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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 court and says, "I spoke to my
father."
Something is wrong here. Something stinks. This is
more than just slight inconsistencies. This is more than
something is just not -- something is just a little wrong.
Something really is just not right. It's just not right in
the worst way, and you have to see this. It's so obvious in
these e-mails and what she does in court. You just have to
see this.
At trial, she says... the consistently inconsistent
Rebecca White. At trial, she had Mr. Parlanti's permission to
read e-mails from ex-girlfriends and contact them. That was
her testimony at trial. She had his permission. And she was
very, once again, confident about this fact.
Rebecca White to Ms. Anedda. And this was read in open court
right off the e-mail.
"He is upset with me for looking in his e-mails and
reading all the e-mails from these girls." Does that sound
like somebody with permission; that she was being allowed to
do something or that he knew she was doing it at the time?
Does that sound even remotely like that could be the case?
The consistently inconsistent Rebecca White.
Fullerton and Reilly statements, 7/18th and 19th of
Pag. 62
'02. Intercourse three times, and they were clear about this
as they went over it with her numerous, numerous times. Told
them: Does not remember if she said "no" to the intercourse;
calls it "making love." When she describes it, she calls it
"making love." Those are her words. Calls it "making love."
Says only one time bound; that only one of the acts of
intercourse occurred when she was bound. The others, she was
not.
Reilly, on 7/22/02, this is once again the faxed
letter she sent in. Intercourse five times now. Now we are
at five times. And that's when intercourse is defined as the
penis entering the vagina. And in that letter, she says when
she tells him to stop, he does. Still calls it "making love"
even in that letter. This time, it's two times bound. Three
other times, not bound. Adds for the first time fist in
vagina. Never mentions hand in her anus. Ever. First time
she mentions this detail.
To Dr. Manchester: Says, sexually assaulted; says
fist, but not hand. On 7/22/02, no complaints of pain other
than chest. Dr. Manchester. She writes him two years later.
Two years later. And we know at this point, Mr. Parlanti has
been arrested. We know -- we know that from Mai De Barra.
And she writes Dr. Manchester, at this time, 7/22/04, writes
the doctor, telling him that there was a hand in her anus that
she forgot to mention back on 7/22/02. Strange at best.
Dr. Farber. Sexual intercourse now three times to
her. Now calls it rape, not making love. Mentions full hand
in anus for the first time. And remember this, 9/13, is
Pag.63
before Manchester 7/22/04. And now, she mentions there was
chocolate cream in her nose and throat for the first time.
Another detail.
Now, Mr. Romero argues that she can't expect -- you
can't expect her to remember every detail. You can't expect
her to tell it the same way every time. We don't. We don't.
We don't expect anybody to do it the same way, but we can't
expect people to start adding details, start adding violent
episodes that occurred to them, and they're adding it months
later. And we say, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.
These aren't minor details. These are traumatic
events that occurred, and she had no mention of when she first
reported. None whatsoever. All of a sudden, these details
start getting added in over time. What's going on? Makes you
feel like maybe somebody needs a little more attention. Look
at me. Look how bad I was hurt. I keep adding details,
adding details, and it gets more surreal. And at trial, the
chocolate cream, she goes, "Oh, yeah, I did say that. I
forgot all about it."
Letter to attorney Chris and Ron, summer '02.
Sexual intercourse, three times. Still on three. She's off
the five now, and this is after she wrote to the police
officer. She is off the five. Calls it rape. No mention of
fist or hand. No mention of chocolate cream.
How about the prelim? What did she say at the
prelim, 8/25/05? Now it's four times of sexual intercourse.
Told him "no" every time. She was clear on this all of a
sudden in court. No mention of fist or hand at the prelim.
Pag.64
No mention of chocolate cream.
Trial. Trial. Four acts of sexual intercourse.
Makes sense because she had read the preliminary hearing
transcript recently. Calls it "making love" several times
while she's testifying. Told him "no" every time. She
mentioned the fist in the hand this time. Forgot and then
remembers the chocolate cream.
Every time, every time, it's different. Every
single time, it's different. Every single time. These aren't
just, like, on minor points, by the way. It's not like we are
asking her about -- she's getting the number of blows to the
head incorrectly. This is about the sexual intercourse that
she reported and the details are being added. Additional
details are being added over time, and that has to concern
you.
When somebody starts adding stuff over time, adding
stuff at the prelim, adding stuff at a trial, coming up with
more outrageous facts as we go, that has to concern you.
That's stinks. That can't be right.
She's repeatedly inconsistent on even the date the
offense occurred. She's inconsistent. And what's really
amazing about this is that when we look at the calendar, she's
off a week, okay. She just reported this. She is not
reporting an incident that happened two years ago or one year
ago. She's reporting an incident, under her testimony now,
that occurred approximately three weeks before she reported
it. But what makes no sense and what you will have trouble
with is because, all right, the 29th and the 6th, traumatic,
Pag.65
maybe you got it wrong. But when the officer -- and I think
it was Reilly -- I mean, I'm sorry -- yes, Reilly or Fullerton
-- I won't say for sure, but one of them for sure testified
that they asked her about the consensual sex. Remember that?
And they backtracked it to the 16th or 15th, just a few days
earlier. And she admitted they had consensual sex on the 15th
or 16th. And Ms. White is saying, no, she's a week off on
everything.
Now, it's a little troubling. You would -- you are
a week off on this all of a sudden? All of a sudden, you're a
week off on these dates? You just can't remember two days
ago? What happened to you two days ago? "I don't really
remember." And she's off this whole week, and she has no
memory of how come she messed that up. Oh, I'll go to the
29th now. All of a sudden we start from the 29th.
