
THE COURT: Just a minute.
Q. (By Mr. London) Do you understand that he carries a badge?
THE COURT: Counsel.
What’s the question?
Q. (By Mr. London) Do you understand that he is given the
authority to do certain things by virtue of the fact that he
is a trained law enforcement officer who carries a badge?
A. And he also carries a gun which would – he implicitly
threatens people that know he is armed. I did not take
things into my own hands. I talked to many newspaper
people: Branton of the Columbian, Painter of the Oregonian.
I talked to Declan McCullagh. I’ve talked to other people.
They did nothing about my suspicions. I collected
information to prove. They keep ignoring me. As far as I
know, there are no other newspaper reporters in this
courtroom. As far as I know, this case has been boycotted
by the Seattle P-I, the Seattle Times, the Vancouver
Columbian, and the Portland Oregonian.
Take this thing into my own hands? Sir, I had no choice. I
was the only one who was going to look into this material.
There is no one I could go to other than my own self to do
this. I wanted to do this research so I could prove to
people, including the jury here, if it came to that, that I
was right. If it wasn’t for me, no one would ever have
heard about this material. I did it myself. Is that called
taking it into my own hands? Fine. If that’s what it’s
called, fine. But somebody has to do this.
Q. Mr. Bell, do you understand that if you have a grievance
against the government, whether it is groundless or whether
it is meritorious, you have ways, you have options of having
that grievance aired? You are aware of that, aren’t you?
A. It is said that there are ways. Whether or not those ways
actually work is a big question here.
Q. Well, do you know how to file a lawsuit?
A. Not yet.
Q. Do you know how to make a Freedom of Information Act
request?
A. Actually, I did. Last summer of 2000, I did a Freedom of
Information Act request of the U.S. Marshal Service to find
out precisely when and where they moved Ryan Thomas Lund at
various times during the time in 1997 when he was moved from
Douglas County Jail in Roseburg, Oregon, to Multnomah County
Jail in Portland, Oregon, and finally to SeaTac FDC. I did
that because I learned that that was public domain
information, I could do that. And I wanted to find out why
Ryan Thomas Lund actually arrived at SeaTac FDC on November
20th, 1997, rather than on November 21st, which was the
implication of what happened downstairs on the 21st of 1997
when he arrived in civilian clothes with paper, talk –
admitting his guilt in front of cameras and microphones. I
wanted an explanation, where was Ryan Thomas Lund between
the day of November 20th, 1997, and the next day? He wasn’t
in the area at SeaTac. He was there the next day when they
put him in the same area as me. I wanted to know, where
were they hiding Mr. Lund that previous day? That would
tell us a lot. I’m not being allowed to show that
information. Mr. Leen wouldn’t look up that information for
me. I’ve asked dozens of people.
THE COURT: He’s answered. Next question.
Q. (By Mr. London) Do you know how to file a lawsuit?
A. Not yet.
Q. Do you know that if you hire a lawyer you can have a lawsuit
filed on your behalf?
A. Generally speaking. I have heard that to be true.
Q. And you know that if you sue somebody, one of the things
that you are entitled to is what we call discovery. You are
allowed to depose them, you are allowed to get statements
from them under oath.
A. Well, if discovery is anything like the discovery in this
case, it will be mighty ineffective.
Q. Mr. Bell, please answer the question.
A. Well, that was a good answer.
Q. Mr. Bell, are you aware that you are entitled to depose
people if you have a grievance against them after you file a
lawsuit?
A. Assuming I’m allowed to, normal procedure is that. I get to
have them under oath, and I, or my attorney, get to ask many
questions. That’s the normal procedure, and if the
procedure works the way it did in this system, I wouldn’t
get that. But that is at least the published answer that
you will get from attorneys as to how the system works.
Q. Exhibit 229, the interview you gave to Declan McCullagh of
Wired News after the search warrant had been executed at
your parents’ house. In that exhibit you were quoted, or at
least a statement is attributed to you, “he acknowledges
that he’s shown up at the homes of suspected BATF agents and
has done DMV searches on their names – all in an effort to
let them know that surveillance can be done in both
directions.”
Is that something that you said?
A. Hold on. I’m beginning to find it here.
Is that published to the jury?
Q. No. The statement has been admitted –
THE COURT: Do you understand the question, sir?
THE WITNESS: Part – it’s continuing to move around –
THE COURT: Do you understand the question.
THE WITNESS: I can’t even see it, sir. I’m sorry.
MR. LONDON: I’m quoting –
THE COURT: He can’t see it.
MR. LONDON: It’s not an exhibit. It’s not an exhibit.
It’s admitted in the form of testimony from the state – from the
exhibit.
A. There is no direct quote there. There’s no –
Q. (By Mr. London) All right. Did you acknowledge to Mr.
McCullagh that you had been doing DMV database searches on
ATF agent’s names?
