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Preliminary Hearing For Accused AIG/Matrix Embezzlers This Monday, October 19th-PART TWO
By Lonce LaMon - October 16, 2009

This coming Monday, October 19th, 2009, at 8:30 am, is the preliminary hearing for the accused embezzlers Rene Montes, Hector Porrata, George Martinez, and Cara Cruz-Thompson at the Orange County Superior Court at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

Last Thursday mid-afternoon, October 8th, I left the Orange County jail after submitting a Media request to interview all of the aforementioned inmates. 

At around 5:30 pm, I got a call from a Deputy McTigue on my cell phone. He said two of the inmates had agreed to talk to me. When I asked who had agreed, he said Rene Montes and Cara Cruz-Thompson.  The other two inmates, George Martinez and Hector Porrata, had declined. 

So, that was good!  I was now excited that I was going to at least get to talk to Rene and Cara, so I started thinking about Christopher Lear's advice on questions again. I can't ask them if they really "did it". Okay, got it.

So, I returned to the jail the next day, which was last Friday, October 9th, just a little after 1:30 pm.  The traffic had been unbelievable.  What a difference between a Thursday and a Friday for Orange County traffic. When I walked into the Attorney and Bonds room of the Men's Jail, a deputy in the darkness saw me right away and slipped me the forms through the gulley.  He instructed me to go over to the Intake and Release Center and to present my forms for the interviews there. 

The day before I had been told that I could conduct the interviews there in the Attorney/Bonds room.  Okay. Whatever. Just another instance of another deputy being on another page.

When I walked into IRC, I stepped into another room of one way glass which was a hall of mirrors instead of a black hole.  I stood at the window staring at myself in the mirror. 

This felt so bizarre because I immediately felt this sense of being like Narcissus staring at his reflection in the pool about to be sucked in. 

There was a clear plastic box with a door to my right.  The sign on it read, "Don't talk here." On the mirror in front of me and at the left of the box, there was a round vent at the mouth level of a person of average height, and it read "Talk here".

With this mirror, I could not catch any glimpse of an image at all of the person behind it.  I was literally looking at myself directly in the mirror the whole time, which was enormously irritating because I could see starkly how flat my hair looked. I do not like to primp in a mirror in public because it looks so bad and so vain; thus, I had to resist the urge to use my fingers to poof up my hair. This was difficult and demanded self-control. I could barely stand it.

The voice behind the mirror told me that the inmates did not have to interview with me and that their consent would have to be requested.  I responded that I already knew that-- that the Deputy at the Men's Jail in the Attorney/Bonds room had already explained that. Yet, he had gotten the permission of two of the inmates, and that they had already consented. Their signatures were right there on the forms.

But the voice didn't seem convinced, so he warned me that he would have to call into the interior and find out where each inmate was and have them tracked down for the interviews. 

And then he repeated again that they might say "no", to which I repeated again that I already understood. So, I pointed out again to this disembodied male voice that by virtue of the fact that two had signed the form--Cara Cruz-Thompson and Rene Montes--they had consented to be interviewed. But somehow, this voice behind the mirror was very skeptical.  So just call them, I expressed, and I will wait. Then just tell me where I need to go in order to do my interview, I thought to myself. This was getting exasperating.

So, I stood there in front of that mirror for a long time-- ten, fifteen minutes.  My hair was driving me crazy.  I thought of digging into my purse and pulling out my rat tail comb, but I resisted.  I thought of pulling out my Estee Lauder lipstick.  But I resisted that, too. I thought that a small room with mirrors on all sides could serve as a torture chamber. Especially for anyone on a bad hair day.

So, a long time passed and finally the disembodied voice spoke again.  He said, "Rene Montes was interrupted while in a classroom, and he does not want to be interviewed.  Cara Cruz-Thompson was working out in the yard, and she was asked if she would come to interview with you, but she stated she does not want to talk to you.  She also said that she doesn't know who you are."

Okay, fine, I thought.  I also felt somewhat slighted, but in a humorous sort of way.  Well, I know who she is, so why shouldn't she know who I am?.  Of all the nerve.  Okay.  Good bye.

