The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (39 page)
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Authors: David Angier
“What’s wrong with these lawyers. Don’t they know how to do a proper sidebar?” I joked with News Herald reporter Chris Olwell.
He looked at the quiet debate going on at sidebar. No one was gesturing, no one raising their voices.
“Really,” he said, smiling. “I can’t hear a damn thing.”
The energy level and tension declined throughout the day, lulling Judge Smoak and a juror into a light, often-interrupted sleep by late afternoon.
After the prostitution question, the jurors had been ushered from the room. They had no idea what was wrong and wouldn’t find out until they received all the evidence in the case why Francis had suddenly left. One of the documents they received was the order finding Francis in contempt of court.
But the exchange between Francis and Plaintiff V had shown Juror 6 all she needed to see. When Francis had asked V how much money she wanted in damages, V had looked at Pontikes.
“It was very obvious those girls had been coached,” Juror 6 said later.
When Francis had asked V about taking money for the handjob and being a prostitute, then the uproar that followed, all that rang a bell inside Juror 6’s mind. She felt like things were being kept from her and it would have been much worse if Francis had not been representing himself.
“That’s where he brought things out that probably … well, I think probably it never would have come out. In that sense in the manner, I think he did himself a justice, not an injustice. He showed someone fighting for themself. I think he’s always pretty much gotten what he’s wanted, that’s my take on it. I sat and I watched him. He was arrogant, but I could read that he was intently nervous. He was up against all these powerful lawyers.”
During the many, many sidebar arguments that took place in the four days that Francis represented himself, the jurors would watch closely. Juror 6 said she immediately disliked the way Pontikes acted toward Francis. She felt like Pontikes was looking at Francis as someone who was beneath her, someone she didn’t mind being rude to.
“Whether he’s a lawyer or he’s not a lawyer, you have to be fair,” Juror 6 said.
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J
oe Francis left the courtroom peacefully, but he didn’t leave the case quietly.
Outside the courthouse doors, he was intercepted by the reporters.
“I’ve been representing myself, and I think I was doing a very good job,” he said. But, he said, Judge Smoak was out to get him. He said every time he objected, every time he sought to enter evidence, any time he looked to defend himself, “about 20 times a day,” Smoak would threaten to lock him up. “He held me in contempt this morning. I can’t risk going to jail. I’ve got too much to lose. This is a good old boy legal system.”
He leaned back and ran this next phrase around his mouth before he spat it out.
“These girls are money grubbing whores, and that’s what this case is about. Do we reward bad behavior? Should this jury make these girls rich for bad behavior?”
When he had questioned them on the stand, not one of them could tell him how they’d been damaged, he said.
“I’d ask them, ‘Why are you suing me?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You’re the plaintiff. You’re suing me and you can’t explain to the jury?’ Two seconds they showed their breasts on GGW and that changed the course of their lives?”
He said he was very happy with his new lawyers.
“They came in and really believe we’re gonna win. They came to me through someone in the courtroom and they’re into it. Its great.”
He said when he went to lunch that day he’d gotten a standing ovation from the crowd in the restaurant “and a bunch of shout-outs.”
“The community is behind me, they’re not gonna reward these girls for their lies.”
The only reason he was leaving was he didn’t think he’d get a fair trial.
“I was gonna win this case by myself. I was perfectly capable of winning this case by myself, even with the corrupt nature of the legal system in Bay County.”
He said Smoak’s finding that he was in contempt of court was unfair. He said he’d asked one plaintiff if she was a prostitute after she admitted taking money for a sex act.
“That was a perfectly legal question.”
But the court had found that he violated federal rule 412, which essentially prohibits any evidence of sexual conduct other than what is directly alleged in the complaint.
“I decided to leave instead of going to jail. Joe Francis is not gonna win here.”
Much of the testimony in the afternoon was from former Girls Gone Wild cameramen. They didn’t take the stand. The plaintiffs played portions of their videotaped depositions that benefitted their case.
All of them said their orders were to shoot video first and then ask for proof of age.
“What Joe really liked was the spontaneity of the situation. He was the scene master. He was always good at getting a lot of scenes. A lot of girls were a little star struck by him.” Bill McCoy said. “He wanted spontaneity. He didn’t want to kill the moment with trivial things like age.”
Francis had a typical type of girl that he wanted in his videos: blonde, natural breasts, no tattoos. “The girl next door that you’d never expect to do GGW.” McCoy said.
“He wasn’t interested in the stripper look with breast implants and tattoos and looks like she does that for a living. I think that’s what the allure of Girls Gone Wild was.”
