The Kelly Soo Park Case For Murder. Judge Says, “This Is A Very Old Case. We Need To Get Going.” By Lonce LaMon - January 6, 2013
Downtown Los Angeles. The Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Court House. Division 109. Friday, January 4th 2013. Late morning.
The honorable Kathleen Kennedy took a long time to get to the bench. I think she was late to arrive to the court this morning. And then two cases were heard before Kelly Soo Park’s.
One of them involved two heroin dealers. The defense attorney was Chris Chaney who was within my circle of friends at USC in the early 1970s. I know Los Angeles, its people, and its history.
But Judge Kathleen was not happy when Kelly Soo’s defense attorney, George Buehler, requested a continuance until the end of January because he did not have his answer ready to the prosecution’s motion to admit “Other Act Evidence”.
Kathleen can be cantankerous and outwardly express displeasure, but she does it with charm.
Judge Kathleen Kennedy: That’s not okay with me. I am starting a trial. I don’t have the time. Today was the perfect day. I don’t really see a good time to handle it until late February.
George Buehler: That’s okay. We were just trying to find the earliest date.
Buehler had also said that he and his law partner, Mark Kassabian, felt they needed more time for their answer because they were dealing with a tricky area of the law. So, this writer called George Buehler later in the day for a more ample explanation. Buehler answered his cell phone and respectfully explained:
George Buehler: We’re opposing it (the DA’s motion to Admit Other Act Evidence) and that’s sometimes a tricky area of the law. There are certain things that Ms. Park allegedly did in connection with business dealings that had nothing to do with the victim in this case. But the prosecution claims that Ms. Park does aggressive things in business negotiations and they think they should be admitted to show a possible motive for what happened in this case. That’s the basic gist of their motion. And we’re opposing it because I think it’s nonsense.
The prosecution is alleging that Kelly Soo Park acted as the “enforcer” for Dr. Munir Uwaydah, a notorious former California spinal surgeon, who is under an on-going investigation for workers’ compensation insurance fraud (and other frauds) and is presently on-the-lam in Lebanon. Uwaydah fled Southern California immediately after Kelly Soo Park was arrested in late June of 2010. Park is presently out of custody on a 3.5 million dollar bond.
George Buehler, one of Kelly Soo Park's defense attorneys, is about to cross Hill Street on West Temple near the Downtown L.A. criminal court house as he talks on his cell phone after the hearing on Friday morning, January 4th. "I think it's nonsense," is what he said about the DA's motion to admit Other Act Evidence.
The DA alleges that Kelly Soo aggressively on a regular basis got in people’s faces, demanded payments, and forcefully demanded myriad actions through threats and intimidation. She inspired fear through intimations of repercussions. And the DA’s point is that the physical altercation between Kelly Soo and victim, Juliana Redding, on March 15th 2008, is a follow-through from threats from Uwaydah that resulted in the death of the aspiring actress. It was Kelly Soo Park’s job to act out after the warnings if terms of demands were not met.
Therefore, the evidence of Kelly Soo Park’s history of aggressive enforcement actions against people should be admitted into evidence, according to the DA’s argument, to support what she, Kelly Soo, allegedly did to Juliana Redding on the night of March 15th 2008 in the extreme which caused her death.
According to the DA’s theory, Juliana Redding and her father, Gregory Redding, did not live up to Uwaydah’s demands when Uwaydah proposed a business deal with Greg Redding, a pharmacist, for him to run a pharmacy and make compound medications which could be sold for huge profits in the workers’ compensation system since the system at the time had no fee schedule to control the mark-ups for compounded medications. Several days after Greg Redding backed out of the business deal, his 21-year-old daughter was found dead in her Santa Monica apartment.
This alleged pattern and practice of Kelly Soo Park intimidating and threatening people who don’t do what Uwaydah demands, the prosecution finds directly applicable to what Kelly Soo allegedly did to Juliana Redding when her father didn’t meet Uwaydah’s demands and backed out of the pharmacy deal. Park made good on Uwaydah’s threats, as she was, according to Uwaydah, a “female James Bond” who could always be relied upon.
