From: Kelley Lynch <kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 3:56 PM
Subject: Re:
To: DOJ, FBI & IRS cc: Multiple Parties
Hello DOJ,
Streeter moves back onto Spector testimony. Do keep in mind that the DA's office evidently contacted the City Attorney about me; joined forces with Cohen and the City Attorney in targeting me; and Captain Jack Horvath lied to the judge re. sentencing. The DA's office came to my house in 2005 about Phil Spector, following an anonymous tip, and DA investigators told me I was "probably" a witness to that insanity. I have been very clear about Mick Brown telling me that he reviewed the Spector Grand Jury testimony/transcripts and Cohen's statements or testimony were presented to the Grand Jury. The legal adviser does not know what witness presented that testimony. Cohen was well aware of this since he testified that he poured over my alleged emails. Read them twice or more in fact. Also, his lawyer threatened Ann Diamond over this article she wrote for Rolling Stone and she did confirm Rutger's Affidavit with him and what he witnessed. It is now important to keep in mind that Gianelli wrote that he worked with the City Attorney to have me falsely arrested on two occasions. I have never said Cohen's statements led to a conviction in the Phil Spector matter. I have said that his statements, which are constantly included in articles about Phillip, went a long way to inserting these highly embellished, fabricated stories into the public's consciousness. What version does DOJ believe? Paulette and I do not believe any of them and Paulette was present when Cohen visited Phillip's Beverly Hills home and was also in the studio when they recorded. She would also make arrangements re. Phil Spector's master tapes. We have both handled master tapes excessively and they get lost and are difficult to track. Furthermore, if you are not planning to return to the studio the next day, you would never leave them there. I would assume because Alan Jackson and Carmen Trutanich were running for DA, and Mamet advised the Financial Times that he felt Phil Spector was railroaded, that Cohen's testimony about the alleged "gun" story was of vital importance. After all, Phil Spector's name actually appeared on the voter's ballot that Paulette gave me.
All the best,
Kelley
P.S. Please review emails with Mick Brown below. I was very relieved that someone had the courage to tell the truth. Of course, my lawyers failed to respond to Mick and never obtained a declaration.
At around the same time he was offering her “millions”, Lynch says, Cohen was also circulating slanderous stories about her. She believes Cohen encouraged Los Angeles record producer Steve Lindsey, the father of her son Ray, to initiate a custody suit – on May 25, 2005, the same day a 25-man SWAT team from the LAPD, acting on a bogus 911 call, suddenly cordoned off her street and surrounded her home in response to a "hostage taking."
Earlier that morning, Lynch says, her 12 year old son Ray woke up not feeling well. She sent an email to his school informing them she was keeping him at home. When the boy's father found out Ray was home he became agitated and abusive over the phone to Lynch.
Lynch says she had young people who worked for her coming and going that day, and did not want Ray’s father coming to the house and attacking her, as he had in the past. She called her older son Rutger, who was visiting a friend nearby, and asked him to pick Ray up and take him down the hill where actress Cloris Leachman waited in her car. Leachman, a friend of Lindsey, took charge of Ray – just as seven LAPD squad cars came speeding up Mandeville Canyon Road in the direction of Lynch’s house. With them was Ray’s father, Steve Lindsey.
Lynch says she looked out the window and saw armed men on her lawn. Her son Rutger and his friends were telling police there was no hostage-taking, that they had spent the morning with Lynch, and that there must be some mistake. For reasons no one understands, LAPD/Inglewood PD decided to believe Steve Lindsey, who had left the scene.
Police later gave varying explanations about what led up to the incident. West LAPD said they responded to a report that someone heard "shots fired." But a company that oversees SWAT said Lynch would have to have a superior caliber weapon to warrant such a high risk entry. A member of the SWAT team claimed to have seen a note that Lynch’s sister had placed the call stating Lynch posed “a danger to herself and everyone around her.” Her sister denies this.
Lynch stayed inside her house and called her former custody lawyer, Lee Kanon Alpert. She also called Leonard Cohen, assuming he had played a role in the events unfolding on her lawn. Lynch says she knew Steve Lindsey had also been meeting with Cohen and his attorney, and had recently told their son Ray that Lynch was “going to jail,” upsetting the boy. She says Cohen taped the phone call later used in his successful court case against her – for which, Lynch says, she never received a summons.
Lynch says, “Police were on my hillside and crouching under my kitchen window.” She says the standoff on her lawn continued for several more hours, disrupting the neighbourhood. Members of Inglewood Police Department also participated in the operation.