A. The only error here is, it says “agents” plural. The only
database search I did of a person I knew to be an ATF agent
was one person, Mike McNall. So that plural should have
been turned into a singular. But what Mr. McCullagh didn’t
write, which, of course, is because he just chose to write
the article this way, is the information I looked up on
dozens or even hundreds of other people who were in fact not
even government employees. Again, former owners of vehicles
that had been used to follow me around, probably taken from
police impound lots.
Q. Okay.
A. So I had –
Q. Did you tell Mr. McCullagh that you had done this, showing
up at the homes of Agent McNall, as it turned out, in an
effort to let him know that surveillance can be done in both
directions?
A. I think there was a – there was a quote about that, and I
think there was a quote that was from me, or approximately
that was – not exactly a quote, but that was a reference,
yes.
Q. He quoted you, saying, “I wasn’t all that happy before but
I’m hopping mad.” But now I’m hopping mad. “If you think
this is going to stop me, baloney.” Did you say that?
A. Sure, because of all the threatening activity over the last
few years and the abuse that I have suffered. I did say
that, sure.
Q. All right. Now, you suggested to the jury on Friday, and I
think again somewhere here this morning, that the reason for
tracking down Agent Gordon and Agent McNall at their homes
was to try to investigate the claim about the Ryan Lund –
A. Right.
Q. – incident and the illegal surveillance that you believe has
been done on you, correct?
A. Yes. That’s – that’s – that’s certainly a true statement as
far as it goes, that’s true. But the investigation includes
many other issues, as well as that.
Q. And I think you tried to suggest that you could not have
talked to them at their offices or officially because a
visit to their offices might have been seen by others, and I
think your phrase was that it would have waved a red flag to
others, is that correct?
A. Yes, possibly. If – I accepted the possibility that Mike
McNall might not have actually been the handler who talked
to Mr. Lund and asked him to assault me. There was that
possibility, and I accepted it, and I didn’t necessarily.
And if it wasn’t him, it was somebody else. And that
somebody else, it would probably be a good idea if he were
not alerted that my investigation might eventually address
him. So contacting the officer directly would have alerted,
perhaps, that guilty party, and I didn’t want that to
happen.
The only alternative I could think of was to visit Mr.
McNall, ask him, is he aware of the assault? If he didn’t
order it, does he have any idea who did? Does he have any
choice words, perhaps an off – an apology or a sympathetic
word that says, well, perhaps, you know, sorry about what
happened. That wasn’t my idea, or – he might not have said
it in such a way with a full admission, but he at least
would have been able to tell me something that I didn’t
already know. And if he had been not the person who was
involved, then I would have accepted that reality.
Q. And is it your testimony that you could think of no
alternative short of showing up at people’s homes at all
hours of the day or night in order to try to have some kind
of communication with them away from others who might be
monitoring the conversation?
A. That was the best alternative I could come up with. And the
visit at twelve midnight to that one address, I have
explained why it was that I had to get word to them very
quickly. The reason the notes were in a plastic bag is
simply because Oregon, as you know, is wet. Washington is
wet, too. Dew, rain, and such. I was leaving the messages
at twelve o’clock midnight. I knew that was the case. I
was going to put them on under the windshield wiper, and I
knew that by the next day they would be either damp or fully
wet if they weren’t protected somehow. That’s the reason I
put them in the plastic bag, and I left them under the
windshield wiper. That’s the best I knew how to do it at
that time. If I could have waited there, if it was daytime
I would have simply knocked on the door. I wanted to make
sure John Branton of the Vancouver Columbian understood that
I hadn’t done anything improper days earlier at that
address.
Q. Mr. Bell, if you were so concerned about keeping your
communications with Agent McNall and Gordon secret from
these others who might be monitoring them, then why were you
publicly posting things about them on the Internet and why
were you trying so hard to get reporters to write about all
of this? Does that make sense to you?
A. Given the level of abuse that I suffered for a period of
years, I couldn’t avoid talking to the news media. I feel
so strongly about that. Communication with these people is
minor compared to your overall scope of the problem, and I
wanted nobody else to claim later on that I had failed to
interface with the proper news media-type people. I wanted
there to be no doubt in anybody’s mind that I had exercised
all the proper channels, and the news media simply wouldn’t
listen to me. They publish stories whenever the government
wants something reported, like an arrest or a search or a
trial – well, not this one. Whenever they report it, or
whenever it happens, it gets reported. In my case, no.
Whenever I – I gave all of these accusations and more of
these accusations to Branton and then Painter of the
Columbian and the Oregonian, and others, and they did
nothing, nothing at all.
Q. Mr. Bell, on October 23rd, you went to the home of Jeff and
Barbi Gordon at 8300 Southwest Chelan, Tualitin, and you
opened their mailbox and you took at least two pieces of
mail out of their mailbox, correct?
