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Alleged AIG Embezzlers Spend Thanksgiving In Custody. November 17th Preliminary Hearing Postponed Once Again. Part Two.
By Lonce LaMon - November 30, 2009

I waited a while, perhaps 15, 20 minutes, before I walked up and spoke to Hector Porrata’s attorney.  I was concerned about my manner of approaching him.  I did not want to be irritating or improper.  Certainly being a non-lawyer, I do not know civil court protocol or procedure, so I don’t know what’s proper or improper to ask.  So, I just went for broke and walked up and spoke to him.

He was very nice to me; he was not rejecting or even stand-offish.  I introduced myself, and he told me his name is Gil Carreon.  He’s a good looking man; he reminds me of Vicente Fernandez but with a bald head, which is why he looks like a Mexican Mariachi to me.  He told me that the reason so many postponements are happening with the Preliminary Hearing is because it is very hard to get all five attorneys in the same court room at the same time.  Gil was there on this day and time, and so was Mary Kreber, who is George Martinez’s attorney, but Michael Currier wasn’t, who is Cara Cruz-Thompson’s attorney, from what I gathered from Gil, and I didn’t sense the presence of Fred McBride, who is Rene Montes’ attorney, either. 

Gil Carreon told me who all the respective attorneys are for each one of the defendants.  And it was from Gil that I figured out that Mary Kreber is the woman attorney with the gorgeous patent leather shoes.  The fifth attorney he was referring to is the District Attorney, and I did not think to inquire about his name or ask if he was there.  So at this point when I withdrew from Gil Carreon, I didn’t know anything about the District Attorney.  I excused myself after learning all the names of the respective defendants' attorneys because I did not want to be overbearing.

Thus, I retreated to a chair towards the back of the room and decided I would observe just a little while longer and then leave.  I looked at Gil as he opened up wide the newspaper again and resumed reading.  I could see so clearly that he was reading the L.A. Times.  I found it amusing he was doing this in the middle of Court because I’ve always had this line in my head from Albert Camus’ brilliant novel The Fall

The Fall was written in the 1950s just 10 years or a little longer after the end of World War II.  The protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Clamance, tells about how a man quit smoking, and then when he read about the Atom bomb and its “wonderful effects” hastened to a tobacco shop.  Then he sums up modern man with his very negative existential point of view, by saying, “One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and read the newspapers.”

Thus, ever since reading this, which I’ve read perhaps seven or nine times, I have not been able to stop cracking up every time I see a man reading a newspaper in a public place.  Existentialist literature has bent my mind, which is something my parents and sisters vociferously complained about.  But the damage, so to speak, has been done, therefore I see the world through the rose colored opticals of existentialist literature. 

Therefore, in my amusement, I decided I would take a picture of Gil Carreon reading the L.A. Times in the middle of Court.  And I would publish this picture with this article to amuse you, my readers.  I thought all of you would get a kick out of seeing Hector Porrata’s attorney reading the newspaper in Court.  

So, I slipped out my pink razr phone, set it on camera mode, and I took a couple of pictures.  Then, I put my phone back in my purse. Then, as I sat there thinking it was time to leave, I saw the Bailiff walk up to a man seated at the small conference table with Gil Carreon.  They exchanged a few words, and then the Bailiff looked at me.  Then he walked towards me with an angry look in his eyes.  He spoke.

“Did you take a picture in here?” 

The Bailiff stood before me.  I found myself in one of those moments of “I cannot tell a lie”, so I replied, “Yes, I did.” 

“May I see the instrument you used to take the picture?”

So, I pulled out my precious and beloved pink razr phone, and showed it to him.   He then demanded that I show him the pictures I took, so I went into “My Pixs” and pulled up the two pictures of Gil Carreon reading the newspaper. 

Then the bailiff said, “Would you please give me that phone?”  So, I obediently handed it to him, and then he said, “Thank you.” 

And as he walked away he said to me, “You stay right there.” 

But, I was confused, so I followed him and as I trailed behind him I said, “I am sorry. I apologize.  I apologize to you.”  But the Bailiff turned around to me and said, “You can’t apologize.”  And I said, “But I do apologize.” To which he replied, “You can’t apologize!  It’s against the law!”  

Oh, dear.  In this moment the Bailiff almost shouted at me, “You get back there and sit down!  And don’t move!”  The whole court room was staring at me.   I could tell in this moment that I was in deep shit.   So, I returned to my chair and I sat.  And I sat.  And a good half-an-hour went by. And I continued to sit.  And I did not know what to do.  Was I supposed to just sit there forever?

Thus, after approximately a half-an-hour, I approached the Bailiff at the podium.  I sat down in the front row where the sign dangled that read, Reserved For Attorneys And Law Enforcement.   I motioned to the Bailiff and I asked, “Am I at least allowed to go to the Ladies Room?” 

