May 29, 2009

Rockefeller trial: ships, coins, and more

Filed under: law & crime by Victoria Liberty @ 9:10 pm

Today in the trial of Clark Rockefeller, the court heard from six prosecution witnesses who shared some pretty interesting and sometimes strange facts. It was the first full day of testimony.

The first witness was Dr. Liza Brooks, a psychologist who provided therapy to Reigh Boss, the daughter of Rockefeller and his ex-wife Sandra Boss, during their divorce from August to November 2007. She interviewed both parents, and Rockefeller told her that he was raised by an “uncle-type person” and “had taken courses at various universities. It was a fairly sketchy history-taking, actually.” When he lost custody of his daughter to his ex-wife, he was “upset, and concerned that he might not see his daughter,” but he canceled a planned visit with Reigh in the spring of 2008 because he was busy with construction in New Hampshire, travel to New York and Florida, and his new family, saying that he was expecting twins. When Brooks suggested that Rockefeller visit Reigh in her new home in London and communicate with her via phone, mail, and email, he said that he did not have a passport and ended up not contacting her until their July 2008 visit during which he allegedly abducted her. Finally she testified that he was quiet intelligent and demonstrated no memory impairments, hallucinations, or delusions.

On cross examination by defense lawyer Tim Bradl, Brooks admitted that she thought Rockefeller was “weird.” When asked why, she said, “based on his appearance and his no socks, he was just quirky.” She also wrote in emails, “that Clark is weird is a given. I don’t yet have a handle on what the weird is.” Bradl drew attention to Rockefeller’s abrupt change from being an “interested, loving, caring, doting father” to giving up custody of his daughter in exchange for $800,000 from Boss and never contacting her. Brooks agreed that “it was a change from contact, involvement to nothing” and that there could be a mental illness behind it.

Next, Julie Gochar, the real estate agent who sold Rockefeller the Baltimore home where he took his daughter after the abduction, took the stand. He contacted her through the email address svshenandoah@gmail.com and said that he was a ship’s captain in Chile, that he homeschooled his daughter Muffy on the ship, that she was born to a surrogate from Sweden, and that he was looking for a home in Baltimore because he was set to start a job constructing catamarans in the spring of 2008.  He said his name was Charles Smith but he went by Chip because ”he loathed the name Charles.” When she finally met him, he had “red hair, very red…like dyed hair,” and he did not have a tan because, as he told her, it was raining the whole time he was sailing. He did research so often on computers in her real estate office that she gave him the key. Most of the research was about homes, but there was also “a lot of boat information,” “values of gold and stock and stuff like that,” and also “there were times when we’d look at pictures of animals, pets that he liked.” Once, when a bid he made on a home was rejected, he threw a “temper tantrum” as if “he was used to getting what he wanted.” At one point he said he was going home to Wisconsin to visit his sisters, who had been divorced several times and made him do chores whenever he came home, so he didn’t like them very much. Before finalizing the agreement on the house that he eventually bought, he traveled through Europe and had an “allergic reaction to sundried tomatoes.” After the abduction, she got a call from a co-worker who recognized Rockefeller on TV, and she had her husband call the FBI. Prosecutor David Deakin also asked her about Rockefeller’s intelligence and whether he had any identity problems, delusions, hallucinations, or nonsense speech, to all of which she replied no.

On cross examination, Bradl focused on all of the grandiose stories that Rockefeller told, suggesting that they were symptoms of delusional disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, the two conditions that the defense says make Rockefeller legally insane.

Aileen Ang, Rockefeller’s friend who unknowingly drove him and his daughter to New York City after the kidnapping, testified next. She met Rockefeller at the Boston Sailing Center in August 2007 and went to boat shows and lunch together. He said that he was an astronomy professor at Harvard and an entrepreneur who was losing a few million dollars a year and that Reigh’s mother worked for Vogue, left when Reigh was three months old, and would “come around when she needed money.” He also asked her if she wanted to go sailing around the world with him and Reigh and teach her piano.  On July 27, 2008, he gave her $500 to drive him and Reigh to New York City. Ang testified that Rockefeller told her to fill up the gas tank ahead of time, laid down in the back seat until they were out of Boston, said it made him nervous when she tried to call a friend on her cell phone, and tried to persuade her not to stop to use the bathroom and refill the gas tank. Finally, she dropped the father and daughter off at Grand Central Station, where he slammed the door shut without saying goodbye. Just like with the previous two witnesses, Deakin asked her whether Rockefeller had memory loss, identity confusion, nonsense speech, hallucinations, or delusions, and she said no.

