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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF VENTURA
COURTROOM 26 HON. JAMES P. CLONINGER, JUDGE
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF
CALIFORNIA,
Plaintiff,
vs.
CARLO PARLANTI,
Defendant.
____________________________________
)))))))))))
No. 2002026651
REPORTER'S PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005
APPEARANCES:
For the Plaintiff: GREGORY TOTTEN
District Attorney
BY: GILBERT ROMERO
Deputy District Attorney
800 South Victoria Avenue
Ventura, California 93009
For the Defendant: RON BAMIEH
Attorney at Law
Copies of this transcript are not certified and do not conform with the provisions of Government Code Section 69954(d) For certified Copy please contact :
Official Reporter 800 South Victoria Avenue Room 313 Ventura, California 93009
Official Reporter
800 South Victoria Avenue
Room 313
Ventura, California 93009
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THE BAILIFF: Remain seated. Come to order, please.
Court is in session.
THE COURT: We are back on the record in the case of
People versus Parlanti with all jurors, both counsel and the
defendant.
Mr. Bamieh, you can proceed.
MR. BAMIEH: Thank you.
Good morning, everybody.
THE JURY: Good morning.
MR. BAMIEH: For the next -- take you to the lunch break
here with my closing argument, and then when you come back,
hopefully not after eating a very large turkey lunch that will
put you to sleep at 1:30, I will finish my argument. It will
go approximately two, two and a half hours, to give you a
Pag.27
head's up. It's my obligation in the one time I have before
you to discuss the facts and in detail to make sure, that when
you leave here, that I have provided you with our defense, and
that I've done my best to explain it to you and given my
client every opportunity to get a fair consideration of the
facts in this case. And that's all that I ask, a fair
consideration of the facts of this case.
Now, you do look at all the evidence. You do look
at the credibility of people. You do talk deeply about what
people said, and you are not affected by tears. Now, you are
going to use logic and common sense, and you are going to put
them to the test. You are going say, "Mr. Romero, your job
was to prove it to us beyond a reasonable doubt, and we are
here to evaluate whether you did that or not." And during my
argument, we will discuss how they failed to meet that burden.
You're about to embark on a process that if you
think about, in everyday life, is uncommon. And it's uncommon
in everyday life that we get together with 11, virtual
strangers, sit in a room, and make a decision as a body of 12.
When do you do that in real life? You don't. I am almost
amazed by it.
My wife and I, when we go to a video store to pick a
video, we argue about that, and we know each other and love
each other and make one decision.
The advantage that you may have over my wife and I
at the video store is you have the law that the Court is going
to give you. That law gives you instructions about what you
can and cannot do. I'm going cover some of that. Technology
Pag.28
sometimes is a great assistance and sometimes can be a pain.
The law will help you deliberate in this case.
First thing -- one of the things the Court will tell
you, when you go back there, pick a foreperson. Makes sense,
doesn't it? Every group needs a leader. And find some way to
pick a foreperson so you can discuss the decision you are
going to make.
Now, if my wife and I did that at the video store,
that would lead to further arguments, but hopefully, you guys
will be able to go back there and choose somebody to lead you
in your discussions.
They ask you to base your decisions on the facts and
the law, and that's very important; the facts you actually
heard from the witness stand; the law the actual judge gave
you, not what you may think, but what the judge gave you.
Do not speculate. Now, speculation is -- is a tough
thing here because there's a lot of things you can speculate
about this case. For instance, Mr. Romero, in his remarks,
told you about: Think where the defendant was; think where he
was. Well, what -- he's asking you to speculate. Where was
he? We know he left Ventura County and -- at some point, and
we know he was in Italy at another point. We don't know why,
do we? We know he had a job, next we heard, at a different
business. We know he was working in Italy. We know he was
traveling throughout Europe. That's all been testified to,
but the reasons why he was there and where, that would be
guessing, wouldn't it? Wouldn't you have to guess?
What witness told you why he left? Where did you
Pag.29
hear that? What witness told you what he knew? Where did you
hear that? You didn't. And so, to think to where he was and
why he went, that was asking for speculation. The law
expressly forbids you to do that. You've taken an oath to
follow the law. I know you will hold to that oath.
You must accept the law as provided by the Court.
It's a simple thing. It's not like, "Judge, you made the
rulings and everything, but now I'm back here, and I'm going
to start telling you what the law should read like." Can't do
that. Makes sense. Because we all have to have a set of
rules. We are, after all, a society of laws, and we all agree
we are going to follow them when we come to this courtroom.
That's part of your oath.
You decide questions of fact by what was actually
presented at trial. What did we actually hear? What did we
actually see? What was presented to us? We can't guess what
we could have gotten. We have to decide what was presented to
us. Cannot consider penalty of punishment. We are entitled
to the individual opinion of each juror.
Now, Mr. Romero talked about this, and I would like
to talk about it just a little bit more. When you go back in
the jury room, find a way that everybody gets to participate.
We just took 14 people, two may be leaving us shortly.
Hopefully, they don't need to come back, but we have 12 people
-- 14 people taken out of the community, 12 who go back and
deliberate. All of you have your experiences. All of you
were listening to the evidence.
Now, wouldn't it be a shame if you just spent the
Pag.30
last week or so here and few days, listen to all this
evidence, and didn't get a chance to express what your
opinions were of the evidence? Wouldn't that just have been a
waste of your time? If you are just going to follow along and
not express an opinion, not listen to the other jurors in
forming your opinion, wouldn't that be just a waste of your
time?