Eventually, she decided to go into the back yard. Seeing her son Rutger acting as a “human shield and hostage negotiator,” Lynch ventured out front with her Akita on leash and joked to the cops: "Who am I supposed to be holding hostage? My dog?"
The police responded by telling her son they would only shoot Lynch and her dog if necessary.
“That was when I dove into the pool.”
SWAT team members searched her house. As they entered, Lynch's African Grey parrot, Lou, called out: "I see dead people!" – further alarming the nervous cops.
Offering her a hand out of the pool, one officer said they were only there to help her and not to hurt her.
“No one asked me if I was all right; no one questioned me about my well-being.” The Medical Examiners Office later wondered how the police had evaluated her. After stating they were not arresting her, they handcuffed Lynch, still in her bikini. On her way out the door, her son managed to hand her a brocade jacket.
Although she lived near UCLA Medical Center, she was taken in a squad car to King-Drew Medical Centre in Watts, 40 miles away and a three-hour drive in traffic. Known as one of America’s worst hospitals, King-Drew was recently closed down as a place where patients routinely die from neglect and medical errors. During the long ride through South Central Los Angeles, Lynch says she was questioned closely about her relationship with Phil Spector, who had been charged with first degree murder of Lana Clarkson. In the car, Lynch voiced concern over what awaited her at the hospital but was told by a woman cop: "This will be good for you."
“I felt I was being kidnapped”.
At Emergency, the admitting psychiatrist administered anti-psychotic drugs without authorization and left Lynch in the waiting area for hours, still in her bikini and brocade jacket, and handcuffed to a chair. A nurse advised her she would be transferred – but did not tell her where. Examining her file, the nurse noticed it listed her as 19 years old with wrong social security number, wrong date of birth, wrong religion, and her name misspelled as "Kelly Lynch" Lynch thinks it was the same file she had seen, several months earlier, in the hands of the Special Investigator who came to question her about Spector.
A second doctor told her to wait her turn to ensure no further harm would come to her, and assured her that nothing in the King Drew report could cause her to lose custody of her child. The following day, she was released after nearly 24 hours in the psych ward.
Back home, Lynch learned that while she was being held at the hospital her younger son's father, Steven Clark Lindsey, had filed for custody of her son Ray Charles Lindsey and obtained a restraining order denying her access to the boy. She says Lindsey attempted to convince doctors at King Drew that she was dangerous, in order to have her committed, She says Lindsey also threatened the psychiatrist who had her released.
On that same day, Cohen’s attorney Robert Kory filed a Declaration in the custody matter, as did Betsy Superfon (a friend of Cohen, Kory and Lindsey who had befriended Lynch a few months earlier ). Superfon later told Lynch she didn't realize what she was signing, and that Cohen had offered Lindsey money “or something else” to take Ray away from Lynch.
Her older son alleges Lindsey offered him money to go to Leonard Cohen's lawyer's office and transfer or sign over Lynch’s house to Cohen or his attorney Robert Kory. Rutger refused and phoned his own father, who advised him to contact a lawyer.
Two weeks later, in early June, as she drove down her street to buy dog food, a Mercedes sped out of a neighbouring driveway and rear-ended her car, Lynch was thrown forward, fracturing her nose against the steering well, and was knocked unconscious. Later, she says, as she drove back up the hill to her home, the same driver was standing in his driveway and called out: “We are watching you” as she passed.
Seeing his injured, bleeding mother enter the house, her older son again phoned his father, who may have called 911. Accounts vary as whether the call referred to an incident of "domestic violence" or a "drug overdose." Either way, police arrived at Lynch’s door for the second time in two weeks. Over the protests of her son, they entered while she was on the phone to a friend, Dr. Wendi Knaak who stayed on the phone talking with Rutger while police again handcuffed Lynch. This time they took her to UCLA hospital where her obvious head injuries were ignored. Instead, she was once again drugged and placed in the psychiatric unit where she remained for several days.
Lynch and her advisors maintain these events were coordinated by Cohen, Kory and Lindsey, with the help of former LA District Attorney Ira Reiner in a well- orchestrated plan to traumatize and discredit her – paving the way for media stories which accused her of skimming millions from Cohen’s retirement fund.
In the summer of 2005, as Lynch was struggling to save her home and protect her child from a father her friends describe as "viciously anti-social" and “violent”, reports of Leonard Cohen's financial troubles hit the press. They alleged the 70-something singer had been scammed by his personal manager, Kelley Lynch, who colluded with an advisor at the AGILE Group in Colorado to send him false financial statements while emptying his accounts of millions of dollars.
