Prior Bad Acts Evidence & Larry Fidler's Unique Spin

These are all excellent questions that I will try to answer:

1. PRIOR BAD ACTS EVIDENCE. . Regarding the prior bad acts, it is our legal tradition going back to 17th century England that a man may only be tried and punished for what he is charged with doing, and not WHO HE IS as a person, i.e. not based on his character. It is especially not permitted to put on evidence of a person’s character and then argue that he had the PROPENSITY to commit the crime, such as the argument “we know he did it because this is what he does”.

Thus so called character-propensity evidence is disallowed and this prohibition is set forth in California Evidence Code Section 1101.

However, as long as the prior bad acts evidence is not being used for an improper purpose, it may admitted to show the identity or the perpetrator, his intent, lack of mistake or accident, or motive.
But to admit bad acts evidence for any of these purposes, certain judicial safeguards have been enacted that must be found by the trial judge first. The main safeguard is a very factual nexus between the prior bad acts and the crime charged; are they so similar as to suggest that if the defendant committed the prior bad acts he must have committed the charged crime?

The strongest such connection must be made to admit the bad acts to show identity.

In addition, if you want to admit the bad acts to show intent, or the lack of accident or mistake, the identity of the doer cannot be in dispute. Because when you are using bad acts to show some state of mind, you must start with the assumption that the defendant is the doer, and you are simply trying to determine what his mindset was when he did it (was it intentional or an accident).

In this case Judge Fidler found before he settled the jury instructions in Spector2 that the more stringent factual connection between the bad acts and the charged crime (called the “Ewoldt” test, from People vs. Ewoldt”) had NOT been satisfied by the evidence, and therefore the bad acts would not be considered by the jury in the issue of “identify” (who the shooter was).

Where Fidler went wrong is he struck out “identity” from the instruction and inserted words that mean the same thing. He tried to draft around the prohibition, but tripped over it anyway.
As to “intent” or “accident” or “mistake”, because if Spector put the gun in Lana’s mouth it was murder under an implied malice theory, IT DID NOT MATTER whether Spector pulled the trigger ACCIDENTALLY or INTENTIONALLY—it was still an inherently dangerous felonious act likely to result in death, and therefore malice (2nd degree) murder. Therefore, intent and accident were not issues in the case, and the bad acts could not be justified on that basis.

That leaves “motive”.

But the governing appellate case law (the precedent), including that decided by the very division of the court that will decide this appeal, holds that in order to admit the bad acts to show motive, the same stringent “Ewoldt” test required to admit the evidence to show identity must be met. And Judge Fidler HIMSELF found when jury instructions were being decided that the Ewoldt test was not met by the evidence. Therefore, the admission of the bad acts could not be justified to prove motive.

2. EVIDENCE THAT LANA CLARKSON WAS SUICIDAL. This evidence did not come in as “prior bad acts” or character evidence at all. It was admitted under the “state of mind” exception to the hearsay rule for the limited purpose of trying to prove what Lana Clarkson’s state of mind was when that gun went off, in aid of answering the ultimate question in the case: who put the gun in Lana’s mouth, did she or Spector?

3. EVIDENCE THAT SPECTOR SAID THAT ALL WOMEN ARE C-WORDS WHO DESERVE A BULLET IN THEIR HEADS. This is not bad acts or 1101 evidence at all, and right off the bat the court improperly lumped this evidence into the “bad acts” jury instruction, when it should have been instructed on (if admitted at all) with its own stand alone instruction.

But this evidenced was admitted as something called a “generic threat”—a general threat against a specific class of persons (police officers) under specified circumstances (If a police officer ever tries to arrest me, I will kill him instead of going back to prison.)

It is a form of state-of-mind evidence that was admitted to show Spector’s state of mind on the night the gun discharged, by trying to prove he intended to kill Clarkson because she was a woman.
The problem is that the evidence does not qualify as a THREAT at all. To as that all women “disserve” a bullet is not the same thing as saying (for example) if a women ever did X I would put a bullet in her head.

Second, the statement was 10 years ago, in passing, as Spector was being escorted out of a Joan River’s Christmas party. It was too old and too remote in time to shed light on Spector’s tate of mind in 2003.