Why? Why would she change the dates? It does give
a little bitter explanation of why she has no bruises. It
does -- it would -- maybe she bought a week for healing time
maybe? Maybe it explains why nobody can find a mark on her.
She has sore ribs. "I'm being tied up."
When she talked to Officers Fullerton and Reilly,
she says -- and both of them caught her in this. When he left
for work -- when Mr. Parlanti left for work, she was tied up
in the house. And then they catch her on that. You know,
think about it. You are sitting there, if you are an officer,
and somebody tells you that. He tied you up in the house when
he was gone for work all day long? Yeah. And they questioned
her about it, and they questioned her about it.
Pag.66
And finally, she says, "Oh, no, only at night."
It's just not right. Something is wrong there.
On the number of sexual acts, she is always
inconsistent. On time, Mr. Parlanti woke up the next day. In
trial, remember now, she's going with the Saturday the 29th
as her date. That's the date she is going with, and she -- at
trial, Mr. Parlanti wakes up the next day. She caught herself
originally. If you need the testimony read back on this, you
can ask. I know I'm being loved for saying that right now.
She says the next morning, she caught herself saying, "He woke
up at 6:30. Oh, no, he didn't. He didn't."
But on her previous statements to the police, she
gave 6:30 as the time he woke up; that he had these four
liters of wine on the 29th. On the crack of dawn on a Sunday,
at 6:30 in the morning, he is up out of bed. Just not within
the conception of reality. Just can't be. It's not within
those parameters.
She is inconsistent on wanting Mr. Parlanti to run
or to get caught, on contact with father, on what doctor told
her, on what she told doctor, on what she wrote to Ms. Anedda,
on what she wrote to Brian Whitney. These are just all things
over time, and there were dozens, literally dozens and dozens
of them in this trial. On what she wrote herself,
inconsistent, and says, "I never wrote this." Confronted with
an e-mail, where she did. "Oh, I guess she did."
She said those things, by the way, her confidence
level on these things, she would deny, was the same as her
confidence level when she describes what happened to her.
Pag.67
It's the same. There's no way for you to know. How would you
know unless she was confronted here at trial, for instance,
with her statements about her father? How would you know that
she wasn't telling the truth about that? Her demeanor? She
was very adamant about it. Seemed very sure of herself. How
would you know unless we confront her with her prior
statements and show that, in fact, she was not telling the
truth? How else would you know?
But you do know. And that's the same way she told
you about those rapes, same way she told you about the
battery. She was willfully false. Just look at how she tried
to cover her tracks. Just look.
One of my favorite ones that came out was she talks
about Mr. Parlanti pulling her hair, and then the shower scene
where a big clump of it so large it stopped up the drain. We
all remember that. And then we remember, from Officer
Fullerton, he asked, "Let me see." It may have been Officer
Reilly. "Let me see the back of your head. Let me see the
back of your head." Nothing. No hair missing whatsoever.
Nothing. Just covering.
One of her favorites, when she got caught, one of
her favorites when she's shown words on paper, "That's not
what I meant." That's one of her favorites. About -- went to
the doctor. She said, "I went to the doctor." "I didn't mean
I actually went to the doctor. I meant I called him. That's
not what I meant when I wrote 'went to the doctor.'"
"Never was tied up." Speaking of the belt -- I'm
sorry -- speaking of her lying to Investigator Robertson.
Pag.68
"Never tied up." "That's not what I meant when I wrote 'I was
never tied up.'" Immediately changing statements.
Just look at what she did after Mr. Romero catches
her, after interviewing her parents. Look what she does. She
immediately changes her statement. Crack of dawn, e-mails the
DA's office. And not just one that morning. The evidence was
there were three that morning all back to back to back.
Covering her tracks.
And then, of course, we have the short-term memory
problem. I got caught. I got a problem with short-term
memory. I don't remember what I said yesterday. I can tell
you three months ago, three years ago, but not -- not -- not
last time. Willfully false. She has to know she's not
telling the truth. She has to know that.
Any reasonable person would know that she can't be
telling the truth: About her father; how -- she has to know
that there's no way you are going to buy that. When denying
e-mails. She has to know that can't be true. Four liters of
wine. Any reasonable person would know that can't be true.
The recording device on the phone. The recording -- this
magical recording device on the phone that records anybody's
conversations whenever they call. And not only does
Mr. Parlanti have the super power to do that, he can also
record the Monterey PD's fax machine. It's surreal. It's not
believable. It's false.
full force, 60 times hit the wall. Now, Mr. Romero does a
good job in trying to argue this in his closing argument in
Pag.69
saying, "She wasn't counting. She wasn't counting." How many
times was she allowed the opportunity to come off that number
to say, "I'm not sure"? And by the way, that's a perfectly
reasonable answer, wouldn't it be? How many times did your
head hit the wall? A lot. Do you know? I can't be sure.
Perfectly reasonable answer, isn't it? Acceptable. Truthful.
But most people would say. How many times -- somebody asked
me, "How many times, Mr. Bamieh, in the last week, have you
drank from your water cup?"
I would say, "I don't know. Couple hundred maybe.
I have no idea. It would be a lot." Okay. That's
reasonable, isn't it? But if I said to you, "I think I drank
from it 300,000 times. 300,000 times. Yeah. That's what I
did. 300,000 times, I drank from my water cup." That's a
little ridiculous.