Although listed as the owner of Traditional Holdings, the entity in question, Lynch says she never received any statements from the AGILE Group -- who instead had been sending them to Cohen -- having changed her mailing address to Cohen's home in Los Angeles. She has since filed a complaint with the US Post Office for mail tampering.
These days Cohen’s fans seem to have expended their rage at Kelley Lynch for driving their idol into bankruptcy. Some now say she unwittingly did them a service -- by forcing him to go on tour for the first time in nearly two decades.
At 74, singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen continues to ride a wave of sympathy, gathering wide support from the music world and even some British royalty. Unquestionably, his career and finances have benefited from news reports that he is too impoverished to retire.
From his tower of song, Cohen has written:
I smile when I'm angry
I cheat and I lie
I do what I have to do
To get by
And I’m always alone
And my heart is like ice
And it’s crowded and cold
In my secret life
My Secret Life. Leonard Cohen
His many admirers need to listen closely.
Streeter: Okay, in any of her emails, did she ever mention Phil Spector? Cohen: She often mentioned Phil Spector, repeating over and over that I had testified before a Grand Jury and I was involved in the conviction of Phil Spector. RT 60-61
Friday, March 25, 2011
Ann Diamond's Original Draft Article For Rolling Stone
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Whatever Happened to Kelley Lynch?
Kelley Lynch is the woman accused in 2005 of skimming millions from singer Leonard Cohen’s retirement fund. I knew of her through friends of Leonard Cohen, and had heard her described in glowing terms as the agent who, singlehandedly, saved Cohen’s career in the 1990s.
In early May of this year, Lynch suddenly contacted me. She said she was mainly interested in my perceptions of Cohen as a former friend and next door neighbour in Montreal. At one time I also studied with his Zen Master in California, and had spent time with him on Hydra, Greece.
Not having heard her side of the story (I doubt that anyone has, apart from a circle of her closest friends), I was curious. Over the next few weeks, she shared several documents pertaining to the case including an affidavit written and signed by her older son, Rutger.
Together, they paint a picture very much at variance from the sketchy media image of Lynch as a reckless, delusional woman on the brink of a career meltdown. Lynch's own timeline also includes disturbing behind-the-scene dealings that suggest she may have been set up to take the blame for Cohen's tax situation.
The following account is based on what Lynch has sent me --
Since 2005 when she became the object of media gossip, little if anything has been heard from Kelley Lynch.
A single mother with two sons, Lynch was Leonard Cohen's personal manager from approximately 1988 to 2004, and was known for her skill, hard work, and dedication. Until 2004, Kelley lived and worked in Los Angeles where she still has many friends and acquaintances in the entertainment world including Phil Spector and Oliver Stone.
Her own account of the events that wrecked her career, varies widely from the media portrait of a reckless, delusional woman in the throes of a personal meltdown. The meltdown was real, however. By late December, 2005, Lynch had lost custody of one son and was homeless and living on the streets with her older son, Rutger, who witnessed the chain of bizarre events that had begun a year earlier.
In 2004, Lynch owned a house in Brentwood, and still worked for Cohen, who owed her money for royalties and other services, but was increasingly involved with his new girlfriend, Anjani Thomas, ex-wife of Cohen’s attorney, Robert Kory.
In retrospect, Lynch believes she was set up by Cohen’s lawyers and accountants to help cover up a tax situation which made the IRS “nervous.” In November 2004, Cohen’s attorney WESTIN told Lynch that a financial entity known as Traditional Holdings, LLC could be overturned by the IRS. Lynch, who had been selected as a partner on the entity, became uneasy and consulted a new accountant, who referred her to tax lawyers, who found irregularities in Cohen's tax history, both in the US and Canada where he has residences.
Rattled by what she was hearing – that she was being dragged into criminal tax fraud -- Lynch called the IRS in Washington and also contacted their website. An IRS collection agent advised her to call the Fraud Hotline, which she did.
Told that any further action on her part might implicate her in fraud, Lynch refused to meet with Cohen or turn over the corporate books. At that stage, Cohen’s advisers began claiming that certain payments, distributions, or advances made to her were actually "over-payments." Lynch says their accounting was incomplete and ignored her share of intellectual property, unpaid commissions and royalties, and share in Traditional Holdings, LLC. Apparently Lynch had also been issued K1 partnership tax documents and made a partner on another Cohen investment entity, LC Investments, LLC, without her permission or awareness.