George Buehler, still talking on his cell phone after having stepped off the curb and into the crosswalk after court last Friday morning, talked on his cell phone before the court room opened, had his cell phone ring in the court room after all cell phones were requested to be turned off, and then asked the bailiff for a private land line and left court to use that land line; and thus, delayed the proceedings while everyone waited for him. Is he just a very busy criminal defense attorney? Or is he a teenaged boy?
Now, this DA theory which is the substance of their present motion for demanding admission of “Other Act Evidence” is what George Buehler states he thinks is nonsense.
George Buehler: We wanted more time to do our research on it before having it heard by the court.
But now, Buehler has to have his answer ready and filed by mid-February and be ready to have it heard by the court on February 28th 2013. Buehler also now explains that he is going to start another trial soon, and he’s concerned that trial will go well into February.
George Buehler: The March 11th date (for this Kelly Soo Park trial) is not realistic. I think we would like to push off to the end of March. Two more weeks…
Judge Kathleen is less than thrilled to hear this. She has a strong concern for the court’s calendar and for a jury trial date for Kelly Soo Park. Her clerk is on vacation and she’s feeling the passage of time.
Kathleen Kennedy: This is a very old case. It’s aged tremendously. We need to get going with this case. So, if we were to leave that (the March 11th trial date), do you feel you could start within 10 days of March 11th?
George has a hard time committing to this. He hesitates.
But the judge does not yet change the trial date. She sticks to the March 11th date for the moment.
The Deputy District Attorney, Stacey Okun-Weise, discusses more bank records. There’s more discovery, and lots of bank records. The DA is obviously tracking the payments from Uwaydah and his businesses. Follow the money. Additional bank records.
Defense attorney Mark Kassabian, George Buehler’s partner, then discusses the subpoenas on the Santa Monica Police Department. He states that the defense was barred from getting copies. Judge Kennedy then tells him to consider the order amended. Kassabian then hands some discovery to Stacy Okun-Weise. Discovery goes on. Stacey talks about how the defense wants more DNA analysis. She doesn’t want to keep coming back for more of that…
The defense is going to do more DNA analysis, ad nauseum, most likely until they can find an “in” to propound an argument that the DNA is not necessarily Kelly Soo Park’s. Focus on reasonable doubt. They are going to attack the evidence in every way they can.
That’s their only possible strategy. Munir Uwaydah, whom the DA believes paid for and ordered Kelly Soo to commit the murder, is paying Buehler and Kassabian. Kelly Soo signed a waiver of conflict-of-interest. So, how could the defense pin the crime on Uwaydah? It’s not going to happen.
George Buehler is well off the curb now and into the crosswalk of the intersection of West Temple and Hill Street. Shouldn't he be looking for bad drivers finally and not continuing to work that cell phone?
A few months ago, Mark Kassabian tried to disqualify the wire taps from becoming admissible evidence by arguing that they were obtained illegally and illegitimately. He wants that evidence of Kelly Soo Park’s tapped phone conversations thrown out. Likewise, he and his partner now want the evidence of “Other Act Evidence” from the DA’s present motion tossed out, so it’s this writer’s opinion they are going to continue to try to disqualify all the evidence they can. They will do this throughout the trial. They want all they can eliminate as incriminating evidence, eliminated.
I’m very much looking forward to watching Buehler and Kassabian try and pull a rabbit out of a hat. Their best defense now for Kelly Soo is her beauty. For all their skill as lawyers, Kelly Soo’s looks are way more powerful of a defense than any argument their legal prowess and experience can manifest. As my mother always told me, “Everybody loves a beautiful woman.”
Any jury is going to have a really hard time convicting Kelly Soo Park. And if she were smart, she’d stop running from the cameras.
A jury couldn’t convict O.J. Simpson because he was a famous jock. One couldn’t convict Robert Blake either, or Phil Specter. But the Menendez brothers weren’t so lucky; they weren’t famous jocks or beloved actors or music producers. And they weren’t beautiful women. They were just spoiled Beverly Hills brats who hated their parents. They got convicted.
A jury could not convict OJ Simpson in 1995 because he was a beloved sports hero. This writer is in the picture here (red arrow) with OJ at the 1972 USC Homecoming football game.
