Contracts
Author of Fake Memoir Can Keep $32.4M Judgment, Court Rules
Posted Oct 13, 2008, 02:15 pm CST
By Martha Neil
The author of a best-selling Holocaust memoir that was eventually determined to be a fake can keep the $32.4 million judgment she was awarded in an earlier case, along with a ghostwriter, a Massachusetts judge has ruled.
But that may not be the end of the story. A lawyer for the defendant, book publisher Jane Daniel, says she intends to appeal last week's ruling upholding the 2001 jury verdict in a breach of contract case, reports the Associated Press.
The jury would not have awarded the money to author Misha Defonseca if they had known her 1997 Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years was fiction rather than factual, Daniel contends.
However, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley dismissed Daniel's suit, apparently on two alternative grounds:
First, she didn't file it within a one-year statute of limitations, the newspaper says. And, second, the subject matter of the book wasn't at issue in the contract matter, which focused on whether profits were fairly divided.
Says Daniel: "The poor, poor Holocaust survivor and the evil publisher who had victimized her—that's how it was characterized in the trial, and that's what's being allowed to stand."
As Defonseca has now admitted, the news agency notes, she not only didn't live with wolves, kill a German soldier in self-defense or walk 3,000 miles across Europe searching for her family during the World War II era but, in fact, isn't even Jewish.
Related Stories
- Lawyer Pleads to Tax Misdemeanors; Feds Say He Didn’t File Since ‘94
1 hour, 25 minutes ago - Police Bribed Judge to Get Search Warrant, Ex-Chicago Cop Testifies
1 hour, 53 minutes ago - Expert Slams Court’s ‘Blame the Victim’ Response to Judge-Prosecutor Affair
2 hours, 39 minutes ago - 5 Gitmo Detainees Held Unlawfully, Federal Judge Says
4 hours, 11 minutes ago
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Comments
Posted by jane Daniel - 1 month, 4 days, 21 hours, 12 minutes ago
There is so much misinformation in the media about this case, I’d like to address a few key points here.
The recent ruling dismissing my complaint to overturn the $33 million judgment against me is astonishing.
Although it has been widely reported that profits from the book were hidden by me, this finding was based on testimony by Defonseca, an admitted perjurer — there was no independent auditor/expert witness. The court also found that because of my failure to generate earnings for the book, Defonseca’s Millis home had been foreclosed. Public records indicate she sold it for a profit just weeks before the trial.
In fact, even the trial judge, Elizabeth Fahey, acknowledged, in the Findings of Fact and Rulings of Law, that there was something amiss with the Defonsecas’ finances:
“The Defonsecas’ three bank accounts reveal deposits between December 1996 and February 2000 of over $243,700.00. The evidence never made clear how, notwithstanding that amount of deposits, the Defonsecas were claiming financial hardship, such that their home was foreclosed upon in 2001.”
Defonseca’s charismatic status as a Holocaust victim created tremendous credibility and sympathy for everything she said. Here’s how Judge Kantrowitz began the appellate opinion:
“Shortly after the Nazis seized her parents, seven year old Misha Levy fled alone to the forests and villages of Europe, where she wandered for four years. Along the way, she witnessed atrocities, found herself trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto, and killed a Nazi soldier in self-defense. Miraculously, she survived her ordeal, thanks to her strong will and guile as well as, incredibly, the aid of a pack of wolves, who “adopted” and protected her, providing food, companionship, and affection. Needless to say, her story was compelling.“
Because Defonseca was her own lawyer for almost a year, we argued fraud on the court, which has no statute of limitations. The court’s recent finding that Defonseca’s status as a victim of the Holocaust didn’t “go to the heart of the case” defies reason. Judge Timothy Feeley wrote:
“A ‘fraud on the court’ occurs ‘where it can be demonstrated, clearly and convincingly, that a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.“
The court found that her fraud did not rise to the level of “extraordinary” required to justify a finding of fraud on the court. (For comparison, case law offers an example of a verdict that was overturned in a fee dispute between a lawyer representing himself against his client.)
What I’ve described is just a small piece of a calculated scheme to defraud the courts and the public. Much of this twisted story has never been made public. It is all in my book, “Bestseller!“, which will be available on Amazon shortly.
For more background information on this case see my blog: BESTSELLERthebook.blogspot.com
And stay tuned.