Lynch says an increasingly nervous and desperate Cohen was pressuring her to agree to mediation and told a friend of hers that Lynch was "the love of his life." She and Cohen had had a brief affair in 1990, but Cohen now was offering her 50% of his "community property" as well as "palimony" through lawyer Robert Kory at a meeting attended by Lynch's legal representatives and her accountant, Dale Burgess. To Lynch, none of this made sense at the time.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles District Attorney's office received an anonymous tip informing them that Lynch was a friend of producer Phil Spector, whom Lynch maintains is innocent. Cohen, on the other hand, had given an interview in which he described a gun-waving Spector who threatened him during recording sessions in 1977.
Whatever Happened to Kelley Lynch?
Kelley Lynch is the woman accused in 2005 of skimming millions from singer Leonard Cohen’s retirement fund. I knew of her through friends of Leonard Cohen, and had heard her described in glowing terms as the agent who, singlehandedly, saved Cohen’s career in the 1990s.
In early May of this year, Lynch suddenly contacted me. She said she was mainly interested in my perceptions of Cohen as a former friend and next door neighbour in Montreal. At one time I also studied with his Zen Master in California, and had spent time with him on Hydra, Greece.
Not having heard her side of the story (I doubt that anyone has, apart from a circle of her closest friends), I was curious. Over the next few weeks, she shared several documents pertaining to the case including an affidavit written and signed by her older son, Rutger.
Together, they paint a picture very much at variance from the sketchy media image of Lynch as a reckless, delusional woman on the brink of a career meltdown. Lynch's own timeline also includes disturbing behind-the-scene dealings that suggest she may have been set up to take the blame for Cohen's tax situation.
The following account is based on what Lynch has sent me --
Since 2005 when she became the object of media gossip, little if anything has been heard from Kelley Lynch.
A single mother with two sons, Lynch was Leonard Cohen's personal manager from approximately 1988 to 2004, and was known for her skill, hard work, and dedication. Until 2004, Kelley lived and worked in Los Angeles where she still has many friends and acquaintances in the entertainment world including Phil Spector and Oliver Stone.
Her own account of the events that wrecked her career, varies widely from the media portrait of a reckless, delusional woman in the throes of a personal meltdown. The meltdown was real, however. By late December, 2005, Lynch had lost custody of one son and was homeless and living on the streets with her older son, Rutger, who witnessed the chain of bizarre events that had begun a year earlier.
In 2004, Lynch owned a house in Brentwood, and still worked for Cohen, who owed her money for royalties and other services, but was increasingly involved with his new girlfriend, Anjani Thomas, ex-wife of Cohen’s attorney, Robert Kory.
In retrospect, Lynch believes she was set up by Cohen’s lawyers and accountants to help cover up a tax situation which made the IRS “nervous.” In November 2004, Cohen’s attorney WESTIN told Lynch that a financial entity known as Traditional Holdings, LLC could be overturned by the IRS. Lynch, who had been selected as a partner on the entity, became uneasy and consulted a new accountant, who referred her to tax lawyers, who found irregularities in Cohen's tax history, both in the US and Canada where he has residences.
Rattled by what she was hearing – that she was being dragged into criminal tax fraud -- Lynch called the IRS in Washington and also contacted their website. An IRS collection agent advised her to call the Fraud Hotline, which she did.
Told that any further action on her part might implicate her in fraud, Lynch refused to meet with Cohen or turn over the corporate books. At that stage, Cohen’s advisers began claiming that certain payments, distributions, or advances made to her were actually "over-payments." Lynch says their accounting was incomplete and ignored her share of intellectual property, unpaid commissions and royalties, and share in Traditional Holdings, LLC. Apparently Lynch had also been issued K1 partnership tax documents and made a partner on another Cohen investment entity, LC Investments, LLC, without her permission or awareness.
Lynch says an increasingly nervous and desperate Cohen was pressuring her to agree to mediation and told a friend of hers that Lynch was "the love of his life." She and Cohen had had a brief affair in 1990, but Cohen now was offering her 50% of his "community property" as well as "palimony" through lawyer Robert Kory at a meeting attended by Lynch's legal representatives and her accountant, Dale Burgess. To Lynch, none of this made sense at the time.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles District Attorney's office received an anonymous tip informing them that Lynch was a friend of producer Phil Spector, whom Lynch maintains is innocent. Cohen, on the other hand, had given an interview in which he described a gun-waving Spector who threatened him during recording sessions in 1977.
At around the same time he was offering her “millions”, Lynch says, Cohen was also circulating slanderous stories about her. She believes Cohen encouraged Los Angeles record producer Steve Lindsey, the father of her son Ray, to initiate a custody suit – on May 25, 2005, the same day a 25-man SWAT team from the LAPD, acting on a bogus 911 call, suddenly cordoned off her street and surrounded her home in response to a "hostage taking."
