BB-31-b-47
PATRICK SARSFIELD HALLINAN
Hallinan & Blum
345 Franklin Street
San Francisco, California 94102
Telephone: (415) 861-1151
Attorney for Defendant
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
IN AND FOR THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO
PEOPLES TEMPLE OF THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, a nonprofit corporation, JEAN BROWN, and JAMES MCELVANE, Plaintiffs,
v.
TIMOTHY OLIVER STOEN, Defendant.
No. 740531
ANSWER TO COMPLAINT
Defendant answers to complaint herein as follows:
1. Defendant denies each and every allegation of paragraphs III, IV, V, VI, X, XI, XV, XVI (first paragraph so numbered), XVI (second paragraph so numbered), XVII, and XVIII.
2. Answering paragraph VII, defendant admits that in February 1977 he joined the PEOPLES TEMPLE commune in Guyana, South America, but denies each and every other allegation therein.
3. Answering paragraph VIII, defendant admits the allegations in the second and third sentences (lines 18-20), but denies each and every other allegation therein.
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4. Answering paragraph IX, defendant admits that in February 1978 he claimed that he and his wife [Grace Stoen] have spent over $18,000 in the attempt to return their son [John Victor Stoen] to them both, but denies each and every other allegation therein.
5. Answering paragraph XIII, defendant denies the allegations contained in lines 21 and 22.
6. Answering paragraph XIV, defendant denies the allegations contained in the sentence in lines 4 through 8.
FIRST DEFENSE: UNCLEAN HANDS – DISOBEDIENCE OF COURT ORDER
7. Plaintiffs are guilty of wrongful conduct, contempt of court, and unclean hands in connection with the transaction and subject matter of their suit (i.e., an alleged personal vendetta involving the custody of defendant’s child John Victor Stoen) in that they are contumaciously detaining said child in direct violation of a California Superior Court order granting joint legal custody of the child to defendant Stoen and his wife Grace. On November 18, 1977, in Civil Case No. 719147, the Superior Court of the State of California for the City and County of San Francisco found that Rev. Jim Jones, the leader of plaintiff PEOPLES TEMPLE, had been properly served and determined that he is in violation of its order to appear. The Court ordered:
a. “that Reverend Jim Jones will immediately deliver the minor, JOHN VICTOR STOEN, to the Petitioner”;
b. that “the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco shall take all actions necessary to locate Reverend Jim Jones and to secure Reverend Jim Jones’ compliance with this
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order”;
c. that petitioner “is granted leave to institute contempt proceedings against the Reverend Jim Jones.)
A copy of the Order is attached hereto as Exhibit A and made a part hereof.
Upon being served this order on November 18, 1977, PEOPLES TEMPLE attorney Charles Garry was quoted in the November 19 “San Francisco Examiner” as saying, “Jones will have to decide how to respond to the court action.” Plaintiff PEOPLES TEMPLE, as the alter ego of Reverend Jim Jones, is currently holding John Victor Stoen in Guyana, South America. Plaintiffs PEOPLES TEMPLE, BROWN, and McELVANE are knowingly aiding and abetting in the continuing disobedience of this Superior Court order.
SECOND OFFENSE: UNCLEAN HANDS – PERJURY IN COMPLAINT
8. Plaintiffs are guilty of perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury, fraud, and unclean hands in connection with the transaction of their suit and that they knowingly conspired to, and did in fact, include perjury as paragraph VI (and elsewhere) of their verified complaint. Paragraph VI alleges, inter alia, that defendant consulted with PEOPLES TEMPLE member Maria Katsaris and “obtained confidential information concerning … certain sexual advances made by her father towards her when she was a child.” Paragraph VI further alleges that in April or May, 1977, defendant advised “Maria Katsaris that she should go to Guyana to avoid the possibility of her father’s instituting conservatorship proceedings.”
All of the allegations of paragraph VI of the complaint,
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including particularly the aforementioned, are false. Defendant is informed and believes and thereon alleges that these allegations were contrived for the sole purpose of getting defendant removed as attorney for Steven Katsaris. Incorporated herein by reference as the Declaration by Steven A. Katsaris opposing Application for Preliminary Injunction, filed in the within action and signed by Steven A. Katsaris. Said declaration includes as an exhibit within the lawsuit attached thereto a hand-written letter sent by Maria Katsaris to her father in August 1977 which is inconsistent with the aforesaid allegations. Said declaration also includes as an exhibit a professional polygraph report, dated May 3, 1978, of a lie detector examination voluntarily undertaken by Steven Katsaris; it concludes that he “is telling the truth” in answering “no” to the itemized test questions, including “Did you ever make any sexual advances toward Maria Katsaris?”
Defendant is informed and believes and therefore alleges that on July 1 and 2, 1978, the falsehoods contained in paragraph VI were knowingly contrived, with no participation whatever by Maria Katsaris, in two long conversations conducted over international shortwave radio between Jonestown, Guyana and San Francisco, California on equipment owned by plaintiff PEOPLES TEMPLE and operated by its members, including plaintiff BROWN. Defendant is informed and believes and thereon alleges with respect to these conversations that:
a. The participants therein were all members of PEOPLES TEMPLE and were acting as agents of plaintiffs PEOPLES TEMPLE,
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BROWN and McELVANE.