What we want in this country and in this court is we
want all the jurors to get a chance to participate, and they
should. Make up your own mind. And you are entitled to make
up your own minds, and you all said you would, and you will
make it based on logic, the facts, and the law the Court gives
you. You have all the evidence.
The law says that they don't have to provide all the
evidence. Court -- best way to describe court is like this
when it comes to the prosecution and defending cases: With
the prosecution, it's put up or shut up. Whatever you got,
whatever you have, all the bullets in your gun that you have
that says this man committed these crimes, put it up, show us,
whatever you got. It's your duty to bring the evidence to
court. If that's what you got, we will make our decisions on
what you got. We are not going say what you could have got,
but understand, if we needed something to get over our
reasonable doubt and you didn't provide it, we are holding
that against you. And you hold it against them by voting not
guilty. It's that simple. You have all the evidence. That's
what they put up.
And it also tells you when you make a decision, just
Pag..31
in case you didn't know this, don't flip any coins back there.
Decide the facts in this case. That's your first job. Decide
the facts. And I'll tell you, in this case, that will be the
hardest job you have by far, deciding the facts. And if you
can't decide the facts, if you can't decide what happened, if
you don't know what happened, the decision is not -- you don't
compromise your decision. You don't say, well, maybe this
happened. Well, maybe that happened. See, no. That's not
the way it works. You have to decide the facts.
If you can't decide, fine, just tell us. You can
tell us that by voting not guilty. We can't decide based on
this evidence. We can't decide. How are we supposed to
decide on this? This is what you gave us? Or if you can
decide, then tell us what you decided, but decide the facts.
You can't compromise that. You can't say, well, ten percent
of that may have been true. 20 percent may have been true.
I'll take the five percent, and we will just compromise the
rest. No. You must decide the facts as a group. Base it on
the evidence; what you heard and saw in court is what the
evidence is, the exhibits that go back to you.
Statements of the attorneys are not evidence. Can't
be used in determining facts. Let me give you an example of
statements of attorneys.
In this case, I've said my name is Ron Bamieh
repeatedly. The Court has said my name is Ron Bamieh
repeatedly. However, let's say the evidence was -- let's say
this case was about -- hey, decide if that guy sitting over
there at the table is Ron Bamieh. Decide it. The only way
Pag.32
you can decide it -- you couldn't decide it from what the
Court said about me. "Hey, Mr. Bamieh, please stand." He
wouldn't say "Hey." "Mr. Bamieh, please stand." Or
Mr. Romero referring to me as Mr. Bamieh. You couldn't decide
that because we weren't under oath. The one officer, John
Reilly, who knew me, called me "Mr. Bamieh" from the witness
stand. Well, you can say, "Well, you know, he seemed
credible. He identified that guy there in the nice suit over
there as Mr. Bamieh. I'll go with that. That's Mr. Bamieh."
But that was testimony you heard. But if there was no
testimony about who I was, if there was nobody that turned
around and pointed to me and said, "That's Ron Bamieh," you
couldn't decide that fact. You -- you would be guessing
because the statements of the attorneys, once again, is not
evidence.
So, what we are saying by that is if a person is not
under oath, is not testifying, we are not going to -- we are
not going to say -- we are not going to rely on that stuff.
We are not going to rely on the statements of our questions.
For instance, if I asked a question of somebody, like I asked
a question of Deputy Fullerton about the med/legal exam, and
he didn't know. And you couldn't say from that question that
I asked that in a med/legal exam, that injuries could last for
weeks and weeks, and that you could see trauma to a vagina
over weeks and weeks.
However --
MR. ROMERO: Objection. Outside the scope of the
evidence.
Pag.33
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. BAMIEH: However, when Dr. Manchester testified, and
I asked him about the med/legal exam, and if you accept him as
a medical expert, and he testified that you could see trauma
to a vagina for weeks and weeks, that you could rely on. That
you could rely on.
No independent investigation is allowed. You can't
go over to Westlake, try to find the apartment. Can't go into
the Vons and look for two-liter bottles of wine. Not allowed.
You got to make your decision based on what was presented here
in court. That's what you have to make your decision on.
You are allowed to use logic and common sense. And
I'll -- I submit to you, when you do that, that's going to
really hurt the People's case.
And you are allowed to use direct and circumstantial
evidence. And I think it's important that we go over and
understand that concept, direct and circumstantial evidence.
Direct evidence directly proves a fact if found to
be true. Makes sense. So, we can directly prove a fact. So
let me give you an example.
E-mail of August 30, 2002, to Brian Whitney. There
was an e-mail in evidence of an e-mail to Brian Whitney on
that day, and it was from Ms. White. Here's the e-mail.
with. Tell him to run. Becca." That's in evidence. You
will have that back in your deliberations. The e-mail, you
could use that as direct evidence that Becca White, Rebecca
White, on August 30, 2002, sent that e-mail. You can use that
Pag.34
as direct evidence to prove that fact. You can.
You can use it as circumstantial evidence also. The
way you can use it for circumstantial evidence is, if found
true, proves a fact from which an inference of the existence
of another fact may be drawn. You can make an inference from
that piece of evidence also. Same August 30, 2002 e-mail, the
inference can be that Ms. White did not tell the truth when
she said she wanted Mr. Parlanti arrested.