McCoy said he thought he saw Francis with cocaine on two occasions. Once, he said, he had to pay for it out of the operating budget.
Former cameraman Mark Schmitz’s deposition was being read into the record.
Dent was reading the questions he’d posed to Schmitz and Robert Fleming, a young lawyer in McCloy’s firm, was reading Schmitz’s part.
Schmitz had said many of the same things McCoy did, but he went a giant step further.
Francis wanted scenes and he preferred young girls.
“The younger the better.” If they were minors, Fleming read, Francis would cut the footage and keep it for his private collection.
Did Francis ever tell you what his personal preference was?
“He said he liked 16-year-old blondes,” Fleming read, then looked at the jurors.
.
I
left the courtroom at 5 p.m. Angela was taking care of Rachel’s two kids, 6-month-old Tre and 23-month-old Vivi while Rachel was in court. I was eager to go see them. I was there when they were both born and they were a big part of my life.
When 5 o’clock came around things were wrapping up and the videotape depositions were pretty boring.
Angela lived two minutes from the courthouse and as I got out of my truck I heard Vivi squeal my name. She was standing at the screen door, her nose flattened and cross-hatched by the screen.
I smiled and felt the day ease out of my muscles. I opened the door and Tre looked up from his play mat. He gave me a grin, which was a big greeting for him.
When Rachel arrived an hour later, she tossed her purse on the counter and walked around the couch to where I was playing with Tre. Each step she took was deliberately slow, but not from fatigue, heal click then toe tap on the floor. She was in trial mode, which meant every conversation was a debate and every encounter would be a confrontation until the trial ended.
“This was a big, fat mistake,” she said. “I should never have taken this job. I am so unprepared. We’re gonna get our asses handed to us.”
“No one expects you to win, Rach. You just have to do your best to make the right objections.”
As usual, she acted like I’d never spoken. She didn’t go into any situation just to do her best. The only thing that would satisfy her was a win.
“What do you think a win would be in this case?” It wouldn’t be the last time she asked that question. “There’s no way they’re going to give them nothing. Less than a million? Less than a million each?”
Angela didn’t want her to talk about the case in front of the kids. Vivi was a word sponge and Rachel had a tendency to use strong language when describing her opponents in a trial.
Vivi picked up descriptive words in a very short time and was excellent at using them at the worst moments. I had to give her credit, though, she put them in sentences where they were supposed to go.
“Big. Fat. Mistake,” Rachel said, pointing a finger at me to emphasize each word, and to make it clear that if this went bad it was my fault.
That evening, Rachel and Gerard ordered pizza at the office and met with Eric Deutsch and Steph Watts. Joe Francis had gone to bed early. He was pretty close to a physical collapse by the time he left the courtroom.
Gerard got to work on the first draft of a closing argument. It helped him organize his thoughts and come up with a game plan for the next two days. Gerard’s strength was in research. He normally didn’t sleep much and would use the quiet hours of the night and early morning to read.
Rachel was far more frenetic. She went into the conference room with Deutsch and bantered with him through what she thought could be his testimony as their only witness. Deutsch learned quickly that if he wanted to make a point with Rachel he had to talk fast and keep it short. She had no interest in listening to lengthy explanations and usually cut people off after five words. It wasn’t unusual for her to ask someone a question, listen to 10 seconds of the answer, then interrupt them with another question on another subject.
But she absorbed nearly everything and had perfect recall of information and, more importantly, where the information had come from.
Rachel worked until 1 a.m., then went home to rest. Gerard stayed at the office until 3:30 a.m. They both had bleary, bagged eyes when they came into court the next day.
.
R
achel Seaton-Virga stepped off the elevator ahead of Jim Batton, their law clerk, who was towing what documents they had in a bankers box on a dolly.
“So, what do I do?” she said to Batton.
“What do you mean?”
“Do I shake it up? Do I have to pour it over ice?”
“You just drink it. You can shake it up if you want to.”
He handed her a tiny black, yellow and red 5-hour Energy bottle.
Rachel took the small bottle and looked at it warily. She began shaking it and looked over at the reporters.
“It’s my first. I’m a 5-hour Energy virgin. Ha, I’m glad I’m still a virgin of something.”
She twisted the small cap off the tiny plastic bottle and took a tentative sip. She scrunched up her face and handed the bottle to Batton.
“Oh. That’s disgusting.” She looked like she could barely get the words out.
Batton was laughing. “It’s an acquired taste.”
“I’m not sure I want to acquire that taste,” Rachel said, moving toward the courtroom.