Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, May 9, 1980
Page 12
Being faced with the alternative of disclosing the employee list or
proceeding with a motion without benefit of their affidavits, we chose
the latter course. We filed my motion for surrunary judgment based on my
own affidavit, the affidavits of 90 ministers and all the directors of
the Church, college and Ambassador International Cultural Foundation, but
without the support of the employee affidavits.
Still Judge Weil admitted
that the evidence was very impressive.
In spite of this overwhelming presentation of evidence, Judge Weil re
fused to grant the summary judgment. He did so based upon an unsigned
memo to my legal associate which recommended that a professional cor
poration composed, at least partly, of men from the legal field be formed.
One of the benefits of the proposed corporation would have been to help
honest judges into office and lobbying for the passage of laws favorable
to religion.
Even though the court was advised that no such 9rofessional corporation
was ever formed--that
in
fact the memo was not acted upon in any way-
the Attorney General argued that if such a corporation were formed, it
would be a "means for siphoning off" corporate assets. Based on that
illogical argument, the judge denied the summary judgment.
The Attorney General's position is that a suggestion of exercising one's
rights to express himself on public issues gives rise to an inference
that you might possibly do so illegally. Such an inference apparently
gives rise to the necessary "triable issue of material fact," to support
the denial of summary judgment to an accused defendant.
State's New Position
In his response to the summary judgment motion the Attorney General took
another new position to compensate for the consistent fallacies and false
hoods of previous ones. This time the Attorney General argued:
In fact, Mr. Helge appears to have entirely missed the point of this
lawsuit. It is his obligation to account which forms the nexus of
the action. Only after the accounting is complete will the issue
of any breach of duty come into play.
The State is now saying that they don't even have to have evidence of
any wrongdoing to look at all of the Church's records and documents. All
they have to do is ask for an accounting, which they claim they have an
absolute right to do. Then, in the event they find what they consider
to be an expenditure of funds not in accordance with the corporate purpo�e,
they will act as a State collection agency for the Church and sue to get
this money back.
[Editor's Note: So now, contrary to every principle of
American jurisprudence, a ma!lean be presumed guilty, without evidence-
instead of being innocent until proven guilty! Meanwhile, for months or
even years, even an innocent man's name and reputation, his social stand
ing in the community and among his professional peers, can all be tainted.
And this cloud can hang over a man until such time as the Attorney General
has exhausted every means of finding something that can be construed as
"wrongdoing."]