When she testified in court, she did not want Mr. --
spoke to the officers. Remember that testimony? That was her
strong desire, that she wanted him arrested. Well, you can
use this e-mail and say that's circumstantial evidence that
she lied. She did not tell us the truth. That really after
that conversation with the police officers, she really did a
lot of things to make sure that he would not get arrested.
Now, Mr. Romero said in his remarks that I was going
to attack Ms. White; that the defense was based on attacking
Ms. White, going for the small little details. What I ask you
all is this: Somebody makes the allegations she did, the way
she made them, with her demeanor, saying, frankly, the most
outrage -- some of the most outrageous things you could
possibly hear about someone, claiming facts that, on their
face, make no sense whatsoever, and the defense attorney, who
represents somebody charged with these crimes shouldn't ask
her a question or two about it?
"Thank you, ma'am. That was great direct testimony.
No further questions. Next witness, please." What would you
Pag.35
expect? What would you expect? In all realty, that we are
just going to accept that as true? Isn't that the way the
process works, is that we test the credibility of the
evidence? And then you make a decision as to that
credibility? Isn't that the way it works?
And to say that we are attacking the minuscule
nature of her testimony, ignores the fact that she says things
that were, first of all, beyond any common sense and any logic
you could possibly apply on this planet Earth. That's one.
And I'm going to go through those.
Two, would be to say that, uhm, well, she was
inconsistent. She didn't tell a few things. Well, if
Mr. Romero was telling you -- telling people about his
brother's wedding, how many different ways do you think he
would describe the bride's hair? She was a blonde. She was a
brunette. She was a red-head. I'm guessing he said it the
same way every time. How many different ways did he say he
pet those horses? Did he say he rode them? They buck like
crazy? They were wild horses? No. He probably told them
same time, "We pet some horses."
To compare those two, him telling his relatives
about the family, and Ms. White telling -- making some of the
most outrageous statements you could hear in a court of law,
to compare those two, frankly is ridiculous on its face.
And Mr. Romero is one of the finest prosecutors the
DA's office has here. And he's doing what my mom used to
always say we should do. When you get lemons, try to make
some lemonade. That's all he's trying to do. He's making
Pag.36
.
some lemonade. He's doing the best he can with what he has,
but what you have to do is you don't have to drink that
lemonade. You can call it for what it is. You can say,
"Those are lemons, Mr. Romero." That's all it is. She made
no sense. We can't believe her.
You can also use that e-mail, circumstantial
evidence, that her complaints were false, and she feels guilty
about it.
Assessing credibility. That's what you are going to
be asked to do. That's what you are asked to do, to assess
people's credibility.
Now, before we came to court, before you ever set
foot in this courtroom, and you were asked: How would you
assess somebody's credibility? What would you look for in
somebody to determine whether they are telling the truth,
whether it was an employee or somebody who came up to you?
What would you look for in a person? Just your own common
sense as -- as an adult in our society, what would you look
for, reasonably? Not unreasonably. Not -- I'm not asking you
to apply some standard to Ms. White that you -- that normal
people wouldn't apply or that the law doesn't say you could
apply. Not asking that at all. I'm not saying, "Hey, there
are these minuscule details that she made a slight mistake on.
Let's ram it in to her." Yeah, that's it. I'm not asking for
that, not at all.
But just your normal, everyday life, if you were
asked, before you came here, somebody on the street said,
"Hey," how would you assess somebody's credibility if they
Pag.37
were talking to you or somebody was selling you a car?
somebody was selling you a car? How would you assess the
credibility as to the used car? Think just how you normally
would decide this. You would think. Remember the facts
accurately. The one time, they told me the car had 10,000
miles, next time 150,000 miles, next time 60,000 miles. If
that was going on, would you have a problem with that? Was
that 10, 30 or 100,000? How many miles did that car have on
it? Would you have a problem at all with that? You know, you
asked them five different times, and every time they told you
a different answer. Wouldn't you think, well, nobody can
possibly tell the story the same way every time? There's no
way. It's an honest mistake. 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000
miles. Every time they tell, it's different every time. Or
do you think, hum, something is wrong? Just in your normal
everyday life.
You would look, to say, do they have a reason to lie
to me? Did this person have a reason to lie to me, who is
selling me the car? Well, you'd think, they may have a
motive. They may want to sell the car. They may not like me.
They may have some motive, but you would want to know that.
And if they didn't have a motive, you would say, hey, they
seem reliable. I can understand that.
Are they consistent? Do they make sense and
logical? If they told you this car you are driving right
here, it gets 2000 miles to the gallon, 2000 miles to the
gallon, and it drives about 100 miles per hour with complete
control, and you can't crash it no matter what you do, you can
Pag.38
say, "Well, that's completely illogical. What do you think, I
was born yesterday? Well, that can't be true."
If they told you that the car could drive 200 miles
an hour, 200 miles an hour; still gets great gas mileage,
40 miles to the gallon. Well, it's not as ridiculous as your
last story, but I wasn't born yesterday. That's completely
illogical. I can't believe you.
That's all I'm saying. Just apply logic to what you
heard in court. Is there some corroboration? Can you kick
the tires? Do other people have similar opinions? Do you see
anything where there's -- where they tell you things about the
car that are not apparent; that nobody ever saw before; nobody
ever saw it drive fast; nobody ever said it can run before?