A. I apologize.
Q. And you opened those pieces of mail.
A. I apologize for that.
Q. What did you do with the mail? Did you write down the
information right there by the mailbox or did you take it
home?
A. I believe I stopped on the way home at a McDonald’s, and I
was very hungry at the time. My blood sugar was very, very
low. I was feeling unhappy. I had to sit down somewhere.
So I bought whatever it is I usually buy there, I ate, and I
copied the information.
Q. Into your notebook?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And then when you left the McDonald’s, did you go back home?
A. Eventually, yes.
Q. What did you do with the mail? Did you put it back or did
you destroy it?
A. I threw it in the trash at the McDonald’s, as I recall.
Q. So earlier when you were testifying about burning something
in the fireplace after you got back, that wasn’t the
Gordons’ mail?
A. No. But I – I did intentionally, as I said, theatrically
put it in with the window shades open and this large, clear
window in the back of the house so that – and I in fact
moved – I positioned my body so that it was clear at the
time from the back of the house exactly what I was doing.
And I took a piece – pieces of ordinary paper, no – you
know, just some blank pieces of paper, some pieces of trash
that I just happened to have or – junk mail, and I burned
them, and I – I don’t think I recall ever having done that
maneuver ever before or since. What we usually do is just
toss them in a sack and eventually we shove the sack in
there and burn it. Now, I did a very theatrical thing that
I felt would be seen if there was surveillance going on, and
I put those individual papers in there and I lit it so that
there was – it could be seen from behind me.
Q. When you were at the Groener/Andrews property earlier,
around 5:30 on that day, you actually went to the mailbox
and you opened that mailbox up, too, didn’t you?
A. Excuse me, the Groener?
Q. Andrews.
A. The Andrews. No.
Q. Well, Mr. Bell, it doesn’t say Andrews on the mailbox, so
how did you know that there was somebody there named
Andrews?
A. As far as I recall, it said Andrews on the mailbox, and in
fact I wrote it down, a notation in my notes that says
Andrews on mailbox.
Q. And in fact –
A. I don’t recall.
Q. In fact, you were here when Mr. Groener testified that it
doesn’t and did not ever say Andrews on the mailbox.
A. Well, he also testified that the road – or the driveway was
labeled “private road,” and I don’t recall that either. And
I looked.
Q. And I it your position that unless something is marked
private road, you have the right to drive onto private
property and remain there uninvited for a while, even after
someone has asked you to leave?
A. Well, as you know, this was a rural area. It wasn’t like
there was a parking space in front. There was no place to
park on the road. I wanted to visit. I had no alternative
but to put my car there, or to take my car down the driveway
the first time I went there. I couldn’t have stopped – if I
hadn’t stopped toward the house, I would have blocked the
driveway, and that’s not good. I couldn’t have parked on
the street. The cars going by go by fast and there’s no, no
shoulder room to park. So I had to go down there. And it
was about – well, many, many hundreds of feet to the house.
I didn’t see anything wrong with going and parking in front
of the house. That’s basically what people do in a rural
area if you don’t have a place to park farther away. I
didn’t see anything wrong with that. I still don’t.
As for the nighttime visit, which I was forced to do under
the circumstances. I did – I could put the car, in effect,
block the driveway, but not – simply, there was no
alternative, and then I went down, left the messages, and
came back up. I figured the blocking the driveway was not a
problem at twelve midnight. Chances are they weren’t going
to come and go at that point. So that’s why I was willing
to block the driveway at twelve midnight, but I wasn’t
willing to block the driveway at four o’clock in the
afternoon or five o’clock in the afternoon.
Q. 5:00 o’clock, 5:30 –
A. Somewhere around there.
Q. – in the afternoon of the 23rd when you went to the
Groener/Andrews residence, you didn’t just drive down the
driveway, did you? You actually got out of the car and you
walked all the way around the house.
A. Yes.
Q. Correct?
A. I first knocked on the big house’s door, waited three, four
minutes, and knocked again. No answer. There was one
vehicle there in the garage. There was room for two. That
person – somebody was apparently gone. I then walked to the
smaller house and knocked on the door. Again, no answer.
That – but that second house, the smaller house, the way the
ho- -- the door looked a little bit odd, and it wasn’t clear
that that was the front door or the side door or the back
door. So I went around what I later on determined was
indeed the back, and I didn’t find any more direct door, so
I came back, and that’s when I met that person who was later
identified by name. But I didn’t know his name at that
point.
Q. And when you made the second visit on the night of November
10th, a little after midnight, you went right inside the
carport to put those notes on the windshield, did you not?
A. Exactly. I had to. The cars were in the garage. The door
– the garage door was open fully. They apparently didn’t
close the garage door, and I wanted to make sure that those
people actually saw the notes the moment they got into their
car, so I put in underneath the windshield, just the way a
meter maid – I mean, a meter maid would put a ticket under
the windshield wipers. That’s exactly what I did.