She's saying, every time she's asked -- she is now
at 60, by the way. An extra 30 came in during this trial.
Think to yourself here, reasonably, okay. She wants to say
that -- she wants to say a grown man, as powerful as she
claims Mr. Parlanti was, a strong man, working out everyday,
just think right now, if I stood here and I put my fist like
that and I started hitting this wall as hard as could 30
times, what do you think would happen to my hand? Reasonably.
What would we expect? I just -- somehow, I'm so psychotic I
could do this 30 straight times as hard as I can. You would
expect my hand would be broken, if not worse. She is saying
Mr. Parlanti took her head, hit this bulletin board 30 times.
By the way, the way she physically described that
Pag.70
scene with him touching, I would argue to you, doesn't seem
like it would be physically possible to do it the way she
described it, pelvis to pelvis. Very close. Doesn't seem
like you could do that, does it? The way she describes it,
pelvis to pelvis, touching an inch apart, physically doesn't
make sense, but the point then is, if not her head is severely
damaged -- by the way, no head injuries the officer saw
whatsoever -- where are marks on the bulletin board? Where is
the broken bulletin board? Where is the hole in the wall?
It's drywall in these apartments. Paper-thin walls. Remember
that testimony from Mr. Berger? You can hear people in the
next apartment on the phone. Where is the damaged drywall?
Isn't that reasonably what we expect to see? We
expect, okay, if he actually did this: My God, are you okay?
You must be so hurt. Oh, we better give you a lot of
attention and care. We go to the apartment, and we don't see
anything on the bulletin board, and we look at those pictures.
By the way, pristine, pristine. Doesn't even look like
there's dust in the place. Clean as a whistle. And you look
at the walls. Clean as a whistle. Nothing. Not a mark. Not
a dent. Not a bump. Nothing. 60 times as hard as he could.
30 times in the bulletin board. 30 times in the adjacent
wall. Nothing on her head. Nothing on the wall.
You must have a problem with that. You have to say
to yourself: That just can't be true. Now I lost my little
thing.
No wall damage. No blood anywhere. Anywhere. No
blood anywhere in that apartment. Police didn't see it. Not
Pag.71
on the walls. Nowhere. And she's alive, which, I would
argue, if that actually happened, there should be somebody's
dead body somewhere. Willfully false.
How did she scratch Mr. Parlanti's legs? Under her
version of events, as she said them, she says he choked her
while standing up against the adjacent wall. That's what she
says. And he's choking her against the adjacent wall, and she
said she past out, fell to the floor. She next wakes up. His
knees are in her back, and he's choking her from behind.
That's what she says. That's how she testified. That's
exactly what she said. Knee in the back, choking her from
behind.
How does she scratch the back of his legs while
being choked? She said, "I must have scratched him while I
was choked. I scratched him from his butt down to his knees.
I know I did it really hard." How did she do that? In what
physical position is she in to do that? It makes no sense.
she writing that letter to the judge saying he's not?
Remember the letter she wrote to the judge? I showed it to
her. I asked her if she wrote it. She admitted it, and then
she said that she was lying.
Now, my question to you, under her version of
events, if she's lying to that judge, to that court, what's
the difference between lying to that court and this one?
What's the difference?
said because of what he did to her, putting his hand inside
Pag.72
her anus, there's a pool of blood in the bed. A pool of it.
Right. She didn't change the sheets. She did not change the
sheets. That's her testimony. Told Fullerton, though, on the
sheets was Mr. Parlanti's blood. That's what she told
Fullerton. To you, she tells you there's a pool of blood on
the sheets and on the bed, and it sunk right through the
sheets into the bed. To Fullerton, she said -- and she said
it was her blood, the pool was her blood, not his. And to
Fullerton, she says it was Mr. Parlanti's blood from the
scratches to the backs of his legs, and she knew it because
she washed the sheets. That's what she told Fullerton.
How can that be? What changed? How do we get to
the pool of blood hers? How do we get there? We started off,
it was Mr. Parlanti's blood from the scratches. Three years
later, it's her blood. And if it's true, then, okay, let's
just say, all right. Here's another point of logic, and I
know that's troubling to the People's case at this point. If
she didn't change the sheets, you would either have to believe
one of two things: That Mr. Parlanti, those nights he slept
in that apartment, slept in her pool of blood, and that's what
he did. And if you look at that apartment, by the way, and
how neat it was, I think you will find it probably wouldn't be
reasonable to believe that the people who lived in that
apartment would have been comfortable sleeping in pools of
blood. And so, they had to think, okay, then if she didn't
change the sheets, somebody must have if there's pools of
blood. If she didn't, it has to be Mr. Parlanti and -- just
logically, right? Well, you saw the mattress, and you will
Pag.73
see it again. It's in evidence. It's a mattress on the
floor.
And the diary, by the way, is, as she said, "I hid
it under my bed, and he had no idea about it." How would he
find the diary then? If he's changing the sheets and hiding
the diary under the bed and the bed is on the floor, how would
you find the diary? It's totally illogical. It makes zero
sense. And it's just compounding itself on top of each other.
If it was rape, if that's what she wants you to
believe, it was rape, who would write the e-mail to Ms.
Anedda? Who would write that e-mail about the man that raped
her? It's completely illogical. Who would write that?
Willfully false.
fight with words all night again. In deep hurt. Carlo." I
may have read that wrong. But "deep hurt to each of us." And
I can't make out -- well. "We fight with words all night
long."