Bradl again emphasized Rockefeller’s far-fetched stories and plans on cross examination. He asked Ang whether the idea of circumnavigating the globe was “pretty much a fantasy,” and she said that it was. She also said that once when Reigh found a key in the park, Rockefeller said, “oh, it looks like our key to Rockefeller Center.” Rockefeller also told Ang that he wanted another child and was planning to use a surrogate mother at a farm in California where women were fed special diets so that the babies would come out perfect. Another time, he said that he was mute until the age of 7 or 9, and he also said that many women wanted to date him for his money, including one who tried to trap him in her house.

The next witness was Anthony Viaolanti, an officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A copy of the defendant’s administrative file, under his birth name Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, was entered into evidence. Among other things, it contained a visa petition signed by both him and his first wife, his birth certificate in both German and English, a marriage certificate, a picture of him, and a letter dated 1981 stating that his address had changed to one in California. That was the last time anything had been added to the file.

Then Frank Rudewicz, a private investigator hired by Sandra Boss to conduct an asset search and background check on Rockefeller, testified that he found an Amazon book review that seemed to be written by him, but there were no records of his existence before 1993. He had never seen such a thing in his 20 years of doing background checks. He agreed with Bradl on cross examination that “the persona of Clark Rockefeller is really just a fantasy.”

The last witness of the day was Kenneth Murphy, a precious metals broker with an office in Arlington, Mass. The defendant called him in June 2008, using the name Clark Rock, and said he was looking to purchase $2 million in gold coins. They met in a Starbucks in Harvard Square, where he ordered 527 krugerrands (South African gold coins). Later that month, he decided to exchange the coins for American gold eagles, which Murphy said were easier to use because they do not require any report to be filed. On subsequent visits to the office, Rockefeller picked up his orders of gold eagles. On cross examination, Bradl called attention to the fact that Rockefeller had only purchased under $800,000 of coins, not the $2 million he had indicated, and that he had taken the T back home with a briefcase filled with gold coins each time he visited Murphy’s office.

Sandra Boss is expected to testify Monday, along with Rockefeller’s getaway driver. Other probably prosecution witnesses include members of the FBI and the Boston Police, and Rockefeller’s first wife, whom he married in Wisconsin to obtain a green card.

May 28, 2009

Opening arguments, witnesses, and more motions

Filed under: law & crime by Victoria Liberty @ 9:53 pm

Opening statements took place today in the Clark Rockefeller trial, as well as testimony from three witnesses (including the social worker who witnessed Rockefeller’s alleged abduction of his daughter) and arguments about the motion to exclude his interviews with police and reporters.

The courtroom was the most crowded it’s been yet, with about 60-70 reporters and other observers. At the beginning of the day the jury was sworn in and given the standard instructions to ignore media coverage, avoid conducting independent research, and consider only testimony and exhibits as evidence. The charges against Rockefeller – one count each of kidnapping of a minor by a relative, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, and providing a false name to police – were read aloud by the court clerk.

Then prosecutor David Deakin gave his opening argument, during which he showed a picture of Rockefeller’s 7-year-old daughter, Reigh, and described the events on and leading up to July 27, 2008, the day Rockefeller allegedly kidnapped Reigh after assaulting a social worker. According to Deakin, Rockefeller made up numerous lies about his past, claiming that he was related to the famous Rockefeller family, that he attended Yale at age 14, and that his parents died in a car crash while going to visit him there. He met his wife, Sandra Boss, in 1993, and told her that he worked on debt restructuring in small, struggling nations. They married in 1995, but she became frustrated that he had no income and that he decided to move from New York to Nantucket to Vermont, back to Nantucket, and then New Hampshire, all while she commuted to New York City for her job at McKinsey. The marriage began to disintegrate, but they got back together once Boss learned she was pregnant with Reigh. Rockefeller became a full-time father, and the family moved to Boston in 2006. In 2007, however, they got divorced, and later that year they reached an agreement under which Boss received full custody of her daughter and paid Rockefeller $800,000, and he was allowed three supervised visits each year. Around that time, Rockefeller contacted a real estate agent in Baltimore, telling her that he was a ship captain in South America and was looking for a home for himself and his daughter. He also arranged transportation to Baltimore for the weekend that he was scheduled to visit with Reigh. On July 27, 2008, while walking down Marlborough Street in Boston’s Back Bay during a supervised visit, Rockefeller shoved social worker Howard Yaffe to the ground and threw Reigh into a waiting SUV, causing her to hit her head and cry.