Earlier that morning, Lynch says, her 12 year old son Ray woke up not feeling well. She sent an email to his school informing them she was keeping him at home. When the boy's father found out Ray was home he became agitated and abusive over the phone to Lynch.
Lynch says she had young people who worked for her coming and going that day, and did not want Ray’s father coming to the house and attacking her, as he had in the past. She called her older son Rutger, who was visiting a friend nearby, and asked him to pick Ray up and take him down the hill where actress Cloris Leachman waited in her car. Leachman, a friend of Lindsey, took charge of Ray – just as seven LAPD squad cars came speeding up Mandeville Canyon Road in the direction of Lynch’s house. With them was Ray’s father, Steve Lindsey.
Lynch says she looked out the window and saw armed men on her lawn. Her son Rutger and his friends were telling police there was no hostage-taking, that they had spent the morning with Lynch, and that there must be some mistake. For reasons no one understands, LAPD/Inglewood PD decided to believe Steve Lindsey, who had left the scene.
Police later gave varying explanations about what led up to the incident. West LAPD said they responded to a report that someone heard "shots fired." But a company that oversees SWAT said Lynch would have to have a superior caliber weapon to warrant such a high risk entry. A member of the SWAT team claimed to have seen a note that Lynch’s sister had placed the call stating Lynch posed “a danger to herself and everyone around her.” Her sister denies this.
Lynch stayed inside her house and called her former custody lawyer, Lee Kanon Alpert. She also called Leonard Cohen, assuming he had played a role in the events unfolding on her lawn. Lynch says she knew Steve Lindsey had also been meeting with Cohen and his attorney, and had recently told their son Ray that Lynch was “going to jail,” upsetting the boy. She says Cohen taped the phone call later used in his successful court case against her – for which, Lynch says, she never received a summons.
Lynch says, “Police were on my hillside and crouching under my kitchen window.” She says the standoff on her lawn continued for several more hours, disrupting the neighbourhood. Members of Inglewood Police Department also participated in the operation.
Eventually, she decided to go into the back yard. Seeing her son Rutger acting as a “human shield and hostage negotiator,” Lynch ventured out front with her Akita on leash and joked to the cops: "Who am I supposed to be holding hostage? My dog?"
The police responded by telling her son they would only shoot Lynch and her dog if necessary.
“That was when I dove into the pool.”
SWAT team members searched her house. As they entered, Lynch's African Grey parrot, Lou, called out: "I see dead people!" – further alarming the nervous cops.
Offering her a hand out of the pool, one officer said they were only there to help her and not to hurt her.
“No one asked me if I was all right; no one questioned me about my well-being.” The Medical Examiners Office later wondered how the police had evaluated her. After stating they were not arresting her, they handcuffed Lynch, still in her bikini. On her way out the door, her son managed to hand her a brocade jacket.
Although she lived near UCLA Medical Center, she was taken in a squad car to King-Drew Medical Centre in Watts, 40 miles away and a three-hour drive in traffic. Known as one of America’s worst hospitals, King-Drew was recently closed down as a place where patients routinely die from neglect and medical errors. During the long ride through South Central Los Angeles, Lynch says she was questioned closely about her relationship with Phil Spector, who had been charged with first degree murder of Lana Clarkson. In the car, Lynch voiced concern over what awaited her at the hospital but was told by a woman cop: "This will be good for you."
“I felt I was being kidnapped”.
At Emergency, the admitting psychiatrist administered anti-psychotic drugs without authorization and left Lynch in the waiting area for hours, still in her bikini and brocade jacket, and handcuffed to a chair. A nurse advised her she would be transferred – but did not tell her where. Examining her file, the nurse noticed it listed her as 19 years old with wrong social security number, wrong date of birth, wrong religion, and her name misspelled as "Kelly Lynch" Lynch thinks it was the same file she had seen, several months earlier, in the hands of the Special Investigator who came to question her about Spector.
A second doctor told her to wait her turn to ensure no further harm would come to her, and assured her that nothing in the King Drew report could cause her to lose custody of her child. The following day, she was released after nearly 24 hours in the psych ward.
Back home, Lynch learned that while she was being held at the hospital her younger son's father, Steven Clark Lindsey, had filed for custody of her son Ray Charles Lindsey and obtained a restraining order denying her access to the boy. She says Lindsey attempted to convince doctors at King Drew that she was dangerous, in order to have her committed, She says Lindsey also threatened the psychiatrist who had her released.