Now, here's the thing once again about the diary
testimony. When I cross-examined her on this topic, she had
every opportunity to answer it any way she wanted, if you
remember. I asked her, did she write this on -- first, I took
her through the entire day, and it was established on that
entire day, she didn't have time to write in the diary. So
then she testified that right before she went to bed, she
wrote in this diary. Before Mr. Parlanti entered the room and
chaos began, she wrote in her diary.
Then I asked her, well, how about this other dia
Pag.74
the Carlo diary, as we called it. The Carlo Parlanti diary.
She goes, "Well, I kept that in a different location," is what
her testimony was.
And I asked her, "Did you have to go to that
location to get that second diary before you went to bed?"
And she said she did. And she testified to you about this
vivid memory she had about grabbing Mr. Parlanti's diary
before going to bed and writing in both of them. And I let
her say it.
Then I took her through this. I said, "Did you use
-- do you have a pen that you use for these diaries?"
She says, "Yeah, there is one by the phone." Her
testimony. "One by the phone." And she said that. "One by
the phone." And then I did what anybody would do who would
look at those diaries when you see two different colors of
ink. And you said, well, that just can't be true.
I showed them to her. And I said, "Ma'am, explain
to me how there's two different colored inks in these
diaries." That makes no sense. And she had no explanation on
cross-examination. None. And then we go home, and we start
redirect later. And on redirect examination the next day, she
has an explanation for it. Huh. That has to be troubling.
She tells you a story about these diaries and when she wrote
them. She gets caught, caught red-handed, and then she will
come back and try to explain it away. And then Mr. Romero
argues that's reasonable. You will have these in evidence by
the way, these pages. And we take the pages out, and that's
what's admitted. And you don't get the rest of the diaries.
Pag.75
The -- once again, the 29th, the entry in the blue
ink is inconsistent with the one in the darker ink.
Now, the -- the words are exchanged that cause, once
again, nothing in there. Once again, her testimony would be
for this, I guess, "Well, he was forcing me to keep that
diary. I was keeping it for court, and I was basically
writing lies in it."
Okay. Well, once again, if she is going to lie to
that court, she is going to lie to that court, why not this
court?
Wasn't until redirect that she said wrote them at
Once again, if there's pools of blood on those sheets and
somebody changes the sheets, how does Mr. Parlanti not find
that diary? Willfully false. Cannot leave bed for two days.
Could not leave bed for two days; yet, making all her diary
entries for Mr. Parlanti, making them. Her explanation, which
I really didn't get on this, there it is, is that if you look
at them, you can tell she was writing them at the same angle
at the same time. I have no understanding of what that means.
Zero. It's nonsensical to me. If it makes sense to you,
fine. I'm going to submit it won't. She can't use the
bathroom, but she's getting to that diary. That's what she
came up with. That's her explanation.
Instructions. You will get instruction of --
willfully false instruction and sufficiency of a single
witness instruction. I submit to you they are kind of related
because in order to rely on one witness to render any verdict
Pag.76
in this case, you have to believe that witness. If that same
witness, who the People are asking you to rely on, that one
witness is willfully false, you can't believe it. Right? We
have talked about that, repeatedly. So, if you have somebody
who is willfully false, and that's the one witness the People
are hoping to prove their case by beyond a reasonable doubt,
and the law tells you, you can disregard that witness'
testimony if you find them to be willfully false -- and I
submit to you, you can find it numerous times in this case,
numerous times in this case -- well, then that one witness is
not going to be sufficient because you cannot believe her, and
you need somebody else. You need somebody else to tell you
those facts.
All you have is Rebecca White, isn't it? That's --
the only people in the room were Rebecca White and
Mr. Parlanti, and Mr. Parlanti has the right not to testify,
which you cannot hold against him, and I know you will follow
the law, and he's -- he's allowed in this country to say, "Put
up or shut up, people. I don't have to say a word here. Put
up or shut up." And if they can't put up, he can shut up.
That's the way the law works, and the law tells you, you can't
hold it against him.
If you believe Ms. White, you can convict. If you
don't believe or find her willfully false, you cannot convict.
On this case, on the evidence that you received in this case,
if you find you can't believe her, if you find she's willfully
false, you cannot convict him. That's not what this is about.
They are supposed to produce all their evidence. That's it.
Pag.77
That's the best they have got, right there, in this case. All
right. And I argue to you that's just not enough. Not even
close. Not even in the ballpark of close.
The law requires you all agree on a specific act,
which constitutes a crime. Three, four, five. What number
was it? How many times? How many different -- what act are
you going to say: We believe this one was committed? What
act? Which one? How could you all reasonably say: I can
believe this? I can't believe the rest of them. If I can't
believe act two, how can I believe act one? If I can't
believe act three, how can I believe act one, just logically?
If I can't believe there was five times, how can I believe
there was once? What's the difference between lying about the
number of acts or lying about a specific act? Isn't lying
lying? If you can't believe her, if you can't believe her on
any of these acts, how can you decide one? If you can't
believe her that he banged her head against the wall 60 times,
which one? Are you going to convict him of act one? two?
Which one are you going convict him on? Which act did he
cause injury to, that he battereed her? Which one? How could
you believe her?
If you can't believe that a man with a blood alcohol
level of over .30 would be able to maintain an erection or
would be able to do the acts that she described, how could you
convict? How? Because you can't believe her.
If you can't believe her in this case, you can't
believe her, you have to acquit.
The prosecution, they take a shotgun approach to
Pag.78
this. They say, "I will tell you which one to believe. Just
believe one." Well, no, no, no. What you have to say back
is, "Prove to us one. Prove to us one. Prove us one."
