Thursday, November 22, 2012

2005 November 14 - Mediation Settlement Conference Morgan's Declaration

This document is a fabric of lies of astonishing proportions.  The links no longer work but I have some of the documents cited and will add them as they become relevant.  I first saw this sometime around 2008, and it was a shock.  When I, briefly, began talking to Morgan again I demanded to know how she could have told these whoppers.  She said Jay made her.  When you compare it to what she is writing now the answer is very different.  She just says what she thinks will be plausible.  But, as with depositions, this does not work as liars would hope.  


Supreme Court
New York County

Mediation Settlement Conference
November 14th 2005



Index No. 121868 - 02_


Morgan F. Pillsbury (now “Gell”)

Vs.

John H. Fund


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Statement and explanation of material facts and history of the events, circumstances and situations that warrant consideration in this case, relevant matters, and issue at hand that may make this case/ action an exceptional action requiring specialized judicial understanding of matters and issues presented herein.

Prepared and submitted by the Plaintiff for the Court’s, Mediator’s and History’s preservation of the facts should for some reason I become unable to otherwise testify to these issues, matters, and things required to bring this action to fruition.
I,  Morgan Francis Pillsbury Gell do make this statement of my own free accord and it should be used as, construed as my affidavit in any event in which my presence or ability to testify or I otherwise become unable to testify or aid in the preparation and presentation of my case. If such were to happen I rely on my husband’s ( Jay E Gell) judgment to pursue this matter to an absolute end permitting him to stand in my steed.
The purpose and intent of this entire document is to clarify issues and present the facts of the case as I know and believe them to be true to the best of my knowledge and ability and as to those things stated upon information and belief have good reason to believe them to be true.
This entire torrid affair and the manner and disrespect the defendant and his council have shown for the court , the rules and principles of civil litigation combined with a cavalier disregard for orders and directives of the court leaves me no option other than the presentation of this material in this format.
I am extremely concerned how this city and state in this case have ignored their own stated policies and rules on treatment of victims of Domestic Violence, how they have written Mr. Fund a ,”get out of jail free card”, concealed evidence from me, the crime victim, and destroyed evidence. And how do I feel about that? To me and many others who count on the stated public policies to protect us from the rich and powerful who think ,” they have more power than senators” feel a grave injustice and disappointment in the system that is designed to protect us.
No only did the defendant get away with beating me and assaulting me he is getting away with robbing me as well. Additionally he is now beating up the courts with his disrespect through council.
It is my intention to pursue this injustice to the bitter end because far to many women are afraid to come forward because of these exact problems and failures of the legal system.
Respectfully submitted this the 14th day of November, 2005
_____________________________
Morgan F. Pillsbury Gell
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BACKGROUND AND HISTORY

I first met Mr. Fund when I was a child; he was a friend of my mothers from the Libertarian Party in Ca. He was an office manager for the LP in Northern Ca. and she was in charge of the LP for S. Ca, quite a bit above him in the pecking order then. I lived with my Grandparents most of the year and visited my mother on school holidays so I was not aware of the fact that Fund and my mother were engaged in a sexual affair. To me he was just another geeky LP friend of hers. Later on she told me there had been an affair, but I had no idea what extent it had gone to.

In 1998 I had a falling out with my mother and we were not speaking, I also had just been dumped by my boyfriend Eugene Volokh. He found out I had lied to him about some things and I had found Gay porn in his house when a friend and I were looking for light bulbs during a commercial shoot at his house when he was out of town.

My Step-Father, Craig Franklin took me on a trip to Paris and New York to cheer me up and since we were to be in NY for a few nights I called Fund from Ca to ask if he wanted to have dinner while I was there. On the phone I informed him of the breakup with Eugene, whom he knew well, and the fact I was not speaking to my mother. He was very excited I was coming and called me back offering to take me to Carnige Hall as well as dinner.

When I arrived in NY I called Fund and told him what hotel I was in and we arranged to meet at Carnige Hall where we watched a performance with two friends of his then he took me to dinner and walked me back to my hotel. He asked to come up to my room to use the phone and once there proceeded to tell me how lonely his life was and asked,” If he could have a hug". One thing led to another and we became sexually involved that night. I told him immediately that I didn't have one-night- stands and was coming off a bad break-up and he told me that he had admired me for a long-time and wanted a serious relationship. I asked him about the fact he dated my Mother and he said she had blown that out of proportion and it really had never happened.