3. WHY PRIOR CASES MATTER. First, we are not talking about prior TRIAL COURT decisions—those are not precedent. We are talking only about PUBLISHED decision of the courts of appeal (or in the case of Ewoldt, a published decision of the California Supreme Court). Unlike a civil law system (like France, and one state in the United States, Louisiana) where everything legal is governed by codes and statutes, we follow the English common law tradition. We start with some basic common law rules that were created by judges in published appellate opinions, and those rules are refined and develop over time. The legislature can override those common law rules with a statute (as long as the resulting statute does not offend the constitution) or it can incorporate those common law rules into a statute—as it did with California Evidence Code Section 1101.
The published appellate case law in our system is important to give factual context and texture to the bare bones rules to give the law more predictability and to give judges more flexibility.
That is why some people have difficulty in law school.

Unlike many college classes where the professor gives you a body of knowledge to memorize for an exam, law school consists of reading landmark published cases that illustrate some broad principle of the law, and the student must glean the principle that the holding of the cases stands for and then apply that principle to a completely different fact situation than that presented in the published opinion.

So, what do prior decided cases have to do with it? It is within those published opinions that our laws reside.

http://boards.insessiontrials.com/showthread.php?377972-Phillip-spector-legal-thread-wrongful-death-case-pending-murder-appeal

Lana Clarkson's Self-Inflicted Gun Shot Wound

1. If, as you speculate (because none of us were on the jury) Spector’s out-of-court admission to Adriano de Souza was the reason he was convicted, what does the state have to lose through a retrial excluding evidence of Spector's past bad behavior?

2. Why is it that you believe admitting evidence that Spector told a security guard at a Christmas party 10 years ago that all women deserved a bullet in their heads was properly admitted as a generic threat and that evidence that Spector got drunk and menaced women with guns 30, 20, and ten years before Lana Clarkson's killing were properly admitted notwithstanding the Evidence Code Section 1101 prohibition from presenting character evidence to show a propensity to commit the crime?

As to the decade old statement, how is what women "deserve" a statement of intention to actually shoot all women in the head? If it was not, it was not properly admitted as a “generic threat”.

As to the "bad acts":

First, all doubts about admitting this evidence must be resolved in Spector's favor.

Second, the list of PERMISSIBLE uses of bad acts under 1101 includes:

1. To show identity (who did the shooting); 2. To show intent; 3. to show the lack of accident or mistake; 4. to show motive.

To use bad acts to show identity--who done it--a connection between the aspects of the prior acts and the charged crime must be established without any reliance on the 1101 evidence itself that is so strong it meets the "Ewoldt test". But Judge Fidler ruled the Ewoldt test was not met, and he refused to allow the bad acts to show identity.

But here is the problem: Fidler struck the word "identity" from the instruction and substituted that the bad acts could be used to show that Spector was the person who was holding the gun when it discharged, in other words, different wording but same use--to show "who done it". This is a distinction without a difference. It is still using the bad acts to show identity.

But not so fast you say. The evidence was also admissible under these other theories (2,3 and 4), so the jury properly heard the evidence anyway, right?

Wrong.

Not only was "intent" or "mistake" or "lack of accident" not an issue in case--because the prosecution's second degree murder theory was "implied malice" (once Spector was shown to have put the gun in her mouth, no intent or lack of accident was required AND the admissibility rules do not allow bad acts to be used to show a defendants state of mind at the time of the crime (intent, motive, etc.) unless the fact that the defendant was the shooter is not disputed in the trial.

This is because using bad acts to infer intent REQUIRES AN ASSUMPTION that the defendant is the guy who did it.

Therefore, unless it was agreed by the defense that Spector was the shooter, and the only argument boiled down to Spector's thinking when he did it (e.g., was it intentional or an accident), it was not permitted to use the bad acts to prove issues 2, 3, or 4 UNLESS the stringent "Ewoldt test" was met.

But Judge Fidler MADE A FACTUAL FINDING that the Ewoldt test was NOT met, and issues 2 and 3 were not a factor in the case under implied malice.

Therefore, neither the "what women deserve" comment or the bad acts from 30, 20, and ten years earlier should have been allowed into evidence.

But what about your argument that the jury would have convicted anyway?

This is belied by the facts that the prosecution gave the evidence so much weight in its closing argument. They did not mention it in passing. They compared each victim to the cylinders of a gun, click, click, click, click, click--Lana got the sixth cylinder with the bullet, bang. They argued Spector was a murder waiting to happen. And that Lana's killing was essentially inevitable once she got into that car.

So, can we really say for sure that Spector would have been convicted based on the testimony of de Souza, his suspicious behavior that night, and the forensics--without ANY reference any bad behavior by Spector before the night in question?

The first jury hung.

The second jury deliberated 9 days.