“In his mind, the rules do not apply to him,” said Deakin. He concluded by saying that Rockefeller “knew that the court order and the law prohibited him from taking her” and “is criminally responsible for his actions.”

Defense lawyer Jeffrey Denner conceded that the facts of the alleged kidnapping were as Deakin said, but suggested that the false name and assault and battery allegations were factually false. However, he is claiming that Rockefeller was insane, and therefore not legally responsible, at the time of the kidnapping. “This case is not so much about what happened, but about why it happened,” Denner said. To find a defendant not guilty for reason of insanity, the jury must be convinced that the defendant was either unable to understand the wrongfulness of his actions or unable to conform his actions to the law. Rockefeller had a “deep level of pathology,” as evidenced by his numerous aliases and versions of his past, said Denner, and his daughter “provided the only reality to his life.” He believed that she was telepathically communicating with him and that he needed to rescue her, Denner claimed.

The first witness of the day was Howard Yaffe, the social worker who was supervising the visit. He testified that Reigh seemed happy and energetic and that the defendant was calm and somewhat blase during the two-day visit. While walking to a restaurant, Rockefeller pointed out a building that was undergoing construction to distract Yaffe and then pushed him to the ground and disappeared into a black SUV with Reigh. Yaffe grabbed onto the doorjamb to try to stop them from getting away but tumbled to the ground after the SUV started to move and suffered injuries to his left knee, hip, shoulder, and jaw, which he said took 6 months to heal completely.

On cross examination, defense lawyer Tim Bradl suggested that Rockefeller’s blase demeanor could be a result of narcissistic personality disorder, and that his claim that he had State Street Pavilion tickets to a Red Sox – Yankees game for himself, Reigh, and Yaffe was a delusion. At one point, he told Yaffe, “you assaulted the vehicle,” but then withdrew that question. He did get Yaffe to admit that he ran to the vehicle under his own power; it did not drive toward him. Bradl also grilled Yaffe about inconsistencies in his accounts of the alleged crimes, such as whether or not Rockefeller pushed him and whether he called 9-1-1 immediately or five minutes after Reigh was taken.

Then Naomi Calder, the assistant director of ticketing for the Red Sox, testified that no tickets had been reserved for Rockefeller on July 26, contrary to what he told Yaffe. On cross examination, she said that the tickets cost $165 and agreed that they were “big shot tickets,” consistent with the defense contention that Rockefeller suffers from delusional disorder, grandiose type.

The next witness was G. Robert Warren, a private investigator who was hired by Boss to monitor the visit. He testified that while his view of Rockefeller, Reigh, and Yaffe was blocked, the father and daughter disappeared, and he found Yaffe lying on the ground, injured and disheveled. On cross examination, Bradl focused on discrepancies between today’s testimony and grand jury testimony about whether or not Warren had seen Rockefeller push Yaffe.

The jury left before lunch today, and the afternoon was devoted to more testimony about the motion to throw out Rockefeller’s Boston Globe interview and the beginning of his interview with investigators the day he was arrested. Deakin called Dr. James Chu, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, to the stand. He testified that Rockefeller has a mixed personality disorder with narcissistic and antisocial traits. According to Chu, Rockefeller does not suffer from delusional disorder and had the capacity to decide whether or not to meet with investigators and reporters. “If he didn’t want to talk about it, he could refuse to do so,” he said.

Denner cross examined Chu and criticized his credentials and familiarity with the defendant – he spends 60%-70% of his time on administrative tasks, testified in only one other criminal trial (the trial of defrocked priest Paul Shanley), and interviewed Rockefeller for only two and a half hours. Denner got Chu to admit that Rockefeller has or probably has over five of the criteria of narcissistic personality disorder, enough to be diagnosed with the disorder.

The judge has still not ruled on the motion.

May 27, 2009

Jury selection and motions

Filed under: law & crime by Victoria Liberty @ 9:15 pm

Today in the trial of Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter AKA Clark Rockefeller, jury selection finished up and the lawyers argued several motions, one of which included testimony by a forensic psychologist who said that Rockefeller has two psychological disorders.

