In L.A. Superior Court, Gloria Allred’s firm has taken a judge’s favoritism as “license to lie”
In a season of shocking trials, the L.A. Superior Court case stands out for the judge’s determination to keep the defendant from defending himself. At every turn, Judge Michelle Williams Court has sided with the plaintiff. Here’s what we know so far:
1. Why is Alki David not being allowed to testify in his defense?
There is a discrepancy about whether pretrial depositions were handled correctly on both sides. Judge Court has taken this as an excuse to entirely exclude David’s “day in court.”
She blocked him from representing himself, as he intended to do, and his attorney Ellyn Garofolo of Venable, is not allowed to call him as a witness. The only way he could look the jury in the eye under oath and have the chance to say, “I didn’t do it.” is if Allred’s junior partner Nathan Goldberg called him to the stand. Obviously Goldberg won’t do that.
2. But isn’t there other evidence, and other witnesses, to show David’s innocence?
There is. But Judge Court is not allowing even one witness for the defense. Not even to rebut the plaintiff’s new claims and out-of-the-blue embellishments that no one had heard before the trial started.
3. Why did Mahim Khan lie about having a work email address? Surely that impeaches her?
Mahim Khan lied on the stand about ever having a FilmOn.com work email address. She did have one, and used it nearly daily while she was employed there. Garofolo called FilmOn’s Head of IT to testify to this and show the archived emails to the jury, but was blocked by Judge Court. This lie would be just one of many lies the defense has ready proof of, but it’s one of the most clear cut and unquestionable matters that thoroughly impeach Khan as a bold and relentless liar.
4. Why were there no consequences when Allred’s team was caught forging opposing counsel’s signature?
In a brazen act of criminality, Gloria Allred’s team changed the witness and evidence lists mid-trial (taking advantage of a day Garofolo’s home was under evacuation during the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles), and faked the paperwork to say Garofolo had seen and approved the changes. Garofolo filed a very clear notification of this to Judge Court, who ignored the transgression. Forging an opposing counsel’s signature on official papers is fraud and is a felony offense. Though Judge Court decided to not do her duty on this, no doubt repercussions for Allred will come eventually.
5. Who were Khan’s super shady witnesses?
Khan called four witnesses. One, Nick Hyams, also known as rapper Lush One and the son of B-Movie director Peter Hyams, is known widely to have been involved in a gun incident at the FilmOn offices. At the time, David learned Hyams had brought the gun to the office and banned him from coming back, and hired more security to protect the staff. Garofolo moved in to use the outright lie to impeach the witness, but once again, Judge Court blocked her from any action. Hyams is a failed rapper who has been in and out of rehab throughout his life and has staged violent incidents for publicity purposes.
But most importantly, Hyams’ account of what he allegedly saw in the office was very different than what Khan has alleged. He added multiple incidents to his account. In the key incident, one in which David allegedly touched Khan’s chest, Khan has described wearing a low cut yellow summer dress. Hyams said it was a bulky black sweater, and that Khan, because of her Muslim faith, would never wear anything revealing. Hyams said he was at the FilmOn offices daily, which was not true, he was there on a project basis. Hyams also showed he was lying when he described an incident involving another accuser Elizabeth Taylor at the office—contradicting even Taylor’s own account of the day she participated in “wheelbarrowing” across the office (In Hyams account David “Threw Taylor over his shoulder”). This shows Hyams is lying about having witnessed the incident. Hyams recounted spending extensive prep time with Goldberg over dinner the night before his testimony.
Hyams was also so rattled on the stand by Garofolo he called her a racist. (Both he and Garofolo are white).
Khan also called Hyams’ ex-wife Helen Davis. Helen said she was a full-time employee of FilmOn Networks–itself a bold lie since she was under the same third party contract agreement as Hyams via his Fresh Coast company. She never had her own desk, she did not work a regular schedule. Davis was also at the famous dinner at Cafe Roma where the web of connected allegations against David being tried by Gloria Allred and Lisa Bloom is known to have been hatched (more about that below). Davis also spoke about having been prepped by Goldberg on what to say in court.
Most tellingly, Allred and Khan do not have one witness who was a regular, day-to-day employee of FilmOn. The incidents she alleged supposedly happened in the open-plan office during normal hours, and supposedly happened on a regular basis–yet not one regular employee saw or heard of any of these things at the time.
