(7) STATEMENT
Grounds
for Complaint:
1. The evidence strongly suggests that Ms.
Reeves raided my personnel file to obtain information for her client, in
violation of an employer's duty to protect current and former employees'
privacy and confidentiality. At the very
least, this was a conflict of interest from which she should have recused
herself. As a member of the State Bar
and Officer of the Court, Ms. Reeves had the duty to uphold all laws, including
those relating to privacy and confidentiality. Not only did she know better, by virtue of her
extensive legal education and experience as a member of the Bar, but also as
evidenced by her demonstration of that very knowledge as shown in relevant
portions of my deposition transcript attached hereto.
2. Ms. Reeves used veiled threats related
to my Confidentiality Agreement with Paul,
3. The transcript of my deposition
contained material omissions. The court
reporter was employed by Ms. Reeve's firm. Because the omissions were material, it is
suggestive that the material was selectively deleted rather than just missed
during transcription by the court reporter.
Rule 5-200 states that "A member shall not suppress any evidence
that the member or the member's client has a legal obligation to reveal or to
produce." Testimony I gave during
my deposition, which was damaging to Ms. Reeve's law firm and/or to
Scientology, was suppressed in that it was omitted from the transcript of my
deposition.
Background Information:
Between
April 27, 1998 and October 16, 1998, I was employed by the law firm of Paul,
Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in
At
all times during my employment with Paul,
A few weeks or so after terminating my employment with PHJ&W, I wrote a declaration concerning illegal activities at PHJ&W of which I had become aware while employed at PHJ&W. It pertained to the PHJ&W Court Services Specialist informing me that certain PHJ&W attorneys were asking him to get court clerks to backdate documents being presented by PHJ&W to the court in an untimely manner. The Court Services Specialist was very uncomfortable with this practice and devised a plan to dissuade the relevant PHJ&W attorneys from demanding this special service. He said that he told the relevant PHJ&W attorneys that each time he had to procure this special processing it would cost $300. Unfortunately, his plan backfired when the PHJ&W attorneys readily paid the money to him. At the time he told me this, he appeared to be very stressed and disturbed about the situation he was in, and did not know how to extricate himself from it without losing his job.
Because
the declaration I had written was entered into the Berry v. Barton case,
on February 4, 1999, I was deposed as a third-party witness in that matter by
Barbara Reeves, of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Scientology's outside
legal counsel. The harassment began when
two employees of Paul, Hastings came to the reception area of my new employer
and made a big production over serving me with a subpoena sometime in January,
1999.
Even
though we were acquainted with one another, the deposition started out with Ms.
Reeves looking stone-faced and very angry.
I responded in similar fashion to the extent that she finally cooled off
and tried to act like it was me who was being uncivil (by commenting that I
seemed hostile). I responded by telling
her that if I appeared hostile it was because I was matching her level, but was
agreeable to having the deposition proceed under more civil circumstances. My impression was that Mr. Reeves was not
going to be conducting an impartial fact-finding inquiry, but rather a witch
hunt. [cheryl, we know each other…deleted?]
In
the deposition, Ms. Reeves asked me if I had gone by any other names and I
disclosed my former married name of Cheryl Sola. (DT 6:16)
After
numerous questions regarding my former married name and former addresses, Ms.
Reeves then inquired if I had ever had an address in San Diego,
California. I indicated that I had a
post office box and stated that I had used it when I had sent a letter to three
different Scientology law firms requesting a refund of my donations. (DT
12:5-17)
Later
in the deposition, Ms. Reeves presented to me a blank Confidentiality Agreement
and asked if I had signed something similar.
I said that I believed that I had signed a Confidentiality Agreement but
that I would have to see the signed original to be able to identify it. Ms. Reeves strongly indicated that I did not,
because of the Confidentiality Agreement I had signed, have the right to go
outside of PHJ&W with the information I had about alleged illegal
activities. I asked her since when had
contract law changed so as to allow the silencing of illegal activities. I believe she was misstating facts in an
effort to try and intimidate me into silence or to coerce me into retracting
the allegations I had made for fear of being sued for breach of contract. When Mr. Berry asked her if it was her
position that confidentiality agreements could legitimately keep crimes and
unethical behavior confidential (DT 76:2-3), she ignored him and would not
answer his questions.
In the context of the illegal activity issue, I commented to Ms. Reeves that where there is one illegal activity found out, there are probably ten more not found out. deleted from transcript?