And does the person, who is selling you the car, do they hide
the tires when you walk by? Can I look under the hood? No, I
can't look under the hood. And when you do look under the
hood, and you see something is wrong, they say, "Oh, I forgot
about that. Yeah, that was a mistake. Oh, that's not what I
meant when I said not look under the hood. You may see
something, you know, the car was fine. I meant something
else." If they did that to you, if they did that to you, if
they tried to cover up their mistake with more lies, would you
have problems with their credibility?
All I propose to you is if this is a reasonable way
to assess somebody's credibility, if this is a reasonable way
that you would have done it outside of court, if this is in
your common sense and experience, if this is -- makes sense to
you, why would you treat anybody on the witness stand
Pag.39
differently? Why would you assess the credibility
differently?
And if somebody couldn't meet this minimal standard,
this minimal standard, why would it be any differently here?
How about if the person had lied to you before? Had
told prior lies? How would you feel about that person? Would
you -- would you believe them in something else they said?
I'm guessing that most of you, most of you, somebody that lied
to you before, would have trouble believing them in the
future. Makes sense. Matter of fact, that's consistent with
what the law says, too. We will talk about that shortly.
Now, the law tells you how to assess credibility.
And it tells you how, in a way. It gives you the standards
how we can assess credibility, which you're going to find,
really, if you follow the law, is common sense things in the
legal instructions.
Ability of the witness to remember. That's one of
the things that you assess. Do they remember things?
Bias, interest or motive. We look for that. Do
they have a bias? Do they have an interest or motive.
The character and quality of the testimony. Was
somebody being overly dramatic? Was somebody making sense?
Do they have a quality about them?
Demeanor. Always important.
Existence or non-existence of fact. Okay. Are they
testifying to things that, on this planet, factually don't
exist or couldn't exist or completely illogical? Logic and
common sense. Sorry.
Pag.40
Consistent and inconsistent. The law says,
credibility-wise, if they are inconsistent, you hold that
against their credibility. You do. If they are inconsistent,
the law says you hold that against their credibility. If they
are consistent, that can bolster their credibility, but if
they're consistently inconsistent, that's not good and
wouldn't be good in real life, would it? That would be bad.
We would say, if you're consistently inconsistent, how do I
rely on you at all?
The law also gives instruction called willfully
false, and I should have done this earlier. Let me do it now,
though. What I've done is I have taken -- you'll get the jury
instruction. The Court has read you most of them, and you
will get more before we are done, and I've paraphrased them.
I paraphrased them, and I've done my best to be as accurate as
I can as to what the law says, but obvioulsy, I'm doing it in
a limited space here. So, I condensed them. And with names,
and I go through names, I've condensed the names of people so
they fit on the chart. I don't mean any disrespect to people
at all, but in order to make it fit here, I --for instance,
I'll call Rebecca White "RW," Carlo Parlanti, "CP" and
similar things like that. Some people I use the full names,
but for the most part, if I could fit it on the slide, I will,
if I can't, I abbreviate.
With the law -- there's no -- this will be an
accurate portrayal of law. This isn't the complete set of
instructions.
Willfully false. The law recognizes what you all
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know. Someone who does not tell the truth in one area cannot
be trusted in others. That's what you know. I mean, that's
just common sense. You didn't have to be told that by the
judge to know that, but we know that.
And the law says that if you want, if you want, once
you find that they have been untruthful, willfully false, you
can disregard everything they have to say because we
understand that if we are going to say to somebody, prove this
beyond a reasonable doubt, and you call somebody who does not
tell the truth, that we shouldn't be relying on that to
convict anybody. Somebody who has proven to be false
repeatedly we should not be relying on to convict anybody.
The law recognizes this.
If you thought about that before you came to court,
and you told -- if we are in a coffee shop, and you said,
"Hey, Mr. Bamieh," or you'll probably call me "Ron" in a
coffee shop, but we will go with "Mr. Bamieh," and you said,
"Hey, what's -- what's the law about if somebody lies in court
and in a trial where allegations are made, and they're really
bad? What does a jury have to do?"
And I said to you, "Well, you know, you are allowed
to disregard it."
And you go, "That's what I would think. I bet
that's exactly what the law would be." And that makes sense
to you. And the instruction you're going to get is going to
make sense too. If somebody is not telling the truth in one
area, you don't have to believe them, and you sure as heck
should disregard everything they have to say.
Pag.42
If you don't believe Rebecca White, if you don't
believe her, you have to acquit Carlo Parlanti. Isn't that
what the state of the evidence is, if you don't believe her?
If you find her to be willfully false? If you found her to
lack credibility? If you just can't accept what she is saying
as true, you have to acquit.
She's the only person charged on the complaint -- on
the information. The only person. The information is the
charging document the Court read to you at the start of the
trial. She's the only person charged.
There would be no case whatsoever if she didn't testify.
Common sense, right? She's the sole witness to binding,
battery and sexual assaults. It's her testimony that all that
is based on. That's where it comes from. Sole witness about
that.
So, what you are going to be asked to do and what
you must do is determine her credibility. Determine whether
or not she was credible or not. Can you rely on Rebecca
White? Did she remember accurately? Did she have an accurate
memory of events?
Well, she told us she has memory problems. She
testified to that. She has short-term memory problems. So,
she -- right away, she tells us. There's no evidence of that
besides her statement, but she has short-term memory problems.