This morning, five jurors were selected in addition to the 11 chosen yesterday, bringing the total to the needed 16. The pool of jurors were brought in and questioned as a group, and then individually, just like yesterday. Today’s jurors included two young women, two middle-aged women, and one young man. One woman is a psychotherapist who used to provide group therapy to sex offenders. The jury now comprises 9 women and 7 men. I’d say that all but four of them appear to be in their twenties or early thirties, making the jury surprisingly young.

Jury selection ended before noon, and the jurors were then sent home. The rest of the day was taken up by a variety of motions in limine. Before lunch, the attorneys argued the non-evidentiary motions. First was a defense motion to preclude cross examination of Keith Ablow (the author and TV personality), who will be called as an expert for the defense. Defense attorney Tim Bradl asked Judge Frank Gaziano to forbid cross examination about Ablow’s career as an author, TV host, commentator, and blogger, and limit testimony only to his opinions and career as a forensic psychologist. Prosecutor David Deakin pointed out that Ablow had blogged and spoken about the Rockefeller case while “wearing his forensic psychologist hat” and argued that he should be able to question Ablow about how much time and energy he spends on forensic psychology compared to his other jobs. The judge denied the defense motion and allowed Ablow to be questioned about his other jobs.

Next was a defense motion to exclude evidence of Rockefeller’s prior “bad acts,” including his alleged failure to abide by federal immigration laws and his marriage to a woman in Wisconsin in 1981, allegedly to obtain a green card. Deakin agreed not to mention Rockefeller’s possible involvement in the disappearance of his California landlords, but Bradl argued that evidence of the marriage and immigration issues should also be excluded because it would prejudice the jury and “dirty up the defendant” by opening up his entire past to examination. Deakin, on the other hand, said that introducing his green card application was the least prejudicial way to establish the defendant’s identity and helps to prove a potential motive for the false name charge, namely preventing authorities from knowing he was in the country illegally. Judge Gaziano denied this motion as well, allowing the prosecution to introduce evidence of the marriage and alleged immigration law violations.

Then Deakin argued a prosecution motion to introduce a 9-1-1 call by Howard Yaffe, the social worker who was supervising Rockefeller’s visit with his daughter Reigh when he allegedly kidnapped her. According to Deakin, Yaffe tried to open the back door of the SUV that Rockefeller and his daughter were driving away in and suffered mild to moderate injuries when he tumbled to the ground. A private investigator who was hired to watch the visit came over, and Yaffe dialed 9-1-1. Deakin argued that Yaffe’s statements constituted a spontaneous utterance and should therefore be admitted. Bradl, however, pointed out that Yaffe sounded “surprisingly conversational” and said in the tape that the incident happened five minutes ago. Judge Gaziano denied the prosecution’s motion and barred the 9-1-1 call from being heard in court.

After lunch, the lawyers argued a defense motion to exclude statements that Rockefeller made to investigators and to Boston Globe reporters. Last month the judge ruled that the majority of Rockefeller’s statements to police during a four-hour interview the day of his arrest would be suppressed because he said he did not want to be questioned any more. The first fourteen minutes of the interrogation were up for debate today. Deakin said that he did not want to introduce any of Rockefeller’s statements on a Today Show interview or any statements by his former attorney, Stephen Hrones, rendering any attempts to block those statements moot.

The defense called in Dr. Catherine Howe, a forensic psychologist, who had interviewed Rockefeller at the Nashua Street Jail for 16 hours over 2 months and given him four different psychological tests. She was questioned by defense attorney Jeffrey Denner and testified that his statements to the media were involuntary because of the combination of two psychological conditions: delusional disorder (grandiose type) and narcissistic personality disorder.

According to Howe, delusional disorder is characterized by five criteria, all of which Rockefeller exhibited: non-bizarre delusions (beliefs that could make sense but aren’t supported by fact) that are not due to schizophrenia, do not significantly impair functioning, do not cause significant emotional disturbances, and are not due to drugs or medical conditions.

A diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder, according to Howe, requires five of the following nine criteria: a grandiose sense of self-importance, preoccupation with fantasies of wealth, success, beauty, love, et cetera, the belief that you are “special,” a need for excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement, exploitation of others, a lack of empathy, envy, and arrogance. She said that Rockefeller shows all nine criteria.