Again,
Ms. Reeves asked if I remembered signing a confidentiality agreement similar to
the blank one she was showing me. I
could not identify with any certainty that the blank one she was showing me was
an exact duplicate of the one I signed and said so. She asked me if I was denying signing
it. It was clear that I was not denying
signing it. I just could not say with
any certainty that the blank form she was showing me was an exact duplicate of
what I had signed. Again, I felt like I
was being harassed and pushed into some sort of admission that she wanted.
She
then asked permission to go into my personnel file and get the original
Confidentiality Agreement that I signed.
I gave her permission to do so for the express purpose of obtaining my
signed confidentiality agreement. (DT
76:16-22). By so requesting, she
demonstrated that she knew that she had to obtain my permission to access my
personnel file.
Ms. Reeves then produced a copy of a letter that I had sent to three Scientology lawyers, including Scientology's in-house law firm of Moxon & Kobrin in 1998, wherein I requested a refund of donations from my prior involvement with Scientology. I had used my former married name of Cheryl Sola and the San Diego address on the letter because "Cheryl Sola" is how Scientology would locate my files and the address in a distant city was to protect me and my family from the well-known Scientology practice of harassing its former members. (It was a well-founded fear considering what happened several days after my deposition.)
To
date, then and until now, I have never received an answer from Moxon &
Kobrin, even though I have a signed return receipt indicating that they did
receive my letter and Ms. Reeves produced the letters that I had sent to Moxon
& Kobrin in 1998 at my 1999 deposition.
Scientology's counsel (both Moxon & Kobrin, as well as Paul,
Hastings) have more than adequately demonstrated that they have, in fact,
received my refund requests and that they have no intention of processing my
refund request, in violation of Scientology's representations on its
application for tax exemption to the Internal Revenue Service. Did Ms. Reeves, upon learning of Scientology's
violation of its application for tax exempt status, have the duty to caution
her client to not violate the terms of its application for tax exemption?
So
I took the opportunity to ask, on the record, "So, your client did
receive the letters. Are they ever going
to respond?" Ms. Reeves barked "I ask the questions here" and
did not answer my questions. This
dialogue was omitted from the transcript of my deposition.
[treat her discussion of IRS codes/rules
here]
I
believe the transcript of my deposition contained more omissions because, at
the beginning of the deposition, the discourse between Ms. Reeves and Mr. Berry
was longer than reflected in the transcript.
Mr. Berry requested that he be informed as to who was attending the
deposition. Ms. Reeves was argumentative
and evaded giving a direct answer. Mr. Berry persisted in requesting to know
who was attending the deposition and asserted that he had the right to
know. Ms. Reeves countered with a "you
would have known if you had been on time" response. This went back and forth numerous times until
Ms. Reeves finally named the two unknown attendees as Jennifer Stone and Vince
Lefevre and, when asked by Mr. Berry if they were Paul, Hastings' employees, again
avoided answering forthrightly. She
finally stated that they were "working for her." Because of her obvious evasiveness, Mr. Berry
asked again if they were Paul, Hastings' employees. The transcript shows him
making a statement: "Paul,
Hastings," but he asked the question:
"Are they Paul, Hastings' employees?" to which Ms. Reeves
responded with a wave of her hand towards Ms. Stone and Mr. LeFevre as if
presenting them as such (but did not verbalize an answer which, of course, does
not appear on the transcript). Mr. Berry
again tried to clarify Stone's and LeFevre's status and she ignored him. A simple check of the transcript indicates
that Mr. Lefevre was not an employee of Paul, Hastings, but instead, was
representing Scientology's in-house counsel, Moxon & Kobrin.
More
harassment came my way when Ms. Reeves declined to offer me the usual courtesy
of allowing the transcript to be mailed to me for review and signature, instead
opting to inconvenience me by forcing me to make a trip to Holman &
Associates' office to review and sign my transcript.
After
the deposition concluded and we had left the building, it suddenly occurred to
me that the only way "Cheryl Nelson of Santa Clarita" could have
been linked with "Cheryl Sola of San Diego" was because my former
married name of Cheryl Sola was on my résumé in my PHJ&W personnel file. I then realized Ms. Reeves' theatrics of
asking permission to go into my personnel file was pretextual. She had already been there.
That
afternoon, Mr. Berry wrote, faxed, and mailed a letter to Ms. Reeves expressing
these concerns but she did not respond.
He persisted by faxing and mailing two more letters, which were met with
silence. After about a week she finally
responded with a one-line letter which simply denied the allegations, but did
not offer any reasons as to why our beliefs were mistaken.
Several
months later, I heard a verbal report that Ms. Reeves and as many as six others
had left Paul, Hastings, including the Court Services Specialist, in the wake
of my declaration/deposition.
