Our Fearless Media Keeping The Public Informed (Not)

Even rinky-dink outlets like Virtue Online and our local throwaway, the Los Feliz Ledger, have agendas, and they would seem to be as blinkered and biased as the drivebys. Let's be clear: they can cover what they choose. However, both Virtue and the Ledger have given the St Mary of the Angels case prominent coverage in the past, for instance here at Virtue Online, and as recently as a month ago in the Ledger.

With the worm beginning to turn, though, neither Virtue nor the Ledger appears to be interested in the case. I published my e-mail to David Virtue Saturday. Here's the subsequent exchange I had with Virtue. He replied, verbatim:

I wrote to Bishop MArsh who referred me to canon Rivers. When I get a statement from him I will write a story. many thanks for the alert

David

Seeing the potential for a runaround -- Rivers is one of Marsh's stooges -- I answered:

I’m curious, David. My guess is Rivers will either say nothing or refer you to someone else. If he doesn’t reply, does this mean you don’t cover the story?

Clearly peeved, he replied:

Of course not. I will cover it one way or another

To which I then replied,

When? So far, you’ve been very pro-ACA.

As of this morning, there's no news on the case at Virtue Online, though in the past, he ran numerous pieces containing wild allegations against the parish like the one linked above.

I copied the Los Feliz Ledger on my e-mail to Virtue. The editor, Allison Cohen, replied,

John: I will be in touch with you Monday. Thank you.

However, I didn't hear from her yesterday.

At the moment, I'm assuming that the policy of the ACA, Mr Lancaster, and Mrs Bush will be not to comment on the case, although normally, media will simply cover the story and note that such-and-such indicated he/she had no comment. In fact, the Ledger had a reporter at the trial and featured it prominently while it was underway. The apparent lack of interest in doing follow-up on stories they've featured prominently speaks to the agendas of those involved.

How Busy Is Lancaster & Anastasia LLP?

The firm's web site is still down -- I left a message at their office phone asking whether it meant they might not continue in business, but so far have received no reply. I'm sure Mr Lancaster has every wish to help me update the public on his firm, so I'm waiting for his call!

For a couple of days I've been doing web searches on "Lancaster & Anastasia LLP", "superior court", and various other combinations, but so far, I've come up with only one other case. Earlier this year, they lost an appeals court case, Becerra v Jones, Bell, Abbot, Fleming & Fitzgerald LLP, in which Mr Lancaster represented Becerra.

At the outset of oral arguments in downtown Los Angeles, a three-judge panel showed the parties a brief tentative ruling — that it was inclined to affirm Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Debre Katz-Weintraub’s denial of Becerra’s bid to dismiss the firm’s claims under California’s law barring lawsuits that impinge the exercise of free speech, called the anti-SLAPP statute.

William Lancaster of Lancaster & Anastasia LLP, representing Becerra, urged the appeals court to reverse its tentative decision and toss Jones Bell’s counterclaim, arguing Judge Katz-Weintraub erred in ruling Becerra’s conduct wasn’t litigation-related activity, which is protected by the anti-SLAPP statute. Lancaster argued that while the firm was suing over unpaid fees, the actual conduct giving rise to that claim was Becerra’s work in the underlying class action suits.

Justice Laurence D. Rubin, however, noted that is not unusual when a partner leaves a firm for the parties to have a dispute over fees.

“Isn’t this essentially a dispute about money between the partner that left the firm and the remaining partners, and not a First Amendment issue?” he said.

Becerra, Mr Lancaster's client, lost. That was back in February of this year. I'm still looking for other Lancaster cases.

If anyone can find others, besides the case against his former firm, or checks the web site and finds it up, I'd love to hear about it.

Visitor Opinion On Recovering Costs

A visitor sent an extremely interesting reaction to yesterday's post (my emendations):

Actually, it appears that Citibank paid the rent to the wrong party, and thus is on the hook for the entire amount, during the period when the squatters occupied the property. Citibank has deep pockets, and undoubtedly will pay an amount under seven figures as soon as the situation becomes clear to corporate counsel. If Citibank has insurance that will cover this (not exactly unlikely), the insurance company will pay the claim equally quickly. Whoever pays the claim [then] will sue the squatters collectively to recover the amount of the previous payments. In this type of case, all of the squatters and their accomplices are liable for the entire amount (there is no apportionment) so the plaintiff can confiscate assets of any and all of them to collect. If the squatters and their accomplices turned over any of the money to other parties, they might or might not be able to sue to recover those payments. The legal issue here will be whether, and to what extent, ACA Bishop Brian Marsh was involved in the decisions associated with the occupation and thus is deemed an accomplice, but the diocesan bishop will be deemed an accomplice in any case.