On that same day, Cohen’s attorney Robert Kory filed a Declaration in the custody matter, as did Betsy Superfon (a friend of Cohen, Kory and Lindsey who had befriended Lynch a few months earlier ). Superfon later told Lynch she didn't realize what she was signing, and that Cohen had offered Lindsey money “or something else” to take Ray away from Lynch.
Her older son alleges Lindsey offered him money to go to Leonard Cohen's lawyer's office and transfer or sign over Lynch’s house to Cohen or his attorney Robert Kory. Rutger refused and phoned his own father, who advised him to contact a lawyer.
Two weeks later, in early June, as she drove down her street to buy dog food, a Mercedes sped out of a neighbouring driveway and rear-ended her car, Lynch was thrown forward, fracturing her nose against the steering well, and was knocked unconscious. Later, she says, as she drove back up the hill to her home, the same driver was standing in his driveway and called out: “We are watching you” as she passed.
Seeing his injured, bleeding mother enter the house, her older son again phoned his father, who may have called 911. Accounts vary as whether the call referred to an incident of "domestic violence" or a "drug overdose." Either way, police arrived at Lynch’s door for the second time in two weeks. Over the protests of her son, they entered while she was on the phone to a friend, Dr. Wendi Knaak who stayed on the phone talking with Rutger while police again handcuffed Lynch. This time they took her to UCLA hospital where her obvious head injuries were ignored. Instead, she was once again drugged and placed in the psychiatric unit where she remained for several days.
Lynch and her advisors maintain these events were coordinated by Cohen, Kory and Lindsey, with the help of former LA District Attorney Ira Reiner in a well- orchestrated plan to traumatize and discredit her – paving the way for media stories which accused her of skimming millions from Cohen’s retirement fund.
In the summer of 2005, as Lynch was struggling to save her home and protect her child from a father her friends describe as "viciously anti-social" and “violent”, reports of Leonard Cohen's financial troubles hit the press. They alleged the 70-something singer had been scammed by his personal manager, Kelley Lynch, who colluded with an advisor at the AGILE Group in Colorado to send him false financial statements while emptying his accounts of millions of dollars.
Although listed as the owner of Traditional Holdings, the entity in question, Lynch says she never received any statements from the AGILE Group -- who instead had been sending them to Cohen -- having changed her mailing address to Cohen's home in Los Angeles. She has since filed a complaint with the US Post Office for mail tampering.
NOTE: Cohen may have attempted to change the address where Lynch received her mail from my home to his home in Los Angeles. She filed a Complaint with USPS.
She insists Cohen sued her because she went to the IRS about his tax situation. She says he is not, and never was, "broke" and that missing funds went to buy homes for his son Adam Cohen and girlfriend, singer Anjani Thomas, ex-wife of Robert Kory. Noting Cohen is famous for his financial largesse and once gave Zen Master Sasaki Roshi $500,000 as a gift, Lynch also cites hefty payments to advisers, various transaction fees, personal taxes, and other monies which may have been sent offshore.
While Cohen and Lindsey attempted to persuade others, including LA Superior Court, that she intended to flee to Tibet or another non-extradition country, Lynch was isolated and penniless and still in Los Angeles. Lynch was former personal secretary to the late Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a flamboyant Tibetan spiritual teacher who founded Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in the 1970s, and died in 1987. She says various Tibetan lamas are praying for her safety.
She insists Cohen sued her because she went to the IRS about his tax situation. She says he is not, and never was, "broke" and that missing funds went to buy homes for his son Adam Cohen and girlfriend, singer Anjani Thomas, ex-wife of Robert Kory. Noting Cohen is famous for his financial largesse and once gave Zen Master Sasaki Roshi $500,000 as a gift, Lynch also cites hefty payments to advisers, various transaction fees, personal taxes, and other monies which may have been sent offshore.
While Cohen and Lindsey attempted to persuade others, including LA Superior Court, that she intended to flee to Tibet or another non-extradition country, Lynch was isolated and penniless and still in Los Angeles. Lynch was former personal secretary to the late Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a flamboyant Tibetan spiritual teacher who founded Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado in the 1970s, and died in 1987. She says various Tibetan lamas are praying for her safety.
NOTE: Lynch was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's and His Holiness Kusum Lingpa's personal assistant and lineage holder.
Journalists covering the story were either unable, or didn't bother, to track Lynch down, and most reported Cohen's statements as fact. The NY Times contacted Kelley for a quote which they never printed
By July 2005, Lynch had lost her custody battle and Ray went to live with his father. On December 28, she and Rutger were evicted from the house in Brentwood, and ended up homeless in Santa Monica, which has no resources for the homeless. The Police Department gave her no help and, she claims, laughed when she brought in evidence that she was being stalked by a known serial killer while she camped on the beach.