Q. Well, Mr. Bell, you had this information about the Andrews
and the Groeners and their address. Why didn’t you just
give John Branton that information and say, these are the
people you should contact about my theories about Ryan Lund
and everything else? Why was it necessary to go onto the
property after midnight?
A. I was very unimpressed with John Branton’s ineffectiveness
ever since I first contacted him about my accusations and
suspicions two years previous. Or – by telephone over a
monitored phone line from SeaTac all the way down to
Vancouver Columbian in about July, the beginning of July
1998. Mr. Branton – you’ve heard of Woodward and Bernstein.
Well, Mr. Branton, unfortunately, was the opposite of
Woodward and Bernstein. If the story wasn’t thrown on his
lap, all printed up and ready to go, Mr. Branton was totally
uninterested in looking at it. I could – I tried for many
months to convince him that there was a story here. One of
the reasons why Mr. Branton is so reticent about
acknowledging all of the various contacts is because,
frankly, he is embarrassed, I think. I gave him the biggest
story that he will ever see in his entire career, and he
totally blew it.
So, if you ask me, why didn’t I give that information to
him? Well, frankly, I did eventually, I believe, but he
wasn’t going to follow up on it. That’s why I didn’t give
it. The system doesn’t work the way they say it does or in
the movies. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself,
or to take things in your own hands, as this man would try
to make it sound bad. Sometimes you have to do things for
yourself. I found that out.
Q. Exhibit 229, which was not admitted. We – it’s not admitted
in the form of the article, but Mr. McCullagh testified to
the accuracy of a statement he attributed to you. He said,
“I’m feeling very hostile and I’m not going to be stopped.”
You also said, “I am thinking very seriously of picketing
Jeff Gordon’s house.” Do you remember saying that?
A. Yes, that’s right.
Q. Can you explain how picketing Jeff Gordon’s house can be
explained to this jury as investigation or research?
A. It was – no, it was a protest. I wanted to – picketing is a
well-established, long-term method of expressing one’s
protest. I was protesting the threats I received, the
violations of a plea agreement, forcing me to accept a phony
plea agreement, and so forth. I had a lot of complaints,
and if picketing was going to do it to express my
frustration, I was willing to do that.
When I said I was hostile, the picketing was going to be my
solution to the hostile, you know. Some people – I didn’t
intend to bring it beyond that. Picketing is legal.
Picketing is a long-established method of protest. That’s
what I was thinking of doing.
Q. Actually, in fact, you were fully capable of picketing his
place of work, were you not?
A. Given the fact that whatever his place of work is, probably
a multi-story building, taking up the entire city block.
Well, it’s physically possible, but as a practical matter,
it just isn’t seen.
Q. I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the ideas
that are discussed on the Cypherpunks website. You spent
some time on Friday talking about encryption and the ways
that messages can be masked or coded so that they are really
totally private. I want to ask you about a concept that is
discussed quite a bit on the Cypherpunks website called
plausible deniability. Does that have any familiarity to
you?
A. Yes. The term “plausible deniability” is actually a term
that’s most frequently used in reference to governments and,
of course, in America, usually the federal government. The
concept is often that when something happens, let’s say the
government is at least alleged to have done something, the
higher-ups would like to be able to say, oh, we have no
knowledge of that, or I have not seen any evidence of, or
that kind of thing. Their answer has to be plausible. That
is to say, if not totally proven, and maybe they didn’t see
the evidence, but the overall term is called plausible
deniability. It means that a high government official can
say, I have no knowledge of that. I have seen no
information on that. Our agency has not involved. We have
no record of that. It must remain plausible, otherwise
people start to laugh. That’s what plausible deniability
is.
Q. In fact, didn’t that – didn’t that have its origins during
the Watergate era when the Nixon administration was caught
doing some illegal things and there was some discussion high
up about being able to maintain plausible deniability? In
other words, having a story that would explain what they had
been caught doing?
A. Yes, I’m old enough to remember Watergate. Yes, that’s
exactly right. The principle involved was they wanted to be
able to deny the actions of a few burglars who broke into
the Democratic National Convention, and basically they
wanted to be able to say, well, we didn’t know. The fact
is, of course, they did know and they tried to cover it up.
That was eventually uncovered by two reporters, Woodward and
Bernstein, and they made a movie and a book about it. Very
exciting. And I wish all reporters were that persistent and
effective.
Q. Now, on February 3rd, 1996, you sent an email to someone
named Matthew@psyched.demon.co.uk. The subject was BZ,
which you will forgive me, it’s a chemical, I think,
Quinuclidinyl Benzilate. Is that correct?