The seizure was initiated by Anthony Morello, at the time rector of the ACA parish in Fountain Valley, CA, but also at the time canon to the ordinary to Stephen Strawn, who was episcopal visitor to the Diocese of the West, and clearly acting at Strawn's direction. Mr and Mrs Creel of the Fountain Valley parish (Mrs Creel is on the Diocese of the West standing committee and also diocesan secretary, while Mr Creel is a representative to the ACA Executive Council) were also involved in the seizure and presumably would also be accomplices.

In addition to e-mails and letters from Strawn indicating his supervision and approval of the occupation, Presiding Bishop Marsh flew to California to visit the parish during events related to the seizure in June 2012, clearly indicating that he was involved in it. The ACA House of Bishops also strongly endorsed Morello's conduct in seizing the parish in a letter over Marsh's signature designating Morello "vicar general" in late 2012. Marsh himself was episcopal visitor to the Diocese of the West during 2013, after which Owen Rhys Williams took this position. All are presumably vulnerable to collection efforts.

The visitor continues,

The more interesting issue is the vacancy of the commercial building since the tenant elected not to renew the lease and moved to another location, resulting in loss of revenue. Here, the vestry clearly has a case against the squatters for the lost revenue on the basis that the squatters wrongful actions rendered the property unrentable. This case easily meets the burden of proof for a civil case ("more probable than not"), and can extend to a reasonable time to find a new tenant after the resolution of ownership. It seems very likely that executives of the former tenant will testify, or at least supply affidavits, saying that uncertainty of ownership of the property was what drove the decision to move the office to another location, but the suit probably is sustainable even without such testimony or affidavits, in which case the vestry probably can collect lost rent for the entire period, including a reasonable amount of time to find a new tenant. There could also be a claim for lost rent going forward if a new tenant pays less in rent than that which the previous tenant would have paid to remain there, though this could be more difficult to prove.

The vestry also can sue the squatters for

• cost of repairs of any damages caused by the squatters or as a result of their actions, including changing the locks,
• costs incurred for meeting and worship space until the parish actually can return to the church building, and
• cost of anything belonging to the parish that the squatters may have moved or sold, including the van mentioned in your post.

I assume that efforts to recover damages from the ACA by the St Mary of the Angels rector, wardens, and vestry will begin in a fairly short time. While they have a fiduciary responsibility to recover damages, they will not pursue a vendetta, especially if the ACA treats their reasonable requests promptly and with courtesy and respect.

So Where's The Rest Of The Money? -- I

My wife and I were watching one of our favorite genres last night, yet another true crime show. In it, a James Bond wannabe defrauded various clients out of millions by convincing them he was a freelance spy and international fixer. When it was all over, he got a slap on the wrist penalty, and one observer said, "You can only eat so many gourmet dinners and drink so many cognacs. Where's the rest of the money?" Good question.

The parish squatters had an income stream of nearly $22,000 a month from rental alone. I'm going to toss any estimate of plate and pledge -- the dissidents were tightwads, and the parish was closed entirely for many months. But I'm going to say the dissident group got 40 monthly payments, totaling nearly $880,000, during the period Citibank was paying rent.

The parish was in the black for the year prior to the seizure, according to its accountant. However, it had many budget items that ceased as soon as the seizure took place. The total monthly payroll just prior to the seizure would have been $14,110, which included salaries for rector and curate, cleaning and groundskeepers, music director, choir, and expenses for the deacon. All these people had been terminated by June, and the parish was closed for months afterward.

At some point, the squatters disposed of the parish van, which eliminated monthly lease and insurance payments totaling $850. Notwithstanding the parish was closed entirely for months, the level of activity afterward was lower, meaning lower utility costs. A series of short-term priests then said mass for about two years -- the squatters being tightwads, I doubt if they got much more than a weekly honorarium. I don't know what they were paying Owen Williams or Frederick Rivers -- we'll find out soon -- but they're tightwads.