We saw each other the next night as well and then I flew to Europe. We talked several times when I was there and there were messages on my machine from him when I returned to LA. He asked my to meet him in New Orleans in late November and flew me there, we had a great time. He told me he loved me then for the first time, but we had to keep our relationship quiet for a bit because he was so involved in the Clinton impeachment and there were those old rumors about him and my mother to think of, I agreed.

At this point we were talking on the phone quite a bit. I told Fund that I had emotional problems and self-esteem problems dating back many years and that I found it hard to trust people after some things I had gone through in my past. He said he understood and would NEVER do anything to hurt me. He also asked me to always give him the benefit of the doubt if I heard anything about him. He said he had had problems with people spreading rumors about him being a womanizer and he might have done that a bit in the past, but that was over now, again he said I could trust him.

In January I decided to move to New York for a fresh start, to help my friend Matthew Earl Jones start an east coast division of Blacktop Films, and to be near Fund. Fund at first seemed really happy about it. I flew out in early February to look for a place and stayed at a hotel in Jersey City where Fund lived. While there Fund stayed with me at my hotel and I became pregnant. I discovered this when I was back in LA and I called Fund to tell him and he hung up on me. When he finally called back a few horrible hours later he told me that since impeachment was going on it would be best if I had an abortion. We could have a family later, but now was not the time. I am politically pro-choice, but to me personally it is murder and this was awful for me to think about doing. I called someone I could trust, Manny Klausner, an old LP friend of my mother, someone I considered like a god-father and he told me that, yes, people were out to get Fund and this was probably the right decision.

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In the meantime I still had to move so in mid march 1999 I moved to Jersey City a few blocks from Fund's place which, strangely I had still never seen. He said it was too messy to have visitors. When I moved in I knew nobody there and the first day I called Fund to let him know I had arrived. It took him 3 days to call me back, remember at this time I was STILL pregnant with his child! He came over a week later to take me to dinner, have sex and then leave. When I asked him about arrangements for the abortion he said he was too busy to help out, drive me, or take care of me afterward. I decided to fly back to LA for the procedure and stay with Matthew Earl Jones and his girlfriend Pam Frasier who offered to help me. When I asked Fund if he could help out, I was hinting at the cost, he gave me the name of his travel agent...nothing more. Never offered a dime.

I flew out to CA had the abortion in a clinic in Venice, Ca by a Dr.Leb (see attachment A) and went back to Matthews place. Fund called me there to see how it went, but he was busy so he couldn't talk long.

I returned to Jersey City and started looking for work, my funds were getting low and since Matthew hadn't had any luck setting up an east coast office I was out of work. Fund kept coming over every week or so and taking me to dinner. One night at my apartment he asked me if we could make this a permanent relationship, it was obvious he meant marriage and I said I would think about it. Right after that he called me and accused me of telling people about our relationship. I asked him who he meant and he named Matthew and Pam. I was shocked, I was staying with them during the abortion, they had nothing to do with politics, why couldn't I tell them? He said I would have to be punished which turned out to be standing me up on my birthday, leaving me sitting there to,” teach me a lesson". It was horrible.

 He continued doing things like that, saying people were watching him and that he had to be very careful. He accused me of telling my mother about our relationship even though I was not talking to her at the time. He told me he had proof I did even going so far as to tell me he would show me this proof. He never produced anything. I later discovered his,” proof" was the fact she left him a voice mail at work on an unrelated topic. Not odd since she still considered him a friend.

It all came to a head when I attended a David Horowitz, "Weekend" political gathering in late August that year, 1999. Fund was there to speak and kept acting as if he didn't know who I was. Manney Klausner and his wife Willette commented on it, having known of my relationship with Fund from Fund himself. It was terrible for me and towards the end of the gathering Fund came to my room and repeatedly accused me of telling people about us and his continued need to punish me. He said when he calmed down back in NY he would try to forgive me and we could then move forward with our relationship. He left me in tears. I didn't want to believe that someone I killed my child for could be so cruel so I kept searching myself for what I could have done to cause all these problems with Fund.