In 2006, Cohen was awarded a symbolic $9 million settlement in a civil suit against Lynch, who still does not have a lawyer representing her. Corporate books and other evidence of fraud appear to have been overlooked by Judge Ken Freeman in his judgment, Lynch says, although she admits she has not read the court documents and was never served a summons. At the time of the decision, she told reporters she lacked the money to make a phone call. That same year, her older son lost his fingers in an accident with a meat grinder while he was working at Whole Foods in Los Angeles and Lynch could not afford a bus ticket to visit him in hospital.
Lynch heard through a journalist that Cohen later testified for the District Attorney’s office in a secret grand jury relating to the Phil Spector case with former District Attorney Ira Reiner acting as his lawyer. Reiner is a personal friend of Cohen, and as D.A. presided over some high-profile cases including the “Night Stalker” serial killer and the McMartin Day Care scandal.
Journalists covering the story were either unable, or didn't bother, to track Lynch down, and most reported Cohen's statements as fact. The NY Times contacted Kelley for a quote which they never printed
By July 2005, Lynch had lost her custody battle and Ray went to live with his father. On December 28, she and Rutger were evicted from the house in Brentwood, and ended up homeless in Santa Monica, which has no resources for the homeless. The Police Department gave her no help and, she claims, laughed when she brought in evidence that she was being stalked by a known serial killer while she camped on the beach.
In 2006, Cohen was awarded a symbolic $9 million settlement in a civil suit against Lynch, who still does not have a lawyer representing her. Corporate books and other evidence of fraud appear to have been overlooked by Judge Ken Freeman in his judgment, Lynch says, although she admits she has not read the court documents and was never served a summons. At the time of the decision, she told reporters she lacked the money to make a phone call. That same year, her older son lost his fingers in an accident with a meat grinder while he was working at Whole Foods in Los Angeles and Lynch could not afford a bus ticket to visit him in hospital.
Lynch heard through a journalist that Cohen later testified for the District Attorney’s office in a secret grand jury relating to the Phil Spector case with former District Attorney Ira Reiner acting as his lawyer. Reiner is a personal friend of Cohen, and as D.A. presided over some high-profile cases including the “Night Stalker” serial killer and the McMartin Day Care scandal.
NOTE: Lynch has no idea if Cohen and Reiner are personal friends. He didn't know her for the 20 years Lynch knew and worked with Cohen.
Recently, on June 17, 2008, Cohen's lawsuit against the Agile Group was thrown out of court for lack of evidence. In response the AGILE Group dropped its counter-suit accusing Cohen of defamation and fraud. AGILE still claims to be shocked that a singer of Leonard Cohen's talent and stature would engage in false accusations against his own representatives.
Lynch believes Cohen and AGILE colluded to defraud her. She continues to deny all allegations against her, and remains hopeful that Phil Spector's lawyer, Bruce Cutler, will represent her in recouping damages to her livelihood and reputation. She now lives in another state and recently learned her younger son, 15, whom she has not seen since July 2005, stopped attending school last January.
NOTE: Lynch is not interested in Cutler in the least.
Recently, on June 17, 2008, Cohen's lawsuit against the Agile Group was thrown out of court for lack of evidence. In response the AGILE Group dropped its counter-suit accusing Cohen of defamation and fraud. AGILE still claims to be shocked that a singer of Leonard Cohen's talent and stature would engage in false accusations against his own representatives.
Lynch believes Cohen and AGILE colluded to defraud her. She continues to deny all allegations against her, and remains hopeful that Phil Spector's lawyer, Bruce Cutler, will represent her in recouping damages to her livelihood and reputation. She now lives in another state and recently learned her younger son, 15, whom she has not seen since July 2005, stopped attending school last January.
NOTE: Lynch is not interested in Cutler in the least.
These days Cohen’s fans seem to have expended their rage at Kelley Lynch for driving their idol into bankruptcy. Some now say she unwittingly did them a service -- by forcing him to go on tour for the first time in nearly two decades.
At 74, singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen continues to ride a wave of sympathy, gathering wide support from the music world and even some British royalty. Unquestionably, his career and finances have benefited from news reports that he is too impoverished to retire.
From his tower of song, Cohen has written:
I smile when I'm angry
I cheat and I lie
I do what I have to do
To get by
And I’m always alone
And my heart is like ice
And it’s crowded and cold
In my secret life
My Secret Life. Leonard Cohen
His many admirers need to listen closely.
