Transcript of interview with Fran Fine-Ventura by Barbara Tabach, March 4, 2015

AN INTERVIEW WITH FRAN FINE An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader?s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Frances-Ann "Fran" Fine-Ventura is an attorney at the Fine and Price Law Group in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was born September 28, 1951, in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to Arizona at the age of eleven when her father sought new economic opportunities out West. Fine eventually moved to Las Vegas shortly after she graduated law school in 1983. Fine worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nevada in the early 1980s, then at several private law firms. From 1992 to 1998, she served as a District Court Judge in the Family Division of the Eighth Judicial District Court. Fine is involved in the Las Vegas community via the Nevada School of the Arts and the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Foundation in Clark County, Nevada. She has also been involved with the Women's Philanthropy Board of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas since 1984, and served as chair from 2014 to 2016. Fran Fine's brother is Las Vegas real estate developer Mark Fine. In this interview, Fine discusses her childhood as well as the path that led to her career in law, which included working on a presidential campaign in New York City as well as several legal secretary positions in Washington, D.C., Texas and California, before eventually receiving her law degree from Golden Gate University. In addition, she reflects upon working on the infamous Jeff MacDonald murder trial in the 1970s as well as her experience becoming?and ending her service as?a Family Court Judge. Fine also discusses her community service work, particularly with the Women?s Philanthropy Board of the Jewish Federation and with Temple Beth Am. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Fran Fine on March 4, 2015 by Barbara Tabach in Las Vegas, Nevada Preface?????????????????????????????????..?..iv Begins with family history; immigration from Russia to United States; family heirlooms. Talks about parents meeting in Boston, while father was in navy; moving to Cleveland after married and becoming active in Jewish community. Talks about father moving family to Arizona seeking economic opportunities; personal resolution as young adult to be financial self-sufficient. Mentions brother Mark; mother passing away; father remarrying and moving to Las Vegas?.1-7 Discusses father?s career as salesman; attending University of Arizona; taking break to work on presidential campaign before returning and graduating; working in Washington, D.C. as legal secretary for couple years. Reminisces about paternal grandfather. Reflects on path the led her to becoming lawyer; dealing with eye issues as child, impact on educational performance, career. More about working in D.C.; boss encouraging to attend law school??????????8-13 Returns to Arizona; takes job as legal secretary and receives more encouragement to attend law school. Recalls working on infamous case of Jeff MacDonald with Bernie Segal; moving to San Francisco; gets into Golden Gate University School of Law. Remembers missing first three weeks of law school to finish trial and struggling to play catch-up; petitioning to stay in school. Shares experience clerking for U.S. Attorney for Nevada?s office??????????..14-21 Talks about continuing to work for U.S. Attorney about graduation, then several Las Vegas law firms; passing bar exam. Reflects on decision to run for judge; winning election with support of Jewish community. Discusses efforts that removed her from the bench. Shares how became involved in Las Vegas Jewish community, including with Women?s Division board of Jewish Federation, Temple Beth Am, Women?s Philanthropy???????????????22-29 Provides examples of Women?s Philanthropy?s work, financially helping synagogues; international natural disaster relief; assisting Ethiopian Jews avoid persecution and escape to Israel. States love for Israel. Mentions other community organizations involved with; passion for supporting education, Jewish-affiliated schools. Reflects upon programs for Jewish seniors and ongoing push to establish Jewish nursing home????????????????30-36 Shares story of meeting husband, Haim; their courtship?????????????..?37-40 Index........................................................................................................................................41-42 Appendix of family photos and correspondence 1 Today is March 4, 2015. This is Barbara Tabach and I'm sitting with Fran Fine Ventura. We're just going to jump in and I'm going to ask you?I know you're going to say, ?Well, you probably asked Mark [Fine] these questions,? but we're going to pretend I didn't. Mark Fine is her brother that we might refer to here. Tell me what you know about your family heritage. I believe my grandparents all came from Russia. I have a book somewhere from my aunt?who wrote it?that tells the story of our family and where they're from in Russia, or at least my mother's family. My father's family is also from Russia, but