Then, he said, “Just a minute.”  And he indicated for me to wait.   So I waited for many minutes more.  Finally, the Bailiff approached me and said to me, “You are to come back here at 1:30 pm.  The Judge will hear your case then.”   But, before he would allow me to leave for the interim, as it was only 11:30 am at this time, he demanded to know my Driver’s License Number, My Social Security Number, My Job Title, My Home Address, My Date of Birth, my Home Telephone Number, plus the phone number of the Cell Phone he had confiscated.  Damn.  I was apparently being let go on “my own recognizance”.   But I was under a sort of house arrest.  I almost thought he was going to make me wear an ankle bracelet. 

So, feeling rather humiliated and ashamed, I went to the cafeteria and got a cup of coffee. Then, I walked to my car just because I felt disturbed and wanted to walk around.  But I decided to myself that I was not going to get upset or traumatized.  I just decided not to go there.  

Thus, when I returned to the Court Room, it hadn’t reopened yet from the lunch recess.  As I approached the door, I saw a woman sitting on the bench just next to the door.  She had dark shoulder length hair, and she looked up at me and said, “So, that asshole Bailiff took your cell phone?”  I was a little taken aback by her spontaneous frankness on so short an acquaintance, but I could not repress a slight laugh.   I said, “Ah… yeah…” 

So, I sat down next to this dark haired woman.  Within fifteen minutes, I learned that her name was Martha, that she was a heroin addict, and that her mother, also a heroin addict, had died in the Orange County Women’s Jail in 1994.  Then an acquaintance of hers walked up, also a heroin addict, and I heard about how she was now down to a very low dose of methadone.   Thus, here I was, in Orange County Superior Court having a gab feast with heroin addicts.  Martha’s husband’s case was going to be heard in the afternoon along with mine, as he got picked up for possessing $20 worth of heroin that he had bought in an attempt to “take the edge off” his withdrawal symptoms while he was trying to dry out.

Finally, the Court Room door opened so I entered.  My head was swimming as I stepped in and took a seat way up in the front row, so I could sit near the Bailiff.  From where I sat, I could see eight to ten inmates in the cages.  Men in cages, being treated just like caged animals-just like lions and tigers.  It reminded me of a circus.  The attorneys and the judge were the lion tamers. 

I thought of how crazy this was, and how humiliating for me, when I hadn’t even come close to being a heroin addict or being accused of embezzlement.  But I was “on trial” here for taking a picture of an attorney reading the newspaper.  How absurd.  This definitely had to be some scene out of an existentialist novel.

So, I waited for my case to be heard.  I turned around and I saw Martha behind me in the center seats.  She smiled at me.  I smiled back.  I thought about anybody in claims who might have the idea of embezzling money in any one of the usual ways.  Setting up a fake vendor.  Acting as a phony lien collector.   I thought to cry out to anybody in the industry who might even have the faintest fantasy of embezzling, “DON’T EVEN GO THERE!” 

The humiliation of being caged up like a beast is worse than any humiliation which could ever come from any form of poverty or any average paying job.  No form of relative poverty could be worse than being thrown into jail with meth-amphetamine addicts and heroin addicts.  And God knows whom else…

Suddenly the Judge called my name.   It was shocking to hear my name called out in the Court Room.  I stood up.  The Judge spoke out.

“I understand you’re with the Media and work as a journalist.  And I don’t understand exactly why you were taking a picture of the District Attorney…”

Holy smoke.  My mind froze.  I had no idea that I was taking a picture of the District Attorney.  I didn’t even know who the District Attorney was.  I was simply taking a picture of Gil Carreon, Hector Porrata’s attorney, reading the newspaper.  But, apparently, the District Attorney was sitting right next to him.  Holy Toledo!

The Judge went on.  I tried to interrupt him with my apology, but he stepped right over my words.  He kept talking and would not allow me to speak.  Then he said, “You are welcome in my Court Room at any time.  All I ask is that you ask my permission if you would ever like to take a photograph of anyone or anything.  Rather than fine you for Contempt of Court, I will ask you to delete the photographs you took from your instrument, and allow the Bailiff to watch while you delete them.” 

I thanked the Judge, and finally at the end of his speech I was able to deliver my apology.  The Bailiff handed me my beloved pink razr phone, and I allowed him to observe as I deleted the two pictures of Gil Carreon reading the newspaper.

I thought the Judge was fair to me.  I felt his words and his attitude toward me were completely appropriate.  His name is Erick L. Larsh.  I like him. 

As I left the Court Room and made my way to my car, I thought of another amusing line from Camus’ The Fall:  “It wasn’t a matter of the certainty I had of being more intelligent than others, such a certainty is of no consequence, for every imbecile shares it.”

Yes, every imbecile thinks he’s more intelligent than others.  And every claims adjuster should never be an imbecile.  Don’t even go there if you think you can set up a phony vendor and get away with it.   You can’t.  Your life, as boring and as mediocre as it may seem, is imbued with dignity. 

You would never want to be brought into the Court Room in so undignified a manner as being contained inside of a cage like a caged lion.  Right out of a circus…  

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

 

 
 

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