The Madness of Joe Francis: "I thought we were all just having fun. I was wrong." (42 page)

She was an expert on trauma. The other psychologists were not. And B was unwilling to face her real problems early on.

“Did you confer with any of these other doctors that diagnosed her?”

“No, I did not.”

“Is that something that could have assisted you in your diagnosis?”

“I think those doctors were dealing with what was right in front of them and without knowing precisely what kind of drugs she was taking and without knowing the big picture, they made a completely plausible diagnosis.”

“At what point did, this is going to sound facetious but, for lack of a better word, this epiphany that the root of her problems or her issues was the incident in 2002? At what point did she have that, I guess, breakthrough?”

“I think she always knew, absolutely, that that was there. I think it was a just a long time before she did anything about it.”

“What was the trigger in her particular case?”

“I don’t think I know the answer to that.”

When B was hospitalized, it was recommended at that time that she engage in counseling, but she chose not to. Lebowitz blamed that on poor health insurance in America.

“Do you have any reason to believe at this point that she was not insured when they offered her those services?”

“I don’t think she was.”

“You know that she wasn’t or you don’t think she was?”

“I don’t think. I don’t know for sure.”

Seaton-Virga walked B’s file to the table and took V’s file out of Gerard’s outstretched hand. Before she got into specifics, though, she asked Lebowitz about the tests the plaintiffs had taken. The test that had shown that they weren’t lying and weren’t exaggerating their problems.

“These are standardized tests? They don’t have any questions on them about this particular case?”

In other words, the test showed the girls weren’t lying about the answers they’d given on the test, not necessarily about the allegations they were making.

“No, no, no. It’s a standardized test,” Lebowitz said.

Seaton-Virga had V’s file open and referenced her involuntary commitment to a mental facility in May 2003 after a suicide attempt. At that time, she said her mother’s death and the fact that her father had already moved his new girlfriend into their home were the cause of her breakdown.

Lebowitz asked if that was the first or the second suicide attempt. Seaton-Virga flipped through some pages and said it appeared to be the second one. She’d apparently been hospitalized in February 2003 after her first suicide attempt.

Neither Seaton-Virga nor Lebowitz seemed to realize that the February suicide attempt happened before she met Joe Francis.

Seaton-Virga pointed out in the file that V had said the February suicide attempt was because her boyfriend was “hanging out with his ex-girlfriend.”

“It was motivated out of anger, not depression, anger with her father and of course the death of her mother,” Seaton-Virga told Lebowitz, reading from the doctor’s notes.

“I think she was undoubtedly very angry with her father,” Lebowitz said. “I think she was in grief about her mother. I think she was in shame. I think there were a lot of things on her plate.”

Lebowitz didn’t elaborate on what V was ashamed of prior to her Girls Gone Wild incident.

Plaintiff V went to counseling and at no time did she bring up Joe Francis or Girls Gone Wild as being a problem.

“I do not find that to be inconsistent in any way with what we know about sexual trauma,” Lebowitz said calmly.

They moved on again, this time to Plaintiff J.

Plaintiff J was involuntarily committed in March 2003 and June 2004, both times after suicide attempts. In both instances, she’d told the doctors that problems with her boyfriend led to the suicide attempts.

Seaton-Virga asked Lebowitz if she’d read in the file where J had supposedly tried to kill herself on one of these occasions by overdosing on Benedryl?

Pontikes stood and objected. At sidebar she told Smoak that she’d been willing to give Seaton-Virga some leeway in her cross-examination, but she didn’t think it was appropriate to have these unauthenticated medical records read line-by-line into the record.

“Were these records part of what she reviewed?” Smoak asked.

“That is correct and she somehow glossed over some of these details when she was testifying on direct about these suicide attempts and their origins,” Seaton-Virga said.

“That’s clearly not a, that’s clearly a mischaracterization of her testimony,” Pontikes said.