6. Was Lauren Reeves a legitimate “MeToo” witness?
In a word, no. Lauren Reeves, another client of Allred Maroko & Goldberg’s, worked at FilmOn starting four months after Khan quit. Over and over again Allred and her daughter have used a peculiar loophole in California law that allows witnesses to make completely unrelated allegations, even if they stand to gain financially from the outcome of the trial. A “MeToo” case is the only kind of trial that allows this testimony–it is not allowed in any other kind of case. Reeves never witnessed anything to do with Khan, and her time at FilmOn did not overlap in anyway with her employment there.
Reeves herself lied in her own trial, and even her own doctor said most of her problems stemmed from past abuse, both by her 7-foot tall lumberjack father beating her and her scary New York boyfriend who threatened to kill her. Many of her lies are covered here.
7. Diagnosis-on-Demand. Who was that goofy British UCLA shrink on the stand?
Doctor Anthony Edwards Reading, is a well known shrink-for-hire. He testified that he spends 3.5 days a week giving legal testimony and evaluations for MeToo cases. He spends half a day with actual patients, and teaches one class in the afternoon. On friday, he golfs.
Dr. Reading has testified in Allred Maroko & Goldberg cases ten times in 2019, by his own admission. He testified that between the evaluation and court testimony he made a minimum of $8,000 per Allred client. That means Reading made at least $80,000 from Allred Maroko & Goldberg so far this year. Why? Because he reliably gives them what they are paying for. Readib testified in court last week under questioning by Garofolo that he has a nearly 100% record of finding PTSD in plaintiffs alleging sexual misconduct. The few times he’s been asked to do his work for the defendant’s side he miraculously has found nearly zero cases of PTSD in the accuser. Wow!
Using these quack doctors with their Diagnosis-on-Demand techniques is a regular tactic for Allred and Bloom. Similar doctors have appeared in all of their trials against David. In the Elizabeth Taylor case, brought by Bloom, it backfired a bit–her doctor testified that she had been on her elaborate cocktail of psychoactive prescription drugs before she worked at FilmOn and that he had seen no reason to change the dosages after–though he did say that her mental health could be declining into paranoia because of having been on the drugs so long. In the Reeves case her UCLA shrink had been paid for by Allred Goldberg & Maroko, who she had worked for for years. Purely corrupt. UCLA should really look into the ways in which these Diagnosis-for-Hire “doctors” are using the university’s prestigious name.
8. Is David being blamed for damage done by Khan’s father during 20 years of extreme physical and mental abuse?
Dr. Reading had spent only five hours with Khan before coming up with diagnosis Allred asked for. Within that time, Khan declined to tell him about her primary mental health care–an unlicensed alternative “doctor” provided by her mosque. Reading also ignored the fact that Khan had been abused by her own father while she was still a toddler. Abuse that often ended up with her bloodied and bruised. He beat her physically right up until she left the house at age 20, just a few years before winding up at FilmOn.
“Could 20 years of extreme abuse have contributed to Khan’s mental health issues?” asked Garofolo.
“No, no,” said Reading. “She had handled all that quite well. But working at FilmOn undid all that and caused her to fall apart.”
9. What would Alki’s witnesses say if they were allowed to be called?
One, Lauren Berkley, who was Khan’s best friend, will testify that Khan was planning for months to leave the U.S. for Dubai in her final days at FilmOn. She did not quit because of anything going on at work, she quit because she was planning to move away. Berkley can also testify that despite being Khan’s best friend and talking to her nearly daily while working at FilmOn, Khan never hinted at any harassment problems there.
Khan was so infuriated by Berkley telling the truth in the preparations for the trial that she threatened to harm Berkley’s two-year old baby. A Connecticut police report shows Berkley was so scared by the threat she felt she needed to take action. Khan may have gotten the idea to use threats in this way from Gloria Allred herself, who according to the Daily Beast, gave her own client, Trump-accuser Summer Zervos, a mafia-style threat when she wanted to leave her firm.
10. What about Alki David’s outbursts in court?
It was widely reported that David lost his sh*t in court on several occasions, sometimes with the help of sheriff’s deputies.