Russia was a very big place. When my grandmother on my mother's side left Russia, the family went to Australia. I think that my great-grandfather or my great-great grandfather was the first Jewish mayor of New South Wales. I have a snuffbox that says on it?and I trace back the name??To my father-in-law out of respect.? I've got both of their names, Morris Bushman. All these things I'm thinking about now I should have brought. If you want to remind me to get that for you, I will because I tried to do a little history on that as well and I know that they're our relatives. It's interesting. My great-grandmother ended up marrying a man by the name of Levy and they had my grandmother and a son, Harry. When my grandmother was a very young, they moved to Boston. That was my grandmother?s (pointing to a ceramic bunny) when she was a little girl, the bunny, because from what my mom told me, people did not have pets, they were thought to be dirty; one didn't have pets in the house. She wanted a dog and my great-grandmother said no. So they got her that. A ceramic bunny. Right. You've been able to keep that all these years. That's really nice. 2 Isn't that something? I have a lot of stuff from my mom and grandparents. I have my grandmother's silver and her china as well as my mother's china. It's pretty amazing. It is amazing. It really gets passed on from one generation to the next. My grandmother's china I didn't like when I first looked at it. I thought, ugh, it's so old-fashion. I adore it now. It's just gorgeous. It's really old and just fabulous. It's kind of a nostalgic way to look at a family and think about you're sitting there at a plate that your ancestors ate from. I know. And it was special. Even though it's not maybe what you would get today. I do love it now and I use it all the time. It's gold rimmed, like barely on my grandmother's. My mother's is big gold design on it. But on my grandmother's is just gorgeous. I just love it. People say, ?Why do you have these dinners? Why do you do it?? And I say, ?Only because I can use my grandmother's china and silver.? If I have more than twelve people, I'm screwed. [Laughing] Well, twelve is a good number. So how did your family end up in Ohio? That's where you were raised for the most part. I was raised. My father was born in Ohio and his father was from Russia. My Grandfather Sam came over from Russia, from what I gather, when he was relatively young, and then made enough money to bring other family over. I looked up on Ancestry.com and I found the census page for my grandfather somewhere along the way. All the kids were born and I think they were young when they did a census. That was the last time?it would be fun to do it; I just haven't had time. I keep thinking when I retire. I hope I'm alive when I retire. People say, ?You'll be so bored.? I say, ?No, I won't. I'll be able to do research and find out where I came from.? Meanwhile, Ed Shlossberg recently completed an interactive exhibit at Ellis Island so we can actually look up 3 when out family members came here and where they went. That?s definitely on my bucket list. Why is that important do you think? So I know where I came from. I know where I came from for the last hundred years. My mom and dad would be in their nineties. I know what they taught us. But it was funny because my mother was from Boston. My grandmother ended up moving to Boston and she met my grandfather. I don't know how they met; I never asked that. But I have a beautiful picture of them on their wedding day and the style of her dress is the style of the dress I would have wanted if I had gotten married in that kind of a wedding. It was so beautiful. Maybe a little bit more modern, but it was really pretty. It was perfect. [Pause in recording] So growing up in... My dad was in the navy and my mom was living in Boston and his port when he would come in during the war, World War II, was Boston. He went to a USO dinner or party. I've heard different stories and I don't know which is true. But suffice it to say they either met there or it was an accident that they met, but they met. In those days they courted for about a minute and a half. Then my dad had to go back out to sea. They were in love. He wrote her and said, ?I'll be there February 20th to the 28th,? or something like that. ?Will you marry me?? So my mom and my grandparents planned this fabulous wedding at the Copley Plaza in Boston. They had met each other maybe twice, three times, maybe four; I don't know. Wow. But on leave he'd be home for a week or so, and I guess they liked other. Then he would return to sea. He would be gone several months and would be back and they would meet again. They married on February 26, 1944. It was a large wedding. I have videos of that. I don't know if Mark 4 has given you that. No, I don't think so. I was looking through the videos and I knew every single person. Even though they were older now, I could recognize who they were when they were young. It was aunts, uncles and cousins, and my mom's best friends that she grew up with whose children I am friends with today. They live all over the country but we keep in touch with Facebook. Anyway, they got