When I got back to Jersey City I was distraught and still upset and angry with Fund so I took a deep breath and called my mother. We had a long conversation and I learned many things as did she. I learned that when she got pregnant with my younger brother Justin she was sexually involved with Fund and called him to tell him she was pregnant and he hung up on her as well! She was also dating my step-father Craig Franklin and wound up marring him, but she was never sure who was the father and Fund apparently assumed that HE WAS! And even after this he got involved with me! She also told me Fund used the same, "I need a hug" line to get her into bed as well. You can imagine my feelings on hearing all this. My mother then called Fund who told her I had fraternized the whole relationship with him and that I never had an abortion. When he called me a few minutes later to yell at me for calling and talking to my mother I taped him so that I could play the conversation back to my mother to prove he was lying to her about everything . This conversation was the one that later wound up on the internet and that Fund tells people was faked or that he was just going along with my fantasy about a relationship and subsequent abortion with him because I was suicidal. I was NOT SUICIDAL, I WAS REALLY ANGRY!

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My mother and I then made up and she flew out to NY to see me. She loved NY and wanted to get a place there and knowing my financial straights offered to give me a room in her apartment in exchange for my working for her non-profit.

In January of 2000 she and I moved to an apartment on 34th street. Our agreement was that this was a fresh start and there would be no male visitors overnight, she was still trying to get me to give up Fund who kept telling me AND HER he really loved me and wanted to work out our relationship.

In February 2000 my mother came back to NY with a new boyfriend named Phillip who was an obvious alcoholic and pot smoker and announced this was, "her new husband and the love of her life" and proceeded to move him in. I was trapped, I worked for her and lived in the apartment so I tried to make the best of things, but it was hard. My mother, who hardly ever even had a glass of wine on special occasions, started to drink heavily with Phillip in the apartment and was pressuring me to help her go back after her ex Craig for more support since Craig had admitted to me he and his boss at work had defrauded my mother of stock options in their divorce. I agreed because I was trapped and had no choice.

It is also around this time that I read a book on Princess Diana and some of her emotional problems. Some of the symptoms they described such as depression, lack of self esteem matched mine so I got it in my head I must have Borderline Personality Disorder. I never was diagnosed with it, I had no idea it has a legal meaning it just made sense to me. I also started seeing a doctor and told her I thought I had it, but she never diagnosed me as such. She put me on Prozac which made me worse, so I just stopped seeing her.

John was a major part of my social life at this time. He introduced me to the Fabiani Society, a group of conservative media people that meets once a month at the Princeton club in Manhattan. There I met Barbara Herbrich, her boyfriend Doug Dechert and Marta Hummel. When I was introduced to Doug Dechert he told me he was a professional PR guy and offered to help me with a problem I was having at that time. I had heard through friends, that my relationship with Fund, the abortion and his relationship with my mother had been found out by some of Fund’s liberal enemies and they were going to use it, Dechert told me that he could handle it for me for the small fee of $10,000.00. I blew him off and he was not pleased so he had the item run as a ,”blind item” on Page Six of the NY Post. Fund was not very happy about this. I later found out how sleazy Dechert really was (see attachment B)

Around this time I also decided to file bankrupts because my step-father Craig had given me money as a gift when I was living in LA and then tried to pressure me into having sex with him. When I rebuffed him he told me that before I left for NY I needed to see his lawyer about something and she confronted me with a promisary note to pay him back the gift money. I signed because I was scared. After I signed he never gave me another dime.

Although 2000 I continued to see Fund, though it was rocky. Towards the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001 he stayed over at the apartment with me for days on end when my mother was not there. We got along well and I thought maybe we had a chance. I was an idiot, I still loved him.

My mother decided to close down the apartment as of February 2001 and I was to get a place of my own which she would help me with after I flew out to Ca. to testify in her court case against my step-father Craig. We put my stuff in storage and left for Ojai, Ca. where she kept a small guesthouse. It was hell, when I got there she began to slowly renege on all her promises to me and when we argued heatedly my brother Justin, who is 6'2" threw me to the floor and proceeded to choke me till I passed out. During this my mother and her boyfriend just stood there watching, not doing anything to help. When I came to I ran out down the road to a nearby hospital where they examined me and called the police. The police took me home and were told I was crazy, that I just made it up. The police were not impressed with my mother’s boyfriend telling them this because her was obviously drunk at the time. I had to stay, I had no car, no money and no where to go so I dropped the charges. I was then forced to sleep on the floor, which was very cold and wait to see what my mother would decide to do with me.