A. Quinuclidinyl Benzilate, yes.
Q. What is that?
A. It’s something that the federal government developed in
about 1951 or ’52 – the United States federal government,
excuse me. It was developed as a nonlethal chemical warfare
agent. Not exactly like – it’s not like tear gas or
anything. It is a material which, if ingested, basically
incapicitates you for literally a day or two. It makes you
sort of like a baby. You can’t react. Your health is not
injured, but you are, in effect, that you can’t operate.
The idea was – oh, the government paraded around the country
in something called Operation Blue Skies. That is, they
wanted to demonstrate that warfare was going to be humane
later on.
The idea was that you could spray this over a military base,
let’s say, and then walk in about two or three hours later
and all of your opponents would be just sort of laying there
passive and you could just handcuff them up and take them
away, and it would be like you wouldn’t kill them, you would
just bring in a van and carry them all away.
And that was called Operation Blue Skies. And the
government went around with demonstrations where they – I
think they had a cage that had two portions, one side was a
cat, the other side was a mouse, and there was a partition
between the two. And the cat, of course, wanted the mouse,
but the mouse couldn’t get away, and they spritzed the cat a
little bit with this material, and after a few minutes the
cat was dreaming, and they opened up the partition and
nothing happened. And this was an example of how the
federal government wanted to demonstrate the future of
warfare. No more killing, no more bombing, just spray a
little spray and everybody is happy.
Q. All right. Now, do you remember telling this person,
Matthew, in the email that you were going to send him via
the mail some of this drug BZ, or this chemical BZ, but
saying that you were going to misspell the person’s name, I
guess the addressee’s name, so that, quote, “It would be
similar enough to get there, the destination, but plausible
deniability would have been maintained”?
A. I think I vaguely recall something like this. The guy –
Q. Would you like to have a copy of it?
A. That particular one, I don’t need to see that one. I think
the person had previously said that he had seen a lot of
other drugs, LSD, heroin, and a few other things, and he was
curious about that.
Q. Okay. On October 13th of ’96 you sent another email, this
one to a Michael Froomkin, with a cc to the Cypherpunks.
And the subject was blinded identities, regarding exporting
signatures only. And I think this involved possibly some
encryption subject matter. You said, in a discussion of the
creation of anonymous bank accounts, specifically, remember
plausible denial. Do you remember that?
A. What year was this message, please?
Q. In was 1996.
A. Oh, my memory is really being tested here. Again, the term
“plausible deniability” is – has been turned into almost a
funny term.
Q. In 1997, March 8th, you sent an email to the mailing list
libernet-d. The subject was “AP,” I assume Assassination
Politics, “as Burning Bed.” And in that one you discuss the
advantages of using Assassination Politics with the common
law court, and you stated, quote, “plausible deniability is
maintained should a convicted defendant die. Nobody at the
common law court would be involved in that incident.”
A. You said something about burning bed?
Q. That was the subject line.
A. I’m not even sure what that refers to. It sounds very odd.
Q. Do you remember talking about Assassination Politics and
saying –
A. Yes.
Q. – “plausible deniability is maintained should a convicted
defendant die. Nobody at the common law court would be
involved in that incident?
A. Other than the title, “Burning Bed,” which honestly I can’t
recall, I’ve had many discussions of this type, subsequent
to my writing of the essay in mid, you know, early middle of
1995 and on. But again, the Burning Bed thing, I have no
idea what that refers to.
Q. All right. Well, October 20th of 2000, in an email to a
George@orwellian.org with cc’s to the Cypherpunks, you said
in a discussion of entering false names on computer
documents, “plausible deniability is maintained.” Do you
remember that?
A. I’m sorry. I apologize. Please repeat the question.
Q. October 20th of last year, 2000 –
A. Sure.
Q. – in an email to George@orwellian.org, in a discussion about
entering false names on computer documents, once again you
talked about plausible deniability being maintained.
A. Sure. The address that was George@orwellian.com, well, you
may have picked up on the joke already. Have you ever heard
of George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm? The
site is called orwellian.com, and this particular person has
to be – happens to be a George, and it’s obviously, the
thing was a joke. I mean, his own email address was written
to be a joke.
Yeah, there was probably a reference in there to plausible
deniability. Again, this is a very, very famous term. If
you were to do a web search for plausible deniability, on an
Alta Vista or some other – Yahoo or any other search engine,
you would find thousands and thousands of hits on plausible
deniability. This is a well-known phrase. I don’t know why
he’s focusing on this, but it’s a well-known thing that
people talk about it, they laugh about it, they – you know,
it’s one of those things. It’s – so many government
scandals have been based on, well, the breaking of the
plausible deniability concept.
Q. Well, isn’t the idea that if you get caught doing something
illegal, it’s a good idea to have some kind of story you can
use to suggest that perhaps you have a legal purpose for
doing what you were caught doing?
A. I guess so, and I’m very fascinated to find out what Jeff
Gordon’s explanation for all his activities are. That of,
you know, the infiltration of the common law court and a few
other things.
