HoundBlog

It was another long day today and it’s not over yet.

I’m sitting in Atlanta airport waiting on my connecting flight back to Greenville which doesn’t leave until 10:35 pm and it’s just 8:30.

The day started off with no internet at the hotel which meant my getting up at 5:00 so I could log into work and run some reports was for nothing. I went down to breakfast and then back up to my room to wait until time to meet the other witnesses in the lobby and go to the courthouse. I was scheduled to be first on the witness stand this morning and the District Attorney wanted to talk with me briefly before we went into the courtroom.

We had our chat, then headed up to the 10th floor where the courtroom is. I was put in a small room to wait for them to convene court and call the first witness. They called me in, then seated the jury which had 16 people (12 jurors and 4 alternates). The DA went through the questions we had covered the night before although in slightly different order. They stopped me a time or two because they couldn’t understand some of the things I was saying — the judge joked that they couldn’t understand my accent although I was trying to not speak with one. It took longer than I thought it would as there was some hullaballo over the complaint I had filed with the Better Business Bureau in New York. I had filed it online and they showed me a paper with what I had typed on line on the paper and asked if I recognized the document. I could not honestly answer yes to that question which got the defense all excited thinking he had found a flaw in the prosecution’s case. My DA was not going to allow that, though, so he was quashed in the end.

When the defense attorney was allowed to do his cross examination, he told me I had testified that I had not spoken with his client, Lewis Moustachi and I replied that statement is not correct as I had spoken with Mr. Moustachi just couldn’t remember the exact conversation since by that point I was trying to find out what they were doing with my money and why they had not sent proposals to the credit card companies as they had told me they had done.  He repeated the statement again about my not talking to his client only in a belligerent and loud voice which the DA immediately voiced objection to and before the “n” in objection was out of his mouth, the judge was saying “sustained”. His next question was just a rephrase of that question although in a less combative tone and I repeated my answer.  He gave up trying to trip me up at that point.

I was NOT like Law and Order or Perry Mason. I wasn’t nervous although I worried about the document thing, the Postal Inspector who walked me out of the courtroom when I was dismissed was elated over how it all transpired and told me no one would ever know that I had never testified before.

Now I’m just waiting on the final leg of my flight home, then making the drive and falling into bed. I’ve already talked to Wes about working from home tomorrow and he’s agreed that I can do that.  I’ll probably “go to work late”, though.

Since I still don’t have internet although there is WiFi here in the airport you evidently have to pay for it, I’ll send this off tomorrow.

Love to all,

Margaret