“None of this came out on direct,” Seaton-Virga stressed. “I’m simply trying to get to the basis of her opinion and how she formed her opinion and whether or not these things played in the formation of that particular opinion that everything leads back to Girls Gone Wild.”

“These are records that she did review?” Smoak asked again.

“That is correct.”

“I’m going to overrule the objection.”

The sidebar broke up and Seaton-Virga returned to the podium.

In both hospitalizations, Plaintiff J had said nothing about flashing for Girls Gone Wild?

“You don’t talk about what you’re ashamed of.”

J had blamed her suicide attempt on a fight with a boyfriend.

“You would agree with me,” Seaton-Virga said to Lebowitz, “that young love can be very tumultuous.”

“I would, but I would also argue that young love, in the absence of other serious stressors or vulnerabilities doesn’t result in suicide attempts.”

“She didn’t indicate any other stressors in her life at that time did she?”

“There’s nothing in the medical records.”

In June 2004, J was hospitalized again after overdosing on drugs. She again blamed a breakup with a boyfriend.

“And, again, she also indicated that she had not been suffering from any depressed mood,” Seaton-Virga pointed out.

“Right. Given that she took a near lethal dose of drugs you would at least want to question that.”

“Do you recall in reviewing her medical history, particularly in the June 2004 commitment in Bay Behavioral, that she indicated that she didn’t feel like she could talk to her mother? And that she would like to? And that her mother probably would not do that?”

“She felt like she had really let her mother down. She felt like, you know, that day that they went to Panama City Beach, it was really over the mother’s pretty strenuous hesitation. She was very concerned about her two teenage girls going over there and the mom had been kind of pressured and she had let them go. Plaintiff J felt very guilty and very badly about, essentially, you know, in exchange for her mother’s trust doing something that had been so bad. It drove a wedge between her and her mother.”

Pontikes stood and objected.

“On what basis?” Smoak asked.

“On the basis we discussed at the sidebar.”

“Relevancy? What?”

“Let’s come up,” Pontikes said, indicating she’d like a sidebar.

“I think she’s objecting to the form of the question,” Seaton-Virga volunteered. “So let me rephrase. Am I right Ms. Pontikes?”

Pontikes did not answer her and only asked again for a sidebar.

At sidebar, Smoak told her he’d like a little head’s up next time.

“All I ask is that you give me a code word like ‘form’, ‘relevance’ or something like that so I can be shaking the cobwebs out while you’re coming up here.”

“I’m sorry, your honor,” Pontikes said, “I wasn’t sure what the code word should be here.”

“I was thinking you thought form,” Seaton-Virga volunteered again, “because of the …”

“Just let me state the objection,” Pontikes cut her off. “Because of the discussion we had, basically instead of having the opportunity to publish these records, which would require authentication and the defendants identifying them in the pretrial order, we’re going line by line with the medical records to get them into evidence through our expert.”

“If I may, judge,” Seaton-Virga said, “she’s indicated this was part of the basis of her opinion. I’m just inquiring as to whether or not these things were taken into consideration when she made the determination that GGW was responsible for these girls’ damages.”

“As I understand correctly,” Smoak said, “these were part of her review.”

“She did review them, your honor,” Pontikes said. “She hasn’t testified they were the basis of her opinion. She did review them.”

“Then I think it’s proper to question her about them,” Smoak said.

“In a line-by-line basis?”

“I think a little bit of that has gone a long way, quite frankly,” Smoak said. “It might be a little better to get a little more focused and get to where you’re going. Keep in mind that we’re getting into late Friday afternoon.”

The sidebar ended and Seaton-Virga returned to the podium. She returned to the subject of Plaintiff J’s stated reasons for trying to commit suicide: her boyfriends.

“I think it was one of the hospitalizations,” Lebowitz said in response, “where her counselor was a male. In the groups they were in, they were encouraged to focus on – they were not encouraged to talk about their feelings. They were not encouraged to talk about the etiology of their problems. And, more to the point, saying I’m having relationship problems is socially acceptable. Saying that, you know, I’ve been in pornography is something that they were – you don’t talk about what you’re ashamed about.”