Q. I don’t think you ever thought that was going to be exposed,
did you? If it wasn’t for me that wouldn’t have been
exposed. You wouldn’t have had to have an explanation.
What is your explanation, sir, about the common law court?
What is your plausible deniability?
THE COURT: Any other questions of this witness?
MR. LONDON: I do, Your Honor.
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell, if you will forgive me, but the
protocol that is used in court is the lawyers ask the
questions.
MR. LONDON: I would like permission to be able to
approach the witness and show him –
THE COURT: Give it to the clerk.
THE CLERK: Is it marked?
MR. LONDON: Not yet. It’s just for the purposes of
the cross-examination, and I won’t mark it at this point.
A. There are three pieces of paper here. Are you referring to
one or all three?
Q. (By Mr. London) They are altogether.
Mr. Bell, on the top sheet, do you see where it says “DMV
2000, Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles on CD-ROM”?
A. Yeah, that’s the first page here.
Q. Right. And, in fact, the second page is an envelop from
Bootleg Computing, Astoria, Oregon, sent to you at your
address at 7214 Corregidor.
A. Sure, I see that.
Q. All right. Now, the third is –
A. Wait, hold on. You mentioned – what did you say about my
address at 7214 Corregidor?
Q. Yes. Do you see –
A. The first page here doesn’t –
Q. Do you see the second page? It’s the envelope.
A. Awe, okay. Sure. I see that.
Q. It’s DMV 2000, which is –
A. Okay, I see that now. Sure.
Q. All right. Now, do you see on the first page where it says,
“We warrant the above DMV Databases will be used for
‘marketing’ purposes only in accordance with all Oregon and
federal laws”? It’s right beneath the line.
A. Just a second here.
Okay.
Well, he’s misspelled warrant.
Q. Do you see that, where it says that?
A. It also says Oregon laws. That’s true. I was in
Washington. I’m not aware of the federal laws, but, yes, I
see that line, sure.
Q. I’m just asking you if you see that. I’m also asking you if
this is something you recognize. This was actually taken
during the search of your home.
A. Mm-mmm.
Q. And Bootleg software is in fact the company for Mike
Beketic, the guy who sent you this stuff, isn’t it, the DMV
material?
A. Well, I don’t recall any reference in the search warrant
which would even have made this a legitimate subject of the
warrant. However, there’s a legal point –
Q. Right.
A. – and I’m not a lawyer and I have never been in law school,
so I won’t –
Q. Okay.
A. – try to comment.
Q. Do you have the third document that I gave you? It’s the
email exchange between you at loubell@pacifier.com and
mike@bootleg@pacifier.com?
A. Yes. I was using my mother’s email address temporarily for
a while. Yes, this is a printout of something, and it will
take me a moment to read it all.
Q. All right. Does that look like an email exchange you had
with Mr. Beketic about prices of getting databases, Oregon
DMV databases on disk and so on?
A. The portion that I wrote, yes. There is also other
reference – there’s careted information, quote information.
Q. All right. Well, do you see the – do you see the, down near
the bottom third where, according to the careted
information, Mr. Beketic told you, “You’ll need to sign and
date a little form (new laws) stating the data will be used
for ‘Marketing Purposes’ only”?
A. Mm-hmm. I see that.
Q. And then what’s your response there?
A. Well, it looks to me like I wrote “Fine by me.”
Q. Mr. Bell, when you were brought before this court on these
charges, you asked to be able to have an attorney appointed
for you, correct, based on your financial status?
A. Well, apparently I’ve been denied an attorney. Mr. Leen has
not been acting as my attorney.
Q. Sir, that’s not my question. We’re not here to talk about
Mr. Leen now. I’m just asking you, when you came before
this court, did you fill out a financial affidavit?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. In support of your request to have a lawyer appointed for
you for free?
A. I don’t recall that specifically.
Q. All right.
MR. LONDON: Well, can I ask the witness to hand –
excuse me – the clerk to hand the witness this?
A. Is this in relation to evidence in the crime charged or is
this something entirely different?
Q. (By Mr. London) This goes to your credibility, sir.
A. Okay. Sure. Okay.
Q. All right. You’re looking at the same document I’m looking
at?
A. Well, actually I’m not looking at it. You’re apparently
asking about material that has nothing to do with the crime
charged. I apologize, but I’m concerned about your tactics,
sir. I do not have an attorney representing me at this
time. That man doesn’t do so. I don’t believe I should be
questioned under these circumstances. I need legal – proper
legal counsel. I have been patient to your persistent
questions, and I apologize to the jury. I have been denied
15 defense witnesses. This is not a fair arrangement here.
THE COURT: What’s the question, counsel?
MR. LONDON: I have handed Mr. Bell a copy of the
financial affidavit that he filled out before this court in
which he made certain statements to this court on penalty of
perjury. I would like him to look at it, and I want to go
through some of the things he said in this case.
