Friends,
As many of you know, ALIPAC had to devote a lot of time to the unfortunate work in the past of trying to contain and limit the damages to our movement caused by Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project. This was due to his deceptive statements, endorsements, and associations with people like convicted child murderer, Shawna Forde.
When Jim Gilchrist began to menace the illegal immigration control movement in many ways, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC did not shy away from standing up to him, correcting him, and working with a large coalition of groups to try to stop him from damaging our cause.
Over the last two years we have watched as Jim Gilchrist has actively worked with illegal alien supporting organizations and publications.
Now, Jim Gilchrist has finally been fully busted for lying and defamation in court.
Here are the materials for you to review. Let us hope this finally closes the book on a very painful and unfortunate failure of leadership by Jim Gilchrist and his cronies, like Stephen Eichler and Tim Beuler as well.
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FULLERTON, CA (September 26, 2012) - A few days ago, Deborah Courtney achieved victories in EIGHT separate Defamation lawsuits she filed against Jim Gilchrist, Minuteman Project, Inc, and Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project, Inc. Ms. Courtney has been awarded approximately $44,500 so far, with other possible results to follow. Gilchrist’s behavior was so shocking that Judge Julian Bailey felt compelled to describe caustically how dishonest and malicious the defendant Jim Gilchrist had been.im Gilchrist Loses Multiple Defamation Cases, Deborah Courtney WinsBehavior was so egregious that the court slammed Jim Gilchrist’s “Big Lie Tactics”
Recent multiple court victories by Deborah Courtney in her ongoing six year saga by Jim Gilchrist and his multiple Minuteman Project shell-corporations prove once again that she has been in the right all along. For years, Ms. Courtney has been under constant siege by Jim Gilchrist who has filed one huge lawsuit after another against her, in order to gain revenge for her attempts to correct the improper actions of Jim Gilchrist in runningthe Minuteman Project, which Ms. Courtney helped finance and organize during its growing stages.
Judges usually render their rulings in a detached manner, but Gilchrist’s series of attack cases against Ms. Courtney were so dishonest, revenge-driven, and manipulative that the judge in these most recent cases felt compelled to criticize the innately dishonest behavior of the defendants, Jim Gilchrist and Minute Man Project.The Court Speaks
It would be fair to say that the judge was appalled by the brazen arrogance of a defendant who claimed that he believed every defamatory thing he said, despite total lack of evidence to support his claims.
From the recent rulings in favor of Ms. Courtney, the judge noted Mr. Gilchrist’s absurdly unsupportable beliefs that included the lie that a civil trial was in fact a criminal trial. Judge Bailey wrote: “Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. (Brad) Mailly incredibly asserted that the statements in question here were neither defamatory nor made with malice and directed the court’s attention to the transcript of the reading of the verdicts as proof that Mr. Gilchrist’s assertion that he believed everything he said about Plaintiff to be true.”
After reading the transcript of the 2010 multi-million-dollar civil trial that resulted in a paltry judgment of $4K, Judge Bailey stated in the recent Statement of Decision in no uncertain terms why Gilchrist’s supposed belief was ludicrous, “There was no specific or implied finding of any state or federal criminal law violation, nor could any reasonable person believe such to be the case.” This was indeed a very strong statement that there was no logical room for the claim or interpretation that Gilchrist was trying to use.
The obvious conclusion that the judge reached was that Mr. Gilchrist and his Board Member Brad Mailly had not the slightest respect for the court system nor the intelligence of the judge, since they were arrogantly assuming that they could just bully and lie their way through the defamation trials. Judge Julian Bailey further wrote in part: “The court finds this to be an example of the Big Lie tactic that Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Mailly seem to believe to be an effective rhetorical device”.
And the final insult being, “….the fact that Mr. Gilchrist and the corporations controlled by him have continued to utter these defamatory statements and to continue their ongoing dissemination is particularly disturbing to this court.”
Despite the early massive intimidation lawsuits totaling more than $20,000,000 in claimed damages, backed by thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars for professional lawyers, Mr. Gilchrist was only able to win actual damages of $4,000, or about 2/100th of one percent of the claimed damages. This paltry accomplishment was performed by a permanent team of professional lawyers against Ms. Courtney, who had no money and was representing herself in court. Given that Mr. Gilchrist has shown no evidence that he was previously independently wealthy, the money for that legal team may have been diverted improperly from donations that had been sent to the Minuteman Project for the advertised purpose of securing the border and reaching out to educate the voters. If true, that would be just one more example of the type of self-serving mismanagement that caused the initial problems in the Minuteman Project. It also seems quite improbable that he would have spent that much of his own money on such a wild goose chase, when he certainly knew that there were few facts supporting his attacks.Follow the Money
Ms. Courtney noted further deceptions, “Mr. Gilchrist repeatedly tried to slam me and deceive people by claiming that minuscule civil court rulings against me were actually huge criminal convictions, and hence, extremely important. He repeatedly stated in publications and in radio interviews that I had been criminally convicted by a jury of my peers for CRIMES including postal fraud and IRS fraud, even though he definitely knew his team was the one that had abandoned any CIVIL claim for fraud half way through that CIVIL trial. Naturally, the civil jury found that in no circumstances did I ever engage in fraud regarding the Minuteman Project. This is why the massive lawsuits never resulted in any large monetary judgments against me. He simply had no case.”