So as far as I can see, there's as much as half a million that came in over 40 months that the parish wasn't spending, at least not for churchy stuff.

But when Citibank said they'd terminate the lease, it appears from published accounts that Mrs Bush was very anxious to keep the income stream coming: some prospective tenants were interested, but wanted several months free rent to modify the space for their use. Mrs Bush wouldn't go along; she wanted no interruption in the money and wound up getting the neighbors ticked off by renting to a liquor store, which backed out of the deal when it discovered the property was in litigation. (I suspect some neighbors made strategic phone calls to nudge things along.)

Next: as of today, the web site for Lancaster & Anastasia, LLP continues to be MIA. There could be various reasons for this, but one reason could be that Lancaster & Anastasia decided to cut the unnecessary expense. That could be consistent with Citibank moving out of the parish property and no longer paying rent. That raises for me the question of whether Lancaster & Anastasia, LLP had any clients other than Mrs Bush and the ACA, and with the disappearance of the St Mary of the Angels income stream, whether the firm will continue at all. At least, this is one way to look at it.

My current inference is that something close to half a million bucks went, first, to Lancaster & Anastasia, LLP; second, to some combination of the ACA, Brian Marsh, Stephen Strawn, Anthony Morello, Frederick Rivers, and Owen Rhys Williams; and third, to parties unknown. No squatter who signed any checks to any of these individuals was authorized to do so.

My wife the retired attorney thinks the banks involved have a potential problem. Normally if the authority to open or use an account is in question -- as it certainly has been with St Mary of the Angels, given the years of litigation -- a bank files an interpleader action:

Interpleader is employed when two or more parties seek ownership of money or property that is held by a third party. The property in question is called the stake, and the third party who has custody of it is called the stakeholder. The stakeholder is faced with a legal dilemma: giving the property to either one of the parties will likely lead to a lawsuit by the other party against the stakeholder and the new property owner.

Interpleader enables the stakeholder to turn the controversy over to a court and to be dismissed from the legal action.

My wife feels that Citibank, or any other bank involved, should either have refused to open a new account or filed an interpleader action. She is not aware of evidence that any bank ever did this. As she puts it, "If you pay the wrong person, you have to pay again to the right person and try to get the money back from the wrong person you paid it to."

Mrs Bush's family needs to hire an attorney to represent Mrs Bush. Brian Marsh needs to hire his own attorney. These people have shown imprudence beyond ordinary pigheadednes and have been poorly advised, Marsh in particular by his own chancellors.

E-Mail to David Virtue

I sent the following e-mail to Mr Virtue:

On October 26, 2015, Judge Mary H Strobel issued a decision in the retrial of the St Mary of the Angels case, which had been returned to the trial court in September 2014 following a successful appeal by Fr Christopher P Kelley and the elected vestry of the parish. In her decision, Judge Strobel ruled, “Following the directions of the Court of Appeal to resolve the question of the validity of the August 2012 vote, the court finds the proposal to amend the Articles of Incorporation and bylaws of St Mary['s] of the Angels Parish in Hollywood to disaffiliate itself from the Anglican Church in America was approved by a 2/3 majority and thus is effective. Based on the stipulation of the parties that the other elements of Plaintiff's cause of action for forcible detainer are deemed proven, the court finds in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants on the cause of action for forcible detainer.”

Since you covered this matter extensively in 2012, I feel you should cover its resolution on your site now. Fr Kelley and the elected vestry are completing the legal motions necessary to regain physical possession of the property within the next several weeks. So far, I’m not aware of any statement from the ACA on this matter, although it amounts to a major setback for them.. However, Presiding Bishop Marsh’s e-mail is spiritstage@yahoo.com The ACA’s attorneys are Lancaster & Anastasia LLP www.lancaster-anastasia.com/ although when I checked, the site was not available. The number listed for it was (213) 232-1352.

I will be happy to provide any additional information you may need, although while I’m a knowledgeable and interested party, I am not a spokesman for either the parish, its vestry, or Fr Kelley.