They're asking you to pick one. Pick one. And that's not the
way it is. You have to say, they have to prove one.
Sandra Lavagnino, that's SL. You will not find her
name on the information. You won't find that he's charged.
Mr. Parlanti, this huge Romeo, okay. I guess when Mr. Romero
says that, that means he's had hundreds of women at his
disposal, at his beck and call. Out of those hundreds of
women, they find one other? Where are the rest? Where are
the rest that say they were attacked? beaten? This is the
man who behaves this way? He's so violent and evil? Where
are the rest of these women? Where are they? Why didn't he
call them?
And by the way, it's not illegal to be charming.
It's not illegal to go out with two women at the same time.
It's not illegal. It's not illegal to date people over again.
It's not illegal to break up with them. It's just not. I
know you may think, that guy is cheating on his women. He's a
bad guy. Not charged with that. Nowhere on the information
or any instruction you will see: If you find his behavior was
seeing two women at the same time is bad, vote guilty. You
will never see that instruction. It's not the law.
And your job, by the way, is don't let passion and
emotion sway you. It's to use logic and common sense. And if
you let yourself get away from the facts of this case and look
someplace else -- and Mr. Romero says, you don't see the
Pag.79
forest through the trees. I would argue, Mr. Romero is
looking at one tree. He's looking at Rebecca White. He's not
looking at the forest here. The facts of this case, the
overwhelming facts in the case, the forest, is the one tree is
not telling the truth and has done so repeated.
The jury instructions tell you that you can't get
beyond a reasonable doubt on Ms. Lavagnino alone. You must
believe Rebecca White to get beyond a reasonable doubt. If
Ms. Lavagnino was on the information, then it would be worth
cross-examining her at length. It would be worth going after
credibility. But in this case, there's one woman on the
information. There's one woman, who Mr. Parlanti is charged
with in this case, and that woman is who the focus of this
case is on, and you can't go any place else.
He was never charged with a complaint against her.
Never. Ever. Never even went to the police until contacted
by somebody else. And by the way, one thing we do know is
that Ms. White knows Ms. Lavagnino and knew about her.
Interesting, isn't it?
Rebecca White is the one and only witness. The
prosecution knows, knows, that nobody is going to convict on
Rebecca White's testimony. Why do you think only one count of
rape? Not three, four, five? There's a reason to doubt the
prosecution's case. There are many reasons to doubt the
prosecution's case. They attempted to bolster Rebecca White
because they knew Rebecca White, on her own, is a disaster, a
train wreck.
How about Sandra Lavagnino? Problem is: Not
Pag.80
charged. Law says: Can't get over beyond a reasonable doubt
with just her. Rebecca White knew about her prior to 7/18 of
'02.
Battered women syndrome. That's another attempt to
bolster her, isn't it? And we have Ms. Pincus, who is a
passionate advocate about this issue, and I would ask you just
to -- Ms. Pincus has spent the majority of her life on this
issue. It's her passion. It's what she does, and she
advocates and is on these boards, and God Bless her for it.
But before you can get to having some credibility or
discussing Ms. Pincus' testimony in terms of this case, you
have to decide, first of all, was somebody battered? Did that
occur? Because what's the point in it otherwise? Just be
careful with what she said.
What a lot of times happens with people is they hear
somebody, and they have a Master's, they're a social worker,
they work with people, and they throw out a statistic, like --
Mr. Romero did it, too -- throws out a statistic out of thin
air; 15 percent of batterers are women. And I just asked a
simple question, "Where did you get that? Where did you get
the number?" And she couldn't answer me. And she comes up
with a study, doesn't know where, just somewhere. And we say
these numbers so easily, these people say these numbers so
easily, and it happens all the time. I'll be watching TV and
somebody will throw out this number about something, and I
think: Where did they get the number?
And I guess what I say to you, if they can't back up
where they got the number from, and they don't have it on the
Pag.81
tip of their tongue, and they don't know, please question it.
To even consider that, don't you have to at least believe
Rebecca White, that she was battered?
And does battered women syndrome explain a person,
who is remarkably inconsistent, fabricates evidence and is
willfully false? Did I miss that? Is that the explanation
for it? We can't just say: There is a syndrome out there
called "battered women's syndrome" and the women who suffer
from it, they are going to lie, they are not going to tell you
the truth, they are going to come to court and make stuff up,
they are going to be surreal, they are going to create
evidence out of thin air, they are going to say things that
don't make any logical sense on this planet.
"battered women's syndrome." That's not what she said. It
doesn't explain Rebecca White's behavior, her testimony. It's
inconsistent with the facts in this case.
attorney. Ms. Pincus, in cross-examination, admitted that a
normal person and this normal batterer, if there is such a
thing, a normal batterer, would never give up power of
attorney. He wouldn't, and she had it over him. She
use it. She was going take the computers and the furniture.
She had it. She was going to use it.
this case, she was seeing two men at once, and I don't know if
you caught this. It was a small point, but Mr. Young, when he
Pag.82
testified, said he was dating Ms. White in early '01, which
was the same time she testified to dating Mr. Carlo Parlanti.
So, it appears that Ms. White was seeing two men at the same
time. Not a crime. Not a big deal, but as Ms. Pincus
testified, inconsistent with battered women syndrome because a
batterer isn't going to allow that.
Using legal system. Is Ms. White not using the
legal system? When Mr. Romero says: Why would she possibly
be doing this? Why? It's troubling, isn't it? Because we
all think: God, this woman is just troubled because she's not
making any sense. She is coming to court and saying this.