Clearly, both juries thought it was a close case.

Therefore, I am curious to know why you believe that admitting the "bad acts" evidence was not error and why you would be against simply allowing Spector another trial without this evidence--especially if de Souza is enough?

PS: I don't know where the "thumbs down" came from--I did not put it there.

Last edited by S.Pellegrino; 03-18-2011 at 11:07 AM.

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This is the California Supreme Court writing in People v. Karis (1968) 46 Cal.3d 612, 672:

“Evidence of a defendant's statement regarding possible future criminal conduct in a hypothetical situation has at least as great a potential for prejudice in suggesting a propensity to commit crime as evidence of other crimes. Therefore, the content of and circumstances in which such statements are made must be carefully examined both in determining whether the statements fall within the state-of-mind exception, as circumstantial evidence that defendant acted in accordance with his stated intent, and in assessing whether the probative value of the evidence outweighs that potential prejudicial effect.


Although once again the specific hearsay exception under which the evidence was admitted was not an issue in the case, People v. Rodriguez (1986) 42 Cal.3d 730, 757, 230 Cal.Rptr. 667, 726 P.2d 113, is instructive with regard to the admissibility of “generic” threats. We stated there: “A defendant's threat against the victim ... is relevant to prove intent in a *637 prosecution for murder. ( People v. Lew (1968) 68 Cal.2d 774, 778, 69 Cal.Rptr. 102, 441 P.2d 942.) The statements here in question did not specify a victim or victims but were aimed at any police officer who would attempt to arrest appellant. Such a generic threat is admissible to show the defendant's homicidal intent where other evidence brings the actual victim within the scope of the threat. [Citations.] Hence the statements were relevant and not excludable under Evidence Code section 1101.”

The same reasoning leads to a conclusion that statements of intent of this nature, reflecting intent to kill a particular category of victims in specific circumstances, fall within the state-of-mind exception to the hearsay rule. (Evid.Code, § 1250.) The evidence is therefore admissible unless the circumstances in which the statements were made, the lapse of time, or other evidence suggests that the state of mind was transitory and no longer existed at the time of the charged offense."

Several points:

1. The statement by Spector a decade before Lana Clarkson died was not a statement of intent to kill anyone.

2. It did not relate to a specific class of persons under specific circumstances.

3. But the "all women are C-words who deserve a bullet in their heads" comment was highly prejudicial.

Under Division Three precedent, the 1101 evidence was improperly admitted to show motive

That is one point of view that I suspect is not shared by either of the Spectors.

Unitil that day, the appeal and wrongful death case march on:

Excerpt from Spector Reply brief: Under Division Three precedent, the 1101 evidence was improperly admitted to show motive:

“Thus, respondent cites “two types of motive evidence in the area of uncharged
misconduct” — where the uncharged acts cause the charged crime, and where the
uncharged acts arise from the same cause as the charged crime. (RB, at 75.) If that
second type is to be admitted, however, it can only be with recognition of a critical
distinction between the two types of motive evidence in terms of admissibility, as
Division Four recognized in Scheer and Division Seven recognized in Walker. When
Walker upheld the admission of uncharged acts of the second type, that is, those evincing
the same cause as the charged crime, it did so only on the basis of their being contributing
factors under a “common plan or design” theory, finding “sufficiently distinctive”
common features to support an inference that the defendant committed both the
uncharged and charged acts. (139 Cal.App.4th at pp. 804-805.) In other words, when
other offense evidence is being proffered as an intermediate fact to prove an ultimate fact
with a strict standard for admissibility, such as identity or common plan or scheme, the
“motive” evidence must meet that high standard.

That was the holding of this Division in Hassoldt v. Patrick Media Group, Inc.
(2000) 84 Cal. App.4th 153, where the Court held that other offense evidence is
admissible as proof of motive only if the identity of the actor is not in dispute and that, if
that identity is in dispute, the other-offense evidence is admissible only if it meets the
most stringent test for admissibility under an identity theory (a test which the trial court
found that the prosecution could not meet as to Spector). Respondent first attempts to
evade application of this principle by asserting that the instant case “was not one where
the identity of the murderer was unknown; if there was a murderer, it was appellant.”
(RB, at 80.) That attempt is utterly specious. The identity of the person who pulled the
trigger was the material factual dispute in this case, as respondent acknowledges in its
brief. (RB, at 87; see also RB, at 97: “Either appellant shoved the gun in Clarkson’s
mouth, or she did.”) The dispositive admissibility point is “that the identity of the actor is
in dispute” (Hassoldt, supra, 84 Cal.App.4th at p. 166 [emphasis added].)”