“Did you confer with any of these doctors about their treatment programs and their groups?”

“I did not.”

“So you didn’t have any professional conversations with these treating physicians?”

“No, I did not.”

On to Plaintiff S.

Plaintiff S failed the ninth grade before she flashed.

“Was that Joe Francis’ fault too? Was Plaintiff S skipping school in the ninth grade his fault? I’m assuming that you don’t find it unusual that none of these women indicated to the medical personnel and the psychiatrists and the doctors that evaluated them prior to this lawsuit that they never disclosed anything about Girls Gone Wild or the issues they faced because of it.”

“I don’t find that remarkable, no.”

“Some of these issues that some of these young ladies faced as children, be it alcoholism, fighting parents, child abuse, those don’t play a role in any of their issues either?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Should the father who abused his child, should he be punished financially and fined?”

“It would be a nice thing if he took some responsibility for what he had done.”

“Do you know whether he has?”

“I think they have reached a more peaceful place. In an ideal world, everybody who does something that harms somebody would, you know, fix it or make amends or say they were sorry. It’s not every day that somebody profits so remarkably from the harm they have caused.”

“I guess it depends on what you classify as profit. Certainly, the father that is beating his child is reaping some sort of reward for that.”

“I don’t know that I could speak to that one way or the other.”

Pontikes stood and objected to the line of questioning. Smoak sustained the objection and Seaton-Virga moved on.

“Would you disagree with me that there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of women that have performed in some way or exposed themselves in some way to these cameras?”

“I wouldn’t disagree.”

“Do you believe that all of these women have been traumatized?”

“No.”

You said you thought all these girls would benefit from therapy?

Yes.

“All these young ladies were given the opportunity for counseling and only one opted to pursue treatment.”

Pontikes objected, saying Seaton-Virga was assuming facts not in evidence.

“You’ve read the medical documents?” Seaton-Virga asked Lebowitz.

“Uh-huh.”

“In that document, those doctors recommend continued treatment?”

“Uh-huh, some of them did that.”

“And only one of these young ladies opted to pursue treatment.”

Pontikes objected again. Smoak called a sidebar.

“What’s the basis for that objection?” the judge asked.

“I know that counsel’s new in the case, but the medical records, although they say ‘treatment’ it was drug treatment, not counseling.”

“Actually,” Seaton-Virga said, “it refers to counseling and I’ll be happy to show that to counsel.”

“This is again using the medical records as if they were admitted as exhibits and they’re before the court. I have given counsel a lot of leeway on the medical records,” Pontikes said.

“I’m letting her use it on cross-examination only,” Smoak said. “They were part of what (Lebowitz) did review.” He brought up Seaton-Virga’s specific question that Pontikes had objected to and asked Seaton-Virga for some clarification.

“She’s conferred with each of these young women. She’s reviewed the reports. It’s clear in these medical records that they suggest ongoing counseling. I mean it actually refers to counseling.”

“I would like to see that,” Pontikes said.

“I’ll be happy to show it to you.”

“I’m going to allow that question, if this is the only one that sought treatment.”

Seaton-Virga went back to the podium and asked the question again. This time, Lebowitz disagreed with her about who sought counseling. She said she thought both S and J met with counselors.

“So, Plaintiff J and Plaintiff S have already sought counseling?” Seaton-Virga asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“And they did not disclose that to their therapist?”

“Plaintiff J definitely didn’t. I don’t recall if Plaintiff S mentioned it or not. I don’t think so.”

“Did you talk to their counselor?”

“No.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t talk with any of these treating physicians or these counselors?”

“There wasn’t a burning question that it would have answered for me.”

“Is that because you had already made up your mind that this was all Joe Francis’ fault?”

“No. Because it’s not clear to me what question it might have answered. I didn’t disbelieve that these women had gotten into psychiatric trouble and had been in the presence of medical professionals and had not disclosed the kind of information that, you know, would have been helpful.”