Drivon’s Withdrawal-Supplemental Exhibit

Larry Drivon files a Supplemental Exhibit, his December 5, 1984 Letter of Intent to Withdraw, sometime during the day of the formal hearing in the matter.1 Judge Raymond D. Williamson, Jr. has an 8:30am calendar thereby enabling Larry to scamper away, without said letter in the file and at hand, during our 9:30am hearing before the Judge. Therefore, the Judge is not mindful that Larry said in his letter that it would be in the best interests of my case that he withdraw eighteen months earlier, before “we are farther down the line and additional tactical decisions have been made which might be different than those made by another firm handling this matter.” Drivon ends his letter cleverly by assuring me that he wants to “obviate” the successful completion of this matter on my behalf.2 The Judge would not see this letter (with a wink and a nod), nor would he learn prior to the hearing (wink wink, nod nod), and on the record (one more wink and one more nod), that Larry decided instead to double his stay on the case from eighteen months to three years, and contrariwise, not to “schedule Haig’s deposition in this matter and then force the matter as quickly as possible to trial” (also a quote from the letter).3 By not filing his Letter of Intent to Withdraw until the day of the hearing,4 Larry was protecting himself from the words in his letter to me and was also supplying the Judge cover for the (soiled toilet paper) decision that the Judge would be handing down (from the throne).5 Why did Larry end up filing the letter at all? Because I asked him in a phone conversation a couple of weeks or so prior to the hearing why he had not included it in his moving papers. He responded by saying that he would indeed file it, offering no explanation as to why he failed to file such a critical letter to his withdrawal. (The letter is/was as important to his withdrawal and would have served the same purpose as the Preamble to The Constitution) Drivon filed his withdrawal letter when it would have no impact, the detrimental impact to both his argument for release and the viability of the Judge’s ruling regarding same, had he filed it in a timely manner. Had Drivon filed his letter to me in an honest way, for the Judge to “officially” see (as opposed to knowing about it with that aforementioned wink and a nod on the side in the backroom in advance, just in case I brought it to court), the Judge wouldn’t have been able to rule in Drivon’s favor and keep a straight face.6, 7 I did not think to file the letter myself with my opposing papers, because I was under the manipulated misimpression from Larry’s office that he had already filed it. (See May 30, 1986, “The Pretend Filing” on the Timeline page, to see how the “mail fraud” and cover-up thereto was orchestrated8) On top of this, the lawyer who helped me with my opposing papers, Robert R. Elledge of Modesto, did not advise that I file it. As far as I can recall, the subject did not arise in our discussions. He prepared all of the opposing papers, my having left all of my files with him, which included Larry’s Letter of Intent to Withdraw. Bringing the curious word to my attention, I have the letter on which Mr. Elledge made his circling of the word, “obviate.”9 If I recall correctly, he made his notation on my original copy of Drivon’s letter of Intent to Withdraw. If they last this long, I might have the letter dusted to reveal his finger prints. I could post the results as well. Maybe sometime down the line. (It’s a joke.-And yes, I know, not a good one) Anyway, the sum total of what Elledge found pertinent to attach to my opposition papers (despite his acknowledged curious reading of Drivon’s withdrawal letter), was simply the July 8, 1983 contract between Larry and me. There was indeed a good noble reason for this skimpy filing. Brother Elledge was part of the conspiracy. And he was being dutifully-loyal to the cause of the secret agenda in my case being orchestrated by The Brotherhood.10, 11


1 This is one of the many and varied tricks of the attorney trade. As they dawn on me and crystallize in my thinking, I will be pointing out many more outright, subtle, cheap and other motley tricks and trickery, monkey business, tommyrot and tomfoolery, antics, arrogance, self-exaltation and self-inflation, affectation and artificiality, quackery, capers, cronyism, dishonesty, folly, malfeasance, malarkey, masquerades, charades and escapades, cheating, adroit deception and deceiving, defecting, deluding, disguising, dissembling and dissimulating, distracting, defrauding, duplicity, duping and deluding, dishonesty, disloyalty, buffoonery, betraying, baiting, lying, trapping, flimflamming, shillyshallying, shell games, gimmicks, gold-bricking, insincerity, illusions, irreverence, imposture, bill