Look at all the attention she received from all those people
when she said that. And look what happened? Did it help her
when she got -- when Mr. Parlanti left her? Look at all that.
And is there something wrong with Ms. White? I would argue
that, yeah, there apparently is something really wrong with
her. There's something that's much deeper, disturbing,
troubled, whatever you want to call it. You just can't come
to court and say the things she said and not have something
really, really wrong with you. It's disturbing. It's
disturbing.
And we all want to believe that, in the general
sense, people will not do that. That's what we want to
believe. We want to believe that -- we look at ourselves, our
friends, our family, our loved ones. We don't want to say:
Who among us would come to court and say such things? My God,
nobody would. Because we are evaluating -- we are evaluating
that as a normal person when we say this. Who would come and
Pag.83
do this? We are thinking to ourselves: What normal person
would come to court and do this? Isn't that what we're
thinking in our heads? What normal person? And see, the
mistake in that thinking, the -- the mistake in thinking that
way, why a normal person would do this, is you're assuming
she's normal, and you can't make that assumption. And I would
argue to you that based on the evidence that you heard,
actually, the evidence says she's not. Actually, the evidence
is that she's abnormal because most normal people could not
sit here and tell you the things that she told you with a
straight face. They couldn't be caught in repeated lies like
that and just keep going. They wouldn't be remarkably
inconsistent over long periods of time. Consistently
inconsistent. They wouldn't say things like a human being
drank four liters of wine and then had the ability to have
sexual intercourse with her. A normal person would not do
that.
I'll give you an example. When OJ Simpson was
acquitted, my wife said to me, "Well, now he has to live with
it."
And I looked at her and I go, "Oh, he will live with
it just fine." I mean, if you think he did it, fine, but
don't think that a person, who would do such an act is going
to have a problem living with it. He will live with it just
fine. And you see him playing golf. He is out -- nothing is
going on in his life.
See, we all want to evaluate people like we would
ourselves, like how would I react to that. Would I be -- what
Pag.84
would a normal person do?
In this case, unfortunately and truthfully, I feel
sorry for the woman. And you can have pity for her, but you
can't use that pity to convict somebody, who they can't prove
is guilty. You can have pity for her. That's okay, but she's
not normal. She said things that were abnormal. She said
things that were surreal. She said things that any normal
person would know is wrong, was false, and she did so
repeatedly.
So, please, when you evaluate that issue, when you
think to yourself: What normal person would do this? Before
you get there, think to yourself: Was she normal? Is what
she saying what a normal person would say?
have Katia and Maria De Barra. Now, they produced one person
who says that he's a batterer. Then we show two people after
the fact that he had relationships with, and I argue to you
Mai De Barra, she lived with him for six weeks. Six weeks in
the same residence. There may be a big difference between six
weeks and three months. Perfect gentleman. Everything was
fine. Ms. Anedda had a long-term relationship with him.
Everything is fine.
Now, does that prove anything? No. But we if we
look at the case reasonably, just on the circumstantial
evidence, what we know from the case, and if we want to take
some facts from the case, there was evidence from Ms. White,
if you choose to believe it, that Mr. Parlanti was in therapy.
There was evidence that he wasn't drinking anymore. There was
Pag.85
evidence that for some reason he made a change in his life.
And we see down the line with Ms. Anedda, the woman he was
with after Ms. White, and with Ms. De Barra, that he's
behaving normally. And there's no reason to think there's
anything about battered women or batterers or anything, is
there?
Reason to doubt the prosecution's case. Where is
the corroboration? Where is it? Well, let's talk about that.
from Ms. White at the door. No makeup on by Ms. White.
Coverup. Notices nothing. Not a bump. Not a bruise.
Nothing. And according to Ms. White, now we are in the early
days here of recovery. Now, a normal person, you go to
somebody's door you don't know and they are destroyed, when
you show up on the door and they are a mess, they have
bruises, and they are totally beaten up, they look terrible,
"Are you okay? What happened?" Ask questions. That's
something that stays in your mind over years. That's not
Kevin Bunch. No facial injuries. None. Couple
feet from her.
Sarah Campbell. No facial injuries. By the way,
none of these people could testify as to the dates when they
saw her, by the way. So that's a little hole there that we
can't seem to overcome in terms of when they saw her, in terms
of any of these people that testified when they saw her
walking slowly or when they saw no facial injuries.
Albert Berger. No facial injuries. None. None.
Pag.86
Fullerton, Reilly, Keller. Once again, no facial
injuries. Zero. Nobody.
fails, full force, slapped ten times extremely hard, head
banging in the wall 60 times. Nothing. Not a bruise. Not a
bump. Nothing. Nobody saw anything. Wouldn't you expect
something? A big black eye? Huge bruises everywhere? Here's
their injuries they got on the 18th. You have these. You
don't have to ask them what they saw. You get to see, and you
will see them clearer than my slide, by the way. Just look as
close as you want. Hold them up to your eyeballs.
on the chest. She testified he almost bit her nipple off.
Nothing. Nothing not even a complaint of pain. They rely on
broken ribs as their corroboration. That's their -- Rebecca
White said this and broken ribs. We will go with that. That
corroborates her. She's telling the truth.