married. Then my dad still went back to sea. He had to go back to the ship. The war ended in 1945 and he came home. My mom was still living in Boston. He said to her, ?I want you to move to Cleveland,? and she did. I don't know what went through her mind. I never really asked her. If she was still alive, I would say, ?Why? How did you do that? How did you just leave your parents?? I don't know. I think she would have just said, ?I loved your father, I wanted to be with him, and we had fun.? So she started a new life and became very involved in the community. My dad and his brothers and their wives started a synagogue in Cleveland called Temple Emanu El. I think they donated the first Torah. I have a picture of my mom and dad lighting the Shabbat candles from the newspaper. They were like twenty-six; they were babies. They were the leaders of the shul. My mom was Sisterhood president. I had all these things; I don't know if I could find them. But people would send me things to show me that my mom was the president of the Sisterhood. Before my mom moved to Cleveland, she was very active in her temple in Boston. It was Temple Israel and she would go every Friday night. One day I got an envelope from my cousin Linda who lives in Boston and she said, ?A friend of ours was going through the old office at Temple Israel; they were cleaning out the files and they found a letter from Rosalie Zolloto and she thought maybe she might be related to me because they knew that we had the ?Zolotto Family 5 Circle.? There is not one Zolotto left in the world; they're all dead. But we're all the children of Zolottos. It was a letter from my mother to the rabbi and from the rabbi to my mother just talking about how she never missed a Friday night, but that she is in the program at her school. It's a stage production and she had to be there. The letter went on to say It's going to be so strange for her not to be at temple. The letter back from the rabbi is, ?We're going to miss you so much and we love you. We know your spirit is with us. You're such a big part.? When I got it, I said, ?Wow, this is where I get it.? People say to me, well, ?Where did you get this thing?? I don't know. But when I got that letter?and it's here someplace as well; I've got them all?I just started to cry because my mother wasn't alive anymore and it was her handwriting. It was just really an interesting phenomenon. Then she moved to Cleveland and she got involved in synagogue there, as I said. My father had some financial reverses and we moved to Arizona because he thought it would be better. He had his ups and his downs and mostly his downs. It was tough for us because when you come from having a lot and then not having a lot...he really struggled and he did as good a job as he could and my mother did as good a job as she could and it was hard. Did it change the very essence of being Jewish, though, economics? No. I mean that part was still the constant in your life, it sounds like. Yes, it was always. It was just sad because my mother wanted to belong to the synagogue and to be able to donate a lot of money, and she wanted to be able to participate a lot and she couldn't. It was hard. She lived vicariously through Mark and I, I think. I was very active in BBYO even though we didn't have a lot of money, but I always worked. I worked since I was thirteen. I sold stationery door to door in the days when you could; and napkins with your name imprinted on it. I 6 did all sorts of silly things. Then I went to work for a bank when I was in the eleventh grade. I took shorthand and typing in school. I remember my mother saying, ?Why are you taking shorthand and typing? You're going to get married and have a nice life.? And I said, ?I'm never going to be repossessed, disconnected or evicted.? She said, ?Why did you say that?? I said, ?Because we've been repossessed, disconnected and evicted, and I don't want it to happen to me.? Lesson learned, right? So she was not happy. She said, ?But you're going to meet a nice Jewish boy and you're going to get married.? Well at 43 years old I finally got married for the first time and it lasted about a minute. Ok, it lasted eighteen months, but in the scheme of things, that is about a minute. [Laughing] You're too funny. Wow. Well, we're really fast-forwarding your life. So what age were you when you moved from Ohio to? Ten. I turned eleven the day we got here. And you guys lived? We lived in an apartment. And this was in Arizona? This was in Phoenix. We lived in an apartment on a cul-de-sac. It was an apartment called Sierra Vista. We lived there for about one and half months when my father got an offer to move to Tucson; Mark was a senior in high school. He was already in high school at Shaker High in Cleveland for three weeks when we left to move to Phoenix. My parents had one car and it was a Ford Falcon. I don't know if you know what size Ford Falcon is. I do remember a Ford Falcon, yes. Mark and I were in the back and he was seventeen and I was eleven. I'm sure it was not a pleasant experience for him. For me, I was in heaven; I was with my brother and my parents. I don't know 7 how he did it. I think he drove a little, probably. But