But, before I left, the disembodied voice told me that Cara had not understood what she was signing the day prior. She thought she was just signing a form acknowledging that someone from the Media had come to request an interview with her.  She did not understand that by signing the form she was consenting to talk to that Media representative.  Rene Montes apparently had the same misunderstanding.  He had misunderstood what he was signing and didn't realize that he was agreeing to be interviewed. Now that he got it, he said no way.

Communication at the Orange County Jail is like speaking under water.  It's like everyone is an automaton individually functioning like an atom unattached to any molecule. There is no collective system of communication: everyone is a robot, autonomous unto themselves. The employees are all in their own little worlds and when they have to interact with an inmate they just sort of grunt and hand the inmate a pen.

So, I was cooked. Thus, I left the IRC and once outside I sat down on a seatwall nearby the exit to make a call.  I called up Sandra Gutierrez, the V.P. of Claims of ICA in Torrance, and after she answered, Marilyn Murata, the President, also got on the speaker phone.  While I was trying to communicate with both Sandra and Marilyn, a loud voice blared over the loud speaker barking out orders.  I couldn't understand what the blaring voice was saying, because it was so violently loud that the sound was all distorted. 

I had this visceral feeling of being the protagonist, Winston Smith, in George Orwell's novel 1984.  Big Brother is watching you! And he is barking out orders as he watches you from a bird's eye view from on high. Terrifying!

Marilyn and Sandra were both rather blown away by the obstreperous noise, and they both reacted with a "what the heck is that" kind of reaction. I finished the conversation as quickly as I could in order to spare their sensibilities.

I noticed I had Deputy McTigue's phone number in my Caller ID, so I decided to call him and let him know the two inmates really hadn't agreed to an interview with me after all.  It had all been a big misunderstanding.  When he answered his cell phone, I identified myself and told him what had happened.  He said he was sorry as he knew that I had really wanted to get the interviews.  Since he seemed inclined to chat with me, I seized the opportunity and asked him what was the deal with the dark glass and the one way mirrors. 

He told me they are for security purposes. He said that they can see us in both of the rooms, but we can't see them, and that's precisely what they want.  He explained that they watch people who come to visit very closely, and they don't want the visitors being watched to know they are being watched.  Because if one knows one is being watched, one won't do certain things.  Oh, my God!  Big brother is watching you!

McTigue also said that people come in disguises and try to spring people out of jail.  Somebody could dress up like a priest and play act, he explained.  So, they watch everyone behind one way glass.

Freaky.  I was now afraid to go to the rest room.  So, I decided that I was out of there. From Santa Ana, I took the 5 freeway South past the 22 freeway and got off at the 133 South.  That is the road to Laguna Beach.  It ends at a T- intersection at Pacific Coast Highway.  I turned to the left there and traveled just a couple of miles down to the Surf and Sand Resort.

The valet costs only $6, so I gave the valet my car, walked straight through the lobby, hung a left, and took the elevator down to the beach.  There I found Heaven on Earth at Splashes restaurant right at the sand. 

I sat in the bar area, as it was only 3:30 pm and the restaurant does not open until 5.  So, it was happy hour, and the hor d'oeurves were only $6 to $9, and the premium wines by the glass were only $8 and $9.  They served the Rodney Strong Chardonnay and the Hess Chardonnay as their house wines.  Pretty classy!  I wound up spending less than $50 dollars on three glasses of wine with two very nice and substantial hors d'oeurves. 

Having Christopher Lear's statement locked into my mind of, "Never make it seem as though they're already guilty," I made no judgments as I contemplated the inmates' predicament.  I simply thought about the beauty of human freedom. My freedom. Anyone's freedom.  I thought about how little it costs to dine at the most exquisite resort in Orange County--if one shows up at the right time.  Because here I was! I was doing it for less than $50. 

I thought about how much my income has dropped because of the recession.  I thought of how many losses I have sustained--economic and otherwise.  I thought about all of my life's disasters--all the "slings and arrows the flesh is heir to" as Hamlet immortally proclaims.

I looked out the window at a couple holding hands while strolling up the beach.  I watched an attractive auburn haired woman sitting at the bar while staring out to sea. I watched a solitary man stroll up the shore as darkness descended. I watched the sunset in all of its radiant splendor.

As I sat there caught in my ecstasy, I thought about the fact that Big Brother was not watching me.

Readers may write to writer Lonce LaMon at lonce@adjustercom.com

 

 

  

 
 

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