Kavanaugh, Ford, and #MeToo

A few years ago, I attended a deposition in a criminal case.  A long-standing client’s teenage son was a crime victim.  The young man was robbed in a high school bathroom. His mother could not attend the deposition, but I could, ‘cause I’m a lawyer. There were several school administrators in the State Attorney’s waiting room, also there to give depositions.  They thanked the young man for coming forward.  They said what he did helped everyone.

Think about getting robbed in a bathroom.  It was traumatic.  Despite my standard advice for depositions: “Tell the truth and tell it short”, and: “Only answer the question you are asked”, that deposition went on for three hours. 

As we walked back to my office the young man said he wished he’d never reported it.  First, he had to tell the story at school (reporting).  Then he had to tell the story to the police (investigation).  Then he had to tell it to the State Attorney (investigation).  Now he had to give a deposition.  He could end up having to testify at a trial.  He wanted it over.

When MeToo started I wrote about a co-worker knocking me to the ground, and kissing me.  I got away.  That incident was in December 1982.  I remember because it was after an office Christmas party.

When I published that story, a young cousin commented her uncle touched her inappropriately.  That was a gut punch to me.  I also had an inappropriate incident with her uncle.  I never told anyone ever, until that FB post.  Her uncle was disabled but he could work.  You could tell he was disabled just by talking to him.  I was close to his father.  We were both family historians.  I was visiting them, staying at their home, in Seattle, which is far from Florida.  I didn’t want to cause a scene.  Plus, I had handled him.  He got inappropriate.  I quashed it immediately.  It did not happen again, but I stayed away from him.

Years later he inappropriately touched his prepubescent niece.  This made me angry with myself.  If I had it to do over I would do it differently.  I would have reported it to his father, after I was home in Florida.  I don’t know it would have made a difference.  I did not know, at that time, this can be serial behavior.  I made excuses for the man because he is disabled.  But disabled or not, other people deserve protection.

My friend, Bonnie, told a MeToo story on FB, followed by, “I have one “MeToo” story I will not tell.”  I commented, “MeToo.”

Male celebrities started dropping like flies as a result of “MeToo.”  Bill Maher said, “I thought I didn’t understand women, now I realize I don’t understand men.”  My GBF (Gay Best Friend) was in my office.  He couldn’t believe Charlie Rose was taken down by MeToo.  “Charlie Rose, I can’t believe Charlie Rose, can you believe Charlie Rose?  I can’t believe it.  Do you think all this stuff is true?  I can’t even believe all this is true.”  I told him it is true.  He said it is too many men.  I said it is under reported.  He asked why I think that.  I told him men hit on women constantly.  I told him I was assaulted by a judge.  GBF asked who.  I would not tell him.  I told him he wasn’t a judge at the time he assaulted me. 

GBF is a lawyer.  He stops in my office a lot to hang out, ‘cause it’s so nice here.  If he’s in the courthouse he stops by to visit.  He recently stopped by and I said, “Remember that judge I told you about?  He’s not a judge anymore.”  May God forgive me for any pleasure I derived from the pain of another.  It was wrong of me.  Rather than do that, may I observe signs and wonders.

I’m not telling this story to diss this guy.  I’m not using his real name, for this story, he’s Richard Merda.  Its purpose is to compare and contrast with Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, to give you knowledge.

I believe my incident happened in 1986 or 1987, it could have been the first half of 1988, but I don’t think it was.  I place the date there because (1) I was married and (2) I remember where I lived.

There was a restaurant with a bar, “Il Giardino’s.”  It was filled with lawyers nightly, particularly on Wednesday and Friday.  I wasn’t a lawyer yet.  I owned a temporary legal secretary service that served about 100 Broward law firms.  I was going to college.  I wanted to be a lawyer more than anything, except for also wanting to be a mother.  I had many good times in Giardino’s.  I went after work.  I believe it was Wednesday, it was not Friday. 

I started talking to a lawyer, I’ll call him Tommy OleFlaDuh, from an old Florida family, not any family I wrote about in other stories.  I was a juror in a case Tommy tried.  We found the person not guilty of DUI.  He said if he had been able to bring in other evidence we would have convicted her.  Maybe so.

Tommy introduced me to the attorney next to him, Richard Merda.  My husband worked at a private club and had spoken of Merda.  My husband said Merda was very cool.  I told Merda he knew my husband.  The three of us talked and had drinks. I do not recall how many.  I know we weren’t slamming shots.  When it was time to go, and it was early, they said they should give me a ride, because I seemed drunk.  I felt drunk.  I agreed to the ride.

