Update on Dr. Noel Chua's Court Hearing
From:"Perrydiaz@aol.com"
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 12:08 AM
Subject: Today in Court
For those of you that did not make it to the court house today....here is my read on today's activities:
Over the past two days the prosecution made some efforts to move Dr. Chua to the Brunswick Jail based on his close relationship with Sheriff Smith. They issued subpoenas to 29 people - 15 Camden County Sheriff staff including the Sheriff himself and 14 other regular visitors to the jail. We made the prediction that they would ask several questions to those subpoenaed about their visits in an attempt to establish that the good Doctor was receiving preferential treatment while confined in the Camden County Jail. Dr. Chua's attorney, Don Samuels addressed our concerns with Judge Amanda Williams and the District Attorney. Seems he is required by law to remain in his parent county unless he is in danger or a danger to somebody else. The motion was dismissed before being presented to the court with the following agreement:
- Dr. Chua will remain in the Camden County Jail
- A jury of Camden County Citizens will hear the case
- The trial will be held in the Glynn County (Brunswick) Court House.
- Sheriff Smith will be responsible for Dr. Chua at all times while he is not in the Glynn County Court House for the trial and returned to Camden County every day during the trial.
As a result of this agreement, none of the 29 subpoenaed people were required to take the stand. By the way - the 29 subpoenas were delivered by the St. Marys Police Dept. instead of the Camden County Sheriff's Office as required by law. Are they trying to say that the Sheriff wouldn't do his job? Outrageous!
Judge Amanda Williams called Don Samuels a "Hot Shot Atlanta Lawyer". Don appeared to blush at the compliment. We silently chuckled. Still - it was unprofessional for a Judge to make that comment in a court of law... even if it is true.
The RICO motion was presented to the court by Mr. Samuels. After an outstanding, common sense presentation discussing why the RICO order should be terminated immediately, including the facts, the District Attorney asked for 30 days to review the motion before responding. Mr. Samuels asked that the DA expedite his response since it was costing Dr. Chua's estate $12,000 a month while under the Receiver's control. He also asked that the Receiver, Michael Ambruse(?) to dismiss another attorney in the same law firm that has been receiving $195 an hour to help the Receiver determine is he should pay Dr. Chua's mortgage payment, deposit the rent on his rental property and pay the mortgage on his medical office building. Seems like common sense to me! What else is there? He already has experts on staff to handle the medical billing issues and spend....err deposit the checks coming to his practice. Don Samuels stated the Receiver was doing nothing for the $12,000 a month they have been billing his estate. The intent of the court appointed Receiver is to "preserve the estate" not to systematically dissolve the estate. To date there have been $105,000 in Receiver bills - yet the law only allows $25,000 in total expenses. What has already been paid is gone - can only be recovered in a future law suit. Again, the DA has up to 30 days to offer his response to the motion. However, the Judge did move to get rid of the 2nd attorney that is drawing an hourly salary of $195.00 for doing nothing!!!
Mr. Samuels asked for additional time to review any medical records - records from 27 of Dr. Chua's other patients (from over 2000 reviewed by the St Marys Police Department and the prosecution team). These 27 records were reported to be "sealed" in the DA's office. The law only allows for 10 days of discovery prior to the trial date. However, due to needing a medical "expert" to review any records the DA chooses to use during the trial - Don asked that the Judge allow him 30 days prior to the trial to review the records and provide his review of the records to the DA 15 days prior to the trial. The DA agreed to the 30 days of discovery and 15 days response. The Judge granted the request.
The ADA (Jackie Johnson) stated that the Jamie Carter's medical records are appearing in blogs - a HIPPA violation....Federal offense! She, in a round-about way, was insinuating that Dr. Chua's supporters were doing this. If you know who is doing this, please ask them to stop! We do not want to jeopardize Dr. Chua's case in blogs. It is infuriating the DA and Jamie Carter's family. Nuff said.
Mr. Samuels was planning on spending the rest of the day with Dr. Chua after the trial.
I got a call from Gordon Jackson this afternoon on my thoughts. I have known Gordon for 12 years + and I consider him to be a good friend. He is a professional newspaper reporter and writes his articles based on the information he is able to gather. It may appear that his articles seem to favor the prosecution (they are probably accidently leaking the info to them while under a gag order), but he always asks for the filings, listens in the court room and talks to both the prosecution and defense before he submits his article. Not sure who else he talked to while writing the article, but we had a long discussion on what happened in the court today. As far as I know, I was going to be quoted as saying the Receiver is not preserving the estate, but doing his best to dissolve the estate - and the prosecution was trying real hard to move Dr. Chua to the Brunswick Jail due to his friendship with Sheriff Smith. Will the "Hot Shot Lawyer" comment be in the paper? I hope the article comes out favorable to our side!!! We'll find out tomorrow!
I talked to Gordon cause I feel that we (the good guys) need to respond to his inquiries. If the prosecution talks to him and the defense says "no comment", it could end up tainting our pool of jurors. By the way, the prosecution plans on calling a jury pool of 250 Camden County residents - and sealing the jury list so none of the good guys has advance knowledge of who is on the list. Don't know if that's legal....think it has to be published in the local legal paper - the only paper in town (Tribune-Georgian) - but I'm not a lawyer.
My personal thanks to everybody that went our of their way to show our support to our Doctor...and especially to Willie Banco and the two doctors (sorry don't remember names) who traveled down from Atlanta to be there for Dr. Chua. I'm certain that he was touched by your presence. Nobody got reprimanded by the Judge either!!
We still don't have a court date! Could be mid to late October at this point. Wonder if it's time for another bail hearing?
Please forward this to anybody I missed if you think it's worthwhile.....hope I got it right.
Scott Alexander
Related articles:
Dr. Chua will soon have his day in court
Chua get's support from NaFFAA Chair Kern
Update on Dr. Noel Chua's Case
Support For Dr. Noel Chua Growing
Dr. Noel Chua: Victim of Southern Injustice
southern injustice
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southern injustice
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