The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (10 page)

I felt like an idiot.

An hour later, I came through the courthouse’s glass doors to the metal detector and conveyor belt. Several men in suits were grouped at the end of the conveyor; a few were hopping on one foot as they put a shoe back on. Others were inserting belts back through loops. Security officers at the courthouse took great pleasure in stripping lawyers of anything that would set off the overly sensitive metal detector. Some of the wealthiest, most influential attorneys in the state have gone through the machine in socks, while holding their pants up.

If I know I’m going to be in federal court, I usually wear shoes that don’t set off the alarm and pants that don’t need a belt. I walked past the hopping, overly-scented lawyers and turned the corner toward the elevator. Francis, who’d apparently led the way for his attorneys, was standing in the hallway, hands in pockets, studying the elevator doors. He ignored me as I walked up. I turned toward the metal door, looked over it as if there was a floor indicator. Since there were only two floors, the designers felt it was a waste of time to install an indicator. If the elevator wasn’t on your floor, it was on the other.

I looked at the door, down at my note book, back at the door. I was doing my best to be cool.

“You know, the whole story isn’t getting out,” Francis said, not looking away from the elevator.

“Well, the criminal case should be resolved soon and you’ll be freed up to talk then,” I glanced his way.

“Oh yeah, they’re going away. It’s bullshit.” He looked up at the ceiling and past it to the second floor, where Smoak awaited him in the courtroom. “This is bullshit. You know, I’d think I was an asshole too if I read all that stuff that’s been written about me in the media.”

Francis’ entourage finally caught up with us in time for the elevator door to open with a groan. We filed in, no one saying a word, and rode up in a fog of cologne, hands in pockets.

An hour later, Smoak adjourned the hearing for lunch, but this time with a warning to Francis. He said he had sanctions in mind and suggested that Francis could avoid them by settling the case.

“If you come back this afternoon,” Smoak said, “somebody is going to be real unhappy, probably, with my ruling. That’s fair warning and I think that you need to put a dollar figure in your mind on what it’s worth to you to avoid what may be a sanction that you weren’t counting on.”

Francis bounded down the stairs this time and went to a waiting car. His lawyer couldn’t find the keys and Francis was stuck standing there with the cameras rolling. He finally went around and grabbed the lawyer’s bag to search it himself.

One of them found the keys and they drove off. They spent the next hour working with the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Larry Selander, Ross McCloy, Rachael Pontikes and Tom Dent, to work out a settlement. They did not resolve the case and returned to court.

Francis began the proceedings by asking to clarify some things he’d said before the break. Some of the things he’d said during mediation had actually happened before the other lawyers entered the room – like saying he was the victim in this case.

He also wanted to clarify that Selander hadn’t cussed at him.

But Francis insisted that Rachael Pontikes did call him an “a-hole” or something like that. She took the stand and denied it.

Francis’ lawyer, Mike Dickey, wrote to the judge later saying she had said something to Francis, but he didn’t offer that information during the hearing. The discrepancy would lead to a charge of criminal contempt against Francis that would ultimately be dismissed.

Smoak said Francis was going to have to spend the weekend in jail. He insisted that Francis participate in meaningful mediation, as originally ordered. Since they couldn’t immediately arrange that with a mediator, Francis would have to sit in jail until the mediation could be scheduled.

Burke stood up rather stiffly, walked to the podium and asked Smoak if Francis could avoid the jail term by beginning mediation immediately. Smoak said no, because he wanted meaningful mediation, not just negotiations. He said the only way Francis could avoid the weekend jail term was to settle the case.

“One of the things that the court made clear in its order, as I heard it reported, is that the discharge of the contempt, civil contempt and confinement, was – it could only occur upon both Mr. Francis participating meaningfully in the mediation and the certification that at least two offers had gone back and forth, offers and counter-demands, by the parties and certification by a mediator,” Burke told the judge.

He explained that the sides had met without a mediator over lunch and one offer had been discussed.

“Let me suggest this, Mr. Burke,” Smoak said. “We still have time today. I will, can, delay Mr. Francis surrendering to the custody of the U.S. Marshal until 4:30, and that will give you all the opportunity to meet wherever you want. But at 4:30, if there doesn’t seem to be substantial progress, then he is to surrender here at the Marshal’s office.”

“Appreciate that your honor,” Burke said. “Would an affidavit or declaration by Mr. Dickey, filed under seal, in the absence of Mr. Caparello or another mediator – my understanding is that Mr. Dickey is a certified mediator, would that affidavit comply with the court’s instruction?”

“If you all can resolve this this afternoon, if I get a phone call from Mr. Dickey and Mr. McCloy, then we’ve solved the problem,” Smoak said.

“By resolve, you mean that the court’s order has been complied with, that two offers have gone out and two responses have come back?”

“I’m looking for you all to resolve this thing finally,” Smoak said. “If you can get it resolved this afternoon, fine. If you’re not able to do it by yourselves then we need the mediator.”

And with that, “settle or jail” was born. To Burke, Judge Smoak’s order was clearly that Francis would have to settle the case, “resolve this thing finally,” in order to avoid a weekend in jail waiting for the mediation to be arranged.

Smoak’s stance softened as the day went on, and Francis was allowed to stay out of jail without settling the case. Both sides got together with mediator Dom Caparello by phone and began the process immediately.

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Chapter 11

Settled

T
he headline the next day was: “Judge tells Francis: Settle or Jail.” That rankled the judge, who would insist in later hearings that “settle or jail” was not what he had intended.