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What she decided was to rent a $5,500.00 a month house on the Santa Barbara Mesa for herself, her boyfriend, Justin and my handicapped brother Arthur in anticipation of the huge amount of money she would get from her upcoming trial against my step-father. I was left in a guesthouse in Ojai in winter with no transportation, miles from a grocery store, no furniture, heat or a bed to wait till she had need of me for the deposition which would make her rich.

My deposition came up and I gave it. I had NO LEGAL REPRESENTATION in this deposition.  In it I said I had Borderline Personality Disorder, though I had no idea there were legal ramifications for this self-diagnosis and I was not a doctor. I had no knowledge of the legal definitions of that condition and had no lawyer to explain them to me. I also said I had told many lies in my life. I had lousy self-esteem and wanted people to think I was worth something so in the past I had exaggerated some accomplishments. I was trying to make a clean breast of it, and I had been writing people I might have hurt in the past emails for a few weeks before saying I was sorry if I had hurt them. I got many responses thanking me for my honesty and I felt pretty good about that. After the deposition I realized I put things in a way that might make my past look worse than it was so I wanted to make some changes, but the day after the case settled and I was assured the deposition was not going to be used so I didn't make those changes.

The settlement was much less than my mother anticipated and she used the opportunity to blame me. She left me in Ojai without a dime, saying the paltry amount she got, about $330,000.00, left her no choice but to abandon me out there. She told me not aborting me was the biggest mistake she ever made and I was worthless and deserved to windup in a homeless shelter because I was not smart enough to support myself. She left me a phone and a computer and told me to be out in 2 months. The computer was an old one of hers and she left it set up for me and connected to the internet. She said if I returned to NY, where all my stuff was, she would give me a one way ticket. I used those 2 months to really lean how to use the computer and how to do real research online. I also learned about chat rooms where is where I met Lea Dudley.

While playing on the internet one night I found a posting about the Page Six blind item with Fund and I and started emailing back and forth with the poster. We finally spoke on the phone and her Name was Lea Dudley, a woman in Washington State who was in DC circles and was involved with Fund at the same time I was and was on vacation with him while I was HAVING THE ABORTION! She told me a lot about Fund, how he uses women, is a liar, steals stories from other reporters, is paranoid and delusional. I even taped one of these conversations (see attachment C& D)

I was crushed and right as I was digesting this info I got a call from Marta Hummel, my Fabiani Society friend in NY. I told her the whole thing and she told me that she already knew, but didn’t want to break it to me. She said that Fund uses his influence to pick up Hill staffers in DC, a different one almost every night when he is in town. I was physically sick on hearing this. This monster, who I trusted, who I needed to give the,”Benefit of The Doubt To”, who I aborted my child for was the lowest piece of sleaze on earth!

I called my mothers bookkeeper and requested copies of the phone bills from the apartment I shared with my mother on #4th street in Manhattan to see who Fund was calling when he was staying with me. There were strange calls in the middle of the night to several numbers so I called them and left messages that I was John Fund’s girlfriend and these numbers showed up on my bill and I wanted to see who they were to. I hit pay dirt(see attachment E) I got a vicious call from Fund saying I had called a Federal Judge named Diane Skyes and how dare I do that. I told him to go to hell, it was my phone bill, calls on my dime and I didn’t care if she was upset!!! He tried to convince me they were,” business calls” but who makes calls like that at midnight! I was born at night, but not last night!

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 I sold all the possessions I could on online auctions ECT. and when the time came for me to return to NY my mother drove out to Ojai and presented me with $1,000.00 phone bill she claimed I had ran up being on the internet. Since one of my brothers set up the internet connection I had no idea it was a long distance number I had been using. she said I would get no ticket unless I gave her the old oritone photos of Yosemite my Grandfather gave me in his will...I had no choice but to give in. I got my ticket and a ride to the airport.

I returned to NY and stayed with my friend Arthur Prager for a month and then moved in with another friend Deborah Scott who lived in the city and had worked in PR. With my background she thought I would be great at it and helped me set up some interviews which I went to and was getting follow-up interviews with different places like Dan Klores. She also introduced me to a writer named John Connolly who was very interested in hearing what Fund did to me, so I TOLD HIM! I wasn’t going to protect that piece of filth anymore.

Fund then started to call me again and tried to convince me he could help me in my quest for work and also tried to convince me to work on our relationship again and dumb, dumb me started to believe the lies again.