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Excerpt from Spector Reply Brief re. Tannazzo Testimony

Excerpt from Spector reply brief re Tannazzo testimony.

As appellant has demonstrated, however, his initial statement, as reported by Tannazzo
made a decade before the charged offense and to the effect that all women deserve a
bullet in their heads — fails to pass even this preliminary threshold.

Specifically, a comment, however pointed or angry, about what women do or not
“deserve” is a far cry from a plain statement of intent to harm that can authorize
admission under governing case law. Echoing the trial court’s rationale, the state
responds that there is no requirement that a generic threat be more definite than that
admitted here because the “context and wording unambiguously showed a deep-seated
belief about women” and because questions concerning the statement’s meaning
implicate issues of weight rather than admissibility. (RB, at 99.)
This claim is nonsense. Case law nowhere suggests that evidence of a “deep
seated” animosity towards a victim class — essentially, simple propensity evidence — is
enough to constitute admissible evidence of a generic threat in a homicide prosecution.

To the contrary, each of the cases cited by respondent (and appellant) approving the
admission of “generic threats” has involved a statement(s) that, on its face, involves the
defendant’s direct statement of an intent to harm rather than a remark about what “should
happen” to another, as occurred here. (CITATIONS OMITTED).
Nor do any of the cited cases suggest that, notwithstanding 18 the potential for undue
prejudice arising from purported threat evidence, the question is merely one of“weight” rather than admissibility.

Putting aside its failure to constitute a cognizable “threat” at all, appellant’s initial
statement simply cannot be deemed to reflect an abiding, i.e., non-transient, intent to kill
or harm in light of the substantial amount of time — again, Tannazzo’s shifting account
ultimately settled on roughly a decade — between the statement and the charged offense.
(See AOB, at 119-122.) Recognizing the difficulty presented by this critical condition,
respondent seeks to alter the governing criteria by arguing that lapse of time is merely a
“factor” in determining the duration of the alleged intent under Karis. (RB, at 100-101.)
But Karis does not call for application of a “balancing test” where one “factor,” (here,
time) is weighed against various others to determine an outcome. To the contrary, that
case holds that the remoteness of the threat alone “suggests” impermanence and, with
that suggestion, requires exclusion. (See id., 46 Cal.2d at 637 (evidence of qualifying
generic threat is admissible “unless the circumstances in which the threat was made,
the lapse of time, or other evidence suggests that the state of mind was transitory and
no longer existed at the time of the charged offense. . .”) [emphasis added].)


Furthermore, and of great significance, none of the cases cited by respondent or
located by appellant has approved the admission of “generic threat” evidence after
anything approaching the 10 year period between purported “threat” and offense
appearing here. (See RB, at 98-103.) Having failed to locate any such authority,
respondent seeks to change the subject by invoking decisions in which reviewing courts,
applying section 1101(b), have approved the admission of similar bad acts evidence that
was even more temporally remote. (See RB, at 101, citing People v. Davis (2009) 46
Cal.4th 539, 602 [admitting prior acts as evidence or common scheme or plan and intent
to commit sexual assault] and People v. Steele, 27 Cal.4th 1230, 1245 [admitting
evidence of prior homicide on issue of premeditation as to charged offense].)

The obvious flaw here is that, again, these cases did not involve generic threats at all, but
rather similar acts of misconduct that were proffered and admitted under the different
legal criteria required by section 1101(b), People v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, and
related authority. As the trial court in this case recognized and the state cannot credibly
dispute, in no event could the purported threat described by Tannazzo meet such “similar
acts” criteria.

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Prosecutorial Misconduct In Los Angeles

Report details prosecutorial misconduct, pushes for transparency

The Northern California Innocence Project finds 102 California cases, and 31 from Los Angeles County, in which prosecutors engaged in misconduct. The group, based at the Santa Clara University School of Law, is advocating more transparency in how misconduct is addressed.

By Jack Leonard, Times Staff Writer

April 4, 2011

California courts last year found that Los Angeles County prosecutors withheld evidence, intentionally misled jurors or committed other types of misconduct in 31 criminal cases, according to an Innocence Project report released last week.

The decisions involved convictions dating back as far as 1984 and were among 102 California cases in which the group found that courts identified prosecutorial misconduct.