Kelly Soo Park is lovely, elegant, graceful, and charming. She is gorgeous, in spite of the incipient bags which now have begun to regularly appear under her eyes. The strain on her life is showing. Her eyes have appeared red and watery at each hearing for the past few months.
She sat there on Friday morning in the second row on the exact end near the center aisle in the audience seats in Department 109 as she waited for her case to be called. Her beloved husband, retired Oxnard policeman, Tom Chronister, sat directly on her right. Her silky and sensual, straight black hair fell down over the back of the bench as she sat dressed entirely in black—matching Tom who was also in his black jacket. On this extremely nippy January morning, Kelly Soo was dressed very warmly in perfect harmony with her husband.
She often looks lovingly and admiringly at her husband in the ideal manner of a truly devoted and compliant wife. Tom has shaved off his beard and now only sports a mustache. He likes to wear his usual pair of conventional blue jeans. He always waits for his wife faithfully and patiently outside the ladies’ room.
I wish I’d had permission from the court to take a picture of the back of this perfect pair from where I sat just behind them. Tom’s bald shaved head and Kelly Soo’s long flowing and sensuous black hair stood in juxtaposition. Her hair flowed like a gentle stream of sensual ebony. They epitomized the picture of the idealized married couple.
Kelly Soo and Tom kept in perfect step last month on December 11th as they strode up West Temple Street after the court proceedings.
Now the trial has been pushed forward until March 18th. Judge Kathleen Kennedy finally conceded in moving it forward a week. George Buehler wanted it moved to the 25th. But he didn’t get his way entirely with Judge Kathleen. She compromised half-way.
The DA is concerned about what to say to the Reddings. The Reddings, Patricia and Gregory, who are the parents of the victim, Juliana, have a son in college. They live in Arizona and want to be present for the trial. They have agonized for nearly five years over the murder of their daughter. By the time the trial starts, it will be more than five years since Juliana was murdered.
The poor Reddings—they must live each day in perpetual Hell. And as the days tick on, so far, they have no justice or sense of closure for their beloved Juliana who is lost to them forever.
And Munir Uwaydah lives day-by-day on the lam in Lebanon. He hurls his violent legal attacks against this writer. He gets Court Orders out of Beirut, which he most likely obtains through bribes. He sends them to my Domain Name registrars and my Domain Name Server service provider, hoping he will instill the same kind of terror in them that he instills in everyone else he wishes to control. And, he sends the Orders to me a week later than he sends them to my service providers, hoping to black out my publication through scaring my service providers to death and forcing them to action against me through terror, and thus catching me off guard.
I remember reading from the documents of the DA and hearing on the October 17th 2012 Good Morning America program that Kelly Soo Park showed up at Juliana Redding’s apartment and caught her off-guard. That’s part of Munir Uwaydah’s and Kelly Soo Park’s strategy: they catch their victims off-guard. And that’s what Uwaydah constantly does to me with his Lebanese Court Orders.
I am an independent journalist, and we who are independent journalists are the biggest targets. At least 67 journalists were killed worldwide in 2012 in direct relation to their work. Gabriel Elizondo, a correspondent for al-Jazeera in São Paulo, Brazil, was quoted as saying by the Committee to Protect Journalists (www.cpj.org ) in a December 22nd 2012 NBC news article: “In small cities, bloggers and writers for small newspapers and Web portals who are calling out corruption are being targeted. The profile is usually the same: It’s a small-town journalist, working for a small outlet, who gets gunned down."
So I am armed now, and I am constantly vigilant. I will defend myself. I will continue to communicate to law enforcement about the Lebanese legal attacks.
Munir Uwaydah, circa 2008
I tell the world to look to Dr. Uwaydah and his world-wide crime ring if I am attacked and destroyed. Being a journalist today and reporting on war, crime, political corruption, drug trafficking, and insurance fraud is a dangerous endeavor. Richard Engel and his NBC production crew were kidnapped and held hostage in Syria last month. They were finally released after five days of captivity on December 17th 2012.
But presently, Uwaydah and his gang are the only identifiable malefactors who wish to silence my voice. I become more and more aware of the dangers of reporting on this case as this trial date approaches.
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