In order to determine damages, Judge Bailey had to determine whether Mr. Gilchrist acted with Actual Malice: statements knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.Deliberate Deception and Malice
Ms. Courtney submitted an Orange County Register article by Cindy Carcamo in which Mr. Gilchrist is directly quoted in the sub-headline: “I want to make former volunteers as miserable as possible.” Malice was easily found when Gilchrist readily admitted to the judge his contempt for Ms. Courtney, who eventually noticed peculiarities in the way Minuteman Project was being run and began investigating whether it was fulfilling all of its legal duties in 2007.
Small Claims Court can be effective when one cannot afford professional counsel. Ms. Courtney said, “Imagine if I had been able to take Gilchrist’s malice to a Superior Court jury, the awards would have been ten times as high given they were not only untrue, but intentional torts delivered with reckless disregard for the truth and the knowledge that I was certain to be harmed by the publication of the defamatory material. “
Mr. Gilchrist has exhibited a need to bully and harass, which he has done in this long series of lawsuits by hiring ‘corporate counsel’ who have been nothing more than attack dogs. Not only has it been amazing Ms Courtney was able to hold off a full-time team of attorneys in lawsuits claiming $ 20 Million in damages and allegations of fraud, but she went toe to toe with Gilchrist, exposing his lies, one at a time, until his house of lies collapsed in court.The Finale
Contact: Deborah Courtney
Deborah@DACourtney.com
and this article from the Orange County Register
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Published: Sept. 25, 2012 Updated: Sept. 26, 2012 8:44 a.m.
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Mickadeit: Judge: Minuteman used 'Big Lie' to hurt foe
By FRANK MICKADEITCOLUMNIST / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
When we last checked in with Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist two years ago, he had won back control of his misguided organization from former board members, and a Superior Court jury had ordered them to return $4,000 they had pulled out of a Minuteman bank account.
I noted at the time that it seemed like a paltry award for a lawsuit in which Gilchrist had sought more than $1 million in multiple lawsuits over about two years. At best it seemed like a draw between Gilchrist and his former allies, who included Deborah Courtney.
Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist lost a defamation suit against a former ally, Deborah Courtney.
DEBORAH COURTNEY, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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I suggested it was a good time for both to get back to their lives but that, knowing the nature of those two, it was unlikely. I was, as I usually am, correct.
Gilchrist couldn't leave well enough alone. Rather than characterize the 2010 jury verdict for what it was, Gilchrist went online and claimed Courtney had been convicted of several federal offenses including "postal fraud," "federal bank fraud," "federal bank theft," violations of federal Internet laws and more.
This is the kind of exaggerated garbage you often read in the blogosphere, but Courtney wasn't going to let Gilchrist get away with it. In a legal maneuver to get around the $10,000 limit on small claims, she filed eight small-claims defamation suits against Gilchrist based on statements he made on separate occasions. She sought a total of $45,000.
In August, Courtney represented herself before Judge Julian Bailey at Superior Court in Fullerton. Once again, I found myself where I'd hope never to be again: a Gilchrist-Courtney catfight.
Gilchrist was at the table representing himself, and he had alongside him Brad Mailly, who is the brother of Gilchrist's longtime lawyer, Guy Mailly. Brad, a paralegal who works for his brother, had been made a corporate officer of the Minuteman Project, which Courtney had also named in her complaints. One of Gilchrist's other longtime attorneys was sitting in the gallery, observing. In the long run, I don't think it much mattered.
Bailey went through the eight allegedly defamatory statements one by one. He asked Gilchrist why he'd made them. Gilchrist said that after the lawsuit, Courtney's "propaganda campaign" against him had been "so overwhelming" that "I had to do something. ... I had to post."
In general, Bailey wanted Gilchrist to explain how he could characterize a civil finding under state law as a conviction of federal crimes. Gilchrist replied that the removal of $4,000 from a bank account "seems to me like theft. ... My understanding is that what they did was probably criminal."
Bailey went back to his chambers and read the transcript of exactly what the Superior Court jury had found in 2010. Then about a week ago, he issued a blistering ruling.
"Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Mailly incredibly asserted that the statements in question here were neither defamatory nor made with malice. ...," Bailey wrote. "This court finds this to be an example of the Big Lie tactic that Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Mailly seem to believe to be an effective rhetorical device."
In fact, the judge wrote, the jury had found that Courtney and a co-defendant had merely disrupted a contract between the Minuteman Project and its bank, and that she owed him $4,000 because "of a disputed bank withdrawal." That was it. "There was no specific or implied finding of any state or federal criminal law violation, nor could any reasonable person believe such to be the case," Bailey wrote.
He found for Courtney in all eight suits and awarded her $42,501.
Courtney, of course, was overjoyed. In her opinion, Gilchrist's statements "were so dishonest, revenge-driven and manipulative" that the judge took the unusual step in a small-claims case of writing such a scathing opinion. Guy Mailly told me Tuesday that he hadn't read the opinion, but that "even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."
Gilchrist can appeal and get a new trial before a new judge and with real lawyers. Guy Mailly said he hasn't talked to Gilchrist about that yet.
So is it over? I doubt it. The probable appeal, the attempt to collect judgments and costs awarded in this and other suits – by Courtney's estimate, Gilchrist owes her about $60,000 and she owes him about $40,000 – all bode for several more years of litigation enjoyment.
Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com.
Judge: Minuteman used 'Big Lie' to hurt foe | gilchrist, - Mickadeit - The Orange County Register