of goods sold, bamboozling, hornswoggling, discombobulating, inveigling, finagling, misleading, misinforming, misrepresenting, manipulating, maneuvering, masking, mocking, swindling, shystering, stealing, scheming, fleecing, bilking, pretense and pretending, pandering and prostituting, preposterousness, prestidigitation, poppycock, posing and posturing, pettifogging, hosing, hoaxing, hustling, hypocrisy, hogwash and hooey, horse-dung and cow-dung, hot air, inanity, piffle and tripe, slipperiness, oiliness, shiftiness, speciousness, unctuousness and smarminess, play-acting, hocus-pocus, hanky-panky, hokey-pokey, phoniness and phony-baloney, bilge, bunk and bunkum, bull and bull-pucky, chicanery, rigmarole and rationalizing, sleaziness, disingenuousness, mendaciousness, shamelessness, shadiness and shoddiness, vaingloriousness, hypocrisy and horsefeathers, garbage and crap, quackery, trumpery, treachery, charlatanry, circuitousness, snow jobs, conning and con games, cop outs, concocting, conniving and contriving, conspiring and colluding, camouflaging, come-ons, put-ons, rip-offs, ruses and subterfuges, rackets, shenanigans, shams and matchstick scams, end-running, dive-taking, self-dealing, bottom-dealing, double-dealing, double-talking, double-crossing, two-timing, two-facing, four-flushing, flip-flopping, falsity and falsifying, false professing, faking, forsaking, fabricating, feigning, side-stepping, sidetracking, backtracking, back-pedaling, backstabbing, buck-passing, blame-shifting, bottom-dwelling and bottom-feeding, avoiding and evading, dancing and skirting around, equivocating, prevaricating, skullduggery, sandbagging, humbugging, hood-winking, mumbo jumbo, twaddle and tripe, gobbledygook, BS and bosh, rubbish and balderdash, claptrap and drivel, make-believing, dog and pony shows, song and dance routines, holding with the hare and running with the hounds, story-telling and cock-and-bull stories, pulling of boners, pulling of fast ones, pushing of buttons, jerking of chains, quick and short-change artistry, sleights of hand, smoke and mirrors, head-fakes, phoning it in, shucking and jiving, obviating and obfuscating, selling of snake oil, and administering the old okie-doke throughout the course of this exposé regarding Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank, my case being particularly pregnant with such attorney (and judge) savoir-faire.

 

2 Robert R. Elledge (since deceased), the attorney who helped me contest Larry Drivon’s withdrawal (by putting together my opposition papers), pointed out to me as he circled the word on the letter, that “obviate” was a curious word to use in the last sentence (or any sentence for that matter) of the Notice of Intent to Withdraw wherein Larry is telling me that he will help me in any way he can to successfully complete the matter on my behalf. The Judge would not (“officially,” on the record) see any of the information in Drivon’s letter nor the memorialized intentions therein, prior to nor in the context of, the decision that the Judge was making. This was, of course, the intention of the tactical late filing.–Another trick of the attorney trade is executed. (Of course, a wink and a nod between the Brothers regarding the agreed-upon scam was part of the agenda. Attorneys do not keep judges out of the loop in big cases. If they do, their days are numbered as “officers of the court”) 
3 Were I aware at the time of the hearing for Drivon’s withdrawal that Haig Berberian had not been served with my legal papers and was therefore unaware that he had been sued, I would have raised the issue during the hearing, asking how Drivon could take the deposition of someone unaware that he had been sued. However, the withdrawal letter would need to be part of the record at said time such that I could raise that issue in the subject matter at hand. Another reason for the letter’s absence from the file. I would have asked where the Notice and Acknowledgment of Receipt signed by Haig Berberian was or alternatively, where a proof of service signed by a process server or sheriff might be found in the case-file. It is and would have been glaringly obvious that Haig knew nothing about my suit and that’s the way the lawyers wanted it. Of course, it would have been translucent that all of the judges who ruled in my case looked the other way when it came to this issue, including the present one. It was an understood facet of this kaleidoscopic case that the civil procedure in the matter proceed with this element coursing through the veins of the process Anyway, it’s a dammed shame that I hadn’t figured things out at that time. I could have wiped the floor with both Larry and Haig’s lawyers and their fine-feathered friend, Judge Williamson.