Since I still was unemployed and felt bad being a burden living on Deborah Scotts couch and charity Fund told me that if I moved in with him we could work on our relationship and he would pay me to help him clean up his place, get his utilities and bills in order and do the same for him at his office at the Wall Street Journal. He also wanted me to tape any conversations I had with John Connolly and bought me a device to do just that. I later used it on Fund himself, HAHA! Connolly was getting his article about Fund and I published in Talk Magazine and Fund knew about it and was trying to scuttle it. In retrospect, I believe Fund had me move in with him for several reasons: 1. so he could watch and control me 2. To drive me crazy ( I already told him I had emotional problems, why not do things to make them worse and make me look bad in front of everyone) 3. To take advantage of me doing all that work for him and leaving me with nothing.
   
 His apartment was unreal. I set about doing the following:
  Cleaning larva out of his refrigerator, washing maybe 35 loads of wash the first week I was  there, cooking, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, unstopping the toilet and the tub, unstopping the sink, carting away mountains of trash and moldy food, cleaning out bugs and mouse droppings from his apartment and even his bed! Turning his phone on, his cable on, making sure his bills got paid, organizing all his bills, checks and household accounts.

                  Ordering furniture from Ikea for him and assembling it, organizing his closets and shoes, helping him go through old clothes to donate some to charity, hauling hefty bags of dry cleaning blocks to the cleaner in the summer heat, going into the WALL Street Journal on weekends to go through over 100 boxes of junk he had there and organize them. For the first few weeks I worked about 18 hours each day to get the place in shape. I was with Fund 6 months during which time I carried out these same tasks on more of an upkeep schedule, say 40 hours a week. Fund  did other things in that time  like causing me to be late paying my American Express bill because he would delay in paying me back for things I charged for him, i.e. Ikea furniture, groceries, ect.

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The day I moved in he told me he was going to DC on business. I later found out he was there also because he was going on vacation with a woman named Leslie George whose father Clair George had been pardoned by Bush 1 for Iran- Contra.

When he got back we spent lots of time together, both at the apartment and at the WSJ on weekends as I started the job of going through his storage boxes to clean and sot stuff as he requested. As I did this I read emails he had printed out from other women which confirmed what Lea Dudley told me, that he had cheated on me and lied to me countless times throughout the beginning of our relationship. There were emails from Federal Judge Diane Skyes talking about the sexual aspects of their relationship, emails telling some woman that he ,”Used to be a Rakish Playboy, but now had changed his ways”, old condoms, ect. I guess I thought he could still change, oh how dumb I was!

During the weekdays I worked on his apartment, and talked to a friend I met through Barbara Herbicht, a man named Steve Craig who warned me that Fund was using me and was, “Gas lighting” me with the emails from other women, leaving them and used condoms around the house to drive me crazy and thus make me act crazy in public. I didn’t believe him Steve also warned me that Fund would also try to pin something on me like writing bad checks. I dismissed that too, Fund may have cheated on me but he would NEVER be so evil, I thought.

Then his paranoia and security concerns started. I was not to leave the apartment building by the front door, someone may see me. I couldn’t make phone calls or receive them on the home phone, someone might figure out we were living together (bad for his love life I guess) since my cell got spotty reception and many cut offs it was hard to have potential employers call me. He left me with no money or change sometimes so I couldn’t leave the house. Later on he started taking the laptop computer he bought me and the home phone itself to work with him so I couldn’t communicate with anyone!

Then he started getting angry and hitting me, the first time was when a convention called ALEC came to town and I confronted him with the fact he was supposed to take me to some of the functions. He only ended up taking me to one, and he really didn’t take me, he met me at a party associated with it at a Manhattan hotel where he was very late arriving and hardly spoke to me at all, just introduced me to one or two people and proceeded to come on to several women in front of me. I got mad at him and told him off in front of someone important and left. He was very angry when he caught up with me at home.