THE COURT: Do you understand the question, Mr. Bell?
THE WITNESS: So far he doesn’t have a question, but –
THE COURT: Do you understand the question?
THE WITNESS: Which question is this?
Q. (By Mr. London) Do you see in front you a document called
“Financial Affidavit” which you signed on 11/20 of 2000?
A. Yeah, I believe so. Sure.
Q. All right. And this is a document that asks you to report
your assets and your financial information to the court so
that the court can determine if you qualify for appointed
counsel, is it not?
A. Its comments are cryptic here, but I will take your word for
that.
MR. LEEN: Your Honor, the defense objects to any
inquiry into the financial affidavit. It is a matter that
should be relevant only for purposes of appointment of counsel
and for Pretrial Services, and as such, I believe its filing is
for restricted purposes.
THE COURT: The objection is overruled.
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell, at the bottom, what does it say?
Do you see “warning”?
A. Sir, with all due respect, the only person in this room who
has ever claimed to represent me as a lawyer has just made
an objection, and never having been a lawyer and never being
a lawyer and I never will be a lawyer, I know enough about
law to know that he has made a valid objection. And
frankly, I have to follow, while I cannot in general
necessarily trust Mr. Leen’s legal advice, in this
particular instance I see that he has the grain of truth
here, so I’m going to have to decline, respectfully,
answering questions about this document because I do not
have a lawyer that I can fully confide in and get advice
from, despite the example that you just saw. One of the
very first times that Mr. Leen has spoken up in this hearing
today on my behalf.
THE COURT: What’s the next question for the witness?
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell, on this form it asks you about
assets and other sources of income. “Have you received
within the past 12 months any income from a business,
profession or other form of self-employment” –
A. I do not know. I have – as I mention previous –
Q. I’m not finished asking the question. If you will just be
patient, you will have a chance to respond in a moment.
-- “or in the form of . . . interest, dividends . . . or
annuity payments, or other sources? “ Do you see that
question on the form?
A. Sir, I am no longer looking at that form. Did I receive
anything? I have no idea.
Q. Do you see your signature at the bottom of this form?
A. I believe I did when I last looked at the document.
Q. And do you see where you checked off the box “no” when it
asked you about other sources of income?
A. I was not aware of any at the time.
Q. So you weren’t aware of the trust account that’s
administered on your behalf by your attorney J. Marvin
Benson in Vancouver, Washington?
Are you saying that when you came before this court you were
not aware –
A. Sir.
Q. – of the trust account that was maintained –
A. Sir.
Q. – for you by J. Marvin Benson?
A. Sir, you’re asking me about confidential attorney
communications here, it appears. You have gone far beyond
what is ethically possible in what – in a court of law.
Have you no shame? Sir, have you no shame?
Q. Mr. Bell, there is nothing privileged about Mr. Benson’s
distributions to you of $2000 a month all during the month
of last summer –
A. Sir.
Q. – and fall.
A. Sir.
Q. Mr. Bell, we’re not here to argue about law and privilege.
We’re here for you to answer some questions.
A. I have –
Q. So far the Court has not told you not to answer the
question.
THE COURT: What is the question, counsel?
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell, did you report to the court on
the financial affidavit your shares in the Templeton
Emerging Markets Fund – 1852 such shares, to be precise –
that you had on an invoice right here, 2/12/01?
A. I don’t recall.
Q. All right.
MR. LONDON: Well, I’m going to ask the clerk to hand
the witness these documents.
THE WITNESS: I decline to answer any questions about
the documents that were just handed to me. The
circumstances of this hearing are thoroughly improper. I do
not have proper legal representation. He is obviously very
frustrated, the attorney is, that he has totally destroyed
his own case and he is trying to use whatever tactics he
can.
THE COURT: Mr. Bell. Do you decline to answer the
question?
THE WITNESS: I have said before that I’m not
represented by –
THE COURT: Do you understand the question?
THE WITNESS: I do not understand the circumstances
under –
THE COURT: Ask him the question again.
Q. (By Mr. London) Mr. Bell –
THE WITNESS: I must – excuse me, sir. I must –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell.
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Do you or do you not understand the
question you are being asked?
THE WITNESS: I have to respond to the question with
the statement that I am taking the fifth amendment, which
even innocent people are entitled to do, according to a
recent decision of the Supreme Court, based on this man’s
continuing to question me –
THE COURT: Will the jury please go to the jury room.
Do not discuss the case among yourselves or with anyone
else.
(Jury excused at 2:25 p.m.)
THE COURT: Where are we?
Well, the government asked the question.
MR. LEEN: Your Honor, the defendant I think has taken
the Fifth Amendment, and I think he should be allowed to do
that on a – the government is alleging perjury, false
statement. It’s an unrelated crime, it’s a collateral
matter, and he’s invoked the fifth on his own. I think that
that should be the end of the inquiry. I don’t think that
he can be compelled to answer such a question.