When did they happen? To adopt the corroboration
theory of ribs, you have to get over the Rebecca White
problem. When did they happen? Because, see, Mr. Romero, I
think he misspoke because when we asked -- when I asked,
sorry, Dr. Manchester, he said they could have happened as
early as the 16th. He testified to that. It could have
happened, the broken ribs, under his diagnosis, could have
happened within the 16th. And he took her into June, in that
range. That's the reasonable inference he had from the
circumstantial evidence in front of him. The reasonable
inference from the circumstantial evidence that he had in
Pag.87
front of him, he testified to this range. That range. That's
the reasonable inference that he had.
Now, the law says, the law says, on circumstantial
evidence, when there's two reasonable inferences, two, one
that points to the defendant's guilt and one that points to
his innocence, you must, you must adopt the one that points to
his innocence. You must. You must. That's what the law
says. That's one of the protections we built into it, was
circumstantial evidence. And that's what we are doing.
Following the law.
No witness could put slow-walking Ms. White prior to
Carlo Parlanti leaving town. None. They couldn't. They
didn't have a date, a time period, none. They could just say
July. Early July some time. Couldn't put a date on it.
For Mr. Parlanti to be held responsible for her
broken ribs, you have to believe Rebecca White. She's the
only person who says he broke them. The only person. You
have to believe her.
I found interesting was Mr. Berger sees Rebecca White with
red-ish, brown hair. Okay. That's what he testified to.
Red-ish, brown hair. I would say that's pretty close to
red-ish, brown hair. And she says that happened -- that
hair-style happened according to her on the night of the 17th.
Here. What I would like you to do is compare her
face in the self-portrait with the photo from the police
department. And I would ask you this: Notice anything
different? And I apologize for my copy of the self-portrait,
Pag.88
it didn't digitally transfer like I hoped it would, but you'll
have that picture. I'm not trying to do anything to mislead
or try mistate that picture. It's not intentionally blurry.
It just transferred that way. And besides the hair color,
which she explains by the dying the night before, I would like
you to look at her face. I would like you to look at her face
in the picture. Look closely at the two women, pictures of
her that we know of, and tell me if you think they occurred
about same time. Something's wrong there. You are going find
something's wrong with those pictures. You are going to --
there's a problem there. If you look close, you will see it.
I will argue to you or I'll point out to you that I
think you will find the self-portrait, that that woman in that
self-portrait, and it could be Ms. White, looks younger than
the one on the other side. If you just look at the face,
where the wrinkles are, and where they are missing in the
self-portrait, you are going have an issue. And you may have
an issue of how she got those pictures because you will be a
little troubled by a woman, who is alleged to be in great
pain, dying her hair the day before she reports to the police.
Now, I have never died my hair. I have no expertise in this
area, but I'm guessing it's going to require some form of
putting your hands up here and doing things of that nature.
I'm guessing for a person, who has to move their arms a lot
while dying your hair, if your ribs are broken and you
actually did dye your hair, it's going to cause you to be
very, very uncomfortable. I'm guessing it's going to be --
and I would argue it's inconsistent she died her hair after
Pag.89
that she has now is she was giving this date of the 17th as
dying her hair. And so, if we have people seeing her with
that red-ish brown hair, it had to be after this date,
according to her, or she may not be telling the truth about
any of it. Or worst, even worse, somebody fabricated some
evidence. Even worse.
she was beaten by her former husband ten years earlier. I
remind you of that testimony. And this picture, you are going
to find this is troubling. If you look at that picture
closely, something is different about those two women, and
it's more than hair color.
Why didn't anybody else see these injuries if she
had them? If she had these bruises on her face, how come none
of these people saw these injuries? If we have to believe the
self-portrait is true and she took them when she did and the
argument is these other people saw her before she reported it,
why didn't anybody see them but her; these remarkable injuries
that only Rebecca White saw and only she was able to
photograph by herself? There's some things that just don't
make sense. And this is one of them. If she had these severe
traumatic injuries, somebody had to see them besides her.
Why not turn over the pictures to the police at the
apartment or law enforcement much earlier? She didn't turn
over those self-portraits to anybody in law enforcement until
August 24, '05, the day before the preliminary hearing. She
held those pictures for over three years. Three years. This
Pag.90
crucial evidence in this case. This crucial evidence is
established that she was beaten. She hands them over three
years later. That's weird at best. Where are the other
pictures? Where are they? Where are the rest of them? Tell
me. Where did they go? Even the ones you didn't develop, you
just threw them out? Okay. Great. Good. Excellent. We are
fine with that. Thank you.
Investigation fails. In this case, there's no other
way to put it. This investigation failed. Mr. Romero told
you before, you can't expect CSI. I would say, okay, you
can't expect CSI, but can't expect Mayberry or RFD either.
You gotta' do better. You just gotta' do better. If you're
going to bring these types of allegations, these types of
charges, you gotta' do better than these police officers did.
And I'm not saying they intentionally did anything wrong or
they meant to not do a good job, anything like that, I'm not.
Just the facts as they were testified to, you gotta' do
better.
I mean, Detective Reilly honestly admitted he was at
a family function on a Friday. Maybe he had other things to
do, but I don't expect CSI, and neither should you, but you
got to expect better. You just do.
start with. The evidence in the case, they are recording
over. They lose the pictures. They lose the pictures of the
apartment. They lose them. They don't take the sheets or any
evidence out of that apartment. They just don't take them.
They are there. She tells us she told them about blood on the
Pag.91
sheets, which I'm going to guess or I'm going to argue that
you're probably not going to believe, and that's why the
officers didn't take them. I am guessing if there were pools
of blood, even Detective Reilly -- I think he intended to do a
good job -- if he saw those pools of blood, he would have
grabbed the sheets.