I told several people about Fund’s treatment of me and one day I got a call from John Connolly who was concerned about the rumors he was hearing. He had received a call from a woman named Carol Devine Molin who had been involved with Fund several years before and was treated very badly by him. At that time she tried to get the story out about how Fund treated her. She had a public access TV show in Winchester Co. and invited Fund to appear. He flirted with her and went home with her and they started a sexual relationship. Carol told Connolly that she was mad at Fund because when they had sex that night she preformed oral sex on him and when she asked him to do the same to her he said,” You got to swallow”. He also made promises to her about writing articles about her for the WSJ and never came through and never returned her calls. She called the WSJ to complain and they blew her off. She then went to Salon magazine and they were interested in doing an article about Fund’s behavior, but Fund had the article killed and told the WSJ legal department she was making it all up and was a kook. Sound familiar? Apparently Fund has used the WSJ to get rid of women before, at least that is what Carol told Connolly. When she told all this to Connolly she taped their conversation and sent Connolly a tape of it then later tried to sue him to get it back. I will produce that tape at trial.

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Anyhow Carol told Connolly she heard I was being abused so he gave her my number and she called when Fund was there (see attachment F) then sent me an email saying she wanted to hear my whole story. When she called back later and Fund was gone she said that she was a Domestic Violence councilor during the day and would help. I told her everything. She also called my mother and got her side of the abuse that was going on that I had told her about. Carol called me back and told me to consider her a friend and to call her over the weekend. When I tried her home number had been disconnected so I called her work number and left a message. The next week Fund came home and I was told that HE asked Carol to call me, tape me and now I had to be punished. I was. When I emailed her later she complained to Fund that I was stalking her and she would call the police on me. I found her new number at home, after snooping through Fund’s bag one night; she changed her home number after talking to me, and called her and told her what I thought of her.

This is only one example of the continuous mind games and hell he put me through. There was also a woman named Ellen Wesley who worked for Citicorp he was sleeping with that fall and lying to me about. I called her and informed her what was going on, and made myself look really crazy, but I was becoming really crazy! I never knew what the truth was anymore. One day Fund would be wonderful to me the next he would be paranoid and take the phone, the next he would accuse me of doing,”bad things” but he never told me what exactly, I would sometimes get a scary phone call from him after he went to work saying he knew what I had done and I was to wait till he got home to discuss it. I would sit in the apartment all day in the middle of the living room floor terrified.

He would have me write up,” punishment lists” of things or emails I had sent, or thoughts I had that would be threatening to him. He said it was good for me, it was cleansing and we could then start fresh after I confessed all.

Fund was also very bad about normal bill paying, he was always in trouble with a storage facility or the IRS for not getting things out on time. I have an answering machine tape of his that proves this I will play in court. He taught me how to sign his signature, with a little squiggle under it to pay utilities when he was gone. When I moved in there were tons of uncashed checks to him on the floor, thousands of dollars worth that he never got around to putting in the bank (see attachment G) How many people do you know who would leave a $10,000.00 check under a coffee cup? He told me that he doubted they were even good anymore so I told him maybe I would send them into the bank at some point and find out.

 I stopped talking to Steve Craig when I got the feeling Fund was talking to him as well, sometime in November 2001. No big loss, I discovered Steve had a shady past, had run some modeling agency in NY which was a cover for Russian prostitutes. Also he was in his late 50’s, had no job and lived with his mother in a one bedroom in Manhattan. He self-published a food newsletter which was very unsuccessful, I guess I only talked to him because I was desperately lonely stuck in that apartment dealing with Fund and he seemed interested in politics. I figured he was talking to Fund pretty early on so I would say thing to him to see if they got back to Fund and they did.

At one point Fund asked me to marry him and I said yes. I told my mother, who I started talking to again as well because I was desperately lonely) and she started arranging a small wedding after SHE talked to Fund about it. During all this I was still getting punished by Fund and at one point went to the Jersey City police and filed a report. I did it one night when I knew he wouldn’t be home, election night. I described to the officers what he was doing to me and they urged me to file and to have him arrested, which I didn’t do because I was scared what would happen to me if I did. Where would I go? I asked my mom for help and she said go to a homeless shelter.

At Thanksgiving that year I made a great dinner and had it waiting. Fund never came home for it and when he did show up we argued he beat me to the point I was cowering in a corner as he stood over me and laughed and told me that since he was the friend of Bret Schindler, who was mayor of Jersey City, if I pressed charges he could get them thrown out. Oh, he mentioned that he new some bigwigs at the police department too so he could get them thrown out that way as well.

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Once he started beating me and was about to rape me when the police pounded on the door. My mother called the police after she couldn’t get a hold of me again, he disconnected the phones, and Fund appeared to the police as cool and rational, while I , who was shaking and crying, got nothing but questions like, Are you on drugs”, and, “if your name isn’t on the lease you need to get out” They even talked to him in the hallway alone, not me and he went down to the station the next day to explain things to them, I was not invited.