I got in the back seat.  Merda got in the back seat with me.  That was weird.  Tommy drove.  Merda attacked me, and I mean attacked.   I do not have clear recall of everything that happened in that car.  What I have recall of is fighting and fighting and fighting, periods of stopping fighting followed by more fighting.  Near the end I was screaming and fighting.  I was trying to get out of that car.  I was trying to break windows.  They took me back to my car.  They said they should really drive me home, that I was not okay.  I was screaming they had told me they were taking me home before, “Let me out of this car!  Let me out of this car!  Let me out of this car!”  They did.  I would not be surprised if they followed me home.  They were both lawyers.  The bar had been full of lawyers.  I think they followed me home to make sure I got there. 

I walked into my apartment.  My husband was there.  I would put the time between 9 and 10 PM.  We looked at each other and he asked, “Who did this to you?”  “Richard Merda.”  I was beat up.  My dress was ripped up.  It was a beautiful green, silk dress.  I threw it in the garbage.

If I was upset about what happened – and I was already feeling better because I got away – my husband was shattered.  He asked what we were going to do about it.  I said we were going to do nothing.  We are going to act like this never happened.  I wanted to be a lawyer.  He worked at a private club.  We do anything about this it’s just bad, bad, bad, all bad.  We forget, like it never happened.

I would say three times in subsequent years I ran into Tommy OleFlaDuh, in and around the courthouse.  When he saw me his head would drop, “I’m so sorry.”  He told me more than once.

A couple times, still in the 1980s, I saw Richard Merda.  He taunted me about the great time we had.

In 2004 Tommy died.  He was young.  I recently looked it up, both these men were young lawyers at the time of this incident. 

Merda ran for judge.  I sometimes promote judicial candidates on my FB page.  A friend contacted me and said, “I hope you’ll support Merda.  He’s my good friend.”  I responded, “I know him too.”  I did not promote him.

I couldn’t believe this guy was running for judge.  I started reading about him and I saw some copy that said something like he knew he had done bad things, but then he found Jesus.  He reformed and was a changed man.  I figured it could be true.

One day there was a teenager in my house.  Her last name was OleFlaDuh.  I asked if she was related to Tommy OleFlaDuh. She was.  I asked if she knew how he died.  She named a drug.  I asked if it was suicide or accidental.  Who knew?  He was getting divorced.  He was not happy.

I had an uncontested hearing in front of Merda.  I thought about that hearing most every day until I had to appear before him.  I hadn’t seen him for decades.  I wondered if he remembered.  I thought maybe not.  I call an uncontested hearing a walk through.  Everything is settled.  My client testifies, by answering a few questions, the Judge rubber stamps it, it’s over.  I went to that hearing.  I left with the feeling Merda did not recognize me at all.  It was over, like it never happened.

I think it was a Friday, I was pinged by the local courthouse blog, Merda resigned and left the courthouse immediately.  He is gone.

Early one morning, as I was getting ready to go to Miami for a presentation regarding my brother’s recent death, which is available for viewing on my YouTube Channel, I got pinged a complaint was filed against Merda.  It had a link to the complaint.  I didn’t read it, had to go to Miami. 

When I got to my office hours later the Merda complaint was all the buzz.  Had I seen it?  Merda’s assistant turned him in.  He was falsifying dockets, getting other judges to cover for him and lying about how he was spending his time.  The assistant put it together including copies of his text messages to her.  She also complained about running personal errands for him, managing his finances, travel plans and other nonjudicial matters.  The complaint included a lot of evidence.  How did I feel about this?  “Wow.” 

Merda agreed to be disbarred and then stated he had a great run, dedicating nearly 40 years to the profession, but now it was time to move on.  He said his law career was like a previous life, which reminded me of what he said about his life before he was born again, when he was running for judge.  He said despite all the allegations against him, for which he agreed to disbarment, he did a great job.  He is glad to be away from the courthouse, it’s not nice there.    

It is an honor and a privilege to be an attorney, and only a very few are judges. 

Women stay quiet about sexual assault because of the manner in which they are treated when they reveal it.  It’s so easy to say I should not have been in that bar.  Should the men have been there?  No one else ever did anything like this to me. 

I so try to learn from my mistakes and do better.  I don’t always do better.  I hate to see people make the same or similar mistakes, but I see it, all the time.  I did not write this story to out Merda.  I wish that guy all the best, away from me.  I felt compelled to write it due to the striking similarities between my story and Christine Blasey Ford’s story.  In my story you see what happens when you put a man like that on the bench, you get merda.  I felt comfortable enough to write it now because he’s off the bench.  I am older and I am strong.  

Mark Judge, Bret Kavanaugh’s friend is a “men’s rights activist” who advocates for a vague standard of consent and extols the “beauty of uncontrollable male passion”.   From all the examples I have listed in this story, assault is a power issue, like when you’re a celebrity, you can do anything.  You can grab ‘em by the pussy.

They say middle aged women have become the loudest, strongest activists.  If that’s true, it’s because we’ve worked our asses off to get where we are.  We are sick of this insanity.  No one deserves to be treated like this.