On 10 April 2012 09:41, Mick Brown <mick.brown@telegraph.co.uk> wrote:
Dear Nikhil Ramnaney,
Thank you for your letter. I'm afraid there has been a misunderstanding here. At the time I was writing my book about Phil Spector I was sent copies of material that, as I understood it, had been submitted to the Grand Jury in the Phil Spector case. Included in this material were (short) statements from Leonard Cohen. I might well have mentioned to Ms Lynch that these statements were included in materials presented to the Grand Jury. However, I do not recall having stated that Mr Cohen himself had testified to the Grand Jury. Indeed, I
would have had no way or knowing whether he had or not.
My feeling is that these statements had not been given by Mr Cohen personally at the time, but were actually taken from one or more interviews that he had given in the past concerning his recording sessions with Mr. Spector.
I hope this answers your question. If it's helpful, I shall try and find the original material that was sent to me. If I can be of any more help to you please don't hesitate to contact me.
Best wishes,
Mick Brown
Date: Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: The Rise And Fall Of Phil Spector
To: Kelley Lynch <kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.com>
Hi Kelley,
Thank you for that, and I'm glad you're finding my interviews helpful.
I've told you everything I know about the Leonard Cohen gun story and how it appeared in Grand Jury testimony. I have no knowledge, thoughts or theories beyond that.
Hope all's well with you.
Best,
Mick
[Phil Spector] Recording Leonard Cohen, he approached the singer clutching a bottle of Jewish ritual wine in one hand and a pistol in the other, which he shoved into Cohen's neck, whispering 'Leonard, I love you.' Cohen with admirable aplomb, simply moved the barrel away, saying 'I hope you do, Phil'.
From: Mick Brown <mick.brown@telegraph.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2012 11:18:50 +0000
Subject: Re: Kelley Lynch Trial - Leonard Cohen, Phil Spector
To: Kelley Lynch <kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.com>
Kelley,
I have looked for the documents I was sent in connection with the Grand
Jury and been unable to find them. They were sent to me by my friend the
journalist and author Carlton Smith, who unfortunately has since passed
away. However, I'm sure you would be able to access them from the same
source as Carlton did. My understanding is they were/are on the public
record.
I do not recall ever saying to you that Cohen himself had testified. If I
did, it was my mistake. My recollection is that the statement from Leonard
Cohen was the same statement that had already appeared in media
interviews, pertaining to the incident in the studio during the recording
of 'Death Of A Ladies Man'. My recollection is that it was on a single
sheet of paper. I have no idea whether Leonard Cohen personally made this
statement to the DA, or whether - and I suspect this is the case - that
quote had simply been taken from previously published interviews
There was no mention of any statement attributed to Cohen in either of the
two subsequent trials.
Mick
Leonard Cohen’s statements were indeed used in prosecution motions in Phil Spector’s trials. The following are excerpts from the prosecution’s Motion to Admit Evidence of Other Crimes in Case No. BA255233, filed on August 14, 2008 and from the prosecution’s Motion in Limine to admit evidence of other crimes filed on February 17, 2005.
“Defendant Phillip Spector has built a history, spanning some 40 odd years,of using gun-related violence when confronted with a situation when he feels a loss of control, or a threat to his control. On February 17, 2005, the People filed a motion in limine to admit evidence of other acts committed by Spector. Under that separate cover, the facts of the following incidents were set forth in detail and in their entirety. Thus, in an effort towards brevity, only a short recitation of such incidents will be discussed below. Spector has a long history of resorting to gun-related violence to exert his will when he does not get his way. Int begins in 1972 and continues to the present.”
“C. The 1977 Brandishing on Leonard Cohen: 1977, Spector produced musician Leonard Cohen's record album, "Death of a Ladies man." during production of the record, Cohen and Spector, who were friends, were taking a break in the lobby of the music studio. Spector walked up to Cohen, placed on arm around Cohen's shoulders, and pointed a semi-automatic pistol at Cohen's chest with his other hand. Spector told Cohen, "I love you Leonard." Cohen looked at Spector and said, "I hope so, Phil." Spector then walked away from Cohen.”
02/17/2005: Motion in Limine to admit evidence of other crimes:memorandum of points and authorities in support thereof.
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Kelley Lynch<kelley.lynch.2010@gmail.
Hi Mick,
It's interesting that Gianelli is writing Paulette about you. You have advised me that you reviewed the Grand Jury transcripts and Cohen's statements were used. I included your emails confirming this in my Writ of Habeas Corpus that was approved and filed on May 3, 2013. Gianelli's obsession with me is astounding.
KelleyAll the best,