At Christmas I got together enough money for a small tree, decorations, and some gifts for him. He came in Christmas Eve, threw a book at me he got free from the WSJ and said, “There is your gift”. I had to beg him to open the stocking I made for him Christmas morning after which he just left fro the day to some big thing at a friend’s house. I was all alone.

After this, even though I still would have good times with him and discuss marriage I became aware he was having sex with yet ANOTHER woman, Gail Heriot, a law professor in San Diego. I confronted him and called her, things were getting crazier, if that was even possible.

My friend Caroline Marshall mentioned to me at this time that she was renting out her studio apartment in Manhattan and asked if I would be interested (see attachment H) I was for several reasons, maybe a little distance would help Fund and I, I was still planning on marring him and It would be a good base for us in the city instead of him having to come back to Jersey every night.

I demanded Fund pay me all the money he owed me for all the work I had done and he told me to write myself some checks in not so huge amounts, he even walked me to the bank in the village to deposit some of them! I thought it was strange, but he said he wanted to see how well I did his signature. I did it with his full knowledge, anything else he says is a LIE! I was at his apartment when the bank called to notify him a large check had been written on his account and I told them to call him at the office. Those checks cleared and he knew it.

And, I might as well say here as of this writing November 2005, I have not been charged by the banks for writing fraudulent checks as they would be required by law to do if I had done this crime. I didn’t do it and they know it. The statute of limitations for those charges has past. I also know and have on good authority, there are no records or notations on Fund’s bank account to show there was ever any question of fraud which means he got one of the powerful friends he brags about to do something underhanded. I am now am going to sue Chase for this because it has just come to my attention, this fraud about fraudulent checks.

When I moved into the city I started slowly moving myself and my stuff out of Fund’s apartment. I was still going to Jersey City, still cleaning his place and then taking back a suitcase full of stuff when I went back to the city. Fund had discovered I had filed police reports against him and was trying to get me to go to the Jersey police and get the records erased which I did for him one day in a half-hearted way on one of my trips to his apartment to clean. That day he was at the city apartment making calls on my phone to press people slandering me, trying to convince them a story about those police reports of domestic violence were the ravings on a crazy woman who at that moment was cleaning his apartment, stocking his refrigerator, doing his laundry etc! I know this to be a fact because while I was cleaning his place one day the phone rang and the machine picked up and it was the writer Norman Porowitz telling him how sorry he was that he was the victim of such a nasty smear campaign launched by a lunatic!

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I confronted him on this and he denied it as usual. One night he spent the night with me at my apartment, kissed me goodbye and went to work. I went to the ATM to get some money out and found my account had been locked. I called him about it, I was panicked, I owed rent that week and he told me he had reported the checks to be fraudulent and would give me back the money when I signed certain papers saying he didn’t beat me, that I was crazy . He also wanted me to talk to Richard Johnson of the NY Post and other reporters and tell them I was crazy and that he didn’t hit me. I refused to talk to the reporters and kept dodging the calls he set up between them and me. Fund gave me cash at this time to pay rent and other expenses till he got this mess ironed out AND he was still sleeping over at my place even though I asked him not to keep coming around. One morning a group of my friends came by to see if I would like to go out to breakfast and surprised Fund who was with me at the time. The group included my landlord Caroline Marshal and her husband Mohan Shah, a prominent Indian businessman who will attest to this at trial. Bear in mind this is after Fund stopped the checks and was telling people I was stalking HIM!
When my mother saw there was publicity in this whole thing SHE became involved, started talking to reporters and trying to play the loving mother. She tried to get Fund to settle with me so that I could get my money back and move on with my life. She told Fund he should settle some money on me so I could keep the apartment and get over the emotional pain his behavior and lies had put me through (see attachment I ) she was also aware, as I was, Fund was trashing us both left and right as crazy money hungry loons (see attachments J, J1K, & L ). Fund kept denying it and wouldn’t settle anything.

I was losing friends and business contacts left and right (see attachment M) and despairing of being able to stay in NY at all when it finally came to a head on February 19, 2002 and Fund came to my apartment, argued with me again, pushed me into a kitchen appliance several times and left, only to come back a few minutes later and do it again! When he finally did leave I was very upset, sat on the floor and cried which was when my mother showed up, she was in town to see a friend, and insisted I called the police. I hesitated for a few days then did go to the police, had my injuries photographed, and pressed charges against Fund for assault.