Both Mr Virtue and "Father" Stephen Smuts covered the initial trial in 2012 with some glee. We'll see if either gives this development any play: at the time, in their comment sections, they both happily provided an ostensibly neutral platform for virulently anti-Kelley rants from Anthony Morello and other unbalanced individuals. I note that Smuts, the de facto public relations voice of the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion", has resumed blogging, although the quality of his current effort may be reflected in a recent post, "Priest Builds Ministry One Lego At A Time".

By the way, I checked several times today, and Lancaster & Anastasia's web site isn't available.

Decision Summary

I've been sent the summary wording of Judge Strobel's decision, from p 18:

Following the directions of the Court of Appeal to resolve the question of the validity of the August 2012 vote, the court finds the proposal to amend the Articles of Incorporation and bylaws of St Mary['s] of the Angels Parish in Hollywood to disaffiliate itself from the Anglican Church in America was approved by a 2/3 majority and thus is effective. Based on the stipulation of the parties that the other elements of Plaintiff's cause of action for forcible detainer are deemed proven, the court finds in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants on the cause of action for forcible detainer.

dated 10/26/15 Hon. Mary H. Strobel, Judge of The Los Angeles Superior Court

The stipulation, of course, was the result of Mr Lengyel-Leahu's tactical win on the second day of the trial. There are, as I understand it, procedural moves to be made between now and November 17, when it is anticipated that, God willing, the judge will sign an order for the squatters to vacate the premises, after which the sheriff will deliver the order, upon which the squatters will have five days to vacate.

Although if I were "Bishop" Owen Williams, since he's the local ACA honcho and the one most reachable under the law, I'd be headed as far away from the state as I could get, much sooner. However, as of today, the pariah website, under control of the squatters, contains no announcement.

Where Now?

I assume the vestry's attorneys (I'm going to drop the "elected" henceforth) are on top of legal options and developments, and legal strategies are confidential. Fr Kelley and Dr Trimpi, his senior warden, make information available to friends of the parish as appropriate. So I can only speculate for now on where things might be headed, although I would note that my wife and I called things right last month, so sorry, folks, no refund!

Here are some open questions. The first is insurance. The Church Mutual Insurance Company had an attorney observing the September trial. Mrs Bush and others had sued Church Mutual in 2013, hoping to be reimbursed for legal fees they paid (or pledged) to Lancaster and Anastasia, certainly amounting to hundreds of thousands, which Church Mutual has refused to pay on the basis that Bush et al are neither the policyholders nor the insured. That case, based on both the appeals court decision and the outcome of the September trial, is now hopeless.

I simply don't know if the Church Mutual attorney was observing the trial out of interest in that case, or whether it saw potential claims arising from the September trial of the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases, or both. Among the questions my wife and I have are whether the squatters kept up premium payments on the parish's Church Mutual policy. They are fully capable, of course, of screwing this up.

But assuming a policy is still in force for the St Mary's parish, the next question would be what it covers. Does it cover physical damage to the building? Theft? Who knows? An insurance expert would have to take a close look at the policy. But depending on what it covers, the vestry could file a claim based on losses, once it gained entry to the building. Church Mutual would then pay -- but Church Mutual would subrogate, which is to say they'd turn around and dun Mrs Bush, Mr Omeirs, "Bishops" Marsh, Strawn, and Owen Williams, and other parties for that money. If that's what the policy covered, and if it's still in force.

Another question is Citibank. As far as we know, Citibank allowed Anthony Morello and the squatters to open a new account under "St Mary of Angels" or something like that, and deposit and write checks on the parish's behalf, although the squatters had been instructed by Judge Jones in June 2012 to return control of the accounts to the vestry, and the parish was subject to continued litigation. Citibank may have major liability here, and they are a deep pocket.

But there will need to be a forensic audit. We simply don't know who got paid by the squatters, from three years' income to the parish amounting to nearly $750,000. We have more and more indication that the ACA seized the parish to get money. But the trial court has presumably established that after the August 2012 election, the parish was not part of the ACA (though it was in the Patrimony, not the ACA, after January 2011). Any money paid the ACA by the squatters would need to be recovered, possibly through insurance (depending, as above, on the policy), but otherwise through litigation.

I've already called this situation a slow-motion train wreck for the ACA, the squatters, Marsh, Strawn, and Owen Williams, and the bank. So far, it looks like I've been calling it right. Mrs Bush, at least 85 years old, appears to be a very sad case. I think her family needs to get involved.