4 The court has a computer list of the dates and times that various documents have been filed in my case. But wouldn’t you know it, the exact five years’ worth of legal documents filed during the time that Larry Drivon was my lawyer, are curiously absent from that Automated Court Information System-Register List “accounting” of my case. (I discuss why this be the case in the entry titled, “Case File–813484” dated 8/30/83-5/30/90 on the Timeline page) 
5 I would like to point out that along with judges, lawyers are “Officers of the Court.” The following is the legal definition of the profile: An “Officer of the Court” has an obligation to promote justice and effective operation of the judicial system. As officers of the court, lawyers have an absolute ethical duty to tell judges the truth, including avoiding dishonesty regarding matters related to conduct of the courts. Does this sound like Drivon’s behavior regarding the matter at hand? Does it sound anything like the attorney behavior in general that I have been describing throughout this entire exposé? Nope. Far from it. And the judges involved in my case were just as slippery and slimy as any of the lawyers slithering around my phony-bologna “pretend” lawsuit. Had the lawyers acted like Officers of the Court in my case, all of the judges would have been advised of the shenanigans. On second thought, the lawyers did indeed execute their officiary ethical duties to the judges. (Of course, this would be on the golf course, in the back room with all of the cigar smoke, or in a bar with or without cigars and cigarettes and pipes. And bongs, who knows) 
6 It is my unwavering belief that had I been smart enough to catch wise to the pretend filing prior to the hearing in the matter and brought a copy of Drivon’s Letter of Intent to Withdraw to court for the Judge to (“officially”) see, the Judge would have been blind to it. Literally speaking, the Judge would have indeed kept a straight face and said that he could not consider a document which was not filed with my opposing papers. That would be “up yours” in the prevailing ethical code in this case when it came to me. Likewise, I’m sure that Larry would have been prepared to bat it down in some acceptable legal way even though he could have physically done it by hand, being that he was standing right there next to me as we faced his co-conspirator. Excuse me. I mean, as we faced the Judge. From the very beginning of his representation, it was Drivon’s job that he keep the unorthodox fishy hidden agenda-laced details of my proceeding lawsuit away from all of the participating Judges’ “on-the-record” attention.-Well, I kept a detailed mental and written record of the matter in its entirety and I intend to bring it to the attention of anyone who is, and everyone who are, interested. (You in?) 
7 Elsewhere in the commentary on this website/exposé, I have taken a paragraph on Page 2 of Larry’s letter and made a parody out of it. It bears repeating. I have not deleted, changed, or rearranged any of Larry’s wording. I just added some words that he left out: As soon as we have Haig’s [lawyers’]answers back, the next step would be to schedule Haig’s deposition in this matter [don’t you wish and in your dreams] and then force the matter as quickly as possible to trial [in Never Never Land]. It is not my desire to see your [phantasmal] litigation languish or go by the wayside [until after I’ve withdrawn and no other Brother will touch your imaginary case]. I believe that you will be well served by our making this decision at this time [to withdraw from a case that really does not exist] instead of waiting until we are farther down the line [playing footsie with Haig’s lawyers] and additional tactical decisions have been made which might be different than those made by another firm [which is presently] handling this matter [for your father]. Should you require and request assistance in locating another attorney, I will be more than happy to do whatever I can [to make sure that does not happen]. I will help you in any way that I can consistent with the decision of this office to obviate [and obfuscate] the successful completion of this [masturbatory litigation] matter on your behalf. Even though, “you can’t make this stuff up,” is a fitting comment once you understand my “hidden agenda” theory, I, of course, made the extra stuff up. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide and determine just how much truth there is to the extra wording and how in touch with “potential” reality my additions actually are. 