She has trouble remembering. She -- the short-term memory
problems seem to occur, seem to occur, every time there's some
damaging facts that went towards her credibility for some
Pag.43
reason. These short-term memory problems, they appeared. And
just look back at the testimony. And if I quote testimony and
you think I've quoted anything inaccurately, and I've said
anything inaccurately, hold it against me. Hold it against
me. But I think you will find that those short-term memory
problems occur, where she started talking about them, vividly,
and how she has these short-term memory problems when I
confronted her with damaging facts.
Did she have a motive or reasons in this case? Just
following along now with the law says how to assess
credibility. Did she have any motive? Was there any motive
we heard about?
We know and you know that Carlo Parlanti broke up
with her before leaving to Mississippi. And how was that
proven? We know because Ms. White was impeached with
testimony of her motive with the preliminary hearing
transcript.
Now, the preliminary hearing transcript is not in
evidence; however, the statements I read into evidence off the
preliminary hearing transcripts. I read them in. I quoted
from them. If you remember, I approached her with the
transcript. I read to her, and that's how they are in
evidence. Not from the transcripts themselves, but me reading
what was in the transcript into evidence. Rebecca White's
motive. From the preliminary hearing transcript, I asked her
about this; read this to her to impeach her.
We are talking about if she knew that Mr. Parlanti
was having an affair with another woman. If she knew that.
Pag.44
And she said she did in trial. She said she did. And I said,
"Well, at the preliminary hearing, ma'am, isn't it true you
said you didn't?" And we went through the preliminary hearing
transcript her. And my question to her, where I started from,
was, "Yes, having an affair, seeing somebody else on the
side." And we put this in context to refresh memories, and
they need to be refreshed in terms of Mr. Parlanti in
Mississippi.
At the preliminary hearing, she said, "No."
"Isn't it true you made allegations to Mr. Parlanti
that he was sleeping with her?" Same preliminary hearing,
next line down.
Her answer was, "Yes." So, just at the preliminary
hearing, she is consistently inconsistent.
"Isn't it true that you believed he was sleeping
with her?"
And she answered, "I know he spent a night or two
with her." We continued. "He was in Gulfport, Mississippi,"
was her answer.
And I asked, "With who?"
And she said, "He was at work."
And I said, "Come on, ma'am. With who? You know
who she was." Once again, this is read to her right out of
the preliminary hearing transcript.
"He was probably with, with..."
And my question to her, "Starts with a C."
And she admits, "With her."
And later on, it was established "with her" meant
Pag.45
"Cecelia" at trial.
So, the preliminary hearing, when she was confronted
with this issue, she denied it, originally. And then when she
realized, once again, that she was kind of caught in this
denial, in her statement, at the end of the day at the
preliminary hearing, we get her to admit, "With her," Cecelia.
And at trial, knowing because she had the preliminary hearing
transcript, okay, and was at the preliminary hearing, and what
happened, she just admits it.
MR. ROMERO: Objection, your Honor. Facts outside the
evidence.
THE COURT: Overruled. As I said earlier, the jury is
the final judge of what the evidence is.
MR. BAMIEH: So, a lot of people would say that if you
knew that you've been left for another woman, that you may
have a motive. That would be reasonable, I think. Most
people would think that would be reasonable. So, there is
some motive there, but she was also forced in more motive when
confronted with her e-mails now.
E-mail that came into evidence in terms of being
read into evidence. E-mail from Rebecca White to Katia Anedda
on September 5, 2002. Her e-mail.
"First of all, I do love Carlo with all that is me.
Yes, I am angry with him. He cheated on me and lied to me
about it." Evidence of motive. Motive.
September 12, 2002, read into evidence once again.
"Where he walked out the door and said 'good-bye' to
Pag.46
me for the last time, I fell on the floor and cried knowing I
would never feel him run his hand over my face again, kiss my
lips or talk to me in bed with his liquid, silver voice again.
I love him, and I will never get to ever see or hear from him
again." Motive. Motive. Motive.
that she left him. That's what she testified to here in
court. On September 12, 2002, she said something completely
different. Motive.
And motive apparent on 7/22/02 fax to Reilly. And
that fax, what I'm talking about, is not the cover sheet,
which I'll talk about later, but the actual fax statement she
had in front of her that she said she wrote while she was in
Monterey over the 20th and 21st, I believe was her testimony,
and she faxed it the morning of the 22nd. She -- that's the
fax statement I'm talking about, and that -- this was read to
her also at trial.
said she worked on, she wanted to make it as accurate as
possible. In that statement, she said:
"I try to make up with him, giving him a chance to
fix what he has done, but he calls other women and talks with
them instead of me." And just so we are clear, you may see
some typos in this slide. I read it to her as she wrote it,
and I quoted it to her as she wrote it, and that's what I'm
trying to do with these slides.
Motive. She wanted to make up. He didn't want her.
He left. And that's why her testimony of saying things like,
Pag.47
"I broke up with him," or, "I left him," trying to diffuse
that motive evidence is so ridiculous because you all knew
that she knew this case pretty well. And she knew about the
e-mails she wrote because she provided them as she told
everybody to the District Attorney's Office. She provided
them, and yet she comes to court, comes to court, knowing what
she has written before, knowing what she has said before, and
just looks at you and says, "I left him. He never left me. I
never said that." We got all this.
Anger apparent in 9/13/02 letter to Dr. Farber. She
testified once again on -- I think it was redirect examination
by Mr. Romero when she testified that she wrote this letter to
else would get hurt. Not because she was angry. Not because
she was upset. Because she was trying to help other people.