Being approached by the media and by police, said Howe, “would reinforce all the beliefs that are part of Mr. Rockefeller” and would be “incredibly difficult” for a person with his two disorders to resist, due to his desire to feel special and important. She testified that he lacked the rational capacity to decide whether giving the interviews was a good idea, especially considering that Hrones advised him to do so.

Deakin cross examined Howe, listing what seemed like every true statement Rockefeller made in his police interview in an attempt to show that he was not delusional. Howe admitted that Rockefeller knew his location, the crime rate in Baltimore, his daughter’s name and age, how and when he met his wife (at a Clue party in 1993), his dog’s name, his wife’s employer, and that he had an extensive collection of Star Trek figures. He also admitted that he never went to college and didn’t earn any money, that Clark Rockefeller was “a role that I played,” that he made up stories about travel to make himself more interesting, and that “it’s fun to shoot off your mouth, especially if everyone believes you.” These statements, according to Deakin, indicate that Rockefeller knew he was lying when he told grandiose stories.

When questioned again by Denner, Howe said that a diagnosis of delusional disorder “does not mean that every statement out of a defendant’s or patient’s mouth is not based in reality.”

Judge Gaziano had not yet ruled on this motion. Opening arguments are scheduled for tomorrow morning, so stay tuned!

May 26, 2009

Clark Rockefeller trial: jury selection

Filed under: law & crime by Victoria Liberty @ 8:47 pm

I went to the first day of jury selection in the trial of Clark Rockefeller today. Good news: I worked it out with my employer so that I will be able to go to the trial every day. I will be updating this blog each day with a summary of what happened in court.

Rockefeller, whose birth name is allegedly Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, is the man who is accused of kidnapping his 7-year-old daughter, Reigh “Snooks” Boss, while on a supervised visit in Boston after a bitter divorce with his wife, Sandra Boss. The father and daughter were found safe days later in Baltimore, and it came to light that Rockefeller is actually a German immigrant who used various aliases and invented various stories about his past to work his way into wealthy circles. He is charged with custodial kidnapping, assault and battery (for shoving the social worker), assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (for driving off as the social worker held onto the car) and providing a false name to the police. For more on what has been happening recently on the case, see this article from the Boston Globe, or for detailed background information, check out this article from Vanity Fair.

Back to today’s events: I got to courtroom 906 at Suffolk Superior Court, right near Boston City Hall, at a little after 8:00. At about 9:00 Judge Frank Gaziano spoke to the media, who were sitting in the gallery, about logistical issues: no interviewing people inside the courthouse, laptops and blackberries are allowed as long as they don’t make any noise, et cetera. I’d say there were about two dozen members of the press, including reporters from Court TV, the Associated Press, Vanity Fair, the Globe, the Herald, and all of the local TV networks.

Rockefeller entered the courtroom at approximately 9:25. He is a small man, 48 years old, with dirty blond hair and glasses. He was wearing a navy jacket, white shirt, red tie, khaki pants, and brown shoes. He did not have any chains or restraints on during the proceedings, and he took notes on a legal pad throughout the day. Note: in my blog I think I’ll refer to the defendant as Rockefeller because he has not yet been found guilty of the false name charge, and that’s the name he chose for himself and wants to be called.

The first order of business was to finalize the voir dire questions to be given to the jurors. Defense attorney Jeffrey Denner had submitted a motion to allow the attorneys to question potential jurors, but Judge Frank Gaziano rejected it. He agreed to ask jurors if they are any more or less inclined to believe a police officer than another witness (at Denner’s request), whether they have any opinions about the insanity defense that would make them biased (at Denner’s request), and whether they have any opinions about probate and family court that would make them biased (at Assistant District Attorney David Deakin’s request).

Next the attorneys argued about the defense motion filed earlier this month to refer to the defendant as Rockefeller in court. Defense lawyer Tim Bradl, who works at the same firm as Denner, said that “the court ought not let the prosecution prove its case through judicial pronouncements.” Calling the defendant Gerhartsreiter, he argued, would indicate that he was guilty of the false name charge. “He ought to be able to refer to himself by the name that he’s chosen,” Bradl said, claiming that using his birth name would create a “needless level of appellate issues and a needless level of prejudice.”