it was quite an experience. I remember it was not comfortable. When we moved to Tucson, Mark stayed in Phoenix and lived with newly discovered cousins for the rest of the semester. I don't know if we talked to them since; Mark might know. He moved to Tucson at the semester break and graduated from Rincon High School, where in the yearbook I think he was voted the Most Likable Guy. In one semester everybody loved him. He's just that kind of guy. He went to the University of Arizona from there. We moved back to Phoenix like a year later. I guess it didn't work out. I don't remember what my father did, but he would go from good to bad, bad to good. Some days things were great; some days things weren't. We moved a lot. Well, he was a salesman you said. Especially back then, being a salesmen was a hard job. Sales is always hard. My mom died in 1982. In 1983, he met my bonus, a step mom, Evelyn, and in 1984 he moved to Las Vegas. He always had a dream and I don't mean that to sound rude. But he always had a plan. So interestingly enough, when he moved to Las Vegas and he was sort of involuntarily retired?I really don't know what he was doing; I think he was bored out of his mind?but he had emphysema. So he started going to this Better Breathers club and all the people had some kind of COPD or emphysema or some kind of lung disease and they became his friends. His doctor had prescribed a nebulizer when nebulizers first came out. He went to get it and he wanted to buy it and the dealer said, ?You can't buy it; you can only lease it.? My father said, ?But I don't want to lease it; I want to buy it.? They said, ?Well, Medicare won't pay for you to buy it; they'll pay for you to lease it.? And my father, who had never really been able to fund a business, said, ?Well, how much does it cost?? They said, ?Two hundred and eighty dollars.? So he said, ?I'll buy ten.? 8 Then he went down to Social Security and he got licensed and he started leasing them. He made his money back in like three months because they were eighty-five dollars a month and Medicare would pay for it forever, ten times, fifteen, twenty-five times over. Isn't that crazy? So finally he had this legitimate business. Mark and I were sitting there in disbelief that at 68 years of age my dad was able to make a decent living. [Laughing] What other things had he sold? He was selling land; it was land in Arizona, granted. He was always legitimate. That doesn't sound right. But Mark and I would always worry that the rent wasn't paid or the taxes weren't paid or he was being audited. We were always worrying about stuff like that. I'm worried that this is going to sound terrible because he always wanted to make a living and he always tried, but it didn't always work out. He wasn't shady and he wasn't dishonest at all. In fact, he was overly honest. So if somebody wasn't doing something right, he would leave. We'd say, ?Dad, just get a job; just get a job that pays you a couple hundred dollars a week. We're fine. At least we have something regular coming in.? And he would say, ?I wouldn't be happy. I couldn't do it. I'd die.? But he just never gave up. It frustrated us so. My cousin who lives in Palo Alto would say, ?Your father is the most beautiful type of man because he's just a dreamer and he just dreams and he wants to do good.? He did good. Well, so his dream...probably with you kids. Right. Mark accomplished everything my dad wanted to, which is beautiful. So there's a legacy that goes on there. For yourself, you took a different route. Your schooling went all the way through in the Phoenix area? You graduated from high school 9 there? I graduated from high school and then I went to Tucson, University of Arizona, and I left after my second year and moved to New York to work on a presidential campaign. Oh, really? Whose? Oh, if I tell you, you'll laugh. No. It was John Lindsay. Oh, okay. All right. They had a caucus in Arizona and I had been pulled in because I was involved in student government. Some of the people that were in student government were working on the campaigns. So I looked around to see who I would like and I liked the people that were working with Lindsay. I did my research and I liked him, and I loved that he was like so involved in civil rights and his wife was so interesting. So I got involved with his campaign. First I went to Tampa, Florida. It was not a great experience. Then after that I went to Wisconsin for a couple of months. After the Wisconsin primary and a poor showing, he dropped out. I went back to New York and stayed with my brother and sister-in-law, Susan, who were living there. Okay. So that was the time when he was there. I stayed with them. I think I was nineteen or twenty. Of course, I don't think they were thrilled. They had a two-bedroom apartment and I'm sleeping on their couch. But I didn't stay there too long. I got a job and I moved into an apartment around the corner on East 81st Street, which I shared with two women and little rodents; not the greatest. I stayed in New York for about six months. Then I realized that if I didn't go back to school, I was going to end up making six hundred 10 dollars a month for the rest of