MR. LONDON: My response is that he certainly is
entitled to take the fifth, but I believe he should take the
fifth as to each and every one of the $2000 checks that I am
prepared to show him, that he not only took, but did not
report to this court.
THE COURT: Well, even though there hasn’t been any
objection to it, isn’t it beyond the scope of the direct
examination?
MR. LONDON: I don’t believe, Your Honor, that when
something goes to the defendant’s credibility that it really
is beyond the scope. He has talked for many hours to try to
convince the jury of his version of events, and I think the
government is entitled to probe his propensity or lack of
credibility, and this is certainly evidence on point in that
regard.
THE DEFENDANT: Given the government’s attacks on me –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell.
THE DEFENDANT: -- during the last four years –
THE COURT: Mr. Bell.
THE DEFENDANT: I’m sorry.
THE COURT: Well, if you’re sorry, don’t do it.
THE DEFENDANT: All right. Thank you.
THE COURT: You’re saying, even though the question is
beyond the direct examination, you can test his credibility?
MR. LONDON: Yes, Your Honor. Our position is that the
objection is beyond the scope –
THE COURT: Well, hasn’t he already put his credibility
in issue?
MR. LONDON: He has. That’s our view as to –
THE COURT: Well, how many times do we put it in issue
then?
MR. LONDON: Well, if he puts it in issue once, I’m
entitled to show why he’s not credible, and this is direct
evidence of why he’s not credible. If he wants to plead the
fifth, that’s fine, but I would like to be able to take him
through each and every one of these checks and let him plead
the fifth as to that and why he didn’t report any one of
those on his financial affidavit under penalty of perjury to
this court.
THE COURT: Well, if I understand that, isn’t that a
separate charge?
MR. LONDON: It can be. He hasn’t been charged with
it. Yet.
THE COURT: Don’t you – are you saying that this court
should now determine whether he’s perjured himself or not?
MR. LONDON: No.
THE COURT: Well, what are you saying?
MR. LONDON: I’m saying simply that we should be
allowed to ask him about each one of these checks that he
deposited in his bank account and why he didn’t report –
THE COURT: Well, we’re not there. Back up.
MR. LONDON: All right.
THE COURT: You’ve asked him certain questions, you
say, that test his credibility. Does the test of
credibility raise the issue of perjury?
MR. LONDON: Perjury is implied in terms of what he did
on that form.
THE COURT: Who decides perjury?
MR. LONDON: A jury, after it’s charged. He isn’t
charged.
THE COURT: After it’s charged, but he hasn’t been
charged with perjury.
MR. LONDON: He has not been charged with perjury. He
is in peril of being charged with perjury. That’s why his
invoking of the fifth makes absolute sense, and we are not
opposed to his declining to answer the question on the
grounds of self-incrimination in view of the jeopardy that
he’s in for a perjury charge. However, we believe the
appropriate thing is to be able to ask of him as to every
one of those checks, and then have him invoke the fifth as
to every one of those checks.
THE COURT: Well, since you have gone beyond the direct
examination, and he – there’s been an objection. He says he
wants to take the fifth. I’m going to sustain the
objection.
MR. LONDON: Will the jury be informed that he has
taken the fifth as to this line of questioning?
THE COURT: I don’t intend to tell the jury, to say
anything. The jury has already heard it. Haven’t they?
Now, is there any other questions that we’re going to get in
this? Because I don’t want the jury to go out every five
seconds while we take up an issue.
Let’s, since they are out, let’s take a 15-minute recess.
(Recessed at 3:30 p.m.)
(Jury not present, 2:47 p.m.)
THE COURT: Anything further to take up? Before the
jury comes back.
MR. LEEN: Your Honor, I would like to make a motion
for a mistrial for the prosecutor’s direct eliciting of a
fifth amendment response from the defendant while he was on
the stand.
THE COURT: That will be denied.
MR. LONDON: We’re not going to do any further cross-
examination with him. We are done.
THE COURT: Any other witness you intend to call, Mr.
Leen?
MR. LEEN: No, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Any rebuttal?
MR. LONDON: No, Your Honor. And I’m wondering if
before the jury is brought back if this might be the time to
do the instruction conference?
THE COURT: Of course not.
Bring the jury.
(Jury present, 2:49 p.m.)
THE COURT: Let the record reflect the jury has
returned. You may be seated.
Any further questions of this witness, Mr. London?
MR. LONDON: No, Your Honor, no further cross-
examination.
THE COURT: Redirect, Mr. Leen?
MR. LEEN: No questions, Your Honor.
THE COURT: The witness may step down.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
(Witness excused.)
* * * * *
C E R T I F I C A T E
I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from
the record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter.
_________________________________ __July 2, 2001__
JULIANE V. RYEN Date