b. the participants in Jonestown, Guyana included Teresa Buford and Harriet Tropp; those in San Francisco included June Crym, Tom Adams, and plaintiff BROWN;
c. codes were used for real names and events throughout these conversations in violation of the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission;
d. inconsistent stories were put forward and discussed as to what statement should be given attorney Charles Garry (code names “Dr. Iverson” and “Pete”) by plaintiffs BROWN and McELVANE as to exactly “when” defendant advised Maria Katsaris, as to the subjects of defendant’s consultations with her, as to the course of action he suggested for her, and as to the intermediaries used in the consultations to allow for different geographical locales for “attorney” and “client”;
e. a participant in Jonestown indicated that PEOPLES TEMPLE members Eugene Chaikin, Sandra Bradshaw, and Jim Jones would be the persons who would have the final approval on the version to be submitted to Garry;
f. it was decided that neither BROWN nor McELVANE, although the only individual plaintiffs in the action, would be allowed to verify the complaint containing the false story because they were too important to the current operations of PEOPLES TEMPLE in the United States to risk, should worst comes to worst, a perjury indictment;
g. it was decided instead that Carol Stahl, the president of
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plaintiff PEOPLES TEMPLE only in name, would verify the complaint even though she was unknowledgeable as to the relevant facts because she was extendable to operations in the United States and could be shipped to Guyana;
h. the version ending up as paragraph VI of the complaint was finally approved by Chaikin, Bradshaw, and Jones as the story best calculated to induce a judge to erroneously believe that defendant had misused confidential information in the suit filed by Steven Katsaris against Jim Jones and PEOPLES TEMPLE in Mendocino County on May 16, 1978; and
i. the aforesaid participants decided it would be too difficult to contrive a satisfactory “specific” story with respect to misuse of confidential information by defendant in the Medlock lawsuit and the Cobb lawsuit, and therefore Garry was to be told to formulate a consolidated complaint for an injunction so as to use the false specific allegations relating to Steven Katsaris as a lever for removing defendant from the Medlock suit and the Cobb suit (for which only “generalized conclusions” would be alleged).
The allegations inserted into paragraph VI of the complaint in this action are totally false. The complaint was verified “under penalty of perjury” by the president of plaintiff PEOPLES TEMPLE, i.e., Carol Stahl, on July 3, 1978.
THIRD DEFENSE: UNCLEAN HANDS – SUPPRESSION OF EVIDENCE
9. Plaintiffs are guilty of contempt, wrongful conduct, and unclean hands in connection with the transaction and subject
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matter of their suit in that they have willfully conspired to suppress, and have in fact suppressed, evidence necessary to a proper disposition of the suit (including the application for a preliminary injunction), i.e., the testimony of Carol Stahl, president of plaintiff PEOPLES TEMPLE. Carol Stahl it is the only person to have signed the verification of the complaint herein (pursuant to the requirement that a verification be attached to any complaint which serves as the application for an injunction). Defendant is informed and believes and thereon alleges that on or about July 4, 1978, plaintiffs ordered Carol Stahl immediately to leave the United States so as to be outside the jurisdiction of this court, and that she did in fact so leave. Defendant is informed and believes and thereon alleges that the purpose of plaintiffs was to prevent Carol Stahl from being cross-examined at an evidentiary hearing on the preliminary injunction in thereby revealing the perjury in paragraph VI and elsewhere in the complaint.
Defendant is informed and believes and thereon alleges with respect to the above-mentioned international shortwave radio conversations held on July 1 and 2, 1978, that:
a. A participant in San Francisco advised Jonestown that Charles Garry regarded Carol Stahl as a necessary person to have available for the hearing;
b. someone in Jonestown said that Eugene Chaikin would disapprove and that it would be too dangerous to the interests of PEOPLES TEMPLE to have her testify under oath, and that she
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was too unknowledgeable anyway; and
c. a story was contrived between Jonestown and San Francisco, which was to be delivered to Garry and the court, to the effect that Carol Stahl’s daughter in Guyana required a doctor outside the country, thereby necessitating Stahl’s presence as guardian to make the arrangements.
FOURTH DEFENSE: UNCLEAN HANDS – ABUSE OF JUDICIAL PROCESS
10. Plaintiffs are guilty of wrongful conduct, the tort of abuse of process, an unclean hands in connection with the transaction and subject matter of their suit in that they had ulterior purposes and filing the lawsuit and committed willful acts in the use of process not proper in the regular conduct of a judicial proceeding. Defendant is informed and believes and thereon alleges these ulterior motives were to: a) divert the attention of the public and media from the savage and illegal practices of PEOPLES TEMPLE and Jim Jones itemized in the three lawsuits filed on behalf of Stephen Katsaris, Wade and Mabel Medlock, and James Cobb, Jr., respectively; b) coerce defendant to expend his energies and limited funds in defending this sham lawsuit based on perjured allegations so as to inhibit his prosecuting of the three above-mentioned legitimate lawsuits brought on behalf of truly oppressed victims of PEOPLES TEMPLE; and c) introduce as part of a court record a document (Exhibit C-2 of the complaint) which plaintiffs know is totally false and spurious and which plaintiffs know is so utterly lacking in legal significance that it could not be introduced in either of the two custody proceedings,
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involving the same child John Victor Stoen, brought in California and Guyana, respectively.
The willful acts in the use of process not proper include those set forth in the first three affirmative defenses set forth and those inherent in the description of the ulterior purposes of plaintiffs set forth above.
WHEREFORE defendant prays the plaintiffs take nothing by this action and that defendant be awarded costs and all other just relief.
/s/ Patrick Sarsfield Hallinan
Patrick Sarsfield Hallinan
for defendant
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VERIFICATION
I am the defendant in this action; the foregoing answer is true of my own knowledge, except as to those matters stated in it on my information and belief, and as to those matters I believe it to be true.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct and that this declaration was executed on August 1, 1978, at San Francisco, California.
/s/ Timothy Oliver Stoen
Timothy Oliver Stoen