my life and I didn't like that. So I went back to Tucson and finished college. Then I moved to Washington, D.C. and I lived there for a couple of years and worked for some lawyers. One was general counsel to a trade association and he also happens to be Myra Greenspun's ex-brother-in-law. Madeline, who is Myra's sister, and I knew each other from Central High School, and Myra and my brother were best friends in college. When Mark would come home for vacations, there was nothing to do at our house, so he was always over at their house. That is how I got to know them. In fact, I think Myra and Brian met at Susan and Mark?s wedding. But one thing I wanted to go back and tell you about?my grandfather, my dad's father, was kind of like my dad; he was also a dreamer and he also wanted to do great things. I don't know if Mark would remember this, but every morning my grandfather would show up at about 8 a.m. He would walk in the house and have breakfast. Then he would go to work with my dad. My grandfather owned apartment buildings and my dad and he ran them. What I learned later in life was that every morning my grandfather woke up and first he went to my Uncle Abby's house and he would walk in and have a cup of coffee and he would make sure everybody got through the night and everybody was alive and well. Then he would go to my Uncle Herb's and he would walk in and he would make sure that everybody there was up and everybody had a good night and he might have a cup of coffee and leave. Then he would come to our house. He also had a daughter that lived in Los Angeles. Every four months or so, he would fly out to L.A. and spend time with my aunt and her family. You learn these things and you realize that you have this bond and this love, this family compassion and passion. It's just not automatic; it's what you learn and what you see and the unconditional love that you get from your families. My grandmother had died before I was born; that's who I was named after. 11 So you had good examples. Great examples. So then after U of A?when did you become an attorney? How did that all happen? You worked in a law office, you said. Right. But I had no interest in being a lawyer. This is a long story. When I was five years old, I went to the hospital and had surgery because I was cross-eyed. I was born cross-eyed. I had a weak muscle, and they tried to use patches, which I would pull off, so efforts to strengthen it failed. I could not see with my good eye covered up. So when I was five, I went to the hospital. In those days you went in the hospital for several days because one had to go in, have tests, and then have the surgery. I had patches on my eyes, and after four or five days the patient is sent home. I never really had sight in that eye, but my mother never let me use it as an excuse and I never really thought of it as an excuse. So what? I still have sight in my right eye. And I have peripheral vision in this eye, but that doesn't help. I don't want to really bore you with this. So I was in grade school, high school and college, I never did very well. I just didn't perform well at all. I participated and I always had the answers, but I couldn't do well on tests. But when they asked me questions in class, I could read it and I could find it or I could figure it out?I still do that today?answer a question. My mother never said to me, ?You can do better; you can do better; you can do better.? Nobody ever did that to me. I didn't get A?s. I didn't get B?s. I got C?s, sometimes D?s. I actually got an F. I felt bad, but I never really dwelled on it, either, because nobody made a big deal about it. Grades were not a big deal in my house. Mark passed everything and he did well. But I thought, well, I don't have to do better than Mark; I can do as good as Mark or he can do better than me. But it wasn't a competition. But A?s and B?s weren't that important in my family. When 12 I look back on it, I'm so grateful that nobody ever compared me and nobody ever said, ?You can do better,? or made me feel like I was incompetent because I couldn't get good grades. When I was in high school, I took a speed-reading class and my teacher came up to me?and it never dawned on me even then?and he said, ?Fran, everybody aces this class. What is happening? You can't get it.? I said to him, ?I don't know. I'm special.? I had no clue. Then I went to college and I didn't get accepted into a state school, but the letter said, ?Thank you for applying. We regret to inform you that your grades just aren't good enough to get in. But if you really are serious about going, we'll let you in as a continuing ed student. You can audit your classes. If you get a C average, you can petition to become a full-time student.? So I said to my mother, ?What do you think?? She said, ?Well, of course, you're going to college.? I said, ?But it's going to be hard.? She goes, ?Humph, you'll be fine.? I decided to do that. I applied to live in the dorm, and they wrote we back and said, ?No, you're not a full-time student; you can't live in the dorm.? So my mother got in the car. She drove down to Tucson and she went to?I found this all out later?the dean of admissions and she said