“The judge would not let me speak the truth,” David told our reporter. “And I was just sickened by what was going on. I had to get the truth out: I didn’t touch Mahim Khan. I’ve never touched an employee inappropriately. Also, the perversion of justice being perpetrated by LIsa Bloom and Gloria Allred will hurt everyone–it needs to be stopped.”
When David was allowed to speak in court, during Elizbath Taylor v. Alki David in September, the trial ended in a mistrial with the jurors favoring David 8-4. Several said they felt like Taylor, and her star witness Chasity Jones, were lying. (Jones was another MeToo witness with claims against David–who has an interest in more cases being found against him to support her win in court in May which is expected to be turned over under appeal).
David also has been trying to get judges to see the bigger picture of a conspiracy among these linked plaintiffs and the linked law firms of Allred and Bloom, something Judge Terry Green said had credence during the Reeves trial. So far, no court has allowed evidence of the conspiracy to be heard in court—so David has taken it upon himself to let people know when he can.
11. How are all the cases against Alki David linked?
The web of harassment cases brought against David all come from a single source. In June of 2015, Gloria Allred is believed to have broken the law and shown disgruntled employee Elizabeth Taylor a settlement David had made with Mary Rizzo, a woman he had had a consensual relationship with, and her attorney Lisa Bloom. Taylor brought that settlement news to a dinner at Cafe Roma in Beverly Hills where Chasity Jones, Helen Davis, Mahim Khan and others were present. Rizzo can testify that she heard from the people attended that dinner, that the settlement news inspired a plot to extort David, and that each would testify for eachother as needed. Allred and Bloom encouraged these people to bully others into joining the web. Text messages show them putting pressure on eachother and even offering money and jobs if they’ll file their own cases.
Rizzo has said that Khan said Allred wouldn’t take her case unless she recruited two more clients for her–at least one of those became Jones.
How can Rizzo talk about this? Bloom violated the privacy agreement multiple times during the Elizabeth Taylor case, shaming Rizzo by name, and putting it all into public record. No doubt Rizzo will be taking legal action against Bloom and her unethical actions soon.
Since Allred and Bloom work on contingency, they get nearly half of whatever is awarded to their clients–millions of dollars. They are clearly trying to cash in become reform comes to the industry, and trying to notch up some wins to distract the media from their horrible misdeeds related to Harvey Weinstein. Bloom actively helped attack his accusers with media campaigns designed to make them seem crazy. In fact she told Harvey her previous MeToo clients were all crazy and liars. She is being sued by Rose McGown and many prominent stars have called for her to be disbarred. Allred is also underfire after The New York Times revealed she profited brokering numerous lucrative hush money payments to Harvey accusers over a decade ago. Those payments silenced his alleged victims and without Allred’s work, dozens of more victims of Harvey might have been spared their experiences.
12. Why is Judge Michelle Williams Court acting in such a biased manner?
It’s very hard to understand. Every objection by Ellyn Garofolo, a well respected attorney from the well respected firm Venable, has been overruled. Every move she has made to work within proper protocols and the legal structure to get evidence and witness in has been shut down. Even attempts to follow up on obvious lies by the plaintiff and her witnesses have been shut down.
One prominent Los Angeles attorney who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals said told us: “L.A. Superior Court is corrupt. That’s all there is to it. It could be favors, it could be political grandstanding for future appointments, it could even be cold hard cash. The judges are all over the map. You go in that building and it’s like Chinatown in that Jack Nicholson movie. Just forget it.”
A media expert saw a different potential explanation: The plaintiff’s case had so many holes in it there was nothing to do but cheat. Why Judge Court has seemed to be helping them every step of the way is a mystery.
“The truth will come out,” said Alki David. “This Judge, for whatever reaason, does not want to see justice done in her own courtroom. It’s not justice if a person can’t defend themselves. This really should be a mistrial–but if I have to I’ll continue to fight until the truth comes out, no matter where that takes me.”
“I’ve also hired three major UK law firms to go after Allred and Bloom and this sick scheme to extort me,” David continued. “We will show the world what they really are.
Others are beginning to show how corrupt they are, including Rose McGowan, Tony Cardenas, Steve Wynn, and more. Even their own former clients like Summer Zervos and Kyle Hunt and Mary Rizzo, who is now helping in my case, want the world to know how corrupt they are.”