Fund was arrested and made a statement to the press to the effect that I was a crazy woman. I was enraged, finally the liar did it in public! Just then Steve Craig called me and asked what I was going to do about it. I angrily told him I was going to sue Fund for more than the $30,000.00 he stole from me! Mr. Craig then wrote a carefully worded piece for his little food paper that reeked of Fund, accusing me of being a plotting psycho only after Fund for his money.

If I had wanted to embarrass Fund for money, would I have let myself in for such agony at his hands? Aborted my own child to cover for him, looked like such a fool? No, I loved him, believed him and wanted to be a help to him and for that I had gone through hell and was about to get lots more.

I hired a lawyer who I had contacted way before concerning the libel and slander that Fund was subjecting me too, a firm called Davis & Davis  to represent me. A lawyer named Seth was with me at my first meeting with the ADA on my case Eric Arnone where Mr. Arnone told me no pictures of my injuries by Fund were taken. I was speechless! The DA found them damn quick when the police report documenting that they WERE taken showed up on the internet. The internet became my battle ground with Fund, I gave left wing sites documentation on all my claims because Fund and his powerful media friends, such as Karl Rove and Matt Drudge had the advantage. It was my way of fighting back. My mother got to into it though and tried to make a name for herself on my case, putting up a website with my evidence of Fund’s behavior on it.

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It kept getting worse, every few days I would find out someone I thought was a friend would betray me, usually because they were threatened or bribed by Fund to do so. He had power and I could barely pay my power bill!

In 2002 I got a call from ADA Arnone telling me that something strange was going on, the all the papers on my case were going straight to DA Morganthals desk and I could tell Arnone was starting to believe me about someone pulling strings to get Fund out of the charges. That call came to me on a Friday and the next Monday arnone was replaced on my case by Bonnie Sard. I was told Arnone quit the DA’s office, but I found out recently he is still there.

Ms. Sard was a real prize she sneered at me from day one, had me in to question me about my prior sex life and questioned my credibility. When I told her I was molested as a child the other ADA in the room asked me why I didn’t report it if it was real. I was 3 years old at the time! They waited till the end of the year to drop my case, Sard telling me, “Fund didn’t hit you hard enough to interest the DA”. She said they had several people swear I was a liar and couldn’t be believed. They sealed my court papers away from me so I couldn’t access them and gave complete access to Fund and his attorney. The papers were requested by Judge Beeler in my civil case and the DA refused to grant him access, they said they had to have Fund, the perpetrator of the crime, GIVE PERMISSION for the court to have them! Now the DA says they can’t find my court papers. That is a gross violation of my civil rights and my rights as a citizen of this country and I am suing the City of NY, I have already filed and will be filing other suits against Ms. Sard and Mr. Kessler for hiding evidence as they so clearly did.

I had to leave NY because of finances and the fact some of Fund’s friends actually sent me threats over the internet. I told the DA about these threats and they did nothing. I have lived since then out of a suitcase with friends and Domestic Violence advocates who took me in as I had no money to establish residence anywhere permanently and no time since I have been fighting for justice in my case. I have been treated as less than a human by the City of New York.  I will work all my life if needs be to see justice served upon the DA and Mr. Fund. To do less would be to give up and I am not a quitter.

A great thing did happen out of all this though. Through contacts my mother made with several Domestic Violence groups she met a children’s legal advocate in North Carolina who really knew the law and knew how to get justice in the court system. She convinced me to visit him on my way to stay with friends in Georgia and the visit in Charlotte was a long one. I married him and we now have a 4 month old son named Jacob who is the light of our lives.

There are many details I left out of this, I already feel like I have written a book! I will have the long version ready for trial where I know that at least ALL the facts of Mr. Fund’s character and behavior, the details of the DA cover-up for Fund and the unethical behavior of Mr. Kessler will come out. This is not about money it is about justice and the truth and I want the world to hear the truth about John Fund more than anything. I seek not to destroy Fund for revenge, just to set the record straight. Mr. Fund has accused me of trying to ruin his career, speaking the truth needs no excuse. It was Mr. Funds personal BEHAVIOR and CHOICES that have hurt him and I have no doubt that a jury will see that in trial.


Morgan Pillsbury Gell


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