8 As noted earlier, all litigants out there should note this as an example of one of the tricks of the attorney trade. Did the Judge know that this trick was executed? (Yes, but not officially) Also as noted earlier, lawyers do not pull this type of crap behind the back of the ruling Judge if they know what’s good for them. And don’t forget, this is/was a big case. Opposition counsel would know about such tricks. They stay abreast of what is and what isn’t in the court file during and after the civil procedure of the case. But Drivon didn’t have to worry about opposing counsel spilling the beans. All lawyers deceive their clients when they think it necessary. And so, when it comes to a legal case that they are both involved in, Brothers do not squeal on nor do they deceive their Brothers like they do their clients. And the Judge is a Brother as well, skilled at compartmentalizing various aspects of a case, winking and nodding with both sides.
9 The word “obviate” is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as follows: to anticipate and prevent (as a situation) or make unnecessary (as an action). Therefore, assuming that Mr. Elledge knew the meaning of the word (as is obviously impliedby his circling it, keen understanding of word definitions being a vital skill to an attorney), he was telling me that something is/was awry with the language in the letter. I will take it a step further by adding that there is a secret agenda implied with using that word and a hidden agenda implied as well by the way Elledge looked up at me when circling it. Looking at the definition of the word, “obviate,” Larry Drivon is saying one of two things. He is either saying that he will do all that he can to prevent the successful completion of the matter on my behalf or he is saying that he will do all that he can to make the successful completion of the matter unnecessary. If Drivon isn’t just humoring me (his humoring me being a distinct possibility because he knew what I suspected in the way of a hidden agenda), what could be more telling and telltale than this language when delivering a cryptic message about the hidden agenda scenario that I have been promoting throughout this website/exposé? Said hidden agenda as stated by Drivon, decoded and unencrypted, is as follows: Your lawsuit has been filed for some reason other than seriously prosecuting it, there being “something else going on” which is making an eventual trial and definitive conclusion to your case unnecessary. Taking into account all of the facts available and known to me, there have been two characters in my life (both now deceased) whose participation in the matter give credence to said notion. Those two players are and were Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. and Vasken G. Berberian (my psychiatrist and my father), in view of the particular verbal bile vomited upon me by The Doctor on behalf of my father (and, of course, The Brotherhood).
10 On this day, June 20, 1986, the judicial/justice system ordered that Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank become wholly and solely my own cross to bear. I was forced to transform into an in pro per. That is, I was now my own lawyer. Ripped off by Larry and the Judge, my gloves came off. I was given my marching orders: “This means war.” As such, to me, this legal matter was no longer going to be a secret. I decided that I’d move heaven and earth to not only continue to pursue my litigation on my own, but to go public with each and every square inch of it. I had promised as much over the years in my letters to the lawyers. From the courthouse, I drove straight to Drivon’s office. I have forgotten why. But as I was leaving, in the livid mood that I was in, I told his secretary, Judith Ann Miller, that the story of my legal matter, I would spread (using a circular hand-gesture) all around the country. I wasn’t angry at Judy. She wished me luck and I said that I’d need it. But I had no such luck thereafter. Unfortunately, I meant what I said to her and I kept my promise. By mail and by ads in California Lawyer Magazine and nationally-distributed legal publications, I did this. I publicized my case, mainly the fact that it existed. Of course, now, Berberian Mystery Theatre is spreading the story around the world. From Drivon’s office, the next thing that I did that day was to start telling people, mostly friends. I told them about my lawsuit and what I’d been hiding for the previous five point five years. About a year went by during which I was mulling things over, doing research and getting organized. Thereafter, with “obviate” in my memory banks and coursing throughout my being as a whole, I spread the word with abandon, hoping to obviate Drivon’s obviating of my case. I became a whistleblower. About what exactly, I’m not sure, because I didn’t know just what was going on behind the scenes. All I knew was that there was “something going on.” On April 15, 1987, I began activating my long-promised publicity and