Well, then I confronted her with the statement she wrote. "I
tried to make up with him" -- I'm sorry. I went backwards.
There it is.
On the last line of her letter to Dr. Farber, as
read to her in court:
USA for he hates us and cheered last 9/11 when we were
bombed."
Now, the thing that I asked you to take from the
statement is look at the date, 9/13/02. Pretty much the
anniversary. That's the postmark date, by the way. The
anniversary of 9/11. And think about how everybody in this
country was feeling about then and how we still were mourning.
Pag.48
We still were angry, and how we felt about people who disliked
our country. Her. She writes this to Dr. Farber. This is
just pure, unadulterated anger. This is not for help. Not
for any other reason. Some people would say it's kind of
manipulative, wouldn't you think?
Character and quality of Rebecca White's testimony.
E-mail to Brian Whitney on 8/29/02, the first one I'm
referring to now that was shown to her. Remember this?
"I am in a police safehouse packing a gun." And the
other line? That should be in quotes, by the way. I
did not feel he did anything to me. So this is the story."
And signed "Becca."
Now, when I first showed her that e-mail, she
claimed -- she claimed on that e-mail, for whatever reason, "I
didn't write this." Remember that? "This is not one of the
e-mails I gave," she said, "Mr. Romero," the DA's office.
That's what she said. And she said it with anger, with spite,
like, you know, I'm trying to fool her or something. "I never
said this. I didn't even have a gun. How would I say that?
That's crazy. I gave him three weeks to make -- I didn't say
that, no way."
And then what happened? For some reason -- and I
don't know what the reason was, and I won't speculate -- she
thought that that e-mail looked different; that she thought,
"Hey, something is going on here. I should deny this. He
probably can't prove that it came from me." What was she
Pag.49
gave to Mr. Romero. She had to admit it came from her. Same
exact lines were in it. And then what was her answer? What
about that? Was that just a mistake? "Oh, I don't know what
I meant by that." What was her answer to that? How could she
possibly explain that? She was going to come and swear to you
she didn't write that. When she is caught, when she is
caught, "I'm sorry. Just a mistake. Come on, I made so many
statements, how could I possibly remember. Just a mistake."
All of her mistakes, by the way, were realized after
she was caught. Not before. After she was caught. After she
gets caught in something, that's when it's a mistake. That's
when it's innocent. Before, she doesn't admit it. In
contrast to the officers. They admitted their mistakes right
before anything. They didn't try to deny anything. Yeah,
they made mistakes. There was no issue with them. They had
no problem with that.
The difference between being credible and being
incredible.
Your Honor, I notice it's noon.
THE COURT: All right. We can break at this time. Let
me talk to counsel at the bench briefly before we do.
///
(Bench conference held off record.)
///
THE COURT: Thank you, counsel.
We are going to take a shorter lunch period today.
We will resume at 1 o'clock with argument. Between now and
the time you come back to court, please don't discuss the
Pag.50
case. Please don't form or express opinions or conclusions
about it. Jurors are excused until 1 p.m.
We are in recess until then.
(Lunch recess taken.)
--oOo--
Pag. 51
VENTURA, CALIFORNIA; FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005
P.M. SESSION
--oOo--
THE BAILIFF: Remain seated. Come to order, please.
THE COURT: We're back on the record in the case of
People versus Parlanti with all of our jurors, both counsel,
and the defendant.
Mr. Bamieh, you can resume.
MR. BAMIEH: Thank you, your Honor.
Hope you all had a nice light lunch with lots of
coffee. I will continue my closing argument.
As we left off, we were discussing the fact
Ms. White denied that she wrote that e-mail to Mr. Whitney on
8/29/02; said the e-mail had been edited somehow in some
fantastic fashion and was not the same as she gave the DA.
And later, she had to admit she wrote this when she was caught
and confronted with the exact same e-mail from one that she
gave the district attorney. Character and quality of her
testimony.
Another example of this is the e-mail she wrote to
Katia Anedda on 11/15/02.
-- "mofia" -- I think she meant Mafia -- "here that would fix
it, but Carlo does not love me. I know that. I just want him
to know I do love him." Once again, making one of these
statements, but making it clear that she is in love with
Pag.52
Carlo. She wants to do anything that she can to get him back,
and she's sending these e-mails at an unbelievable rate.
Now, what you can use in determining the credibility
of a witness is the existence or non-existence of a fact. In
other words, you can use some logic here, just some common
sense and logic. It's completely allowed, well within the
scope of the law, whether you're here in the courtroom or
you're out in the street talking to somebody. Just apply
logic.
In this case, it was surreal. It's -- I work with
some teen-agers in one of these popular shows, called the
"Surreal Life," and they get these, I guess, B actors or
somewhat-known celebrities to live in a house together, and
they call it "surreal" I guess because these people, their
reality is far from what a normal person's reality is, and it
make sense. And a lot of times, with Ms. White, I think you
will find her reality was much different than most normal
people's reality; actually, much different than most anybody
you can possibly meet.
that, and she was sure of it. And she -- Mr. Romero, on
down under four liters somehow. An extraordinary amount of
alcohol. And she was even shown four liters of wine. A
remarkable amount for one human to digest. And her testimony
was, at the time of the initial binding, he had drank two
liters already, had -- was more than halfway through the
second two-liter bottle. So, he was somewhere over three
Pag.53
liters of alcohol. And to make this point even clearer, most
people, in their common sense, know -- I mean, all of you have
lived enough years in the planet to know what alcohol does to
the human body. You know that three liters of alcohol in one
night -- what the effects of that would be, but just to make
sure there was no mistake about it, we called Mr. Beckner,
excuse me, just to do some simple mathematics in these
exhibits. And we used the widest range possible because it
really doesn't matter if it's nine percent or 12 percent.