In 26 of the cases — nine in Los Angeles County — the courts cited the misconduct in decisions to order a new trial, set aside a sentence or bar evidence, according to the Northern California Innocence Project, which is based at the Santa Clara University School of Law.

Los Angeles County accounts for about a quarter of the state's felony criminal filings and one-third of felony trials.

The study is part of an effort by the Innocence Project to highlight the scope and effects of prosecutorial misconduct, which the group says has led to wrongful convictions and costly retrials. In a study released in October, the Innocence Project listed more than 700 California cases in which state and federal courts identified prosecutorial misconduct in rulings from 1997 to 2009.

The Innocence Project has called for greater transparency in how local and state agencies respond to such cases and has urged the State Bar of California, which investigates claims of attorney wrongdoing, to examine all prosecutorial misconduct findings. Courts are not required to report cases to the state bar if they decide the misconduct was harmless.

"What we want is scrutiny," said Maurice Possley, one of the authors of both reports and a visiting fellow at the Innocence Project. "If they're not getting the cases or looking at the cases, that sends a message that this sort of behavior is tolerated or acceptable."

Some prosecutors have accused the Innocence Project of exaggerating the problem. Legal experts — and courts — often disagree on what rises to the level of prosecutorial misconduct. And courts often do not distinguish between intentional and unintentional misconduct.

Appellate courts reject most claims of prosecutorial wrongdoing. The Innocence Project's October study showed that courts that identified prosecutorial misconduct usually determined that the actions did not undermine a defendant's right to a fair trial.

Nevertheless, the state bar has taken note.

After reviewing last year's study, agency officials discovered that some of the cases cited by the Innocence Project had never been reported to the bar. Attorneys and courts are legally required to notify the state bar if a conviction is reversed or modified as a result of misconduct.

"We need to improve the reporting of misconduct … by both lawyers and courts," said Jim Towery, the state bar's chief trial counsel. "It is beneficial that the Northern California Innocence Project is focusing public attention on a very significant issue."

Towery said his agency plans to investigate or reinvestigate "a modest number" of cases cited in the study to determine whether prosecutors should face discipline. He declined to give an exact number or to name the cases, saying that the bar's investigations are confidential.

The state bar, he said, is also extending efforts to educate prosecutors on how to avoid misconduct and what their responsibilities are when it does occur. He said some district attorney's offices, including Los Angeles County's, have invited bar officials to provide prosecutors with additional training.

One of the cases cited in last week's report was that of Eric Hester, who was convicted of rape and sodomy in 2009. A state court of appeals reversed his conviction in September, concluding that L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Hight made numerous improper arguments during the trial.

The court faulted Hight for arguing that Hester had a key to enter the victim's apartment when no such evidence was presented. In discussing the key issue, the appellate court found that "there is every reason to believe that Hight made these arguments with the intention of misleading the jury."

Hight did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said in a recent letter to county supervisors that he reviewed the case and found "no indication that the deputy district attorney acted in bad faith or with actual malice."

The letter said the state bar has launched an inquiry into the allegation, and Cooley asked the board to approve legal representation for the prosecutor. The board has yet to vote on it.

District attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said her office reviews all findings of prosecutorial misconduct and "offers extensive and ongoing ethics training" for prosecutors. She declined to comment on the Hester case or the other court findings, saying that they involve personnel matters. She said Hester is being retried.

In its report, the Innocence Project said it had identified 107 prosecutors with more than one finding of misconduct. Among those named in the study was retired L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling Norris.

Last year, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned one of Norris' cases, the 1984 murder conviction of Bobby Joe Maxwell, who was called the "skid row stabber."

The panel concluded that an infamous jailhouse informant falsely testified against Maxwell and that the prosecution failed to turn over multiple pieces of critical evidence that could have been used to undermine the witness' credibility.

The Innocence Project noted another murder case in which a federal judge concluded in 2006 that Norris failed to disclose important evidence to the defense during a 1992 trial.

Norris denied failing to turn over evidence in either case and said it was unfair for the federal appeals panel to accuse him of misconduct 26 years later, after the state Supreme Court had rejected previous attempts to overturn Maxwell's conviction.

"That opinion is a joke," Norris said.

Maxwell's attorney has filed a complaint with the state bar about Norris' role in the case.

jack.leonard@latimes.com

Times staff writer Rong-Gong Lin II contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

Whatever Happened To Kelley Lynch by Ann Diamond

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 and his representatives to help cover up a tax situation which made the IRS “nervous.” In September 2004, Cohen’s attorney Weston 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.