information-dispersing extravaganza, sending a long detailed letter to the IRS in Fresno with courtesy-copies going to other IRS branches and government agencies, advising them of whatever I thought might be of interest. (For more on this, see Timeline at 11/08/94, “IRS Transcript”). Then, in latter 1987, I erected bus benches near the courthouses in four cities, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and Fresno. I was calling my case: “Walnutgate.” I listed the case number and case name on the bench, soliciting interest for it. Of course, it was more of a publicity stunt than anything else, because I knew that no Brother was going to stick his nose in the cesspool of cow-patty/horse-dung that was my case, especially with the particular big-time attorneys who had been involved in it. I must have been the Brotherhood-talk of the Central Valley back in the day. But only a Brother would know. Since that time, I have done all sorts of things, one being the solicitation of 1200 attorneys throughout California (10% of the law firms in this state at the time) and elsewhere, probably a Guinness record for soliciting an attorney for a single case for one person (i.e., not a class action suit). But I won’t go further into that or my other exploits at this time. (Of course, all of it is to be found within the parameters of this website/exposé)–After putting more than three decades, more than thirty-two years of my life into this matter, and even though I’m dead tired, worn to a frazzle, and have finally thrown in the proverbial towel, I would do all of the foregoing over again. And if you do not understand why by now, either you’ll never know, or my words need a closer look and more serious consideration. Berberian Mystery Theatre is far more than just theatrics. 
11 For all of you litigants out there involved in big cases and small, you should be able to find some attorney trick described within this website that is similar if not identical to the behavior that is going on with the “Brother” who is representing you. I’d like to address something that I believe through experience about the legal profession. Throughout this exposé and within this particular commentary as well, I have referred to attorneys as a “The Brotherhood.” And I say this because the legal profession is exactly that, a brotherhood. They all watch out for each other. Practicing law requires a great deal of manipulation of words as well as people. All lawyers do it, especially in big cases. They also have to flat-out lie. When they’re in the courtroom, they aren’t the ones under oath. Being that this is the case, The Brotherhood has an understanding not to rat out other Brothers who are doing what they all have to do.-Lie in one way or another. They manipulate their clients or manipulate the client’s case in order to manipulate their clients such that both sides come out ahead, despite the fact that one side “loses.” One side might win a ton of money in a contingency fee case as the other side lines their pocket with a ton of money in hourly fees. (An hourly attorney, Rudy Bilawski once told me that he makes just as much money as Larry Drivon because Drivon loses a lot of his big contingency fee cases) And big cases seemingly go on forever. (Of course, my case is literally going on forever!) In big cases, the lying and shenanigans that I have been pointing out holds true both inside and out of court. Seldom is there “bad blood” between attorneys for deceitful and deceptive handling of their clients in order to win their case and/or accomplish their goal. But they do not lie to each other unless the lie is understood by both of them and its purpose is known only by them (and any judge involved as well, if said lie is going to affect whatever decision the Judge might be making in the context of the lie). This is particularly true in my case because of the hidden agenda involved. It is known by all of the attorneys on both sides of my case (or better yet said, “all sides of my case,” there being more than two). The Judges involved are and have been necessarily in the loop as well. Each and every one of the Judges involved in my case must be aware of the hidden agenda if said agenda is going to be mixed into the context of, have any relevance to, and/or be affecting any particular ruling that the Judge is going to make, and vice versa. Lawyers do not lie to Judges or practice a secret agenda without the Judge in the know. They only lie and deceive the clients whose cases they are handling. This is an ironclad rule. Another fact of attorney life is that the only time bad blood between lawyers truly develops (and is not just their typical routine feigned emotion), is when some Brother plies his trade beyond his capability for lying and cheating and deceiving, gets caught and is exposed by someone not a Brother, and the public is reminded and reaffirmed as to just who lawyers are and what practicing law is.-The second oldest profession.

Click here to view the Supplemental Exhibit