Smoak did not incarcerate Francis that night. He put off the sentence until 4:30, then 5:30 when he was told that negotiations were progressing. Smoak then postponed it until Saturday afternoon, and ultimately let Francis out of the jail sentence when he was told that Francis had made a settlement offer.

I found Francis that Saturday evening at Dickey’s law office, a brick building overlooking the serene Massalina Bayou.

Francis and Dickey were standing outside. It was pure luck that I found him when and where I did. He watched as my Nissan Pathfinder pulled into a parking spot, then walked over with his hand outstretched.

“You’re that reporter that did the story today,” he said as if we hadn’t talked the day before. We shook hands.

“I liked your story today. I guess you heard.”

“Heard what?”

“The judge. He cut us loose.”

“You’ve settled?”

“I guess you came here for the whole story.”

“Actually, I just need to know what’s going on so I can write my story and get to my basketball game.”

That’s when Francis noticed the University of Florida T-shirt I was wearing. The Gators were hours away from playing UCLA in the Final Four.

“I’d like to be up two beers by the time the game starts,” I said.

“Oh yeah, you’re a Gator huh? Well, I hope the Gators kick the shit out of UCLA – but that’s totally off the record.”

Francis had a business degree from the University of Southern California, the natural enemy of UCLA.

He started down a wooden pathway toward a deck at the back of the office.

“You wanna get the story?” He waved me along, inviting me to the deck.

I hung back with Dickey and asked him what was going on. Dickey said they’d been in mediation since Friday. Late Saturday afternoon, he and Ross McCloy found Judge Smoak in his yard and explained to him that Francis had engaged in meaningful mediation, just like the judge ordered.

Smoak suspended the contempt order and was letting Francis go.

“Hey, you gonna come sit down or not?” Francis yelled from the end of the pathway. Waving me over again.

Francis sat down at a wrought-iron table and stretched out his long legs. He leaned forward and laced his fingers, then leaned back and put his right elbow on the chair’s arm.

“So, you went to the University of Florida,” he said. “How’d you get here?”

“I grew up in Tampa.”

“I like Tampa. I like the diversity.”

“When I left UF, I spent some time working in St. Louis, but I got homesick. When I saw the advertisement for here, I applied.”

“So have you worked in courts for long?”

“My whole career, 15 years in three states.”

“Three states? So have you ever seen anything like that before? Have you ever heard of a judge threatening to put a defendant in a civil suit in jail if he didn’t settle?”

I seemed to have his full attention and I weighed how truthful I could be. I needed to get an interview and expressing my opinion, especially when I disagreed, wouldn’t necessarily facilitate that interview.

“If you had any other judge,” I began, “like, Casey Rodgers for example, she would have put you in jail the day she found out about what you’d done and kept you in jail a week before she even asked you for your side. Then she would have put you back in jail for another week. She would have lit you up.

“Overall, I’d say the judge was pretty evenhanded.”

“Evenhanded,” Francis repeated. His face, usually animated and boyish, was blank. I waited.

Before he could go on, Francis’ corporate lawyer, Michael Burke, looked out the law office’s sliding glass doors and saw us talking. He bolted for the handle and was at Francis’ side in two strides.

“Your story was a fair recitation of the hearing,” Burke said, deadpan. “I liked it.”

“Sarcasm will get you nowhere,” I replied, pointing my pen at him.

He looked surprised, then smiled, “No, no, I mean it. I liked it.”

“We were just talking about the judge’s ruling,” Francis said. “I was about to give David here the whole story.”

Burke had both of his hands on the table and his head sagged between his arms before he looked up and smiled at his boss.

“You can’t talk about the mediation,” Burke said.

“I can talk about it. They’re the ones that broke the rules about confidentiality.”

“No, Joe, you can’t.”

Burke went into a dry and general description of the mediation process and the judge’s decision to release Francis from the contempt order. I had all of it already and interrupted Burke to ask some questions. He prefaced his answers with a good three minutes of explanation of the rules limiting contact between press and lawyers in federal cases.

“I’ll ask. Whatever you can’t answer, you just say so. I won’t get my feelings hurt.”

“Just understand that it’s not that I don’t want to answer your questions; I just might not be able to.”

I nodded.

“Are the sides very far apart in their negotiations?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Is it likely that we’re headed for trial?”

Same answer. I wasn’t surprised. I was starting to have some fun; Burke seemed genuinely uncomfortable.

“I want to say something,” Francis started.

“Joe,” Burke warned.

“No, I think I can say this. The judge asked a question to me on Friday that I couldn’t answer. He asked, if we were sitting around our mother’s table would we use the kind of language I used in the mediation? My answer is: If my mother was suing me for $20 million, you better believe I’d use that kind of language.”

Francis had more to say, but Burke and Dickey were issuing a steady stream of warnings to drown him out. Finally, Francis gave up and held out his hand.

“I hope the Gators do really well tonight,” big grin. “I hope they kick the shit out of UCLA, but that’s totally off the record.”

Joe Francis left Panama City that Saturday night. The next day, April 1, he turned 34.

Three days later, Judge Richard Smoak called another emergency hearing and reinstated Francis’ jail sentence. He ordered Francis to turn himself over to federal authorities in Panama City no later than noon the next day.

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Chapter 12

“Judges gone wild”

T
he bells of First Baptist Church in downtown Panama City chimed out the noon hour on April 5. I was parked across the street from the federal courthouse, watching the empty lot. Joe Francis was nowhere to be seen.

At one minute past noon, he was officially a fugitive.

In a hearing the day before, federal Judge Smoak had ordered Francis’ surrender and indicated that he would consider criminal charges against him.