I
was then contacted by a member of the Los Angeles District Attorney's staff who
requested further information from me concerning the allegations in my
declaration. He indicated that PHJ&W
was not cooperating and the Court Services Specialist had retained legal counsel.
Conclusion
I believe that it is highly likely Barbara Reeves was involved in the investigation of the allegation of the bribing of court clerks (or had access to the results) and probably knows which Paul, Hastings' attorney(s) were involved in the backdating incidents and, along with others at Paul, Hastings, is obstructing justice by withholding the information.
I
also believe that Barbara Reeves, individually, and as a partner of Paul,
Hastings, and as an agent of the Church of Scientology, knowingly violated my
constitutional privacy rights and laws regulating access to personnel files by
disclosing the contents of my personnel file to a third party, the Church of
Scientology, a party that did not have a legitimate "need to know." Further, she had a duty to avoid even the
appearance of impropriety, but voluntarily involved herself in a conflict of
interest between a former employee and a current client.
Two
days after my deposition, the windshield of my vehicle was smashed into little
pieces. It was parked in my garage,
inside a security-gated apartment complex.
I believe this was a response by Scientology, which uses such tactics
for the purpose of trying to intimidate witnesses and harass former
members.
It
is also suggestive that Scientology accessed my DMV records to obtain my
vehicle information. I had recently
moved and my new address was only obtainable from the deposition
transcript. However, other personal
information (including my former married name, social security number, driver's
license number, father's home address, etc.) was in my personnel file. Ms. Reeves put me and my family at risk of
retaliation from a well-known vindictive organization by her ethical
violations.
Though
I mentioned in the deposition that I would be relocating to Virginia, I was
rethinking whether or not I was going to move, when something else
happened. My new employment after
leaving Paul, Hastings was just several blocks away and one day within a week
after my deposition I was out walking at lunch when a man brushed by me and
snapped my picture. I turned to see who
it was and I saw a tall man in a beige London Fog running off. So, a week, a smashed windshield, and a
covert photo op after my deposition, I decided it was no longer safe to stay
locally and decided to go forward with the relocation to Virginia in an attempt
to protect myself and my family from Scientology and/or Paul, Hastings
harassment. This move resulted in a
substantial decrease in salary (which was the main consideration causing me to
rethink the move) and has cost me not only lost income but also continued fear
of retaliation and mental suffering anyway.
I
further believe that evidence was suppressed because my deposition transcript
was materially altered, as set forth above.
And,
finally, when Mr. Berry confronted Ms. Reeves with the truth (via the three
letters he sent), I believe that Ms. Reeves first tried to stonewall and then
finally hid behind a false denial in an attempt to conceal her improper
actions.
I
request that this matter be investigated.
I further request that, as part of the investigation, the answers to the
following questions be pursued:
1. I believe Barbara Reeves' direct
superior was Samuel (Sandy) Rosen of Paul, Hastings' New York office (who
appears in Scientology cases in California pro
hac vice). Did she consult with him
with regard to my deposition in any respect? If so, what was said? Was Ms. Reeves ordered or given authority by
Mr. Rosen to raid my personnel file?
2. Did Barbara Reeves consult with
Kendrick Moxon or Helena Kobrin or any other attorney or staff member
representing the Church of Scientology in regards to raiding my personnel
file? If so, was she ordered by any
attorney for the Church of Scientology to raid my personnel file? Or did an attorney for the Church of
Scientology approach Ms. Reeves first and pressure her into raiding my
personnel file?
3. What documents in my personnel file
were turned over to agents of the Church of Scientology?
4. Who ordered portions of my deposition
transcript to be deleted?
5. Who performed the deletions?
6. Why didn't Moxon & Kobrin answer my
letter regarding my request for refund of donations I had made to
Scientology?
7. Why was it important that the text
relating to my asking if Moxon & Kobrin was ever going to respond to my
letters regarding a refund of donations be deleted from the transcript?
8. Why was it important for Ms. Reeves to
conceal the presence of an employee of Moxon & Kobrin (Scientology's
in-house counsel, also known as OSA) at my deposition?
9. What was the real reason Berry v.
Barton settled so abruptly?
10. Who, at Paul, Hastings, investigated the
allegations that the Court Services Specialist was being asked to obtain
backdated court documents?
11. What was the result of that
investigation?
12. Did Ms. Reeves or any other PHJ&W
attorney caution Scientology to not violate the terms of its Application for
Tax Exemption with the Internal Revenue Service?
13. After being put on notice that her client
may be breaking the law, did Ms. Reeves or any other PHJ&W attorney ensure
that Scientology was not breaking the law in any respects, and if so, did they
uphold their duty to sever their ties and/or report the improper activities?
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