Tim King Salem-News.com
Salem-News.com goes to court for reporting a story about an elderly woman's fight to regain finances taken by her son.
 Courtesy: owni.eu and Reporters Without Borders |
(CLACKAMAS, Ore.) - An Oregon mother who allegedly lost more than a million dollars in property and assets to her son in California, says it's hard for a lone elderly woman to find justice in Oregon's legal system.
Now Salem-News.com is being called to task for publishing the story. The venue is the Clackamas County Courthouse and we will be there at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning.
Now Salem-News.com is being called to task for publishing the story. The venue is the Clackamas County Courthouse and we will be there at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning.
Since the story was first published, Leroy Newton, who is in the investment industry in California, the only son of Erna Boldt in Sandy, Oregon, has been trying to make us purge the story, his story, with the help of a Portland attorney named 'Brooks F. Cooper'.
We are protected by the first U.S. Constitution amendment.
We believe that this legal threat is a frivolousa attempt to silence the free press for carrying a story that is embarrassing, for an individual sliding through legal loopholes with the help of a seasoned attorney. If the woman's allegations are true, then the legal system is failing to protect one of our most vulnerable citizens, and little else.
We believe that this legal threat is a frivolousa attempt to silence the free press for carrying a story that is embarrassing, for an individual sliding through legal loopholes with the help of a seasoned attorney. If the woman's allegations are true, then the legal system is failing to protect one of our most vulnerable citizens, and little else.
It seems preposterous that an individual could seize the assets in question from his elderly mother, and suspect that it would not draw media attention.
We find it equally puzzling that Leroy Newton and his lawyer decided to threaten and sue the media into silence without considering that this clear violation of our Civil Rights would likely become the grounds for a strong counter suit.
The article and video report on Erna Boldt in question are fairly presented and only portray the story according to Ms. Boldt and a wealth of accumulated documents. (see: Elderly Oregon Woman In Financial Ruins; via America's Worst Son? - Bonnie King Salem-News.com)
It will be interesting to see how this censorship attempt of Salem-News.com will really go. This is an important time for all in media, because a court interpretation of the 'truth' obtained through a court order that itself is in question, should never be allowed to silence us, particularly when the information is fully attributed to a named source.
One thing I am wondering about is whether attorney Cooper expected this case to end up in front of a jury, which it probably will. I suspect not, and that Mr. Cooper really should be more selective of his clients.
Interestingly, jurors aren't part of the 'system', and not exactly who a ruthless litigator can typically count on. In other words, the truth can win the day with the public and there is little these two men can do about it, and I really am excited about the prospect of being able to defend Ms. Boldt and our American Civil Right to free speech. That is what Mr. Cooper is trying to place his foot on top of, and I can only assume he has no idea what he is dealing with.
So far, Salem-News.com has had contact with two advocacy groups that we have dealt with for years; the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders) about this. The woman, Erna Boldt, is also being sued by her son for $55,000 more dollars to compensate him for what he's gone through.
Here's the story in a nutshell: Erna Boldt was born before the second world war, one more human being in a bad place, and her original home is Germany.
"Mom and Dad were bombed out in Hamburg," Erna said. "They fled to East Prussia where my Grandma and some aunts lived, they fled from there by foot, when the Russians advanced. Grandma and my aunts remained and were tyranized by the Russians."
By the very end of the war, when Erna was just 17-years of age, she found one alternative, and that was to follow her best friend's lead and join the German military. She enlisted in the Navy and served about three weeks, which was about enough time to have her photo taken and watch her fleet surrender to the allies.
British soldiers allowed Erna to move on with her life, and within a couple of years she met one of the many American soldiers sent to occupy the newly divided Germany. "My son was born in Germany, before I came to the States. He was 3 years old, when we landed in New York in 1952," Erna said.
It couldn't have been easy.
Today Erna still has her German accent and she is just as quick and funny and smart as any day of her life, but that didn't keep her son from convincing Oregon courts that she was incapable of looking after her own affairs. Court directives were not followed, and Erna lost everything.
"If only I had known!" Erna recalls with regret.
She didn't know of course, because Erna is not mentally diminished at all, as one can gather from watching the video below. Some of the supposed court orders against Erna have been carried out under shady circumstances and we have people looking into several parts of this which will be covered in future reports.
Erna's son is the character in this story who went to a lot of effort to take control of his mother's assets (before she died) that total over a million dollars.
Leroy Newton is the man Brooks F. Cooper chooses to represent the interests of. Erna worked hard and sent her son to Linfield College in Oregon, which is a private school. There he learned how to work with money, and apparently much more.
Erna explains that Leroy came to visit a few years ago from California, and when he did, he brought a friend. Erna didn't suspect anything, even when Leroy suggested he and Erna go to lunch because his "friend was tired and wanted to lay down". He and Erna went for lunch, while his 'friend', Erna says she later discovered, promptly began going through her personal files to find the information they would use in court to deem her incompetent.
Erna believes she earned the disdain of the Clackamas County court officials because, quite frankly, she can be pretty feisty, and who would not be?
There are no terrible stories of Leroy's childhood according to any of the parties we have contacted, or received contact from, and he had not been estranged from Erna until he took court actions against her.
Court documents show that Erna has seen a failure in cooperation from the Clackamas County court. Erna can produce documents demonstrating that they lost papers, failed to fulfill promises, and apparently just failed to fulfill their obligations to her as public tax paid servants.
I call foul on the whole thing, including these very questionable judge's decisions that allowed Leroy to clean up and Erna to lose in one of the most unforgivable ways ever imagined. Just because something can be done legally does not mean that it should be done.
Wrong is still wrong.
Wrong is still wrong.
In the past, due to Cooper's legal wrangling, we had pulled the video, and we had actually done other things to try to comply with their wishes and demands, like remove the picture of him in a red Ferrari taken shortly after he got his mother's money. (We're assured by his daughter it was a rental car!) The final request was for Salem-News.com to pull the story from Google, which we are not capable of.
Now Erna is meeting Cooper in court again, a continuance of this seemingly endless and sad story. Our position is to get this chronicle of elder financial abuse out like never before. We do not want this type of thing to ever happen to our precious elder citizens.
With time, courts will be held at a higher standard and will be expected to take special care of the rights of the elderly. As it is, the judicial system claims that there are not enough attorneys or time to respond to every single claim. They have to take on the cases that they believe they can win. How pitiful that more "family" take advantage of their elders than any other group, those that are trusted the most, and without any consequences whatsoever. This must end.
Erna is impossible to dislike, unless you are working for a court that is playing games with attorneys, then apparently she can be much more difficult to work with. Why should she react any differently than any us would under the same circumstances?
On that note, are there any attorneys who feel as we do that this attack on us and our citizenry's freedom of speech is worthy of a large scale counter suit?
This suit is and has interfered with our ability to earn a living, affecting our reputation and our right to report the news without fear of reprisal. If you are an attorney and would like to discuss a contingency with Salem-News.com, we would like to speak with you. Email: newsroom@Salem-News.com
This story is not over. We will continue this report as each step takes place. Stay tuned. If we need additional support we will advise our readers, and all ideas are always welcome, my email address is below."
This is the video from the report: Elderly Oregon Woman In Financial Ruins; via America's Worst Son? - Bonnie King Salem-News.com"
Source of Post
Salem News. Click Below for Salem News Online Investigative Reporting
Salem-News.com, Oregon Court Corruption, Fraud on the Courts, Clackamas County Courthouse, Leroy Newton, 'Brooks F. Cooper', Committee to Protect Journalists, Tim King, Oregon Judicial System, Oregon Courts, Oregon Defamation Lawsuits