something like, ?My daughter's going to live in a dorm.? They said, ?She's not a full-time student.? My mother said, ?She's seventeen. If something happens to her, do you want a lawsuit?? She was very smart. And they said, ?She's living in the dorm.? She was persuasive. She was incredibly persuasive. So I went to college; I lived in the dorm, took classes, worked hard and got a C average. So you thrived. I was okay. [Pause in recording] 13 I love this story of how you got your career. I graduated from college by the skin of my teeth. I did a lot of extra credit; that's how. And it never really dawned on me. Since I was riding my bicycle after my last exam and I knew that I had passed and that I was graduating, I rode my bicycle on campus back home, back to my apartment, and I was screaming to myself, ?I'm done. Yay! No more school ever!? I can envision you doing this. I get pulled over by a cop and he gives me a ticket for riding on a sidewalk. I said, ?Fine, I don't care.? I graduated and I ended up moving to Washington, D.C. I worked for a law firm. First I worked for Michael Lang, as I said earlier, for the trade association. Then I worked for a Chicago law firm in D.C., Robert Nathan and Associates, an economic consulting group that had dealings with Israel and international commerce. I was a college graduate, but I was working as a legal secretary at the time. They had paralegals in the office, but I needed a job. Remember I took shorthand and typing? That was helpful there. Those were skills that were helpful in that time. Yes, all through college I took notes by shorthand. That's the only way I passed because I could read everything on my notes and I had to review that way because reading the books was very difficult; it was very long. In hindsight, you realize something. When I was in high school, I took an American History class. I just couldn't get a decent grade on the tests, but finally I got an A, and realized the chapter was five pages and all the other chapters were twenty. And the teacher looked at me and he said, ?And Fran got an A,? to the whole class. I said, ?And that was because I had time to read it.? So it still doesn't dawn on me, right? I haven't figured any of this out. I went from day to day. I have a big mouth and I say a lot of things that are embarrassing, but it was 14 simply to cover up when I did not do well in school. When I lived in Washington, I loved doing the work we were doing. I was helping my boss and he said to me, ?You need to go to law school.? I said, ?There's no way.? He said, ?Fran, you're just so smart. You need to go to law school.? And I said, ?No way. There's no way I could get into law school. I didn't get into college. I barely got out of college.? He said, ?You can get into law school.? I said, ?I can't.? So to prove it, I surreptitiously took the LSAT and I bombed it. I left D.C. and I returned to Arizona. In D.C., I worked all day Christmas, all day on Easter, and I every weekend. I loved doing it, but that's not a life. So I moved back to Phoenix and was hired by a great law firm, again, but now I was the senior partner's legal secretary. After three weeks they sent me to L.A. to work on an IBM trial. This was in 1974. I had my own room at the Hyatt in downtown L.A., and I had another room down in Orange County at the Registry Hotel. I had a brand-new car that I was driving back and forth and having a ball. One of my bosses, Michael Mallis, was fabulous. We became good friends. He was a partner. Most of the partners would take associates with them on deposition preparation of witnesses, but there weren't enough associates to go around, so he took me. He kept saying, ?You have to go to law school.? And I kept saying, ?I can't get in. Don't you guys understand that? Leave me alone. Don't embarrass me.? I told you it was a long story. So fast-forward. The same lawyer who I worked with in this firm on the IBM case also was the best friend and roommate of Jeff MacDonald. Does that name ring a bell? Yes. How old are you? We're similar age. 15 So in 1970, there was a Green Beret doctor, captain? Oh, that Jeff MacDonald. Okay, yes. He represented him in 1970 in the Article 32 proceedings in the military along with a guy named Bernie Segal. The facts were found to be not true in 1970. But in 1974, he was indicted by a grand jury and now they are having a trial. I'm reading about it and they file appeals; I see that it's been delayed and they're not going to trial because it's still on appeal to the Supreme Court. I had decided that Phoenix and was now living in Houston working for a law firm and I get a phone call from Michael. He said, ?You're going to get a call from Bernie Segal and he wants you to come work with us on the MacDonald trial.? I said, ?Great.? But I have this great job in Houston. So Bernie came to Houston for a conference and he called me and said, ?Will you come and talk to me?? I said, ?Sure.? He offered me the job and said, ?Will you come to San Francisco to see if you want to work with us?? I said, ?Sure.? I kind of felt bad and thought, I'm going to San Francisco under false pretenses; I'm not leaving. I kind of told him that and he said, ?Come anyway.?