They don't take the computer, the computer with
these nasty bad images. I asked Detective Reilly: You know
about a search warrant, don't you? Yeah. You can apply and
get one and take whatever you want. Yeah, yeah.
Phone recorder. If this was true, true, take --
he's recording these phone calls without anybody knowing --
where is it? No med/legal. No medical/legal. She testified
-- or well, now she does, they didn't know at the time, and I
would argue to you the reason why they didn't do any med/legal
on her is because she didn't talk about anything that caused
severe trauma to her vagina. When she talked to the officers
about this huge fist in her vagina, a man opening his hand,
I'm guessing they would have, but they decided in the case
where the allegation was rape to do none of that, no med/legal
whatsoever.
How would you feel about this case if the
investigators did their job and took the computer? How would
you feel about it? You'd probably have some questions about
that computer, wouldn't you? You would sit there and go, hum,
that computer, I would like to know what was on that computer.
I would want to know that. I would want to know if there were
pictures of bound women on it, wouldn't you? Because if there
Pag.92
was, you would say, okay, she has some credibility. And if
there wasn't, what would you say? There wasn't any pictures
of bound women on that computer, what would you say?
Mr. Parlanti's presumed innocent, isn't he? Isn't
he? He's presumed innocent. That's the law we have. He's
presumed innocent. Can you convict a man of these crimes
without an answer to your question? Remember, it's them who
has to put up or shut up. It's them with the responsibility
to bring the evidence to court. That's their duty as a
prosecutor. And to Mr. Romero's credit, he has never backed
away from that duty once. He accepts it fully, and you have
to hold it to him.
say "chose," they chose, for whatever reason, they chose not
to bring it. And that's why the defendant has the
presumption. We require the prosecution to produce the
evidence. Put up or shut up. That's what the law is all
about. Put it up. When they don't, when they choose not to
provide you the evidence, it's held to their detriment because
the presumption always stays with Mr. Parlanti. It's held to
their detriment.
Can't believe her. She logically makes no sense.
Not tell the truth. Poor investigation. No corroboration.
None. The evidence of corroboration is none. Slow walking.
Slow walking. Corroboration. That's -- slow walking. Broken
ribs. You can't put a day on that. And if you do, please,
when you go back there, if you want to put a day on that,
well, say she was walking slow, that's corroboration, tell you
Pag. 93
-- tell me where beyond a reasonable doubt that's been proven
where somebody came up here and said, "I saw her on this day
slow walking," and it was a day Mr. Parlanti was in town.
When? When? You can't because it wasn't given to you.
pointed over and said that's Carlo Parlanti until they called
a police officer to do that. Simple things. I'm not arguing
that. What I am arguing, though, if you are going say that
corroboration that proves my case beyond a reasonable doubt,
tell me, how did you prove it? Tell me. Where is the date
that we got that that was proven? Where? Who testified to
that? Bunch? No. Dana Anderson? No. Huh. Campbell? No.
Berger? No. Police officers? No. Who gives us that date?
We can assume all we want, but tell me what piece of evidence
are you relying on to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the
fact that she had broken ribs prior to the 16th of August?
What is that fact? Not the doctor. Not the doctor. He gives
circumstantial evidence. He gives a reasonable interpretation
to dates it could be in. Got to take the one that favors
Mr. Parlanti. Not the doctor. Not the witness. Who? Who?
Tell me. And if you can't -- and I would submit to you, you
can't on this evidence -- it wasn't put up. If you can't, you
have to -- you have to vote not guilty.
Rebecca White already said nothing happened. That's
the June 29th entry again. She already said it. She already
said it.
This trial, last week or so, we have all followed
the rules. And if there's ever a question about the rules at
Pag.94
any time, at any time, we had to take time out. We had to
take time out to make sure nothing was violated with
Ms. Pincus. We took the time because these rules, we hold
them. This is our system of justice. This is what we hold us
all responsible to. We say we are going to follow these
rules. We are going to hold people to their burden. We allow
the defense to attack the credibility of evidence. That's
within the rules. We have to follow this evidence code, and
when there's a dispute in the evidence code, we turn to a
judge, who makes a ruling, and either side, no matter how it's
ruled upon, accepts it and moves forward.
These are the rules that we work by, live by. These
are the rules that are the basis of our system. And the
rules, ladies and gentlemen, the rules are if they cannot
prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, if they can't have
the evidence, if they can't garner that evidence to prove
their case beyond a reasonable doubt, you have to vote not
guilty.
In this case, in this case, it's Rebecca White. I
ask you, do you believe Rebecca White beyond a reasonable
doubt? The answer, based on the evidence that you saw, if you
adopt the law that if she was willfully false, you can
disregard; if you apply your common sense that you came in
here with, that you thought before you ever walked in here,
that people who lie consistently cannot be trusted; if you
adopt the rules that it has to make logical sense and you look
at what she said and say that has to be completely illogical
on this planet; if you adopt the rule that she consistently
Pag.95
tried to cover up when she was caught in lie after lie after
lie; if you adopt the rule that we all decided we would
follow, there's one verdict, it's not guilty.
On behalf of Mr. Parlanti, I thank you for your
time. I thank you for your effort, and God speak to your
verdict. Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, Mr. Bamieh.
Folks, we are going to take a brief break now. Ten
minutes. Before we resume, between now and when you come back
to court, please don't discuss the case. Please do not form
or express opinions about them. We are in recess.
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(Jurors exit courtroom.)
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(Proceedings continued and were reported, but not transcribed
herein.)
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