Deakin did not dispute the defense’s right to use the Rockefeller name but asked to use Gerhartsreiter himself, pointing out that the defendant never took any legal steps to change his name. Judge Gaziano decided to let each side use whichever name they want, but he promised to call him simply “the defendant” except when reading the indictment, which refers to him as “Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, also known as Clark Rockefeller.” He also said that he’d explain to the jury that using the indicted name of Gerhartsreiter is just a custom and does not indicate that he has any opinion on the defendant’s true name.

After a short recess, about 50 jurors were brought into the courtroom and questioned as a group by the judge. The charges against Rockefeller were read, the attorneys introduced themselves and the defendant, and a witness list was read. The judge asked the jurors…

  • Do you know Clark Rockefeller or his family?
  • Are you or any family members employed by the Suffolk DA’s office?
  • Would you tend to believe or disbelieve a police officer’s testimony simply because of their police officer status?
  • Do you know any of the attorneys or court personnel, or any of the victims or witnesses?
  • Do you have any personal stake in the outcome of the case?
  • Do you have any bias or prejudice against one side or the other?
  • Do you have a hardship that would prevent you from serving?
  • Do you have a physical problem, language barrier, or religious belief that would prevent you from serving?
  • Are you unable to understand or accept the presumption of innocence and the prosecution’s burden of proof?

Then the jurors were brought in for individual questioning, which lasted almost the rest of the day. Each side began with 8 peremptory challenges, which allow them to get rid of any juror without requiring the judge’s approval. The attorneys can also challenge jurors for cause, which requires approval from the judge. Some of the questions Judge Gaziano asked the jurors included…

  • Have you read, seen, or heard anything about this case on TV, the Internet, newspapers, the radio, or magazines, or discussed the case with anyone?
  • What do you recall hearing (or seeing or reading)?
  • Would you be able to put aside your prior knowledge when serving as a juror?
  • Do you understand that the prosecution has the burden to prove the defendant sane when the defense is arguing lack of criminal responsibility (insanity)?
  • Do you have any feelings or opinions about the insanity defense that would prevent you from being a fair juror?
  • Do you have any feelings or opinions about probate or family court that would prevent you from being a fair juror?
  • Have you expressed or formed any opinions on this case?
  • Would you be able to decide this case based only on evidence and my instructions?

Approximately 53 jurors were questioned, and 11 were selected. At one point, Deakin accused the defense attorneys of challenging jurors based on gender, which is not allowed, after they used peremptory challenges on 5 women and no men. Later, Denner accused Deakin of the same thing, but this time after Deakin had challenged a fourth male juror.

Among the selected jurors are a law professor, a fireman, and a recent college graduate. 6 are men and 5 are women, and most of them seemed to be in their twenties or early thirties.

Among the jurors who were excused, many said they had heard/viewed media coverage of the case, including allegations that Rockefeller may be involved in the disappearance of his former landlords years ago in California, some said that they could not put aside the details they had heard, a few said they had problems with the insanity defense, and several had hardships.

By 3:05 the jury pool was exhausted. Judge Gaziano called the 11 jurors back in, instructed them not to discuss the case with anyone, conduct research, or read, watch, or listen to media reports on the case, and dismissed them. Then there was a lengthy sidebar conference and two jurors were called back in to be questioned at sidebar. I’m not sure what was said, but I’m pretty sure they’re still on the jury. At about 3:30 an officer cuffed Rockefeller’s ankles and wrists and led him out the side door of the courtroom. That was it for today.

A new jury pool will undergo voir dire tomorrow. 5 more jurors are needed to reach the 16 that are required for a jury of 12 and 4 alternates. The 11 jurors already selected were told to report back at 10:30, so the judge is hoping, ideally, to get the 5 jurors by then. The rest of the day will be taken up by motions in limine, and opening arguments will occur on Thursday.

May 25, 2009

The Massachusetts budget

Filed under: taxes by Victoria Liberty @ 11:13 pm

Finally, I have created my own budget for the state of Massachusetts. What I did was went through the fiscal year 2009 budget and listed everything that could be cut without making the government unable to function. I was able to cut over $14 billion, much more than the $4 billion deficit that the state legislature faced before they raised the sales tax. Because the budget is so long, I didn’t get to read everything through as carefully as I would have liked to and there were some items that I didn’t really know what they were, so there’s probably more that I could cut if I looked closer.

Anyways, why not check out my state budget?

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