Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
I have received a lot of amusing comments about the “Barrett Settlement” stories I’ve been telling. Apparently there a a lot of people out in the world who, you might say, have an interest in Stephen Barrett’s troubles. (Insert your own pointed comment here).
But, had I wrote the whole story, all at once, about what actually happened, although amusing, it would have just been too long. One phone call could have broken your laughing concentration – and we don’t want that – for a good story is a good story…
So, here is part three of the “Barrett Settlement” saga. Today we are going to deal with the witness list Barrett submitted, claiming he was going to use them at trial. Frankly, when I looked at the list when it first popped out of the Barrett pop tart toaster I laughed out loud, and smacked my hands in glee, somewhat like a happy child being told“we’re heading for Disneyland again…”
The Actual List…
Stephen Barrett MD – The cross examination of Stephen Barrett in this case would have been one of the most read, most quoted, ever, transcripts in US Courtroom history. And, we missed out.
In short, I imagine the question line would have gone something like this: “Stevie, did you and your maniac friends organize a campaign to damage Hulda Regehr Clark PhD’s interests, including recruiting people to falsely sue her and her companies?” Stevie’s answer: “Yup…” More: “Are a good many of those people you organized that attack with listed on the lawsuit?” Answer: “Yup…”
Christopher Grell – Same as above. This was Barrett’s choice of attorney at the time, but, apparently Barrett has dumped him for various reasons.
Judith Barrett – She supported her husband’s activities since he was terminated from the Allentown Mental Hospital in 1993. This would have been fun, as in “Mrs. Barrett, since you are the one who worked all those years (wore the pants in the family – so to speak) to support your husband’s activities did you make him wear an apron around the house? Did he have dinner ready for you when you got home? Did he wash windows? Did he pick up your dry cleaning? Did he watch daytime TV? Did he iron your underwear?
Robert Baratz MD, PhD, DDS – President of the NCAHF. This guy I have shredded too many times in Courtrooms around the country. I didn’t think he’d come, but if he did it would be to malign Hulda Clark. I had very good counter witnesses for him, and the cross-examination was going to be brutal, starting with “Dr. Baratz – why do we have six different resumes for you?”
Scott D. Ballantyne – Barrett’s internet boy – below was Ballantyne’s role. It is an excerpt from the article The Six Components of the 2008 Quackbuster Operation…
(1) The Quackbuster Communication Network has five parts:
(a) The Consumer Health Digest is a newsletter with mailing list of over twelve thousand names. The newsletter is sent out weekly to the mailing list. The list is made up of lower and middle level employees of county, state, and federal health administration and enforcement agencies, and employees of health insurance and medical malpractice insurance company employees. The so-called “Digest” is a simple tool to do two things: (1) propagandize those lower level employees into believing that the targets of the so-called articles are “bad people,” criminals, doubtfuls, etc., and (2) convince those employees that they should devote time to investigating, prosecuting, or, at the very least, watching, the targets constantly.
If you, or yours, are the subject of any article on this newsletter – beware, for the readers of these articles are not the brightest people in the world, and would tend to believe what they read.
(b) The Health Fraud Discussion Group has two functions: (1) People making inquiries of information on “quackwatch.org” are “invited” to ask questions on this discussion group where, supposedly, “experts” will give the inquirer more information. Those “experts” are just more quackbuster operatives relaying more of the same lies and misinformation. (2) The discussion group provides a format for the quackbusters to showcase subjects, or people they want to defame or deride.
(c) The Skeptics Discussion Group is simply a means for the quackbuster propaganda system to tie into the worldwide “Skeptic” organization by trying to interest the Skeptic movement in being super-critical of the issues the quackbusters promote. Frankly, I don’t know how well this works, or doesn’t work, for them, because the involved so-called “skeptics” I see publicly are, for the most part, dolts – pseudo-skeptics operating in a pseudo-intellectual mode, trying to impress others with their claims to Mensa status – and not doing very well at it.
(d) The James Randi Discussion Group is an odd thing. James Randi, who bills himself as “The Amazing Randi,” is, it appears, a fifth-rate magician who seems to play the Motel-6 Lounge Circuit in the US. He gets himself on television promoting various “doubts” about various things. Randi is not very impressive, and when you batch that together with his gargantuan ego, and his pompous presentations, you get just about what you would expect.
(e) SSR.com is the lair of Scott Ballantyne and the ScottSoft Research group out of New York City. SSR.com is the HOST for all of the above. Ballantyne is a relative unknown, and there is no obvious reason apparent why Ballantyne provides expertise, time, and labor to host, and manage, the four activities above. I suspect he is funded directly out of the New York misinformation agency.
Note – for those of you who wish to subpoena information (and you should) from SSR.com (Ballantyne), about the activities of these entities above in regards to individual clients, contact me, and I’ll provide the data you need for subpoenas – and more. Ballantyne, I think, is in a panic (and he should be), lately, for he destroyed all of the archives of the Health Fraud Discussion Group, as he says, “for legal reasons.”