It's still going to be an incredible blood alcohol level.
Near fatal, if not fatal, blood alcohol level. Beyond belief.
And the amazing thing about Ms. White is she could say these
things that are beyond belief with no qualms. She could say
them just as straight-faced as she could describe how she was
attacked; just as straight-faced without any hesitation. Even
when confronted with what four liters looks like, she could
still say it to you. No problem. It's ridiculous. It's
beyond ridiculous.
Mr. Romero tried to ask Mr. Beckner about tolerance
for alcohol. What was her testimony about Mr. Parlanti? He
was running five miles a day, swimming the other days. He was
in excellent, physical shape. He was getting up for work at
6:30 in the morning. That sounds like somebody who is downing
two or three liters of wine a night? It's, on its face,
foolish to say to somebody. And she said it to you asking you
to believe it. His blood alcohol level, under her scenario of
events, giving the broadest range possible, between a .31 and
a .65. As Mr. Beckner told you .08, .08 in this state, and in
Pag.54
most states, legally intoxicated for driving. Over three
times over that, and she's saying he was walking and talking.
She is saying at .31, at the minimum, at a .31, he had the
manual dexterity, the motor skills to thread this, at a .31.
Couldn't have happened. Under her scenario of events, on this
planet, Earth, as we know it, based on our common sense and
experience, it cannot happen. Could not have happened.
And the point -- oh, maybe she made a mistake.
Okay. Maybe she did, but how many times was she asked about
this? Did she ever come off it? Did she ever say, "I made a
mistake? Oh, I must be wrong"? Did she ever go back on that
one time? Minimize it in any way? She wouldn't give it up
for the life of her, ever. How many opportunities did we give
her, by the way? How many opportunities? Are you sure?
Could it have been three and a half liters? Are you sure
someone drank the whole thing? She finished off saying, at
the end of the evening, he had completed both bottles.
Ridiculous.
Just logically, would he be standing? walking?
grab someone? bind somebody the way she described? Could you
do that logically at those blood alcohol levels? He
literally, litterally, if he was like that, would have been a
pushover. Literally. Could you achieve or maintain an
erection even at those levels? It affects your central
nervous system. That's part of it. You're extremely,
extremely, extremely intoxicated. You just can't physically
do certain things. That's one of them. Surreal testimony of
Ms. White continued, though.
Pag.55
This was -- I mean, there's no other description for
this but surreal. On 11/22/05, she has an -- Investigator
Robertson has a conversation with Ms. White. 8:30 a.m.
interview, the first one. This was all testified to. Said
Mr. Parlanti tied her up on prior occasions. That's what she
said about 8:30 a.m., was that 30-minute interview.
Then we get this. At 10:20, calls back and says,
"He did not ever tie me up." That's the testimony in the same
day. And this is the person. We are saying, okay, she's
credible. We can believe her. She doesn't believe herself.
And then her explanation, her explanation, confronted with
these simple facts, is -- what she says when she gets caught
on a couple of occasions, "That's not what I meant."
We all speak English. We all know what the language
means. "He did not ever tie me up." What is the other
interpretation of that?
Continuing with the surreal testimony of Ms. White.
She testifies on direct examination, once again, "Mr. Parlanti
beat me up with belts during sex." And she puts the date when
this happened around Mother's Day of 2002. That's the
testimony, and that was on direct examination. And she
testified it was not her idea. She did not want to
participate. She was surprised by this. And she backs it up
by saying, "I showed my daughter," Heather
Christianson-Reeves, HCR, "the bruises on my chest." That's
how she backs it up. She says, "Yeah. I had nothing to do
with this."
And then, of course, we have the e-mail of 5/5/02.
Pag.56
5/5/02 from Rebecca White to Carlo Parlanti. And what does it
say?
"You are a prince to me always. I have the belt
laying out for you when you come. I need a spanking. Becca.
The story of a prince. Smile." That e-mail is in evidence.
There is no way that she can come to court and tell
you that on 5/5/02 that her intent was any different than what
is written on the paper, but she did. And her explanation
became, after some questioning, was, "I was using reverse
psychology." I don't know if you remember that. "I was using
reverse psychology," is what she said. "And the theory being
that if I mentioned the belts, he would not use them." Okay.
So, I hear that testimony, and I ask a question.
It's a very simple one. "If it's reverse psychology, what
made you think the first time you used this device that it
would work?" Right? How would you know it was going to work?
You had to have tried it before. You had to suggest you
wanted to use the belts before to know that somehow the
reverse psychology would work and Mr. Parlanti would not be
interested in using the belt. How would you know for the
first time you used it? It's just surreal. It's like she
doesn't live on the planet here. How is it even close to
being consistent?
The 7/22/02 fax to Detective Reilly.
she faxes him, right?
8/30/02 e-mail to Brian Whitney. The opposite. Of
course, before confronted with that e-mail, she denies ever
Pag.57
wanting him not to be -- that's probably an argumentative
there -- ever wanting, having a desire for him to run from
e-mail, almost verbatim, at 8:31 to Ms. Anedda. A direct
contradiction of what she told Detective Reilly.
entire fist in her vagina, and he tried to open it. That was
her testimony at trial. And then tried to open an entire
fist. Physically -- well, let me -- she wrote to Dr. Farber,
on the postmark envelope of 9/13/02, that Mr. Parlanti had his
whole hand inside her rectum. At trial, she tried to mitigate
that by saying four fingers, but to Dr. Farber, she wrote the
whole hand. And just the physical realities of that, that it
would be possible to commit such an act, not mentioning any
lubrication or anything like that, that you could get an
entire fist like that inside of somebody. And assuming you
could, assuming for a second you could, what would be the
amount of physical damage that would cause? It would be
tremendous. It would be tremendous.
No reports of physical pain in those regions to Dr.
Manchester. None. Zero. He didn't even look. Didn't even
check her out in that area at all. Wasn't even an issue.
Just makes no sense.
The one thing that made clear throughout this trial
was Ms. White was consistently inconsistent. We are not
talking about little details here. We are not talking about
minutia here. We are talking about the main part of the case,
aren't we? The main part of the case. The main issues in
Pag. 58
this case, she was inconsist -- consistently inconsistent.
Take the easy ones. Fullerton and Reilly on 7/18
through the 22nd of '02. That encompasses, just so we are
clear, the statement to Fullerton on tape, the statement to
Detective Reilly on tape, and the written correspondence later
on, 7/22, that she faxed to him. She says she reported
Mr. Parlanti because her father would not give her dollars,
support, for help if she didn't. That's what she says. And
then to Dr. Manchester, she said on 7/22/02, she said, I had
to come here because the police said they would not take the
report unless she went to a doctor. She just saw the police
two days ago. Three days ago. My fault. Three days ago.
They took a report. She was there. They interviewed her
twice, as a matter of fact. They told her -- they did a
followup, and this is what she's telling the doctor three days
later. The doctor. Explain this to me. Is this a minor
detail or something? She's pathological.
To Dr. Farber. The doctor wouldn't treat me -- she
wrote "me" -- we made it "her" -- unless she turned him in,
meaning Mr. Parlanti. Wouldn't treat me unless we turn him
in.
At a trial, she explains, "Yeah, I called a doctor
and spoke to a doctor on the phone."
Yeah, doctors are like that. "I'm suffering from a
physical trauma. I'm really injured. I need some help."
"Well, go talk to the police. I can't help you."
They take an oath that they are supposed to help people.
There's a reason for that. And this doctor she called, the
Pag. 59
one doctor she called out of the phone book, who she can't
remember, wouldn't treat her unless she turned him in.
To attorneys, Chris and Ron, summer of '02:
"I went to a doctor for help, but he told me he
would not help me until I turned in whoever did this to me."
Now she went to the doctor. Not called. Now she went.
At preliminary hearing, asked about the conversation
with her father, once again. Right? Read to her from the
transcript. "When did the conversation with your father
occur, where he told you he would not give you money unless
you turned Mr. Parlanti in?"
And at the preliminary hearing, she said, "I believe
that was on the 16th." That's when she spoke to her father.
So she's on the phone.
Then we find out after the preliminary hearing --
the preliminary hearing, once again, was August 25th of '05 --
after the preliminary hearing, on Halloween of this year, we
find out that Mr. Romero interviewed Ms. White's parents.
Now, this is easily circumstantial evidence. What could he
possibly be interviewing them on? The money. She needed
money for support, right? We have further circumstantial
evidence on what we know those interviews were about because
we find out later on, she then e-mails Investigator Dave
Williams and Mr. Romero on 11/1/05 at 7:09 a.m. And so, that
e-mail makes it clear that she knew that Mr. Romero
interviewed her parents the night before. Very next day. We
have two pieces of circumstantial evidence. We have the fact
that Mr. Romero interviewed -- well, we have three pieces,
Pag.60
actually. We have the preliminary hearing testimony where she
says, "My father, I spoke to him on the 16th."
We then have another piece that says Mr. Romero
interviewed the parents. And that's a stipulation. There's
no issue as to that. Interviewed the parents of Rebecca White
on 10/31/05. And we can say, okay. We know at the
preliminary hearing she mentioned that she spoke to her
father; that Mr. Romero interviewed these people on the 31st.
That makes sense because the inference would be -- a
reasonable inference would be that he had to talk to them
about whether or not Ms. White had spoken to them and whether
or not they said, "You must turn Mr. Parlanti in if you want
any support whatsoever." Okay, that's how you use
circumstantial evidence.
And then the third piece, even if we need more, we
have a third piece where Ms. White e-mails Dave Williams and
Mr. Romero on 11/1/05 and talks about her contact with her
parents and whether or not she spoke to her father. And in
that e-mail, and we have that in evidence:
"I was okay. I never really talked to my dad. We
are not close. He told my mom if I turned Carlo in, he would
put money in my account for gas for me to come because Mama
knew I had not been working and I was broke. I talk to Mama
but not my dad. I am not changing my story" -- mispells
"just" -- "just making it more clear."
This right here is Rebecca White. She's caught.
She's caught in a lie. She knows now that Mr. Romero has
proof of that lie, and now she covers up. Isn't that what
Pag. 61
she's doing? "That's not what I meant." She tells everybody,
"I spoke to my father, I spoke to my father, I spoke to my
father." Mr. Romero speaks to her father. "I didn't speak to
my father." And then the weird thing of it all is, to make it
even more surreal, she comes to