The cross-examination of this guy was going to be fun. I had suggested to Negrete that he ask Ballantyne about his role in Barrett’s game, line-by-line from above, and when he got down to the part relating to James Randi, that he ask specifically how he and Randi came to work together, since Ballantyne is, and was Randi’s Discussion Group Moderator – and that fact would intimate a close relationship. When that was established then ask him about the audio tape on the internet with James Randi soliciting sex from a young boy, explaining, to the boy, how big his penis is. See below:
February 11, 1996, Toronto Star: “What I had hesitated to mention is that the colorful Randi has been involved in a number of lawsuits. Part of the evidence brought against Randi was a tape of his telephone conversations, of explicit sexual content, with teenage boys. Randi has at different times claimed that the tape was a hoax made by his enemies to blackmail him, that he made the tape himself, and that the police asked him to make it. Whichever version is true, it’s amazing indeed that such a person could be taken seriously as a scientific adviser in an organization dedicated to denying claims of child sexual abuse.” This tape was played during a trial in which Randi was accused by Eldon Byrd, a good friend of Uri and a former Naval Surface Weapons Center researcher, of defamation by claiming he was known pedophile. True or not, during the trial Byrd and his team played a tape on which Randi was speaking to a small boy about sex and how much it would cost. Randi claimed it was all a setup by Byrd and the boys on the tape were prank callers. The judge wasn’t so sure about that, especially because Randi voluntarily called back one of the boys after the latter told him his money was running out.” To read the whole piece, click here.
Then ask Ballantyne if he is, or ever has been, a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association… (NAMBLA). Then ask Ballantyne if he knows David Gorski MD (Orac the Nipple Ripper), Barrett’s likely replacement at quackwatch. Then ask Ballantyne if he knows the circumstances surrounding why Canada’s quackwatch copy, Terry Polevoy, came not be practicing as a Pediatrician anymore…
And, on and on, and on…
William Jarvis PhD – Negrete deposed this guy once. It was in the NCAHF v MediaPower case. He testified as the “Secretary” of the NCAHF. Negrete had demanded that Barrett and Baratz, who were claiming to be paid expert witnesses, show up to be deposed, and they sent this guy instead. In the deposition Negrete asked him “how did the NCAHF determine how and why to sue the Defendant” and Jarvis testified that “Barrett and Baratz had instigated the NCAHF lawsuits without consulting the NCAHF Board at all, so there was no such meeting, and no such decision made by the NCAHF Board.” After his deposition Negrete demanded that NCAHF attorney Mehrban produce Barrett and Bartatz immediately in California, as they were actually the Plaintiff, not expert witnesses. Negrete went to the judge when Mehrban refused, and got a Court Order. The NCAHF dropped the case by 5:00pm that same day.
Jarvis’s PhD is in Physical Education. He is one of the original board members of the NCAHF. He hosted the NCAHF at Loma Linda University. Julian Whitaker started the process of removing the NCAHF from Loma Linda. You can read about how bad life got for William Jarvis at the hands of the California Health Freedom Movement below. Jarvis virtually disappeared after this, below, happened:
https://bolenreport.com/archives/ncahf_posts_names_of_2.htm
http://whitakerhealthfreedom.com/index.cfm?tdc=dsp&page=successes_detail&recid=20
The counter-witness for this guy, of course, would have been Julian Whitaker MD.
Scott Peterson – apparently this guy is a dog trainer in Huntington Beach California. I have no idea what this guy might have testified to. A dog trainer?
Charles Bender DC – is connected to Barrett through an attorney firm Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman and Goggin who specialize in Insurance Fraud cases. He and Barrett co-authored an article title “Insurance Fraud: How to spot a personal injury mill.” Bender is a professional testifier.
http://www.drrobertbailey.com/insurance-fraud-how-to-spot-a-personal-injury-mill
I think Bender was an “add-on” name. Then too, it is possible that Barrett’s attorney said to him: “Can you think of anyone, who isn’t one of your known wild-eyed associates, who even remotely can speak on your behalf of your character?” This may have been Barrett’s answer.
Carlos Negrete – Yup, they had Carlos Negrete on their list as a witness FOR the Plaintiff. Huh? Maybe it was a different Carlos Negrete other than the one who filed the original cross-complaint?
What did they think Carlos was going to testify to? That he did something wrong?
We all know the answer he would have given to the question “Was this a good lawsuit filed in good faith?” His answer would have been “yup…”
So, let’s put this in perspective…
We lost a major opportunity to do some serious damage to the quackbuster scum brigade when Barrett settled this case. I know it was Carlos Negrete’s decision, and he had every right to make this decision, but boy did we miss an opportunity.
There is an old story about a farmer’s co-op that was having trouble with the local town dogs running through the farmlands every night, raiding chicken coops, and generally creating havoc. When the town dog owners were approached about the issue the answer was always “Nope, not my dog…” So, the co-op farmers devised a strategy to make their point. They set some humane traps for the dogs, and when they captured some they soaked some small red rags in turpentine, and with a stick, inserted the turpentine soaked rag six to eight inches up the animal’s rectum, and then turned them loose. The captured dog howled loudly all the way back to town where their owner became confronted, in a very dramatic way, with their dog’s nighttime activities. Even after removing the soaked rag from the animals’ rectum, the howling would remind the dog owner for hours that the previous “Nope, not my dog…” response was incorrect.
That, above, was the kind of opportunity, to deliver a memorable message, we missed.
But, I think there will be a “next time.”
So, stay tuned…
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate