Do you feel guilty about this undisclosed recording and the posting of its transcript? All things considered, no. But it makes you look terrible. Let’s see. How can I word this. I need to take a course in phraseology. Let me put my thinking cap on…Got it: I really really don’t care [emphasis added].1
I know that it appears as if I am a mean-spirited asshole infusing my humor and sardonic-laced commentary within and throughout the posted transcript, making fun of a seemingly affable man with declining mental acuity.2 Cry me a river. Before aspersions are cast on me, the context of my relationship with Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. post-September 2, 1980, must be examined in detail. I was essentially in his position from shortly after September 2, 1980 until latter 1984 when I quit therapy. (Dr. Sheuerman of Stockton, California was my psychiatrist from 1971-1984. He was the most respected psychiatrist in the Central Valley of California during the entire span of his practice) I was frightened out of my mind. And my “communication pathways [were] a little screwed up,” because I was afraid that I was nuts for thinking what I thought. That is, that there was a hidden agenda taking place regarding my family’s legal matter. My consternation and confusion was apparent. But no one gave a shit about how I was impacted by this mysterious tormenting affair, including Dr. Sheuerman. Psychiatrists become immune to human suffering after so many years of seeing it in their office. They become cold and clinical. I’m sure that doctors of any and all kinds have a rough job and they have to be tough when warranted for the patient’s benefit. But being tough was not needed in my case.3 That is, not unless The Doctor knew for a fact, the intricacies about what was transpiring in my family’s legal case, having been allowed into the loop, warranting his being cold and hard with those facts when it came to me for the sake of winning my case.4 Contrarily, because he did not know the facts (unless he was “God” and was allowed into the loop in ways known only to “Him” and “Him” alone), his maneuvering and manipulating me would not be in my best interests. Such an agenda is wrong thinking and morally bankrupt. Supposing that Dr. Sheuerman just knew some vital things about the matter from whatever source without being formally in the know (another patient connected to the case?-in the realm of possibilities), how can my not knowing whatever it is that The Doctor knew about my family’s legal case, be to my benefit? I am thirty-five years older now, but virtually none the wiser regarding The Doctor’s secrets, and those of my father for that matter, especially with respect to what happened with my father and his out-of-court case (legal form unknown), and the apparent preferential treatment both were accorded by not only the attorneys involved in my idiotic court case, but by Dr. Sheuerman as well. I also do not know just how these procedural psychiatric and legal maneuverings affected my case. All I know without question is that they did.5, 6
Assuming that The Doctor was not privy in any way, shape or form to any of the unknown illusive facts of my family’s legal case (other than just talking to me and using his genius brain to figure things out),7 adhering to The Hippocratic Oath is what was necessary in my case during my final four years under Dr. Sheuerman’s care (or under his “watch,” as the case turned out to be). The Doctor himself had a secret agenda in my medical case relating to my legal case. He did damage and I have not recovered. I will never recover.8 (In fact, I am currently literally having nightmares about the entire matter. And I feel that I might literally go mad at some point in the future if I don’t get this matter settled) Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, it does not matter where The Doctor is now nor at the time of the subject telephone discussion that I should post its transcription with my commentary to this website. Nothing I can say herein will be as vile as the intentional acts that this man put upon me in conspiracy with the rest of the players. I am not that good of a person to treat him with kindness just because he had surgery and his “communication pathways are a little screwed up.” (A stupid person does that after a thorough screwing. Either that or he likes the screwing. The name, “Vasken Berberian,” comes to mind) I had and have no sympathy for, nor do I feel sorry for him.9 Let’s bring religion into this. An eye for an eye. Better yet, a mind for a mind. If this be revenge, so be it. Revenge is a dish best served cold. But this is really not revenge, because The Doctor is not around to witness it. The reason that I can post, with a clear conscience, our telephone conversation transcript with my irreverent audacious annotations interspersed throughout, is because I am now finally convinced beyond any reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that The Doctor committed medical malpractice during my final four years of “therapy.” And he is cognizant of it during our discussion. He was cognizant and probably worried about breach of practice since the day that I walked out his door for good. He did not know that I was going to just up and leave without forewarning. My move caught him flat-footed. And therefore, even though I saw him a few times during the following five years before he retired (regarding matters unrelated to my lawsuit, as far as I can recall), assuming that he wanted to, he did not get the chance to undo what he did. (Elsewhere in this website/exposé as well as elsewhere in the present chapter, I address the soul of The [Good] Doctor’s “medicine.” It is called a life lie) However, undoing what he did required the truth and he did not have it in him to be honest and deliver the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth with me, not when it came to Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank. This kind of truth is warranted more so between doctor and patient than it is under oath in a court of law. Truth of any meaningful kind in this case will never be told unless it is I who tells it. All in-the-loop parties involved in my case at any point in time, cannot and therefore will not be honest about it. The “house of cards” that I configured out of their “brilliant” orchestrated maneuverings would collapse.
During my exit out Dr. Sheuerman’s door, I’m sure that our last four years of “treatment” flashed before his eyes (or through his mind or whatever it is before or through which they say a person’s life flashes, right before that person is about to die). All of the innuendos, intimating, insinuating, and many times declaratory statements that The Doctor made along with the little suggestive moves and inferences in his demeanor when I said something about my legal matter, were probably erupting from his memory banks. What I have done here in the present posting pales prodigiously when compared to the egregiousness of the behavior and resulting damage that The Doctor inflicted upon me from September of 1980 until September of 1984. Dr. Sheuerman and some of the other players literally ruined my life. I literally have nightmares about the matter. Therefore, I have no empathy nor sympathy nor reverence for any of them. As far as I know, most of them are rich, some are famous, and all are living happily ever after. The ones who are not are dead, some of whom are better off that way. The world is better off as well.10 There is no need for sorrow when people who kick the bucket are ones who purposely brought pain and suffering into other people’s lives.11 They are the scourge of the earth and need to be gone. And no, I cannot forgive anyone involved in the matter who have harmed me. The actors in this story have had thirty-five plus years to do the right thing. And if my actions past and/or present are causing any discomfort to any of the players still crawling this earth, so be it. If the truth hurts, let them enjoy their woe. They should forgive me for what I did and what I am doing, for it is their depravity that has wrought all of this aftermath. (Presently and for the better part of the previous decade, just writing and preparing this website, mind you) Furthermore, if religion were to be considered in the picture of things, I never claimed to be “religious.” Many of those who have opposed and are opposing me, do.-Charlatans. No, not Dr. Sheuerman. A charlatan, yes, from 1980-1984. But he was an atheist who, by inference, held himself out to be honest. I would assume that all psychiatrists play the honest card. But if some doctor’s ass is on the line as is/was Dr. Sheuerman’s, bullshit that honest card becomes. And The Doctor was full of it during my final four years of therapy. In the posted transcript, one can see that he hasn’t changed his ways.12 And Berberian Mystery Theatre is giving him the enema that he so richly continues to deserve.
I extended an olive branch to the players many times over the years.13 In fact, I essentially offered them the whole tree. And long ago, I overtly threw in the proverbial towel. What did it get me? Deafening silence. Crickets chirping. Regarding The Doctor, as of Tuesday, September 9, 1980, exactly one week after I discovered that I had been defrauded (September 9 being the first day that I saw The Doctor after the discovery), and through to September of 1984 when I quit him, if this man was good for my health, there is no one who can tell me why. Therefore, I won’t ask anyone to try to do so.14 (Not even my medical records can exonerate him, for The Doctor encouraged them to flee the scene of his crime, now safely tucked away, guarded, and resting comfortably, most likely in his malpractice attorneys’ offices. Well, maybe guarded and resting not so comfortably now that I’ve got The Doctor’s number and I’m blabbering it all over tarnation) Let me add that I am not trying to throw myself a pity party here nor anywhere else on this website. If I were, I would try (probably in vain) to mask my venom. And I’m smart enough to know that I would not receive any sympathy anyway, as my cause is probably viewed as simply a squabble about money (albeit erroneously so, in my opinion). I cannot even try to come off as any kind of sympathetic figure on this website. I’m in feisty fighting form. That’s where my lawyers, my father and his lawyers and more particularly and importantly, Dr. Sheuerman, left me some three decades ago.15 Assuming that I was ever in such character, I won’t be returning to “nice guy” mode until the pieces of the big puzzle are put together into their proper place and the big picture/riddle is solved. In the meantime, here I am, full throttle, back to avenge with a vengeance, figuratively yet literally-speaking (or maybe it’s the other way around). According to the adage originated in Richelieu, aka, “The Conspiracy,” the pen is mightier than the sword. Of course, nowadays, the word-processor is mightier. And I challenge each and every player to a duel. Letter for letter, line for line, and word for word, including the fancy Latin ones, verbatim et literatim.16
You do not do to someone who is naïve and in essence clueless,17 symptomized by a frightened state of mind and thereby probably in a state of diminished capacity regarding this matter, what Dr. Sheuerman and others involved did to me. Such state of mind lasted for at least a year (maybe two years or even three, it’s hard for me to judge), commencing somewhere within the first six months after my father and I first met with the lawyers.18 However, when these players and others to come ultimately left me twisting in the wind, alone and without counsel, they had no idea what consequences I had in store for them. In reality, at the time, neither did I. But I knew that by sheer will and willpower, I could make something consequential happen. Since I was not honestly dealt with (“honesty” being an alien concept according to the players’ rules of engagement when it came to me), The Doctor and the others gave me so many bona fide reasons, the moral authority, and therefore a great big residual opportunity to deal with them as I pleased once I got educated and grounded on a more level playing field. And I did get educated. I did get more grounded. And since I gave the players so much rope beforehand (being that I was so inexperienced at playing hardball), of course, lacking good moral character (or moral character of any kind when it came to this matter), they took way too much advantage and proceeded to go hang themselves, leveling the playing field more so than anything that I did or could expressly have done toward that purposeful end. Therefore, exposing their deceitful methods of procedure and the inner workings of their dishonest incestuous agenda was and is not all that hard. Once I schooled myself and was learned about what these sleaze-balls had been up to, and I got sane about the matter, they could lie and fake whatever they wanted. But no longer could they scare me into questioning my sanity, not that that particular affect was their intention. But they knew that it was the result by reading my letters, reading my demeanor, and whatever information they may have come into through the grapevine from Dr. Sheuerman. And no, I wouldn’t put it past The Doctor to leak info about me now that I know how deceitful he actually was. (Hey Conspirators.-Whatever information on me and documents you’ve got, whatever they say about me, bring it on!)19
The players wove their tangled web of deception and over the years, as I promised, it came back to bite them in the public butt. (See Berberian Mystery Theatre for a bird’s-eye view of their personal legal disembowelment) Dr. Sheuerman knew me through and through, and therefore, he, in particular, should have known better. Here I am with a detailed well-researched well-documented documentary/exposé about The Doctor’s violation of faith, along with that of the other players, available to anyone and everyone who might be interested. But this is not just my story. The players gave me tons of stuff to make each and every one of themselves a part of our “storied” story, as it were. This website is blowback. As I said, I forewarned most all of the players that there would be publicity aplenty and hell to pay when I found out what they were up to. I told some in person, others by phone, and yet others by mail. And I keep my promises. (Nah nah na nah nah na. I told you I’d get you!) However, the players themselves actually beat me to the public punch. I have proven within this website that the lawyers and The Doctor took this matter public long before I did. Rudy Bilawski (the business attorney to whom Dr. Sheuerman had originally referred me and my case, Bilawski being the eventual architect of my lawsuit) went public with his September 28, 1984 withdrawal letter by courtesy-copying The Doctor, thereby making the withdrawal letter and with it my psychiatrist, a definitive part of my legal case and the record thereof. Regardless, without any degree of uncertainty, years before Bilawski’s withdrawal, Dr. Sheuerman had already made himself a part of the case by all of his cryptically-delivered comments about what was going on, keeping me seated and reigned-in and under his spell, manipulating me, and prognosticating with resoluteness about the matter, thereby leading me down a primrose path about the outcome.20 (It all turned out to be a fairy tale, a shit-load of lies) Larry Drivon, my trial lawyer, egregiously took the case public in his May 21, 1986 Motion to Withdraw as my attorney of record, attaching to it as an exhibit, a personal and confidential letter that I had written to him, in anger, which, out of context, made me look very bad at the time, and as well, makes me look bad now.21 It lives on.22 It is a public document and that cannot be changed. (Let me say, for the record, however, that I would write the same letter over again. The letter was me at the time and that’s how I felt. “To thine own self be true.” I didn’t and still do not pull any punches. Any way else, I don’t know how to be)23 Therefore, both gentlemen, Misters Bilawski and Drivon, made the case personal and public a long time ago. (Both of the above-referenced documents, “Withdrawal Letter-Rudy Bilawski” dated 09/28/84 and Larry Drivon’s 05/21/86 “Motion to Withdraw,” with my commentary, are accessible at their respective dates within the Timeline)24
My naïveté was the players’ ticket to ride. They were reaching for the brass ring as I reached for some honest answers. But, what goes around, comes around. You reap what you sow. Karma happens.25, 26 The conspirators waged a war which, because of me and thanks to them, did not end when they would have liked it to end. And I ended up embarrassing them. True to form, they’d paid me no mind. And I became collateral damage. And because of their method of procedure, their treachery (and treachery it was), I got sucked into the matter for life. All of the players knew what was going on except me. And everyone was in it for the money and power and/or whatever else was worth begetting in this case among cases, much more so than I was. This website is proof positive, or so I believe. What The Hypocratic Doctor in particular did to me (before his surgery, when those “communication pathways” of his were at their pinnacle–synchronized, aligned, tuned in and fine-tuned with those of the Brotherhood), was and is unforgivable. Therefore, especially regarding The Doctor, who wielded his power in nasty ways, anything goes. (So Doc, let’s get it on!)27
Dr. Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr.’s handiwork is lasting the rest of my days.28 The seeds of what he planted, he knew would grow and last forever. Metaphorically-speaking, The Doctor evacuated himself on me and the residue will never go away. I may as well say it in plain language. When your psychiatrist shits on you, you never get over the stink. (Though the present account is more inclusive, if you want to see, get close to, and take a deep inhalation of The Doctor’s steaming pile, go to the Timeline entry dated 04/26/88 and titled, “‘The Jig Is Up’ Letter to Rudy Bilawski” (pp. 4-5))29 For the sixteen-year period prior to the posted conversation with The Doctor (and thereafter, in one way or another), I was dealing with a bunch of deceitful scumbags who were seduced by the many and varied opportunities sprouting out from this prior-to-its-time Super Lotto/ Mega-Millions/Powerball legal case. And the only way for me to have thoroughly and definitively proved their lies was by recording them. Anyone lied to, has the moral authority to record the lies.30 Because of who he was, The Doctor was the worst of the bunch. But he was smart enough (and not trusting enough) to know that I could be recording him since I was on a speaker phone during the conversation. If you look closely at The Doctor’s words, you can discern that he’s carefully tip-toeing around my request for my medical records and for a summary of my psychiatric profile.31 To me, it certainly appears as if he knew that he was being recorded. And if he did know, he also knew why. Perhaps he was recording me as well, changing phones at the outset of our conversation in order to do so. At one point, there was a phone click/hang-up sound and he responded to it by saying, “there’s some phone problem.” It interrupted his train of thought (or train of deception). It sounded like someone else hanging up his other phone. (Maybe Mrs. Dr. Sheuerman) Or perhaps it was planned that, in anticipation of my return call, all calls that day would be answered on one phone in order to change phones, leaving the original one open for eavesdropping and/or recording. Regardless, if he was indeed recording me, he was doing it for a different reason than that for which I was recording him. Him-legal. Me-moral. From my point of view, I was recording lying and deceiving and a big bunch of un-Hippocratic insincerity on The Hypocratic Doctor’s part. Maybe he wasn’t recording me. Who knows. (His lawyers do) Who cares? (His lawyers do) Either way, I couldn’t care less. I have nothing to hide, especially when it comes to this matter. I’ll compare my honesty and integrity with that of each and every player mentioned on this website.-Anyone, anywhere, in any way, at any time.
Regarding my posting a transcript of the undisclosed recording of my conversation with Dr. Sheuerman, what’s the big deal? When a doctor assumes, presumes, and consumes the morals of a lawyer, he is no longer a doctor. He becomes a de facto “virtual” lawyer and by necessity and definition, a bona fide liar. And Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. acted like a barrister after I discovered fraud and my case began. All of the manipulating and dishonesty and “suggesting” and bold-faced statements that The Doctor made regarding me and my father and both of our cases during the last four years that I was under his “care,” and both mine and The Doctor’s records of all of it, is what this man is/was all about regarding me after I walked out his door a dozen years before. He did not want his shit known and he wanted to protect himself legally. And that is why he behaves as he does during the posted conversation.32 He is not talking like a doctor. He is a lawyer plying his trade. Also, the man lost his hard-copy clinical records of my fourteen-year psychiatric history under his care (or so he says). Losing my records is criminal. You can clearly see in the transcript that The Doctor is not at all concerned where my records might be nor into whose hands they might have fallen.33 Therefore, the records are, in fact, not missing, and/or his only concern is that my medical records do not fall into my hands.34 I have no problem saying that during the first ten years of therapy, such can be regarded as my having been in The Doctor’s exceptionally competent care.35 He was the best. There is no denying that whatsoever. Thereafter, however, he managed to undo everything.36 During the remaining four years, such can be regarded as my having been cared for in his Brotherhood brothel. And I was the one being screwed. He was part of it, becoming part and parcel of it, and he did not and does not want any part of his role in the legal/medical gang-bang to be a part of his legacy.37 Res ipsa loquitur.-“The situation speaks for itself.” Therefore, sorry, I could not and cannot accommodate. (I’m zooming in to stake your claim in this legal psychodrama for you, Doctor. Are you ready for your close-up?)
“One more thing.” (à la, Lt. Columbo) I wish I had been secretly recording all of my sessions with Dr. Sheuerman after September 2, 1980. As I have been saying, that’s when his “medically-oriented psychotherapy” was transformed into “legally-oriented psychodrama therapy.” His allegiance was redirected toward The Brotherhood. Had I recorded those sessions, I would have him as well as each and every other conspirator by the balls right now. This, because it would be glaringly obvious that The Doctor was conducting “therapy” in concert with what was going on with the lawyers (as well as my father). Come to think of it though, such recordings could never have come to pass. The Doctor would have known. Assuming that there are others, he was one of those people who virtually knew what you’re going to say before you say it. Back in the day, he had some of that super-human intelligence that Dr. Hannibal Lecter had. (Well, not really. He just knew me that well) During the posted conversation, Dr. Sheuerman’s “communication pathways” are/were admittedly “a little screwed up.” They are/were actually screwed up a lot, though his thinking pathways seem to be functioning just fine. During his years of practice, he was indeed Dr. Lecter minus the special palate. (I doubt that he ever had an appetite for human liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti) And yes, minus the evil. I do not think that Dr. Sheuerman was evil per se. Though vile in retrospect, and although it is far worse when it comes to a doctor being an amoral bastard, he was just a man who was no more ethical than anyone else who is the recipient of complete trust, thereby acquiring complete control. They abuse that position every time. Enter Lord Acton, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” When big people and big money are involved, all bets are off in the honesty department. Dr. Sheuerman was no different, though he would have me, his other patients, those close to him, and the community around him, believe otherwise. Well, I finally got wise to him. Hopefully, those who are interested enough to look closely at this website will find The Doctor and everyone else that I fillet and display herein (no brag, just fact), to be exactly who I say they are.38
Because I went to him for fourteen years, I will be stigmatized in the minds of a lot of people when it comes to what I have to say about Dr. Sheuerman in relationship to my legal matter.39 Therefore, I really do wish that I could take a polygraph test regarding every unbelievable thing that I have claimed that Dr. Sheuerman said to me throughout this psychodrama (that is, the four years during which he was formally a part of it) and as described within this website,40 especially those remarks which, when coupled with facts that I was never expected to learn (nor heaven forbid, post to a public website/exposé), point to the existence of a conspiracy.41 With complicity and duplicity, Dr. Sheuerman was tacitly a part of it all. In fact, he was, has been, and continues to be the most important player when it comes to me and my lawsuit as a whole. He is at the apex and the heart of this “story” as well.42 No question about it. None. And he left quite a legal and morally bankrupt wake behind him. Because I have no lie detector test and no recordings of any sessions with Dr. Sheuerman,43 I have relentlessly pursued documentation and publication in one form or another of everything that I believe is notable that happened with The Doctor (and the other actors) in my story, the posted conversation being one example.44 Unfortunately, to date, no one understands this mysterious mystifying matter except me and one confidante.45, 46 And the conspirators.47
1 As a matter of fact, I never did care too much about how I looked when it came to this matter because I knew that I was in the right. I was the “good guy,” if I do say so myself. Many times, even though I may have looked eccentric in whatever I was saying and/or doing, I was always willing to say and do that which embarrassed me, if, in so doing, I could expose someone who needed exposing, which, of course, caused embarrassment to them. This is one of the reasons why the players were “messing with the wrong guy.” Of course, they sized me up at first glance and got to know me quite well thereafter through my letters, but they had no idea what I had in my bag of tricks. I had nothing to lose. No business anyone could ruin. No reputation to keep up. Without concern about the way I appeared, I could do anything I wanted in order to accomplish whatever my goal was. And I have not changed. I have to say that this entire matter is embarrassing to me. But I refuse to be treated the way I have been treated by the players and especially the legal system as a whole. I won’t take it lying down. I won’t take it standing up. And I won’t take it curled up in the fetal position or any other way. And I’m retaliating by letting it all hang out. I am ill-at-ease with some of the commentary that I have written and posted on this website. Even though a “memoir” is pretty much such, sometimes it seems as though I’m too self-involved and talking to myself. Well, actually, I am. I’m just hoping some people will find me talking to me about the subject at hand of interest. I especially cringe when my chatter might sound childish. I’m talking about statements that imply, “see, I told you that I’d get you!” I cannot deny that payback and “sweet revenge” are a part of my purpose. But there are varied “un-childish” reasons among the myriad which have instigated my creating this website and what I say within it. And some of my reasons are kaleidoscopic, changing as I gather new evidence, granted, mostly within my own mind. But I am what the conspirators and their hidden agenda “grew” inside of me. Hence, I am what I am with respect to my legal matter and this website is what it is and I have to accept it. As do they. Therefore, as a whole, I’ll leave the “egg on my face” sentiment to the other players who give a shit about their reputations. Que será sera regarding me and the reputation that I never had to begin with. I am just hoping that through all of my yapping and sometimes embarrassing commentary, one honest man (or woman) will step forward after reviewing the most pertinent documents in this exposé and what I have to say about and within them, and finally give me an educated guess as to what they think happened in my enigmatic lawsuit and the surrealistic nightmarish tri-decade psychodramatic legal experience which I have had to endure. But it ain’t gonna happen. As I have declared perhaps one too many times, “there is no honest person when it comes to Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank.” All of the evidence and its corroborative proof for this declaration can be found within the boundaries and parameters of Berberian Mystery Theatre. 2 The Doctor is genial because he probably knows that I might be recording him. And he knows damn well that I know that he’s got “medical malpractice” written all over him. The evidence can be found within the confines of this website and particularly in the present chapter. Herein, herewith, right here and now, and every other word that applies, look no further. So, with all due respect, do not fall for this man’s amiable demeanor. One cannot trust The Hypocratic Doctor. 3 Being cryptic and secretive was also not necessary in my case. However you want to categorize The Doctor’s behavior during the last four years of my “therapy,” as a whole, it fell under the general heading of “medical malpractice.” He knew it. I’m sure that his malpractice attorneys knew it as well. And in so many words, I’m sure they told him so. They wouldn’t flat out tell him, for he was this well-respected no-nonsense renowned doctor. And they knew that he was smart enough to know it. After my lawyers withdrew from my case and I was searching for new counsel, among the twelve hundred attorneys that I solicited (yes, 1200, probably a Guinness world record), Dr. Sheuerman’s malpractice attorneys in the Bay Area were among them. And my solicitation package included a description of The Doctor’s active role in manipulating me in the affair. Along with serious attorney solicitation, I engaged in this type of “fun.” I would do serious court records research for my case at times, but sometimes I located the players’ personal and business attorneys in order to bring them into the matter. That is, making them, at least, aware of my lawsuit and its attendant “dark side,” assuming that they didn’t already know about it. I also located any relatives of the Brotherhood players who were also attorneys wherever they were in California (and elsewhere), and sent to them my solicitation package. I’m sure that I caused a lot of phone calls to crisscross the state: “What in the hell is this all about?!”In response, I’m sure that many of the barristers resorted to argumentum ad personam: “Richard’s a head-case!” (“Oh yeah? Well, so is your old man and your mother wears combat boots!”) Sorry boys (and girls), regarding crazy ol’ me, the package spoke for itself. I was indeed at times mischievous and playful with The Brotherhood. And most of the time, I kept my sense of humor. However, after thirty-plus years, I’m still counting. And in this matter, there is very little left to joke about. 4 Why am I thinking about that scene in What About Bob? wherein Bob’s psychiatrist (Richard Dreyfuss) straps Bob to a bomb out in the middle of nowhere and he (Bill Murray) thinks it must be a helpful, healing radical new therapy. 5 It is my intent to find out just who my father’s go-to legal counsel was. But I’ll fail. Why? Because his people are in hiding, backed by big money and power. That is, Haig Berberian’s hundreds of millions, Wells Fargo Bank’s billions, my counsel, Haig’s counsel, everyone involved, but me. Everyone who knows who they are, dare not tell. Why? If I discover who they are, I can compel them to tell me what it was that my father engaged them to do. If I, by myself, cannot compel them to spill the beans, my sister, as Executrix of my father’s estate, can get a court order to force them to do so. (Court order? Perhaps not. Any judge can be bought by the powers that be in this matter. They were bought before. They can be bought again) You see, once I know who my father’s people are and/or were, and what they were up to, I prove the conspiracy that I’ve been yapping about throughout this website. I will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is and was collusion between them and the attorneys who fiddle-farted around with my lawsuit as well as collusion and collaboration (albeit tacit) between them and their butt-buddy, Arnold Aaron Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. So whoever my father’s handlers are and/or were, will be looking over their shoulder for the rest of my life. 6 My experience in this matter is like that of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He’d seen something, knew it had meaning and followed it. But he didn’t fully understand where it was taking him. He also wasn’t sure that it was real. In my situation, there is/was a hidden agenda in my legal matter. I knew it and know it. (“Yeah, right, uh-huh, sure. Richard’s nuts!”) The few people to whom I’ve explained just the basics of the procedural history in the case, cannot fathom, let alone understand it. Yet the matter is so simple and has a ton of corroborating evidence. My lawyers acted like beings from some other world or treated me as such. Either way, in relation to the facts that I knew about or was told as much by Dr. Sheuerman, we were definitely on Neptune. After my counsel had withdrawn from my case and I spoke to the attorneys who had read my solicitation materials seeking new representation and thereafter called me in to their offices to meet, they behaved like the people taken over by aliens in Invaders from Mars.-Robotic humanoids. These “interested” attorneys had previously called one of their involved Brothers to find out just what was going on before I came to see them. (“Richard’s paranoid. He’s really gettin’ out there”) The most telling “alien” element in my legal matter is the mysterious res judicata doctrine raised by Haig Berberian’s lawyers as his 13th Affirmative Defense on Friday the 13th of July, 1984. There is/was some kind of judgment out there in a parallel legal world, attached to my father in some way, which somehow touched down, some place, somewhere in time prior to Friday, July 13, 1984, thereafter making contact with my case and affecting its trajectory. This cryptic cynically-timed defense was a deep dark secret thrown into the mix of defenses raised by opposing counsel as if to say, “we dare you,” taunting my attorneys to divulge to me the existence and significance of this other settlement/judgment of some sort, affecting the legal procedure in my case. This game that the barristers were playing drove me “crazy” and made me “mad” (not clinically regarding the former and temperamentally regarding the latter, when I wasn’t just downright clinically depressed). And in the meantime, synchronized throughout the first four years of this psychodrama, Dr. Sheuerman was trying his level best to keep me seated and “on the couch,” more or less encouraging me to twiddle my thumbs and stare at the wall or even to sit outside and watch the grass grow, waiting to get a phone call from Rudy Bilawski who would tell me that the matter is/was over. “Come on in and we’ll tell you (not all) about it.” (Kind of a Wizard of Oz ending with some of the major players poking their heads through the door. I guess that makes me Dorothy) After I left The Doctor’s weekly so-called “care,” and upon asking him during one of my return visits (there were four or five) during the next five years before he retired, The Doctor told me that he had indeed read all of the letters and documents that I had sent to him over the years. My best guess is that he’d read every word not only because his ass was legally on the line (for collusion, conspiracy, psycho-legal brainwashing, and overall professional moral depravity), but also because he was intellectually curious about the matter. If you don’t already know, this entire saga/psychodrama is arcane and enigmatic and every other synonym meaning same. There has been nothing like this ever. Nothing. You see, The Doctor was worried about his role in the matter becoming public, having a vested intellectual interest about the rapidly unfolding of events propagated and propelled by me after I’d become a trial-by-fire in pro per, representing myself (rather competently, I might add). I had nothing to hide (still don’t) and nothing to lose (still don’t) and that made me very dangerous (still does). I was spreading the news by mail and in ads in the newspaper and legal magazines and even on bus benches in four different cities. I was blowing the whistle from here to Timbuktu and all over tarnation about the shenanigans in my lawsuit perpetrated by my lawyers and The Doctor as well (although I did not know at the time that Dr. Sheuerman had the most prominent significance therein). Unfortunately and without any fortune in my bank account, it all ended up here, the sounds of legal silence, with me still in the dark. The Doctor and my father are taking a dirt nap together, not uttering a peep, the lawyers along with the judges who “looked the other away,” in hiding. More than a quarter of a century hence, here I am with Berberian Mystery Theatre trying to keep this story alive and out there in cyberspace until it is, or I am, dead and gone. In the meantime, the psychodrama continues. (In my head, folks, it’s all in my head.- Maybe) 7 In other words, I had all of the answers. I just couldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together. So The Doctor did it for me. And in so doing, the Brotherhood could do as they pleased without concern that I was being “informationally screwed,” legal malpractice being the common term for such. Notwithstanding, the specific assumption here would be that were Dr. Sheuerman in fact in the loop, he would necessarily guide me, steer me, manipulate me, whatever, down the course most likely to win in the end, me or my father, regardless. The Doctor believed that my main interest and motive in the entire matter was money. He got it wrong. His way (running interference for my father and my father’s lawyers, whoever they were) left me broke and in many ways broken. (Read between the lines of Berberian Mystery Theatre) Virtually, my entire bank of intellectual curiosity is invested in and wrapped around the subject legal matter. It is a total psychodrama for me. This thing is indeed a mystery. And I am on a never-ending search for answers. But the justice system gave me no answers. The lawyers gave me no answers. My father unquestionably gave me no answers. And Dr. Sheuerman left me twisting in the wind. Now that I am out of his control, as evidenced in the attached transcription, I do hope the wake that The Hypocratic Doctor left behind has him turning in his grave. 8 Part of The Hippocratic Oath reads as follows: I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!–See, all I’m doing in this website regarding Dr. Sheuerman, is trying to answer The Doctor’s prayer(s). (Dr. Sheuerman, I hand you your head) 9 I am going to toot my own horn just once on this subject. Generally speaking, and specifically speaking in the majority of cases, I have tremendous empathy for other people’s woes. Be it self-inflicted, or as a result of crime or meanness from another, or as a result of the uncontrollable happenstances in life, I hate human pain and suffering. (Enough said. Now let’s get back to the monster that I am) 10 Arnold A. Sheuerman Jr., M.D. (Stockton, CA) passed on September 11, 1997. Perhaps he died of embarrassment. I am in all probability the only person on earth who caught this exceptionally intelligent man with his pants down. And losing, hiding or destroying my medical records did not get buried with The Doctor. He cannot get away with what he did by dying. Not as long as I’m alive. 11 There is already way too much pain and suffering in people’s lives from mistakes and happenstances that cannot be avoided. This is why it is all the more egregious when someone purposely causes life-long pain, torment and misery in another person’s life. And it cannot go unatoned, especially when it is wrought on someone I love. Such is one of the major reasons for the existence of Berberian Mystery Theatre. Shining a light on the perpetrators of evil is what this exposé is mostly about. 12 “I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole. In my experience, most of them are trash.”-Sigmund Freud. (Hey Doc, being that I have proven that you joined “most of them,” I guess you belong in a dumpster, the round file, a waste bin. Take your pick, whichever you choose, be my guest) 13 I have yet to post any of my good faith overtures to the players, which include letters to participants on both sides of this matter (although today, no longer on “opposing” sides, they are truly, through and through and thoroughly one, because of me). Once I post these letters to this website, a better picture of my disposition throughout the years during which I had legal representation may begin to take shape. I’ll say it again, I am the good guy in all of this. (Or I was) Every once in a while, I have to take stock of myself, assessing whether or not I’m a rotten person. (Eeew, just like a girl. What a pansy) I have to do this because of the venom coursing through my veins regarding some of the players in this matter, be they dead or alive. Call it guilt, if you will. But I’m not so sure. Regardless, each and every time that I make such assessment, the result is: “I’m okay. I like myself. And doggone it, people like me.” (Contributed by “Stuart Smalley”) 14 If you study what Dr. Sheuerman tries to do in the posted conversation, you will find that he is trying to connive me into thinking and/or saying that I need a psychiatrist or at least some psychological help. (Assuming that I have one, my audience will be the judge of that) Why he seems to be pushing for it, I haven’t a clue. Conversely, he may be trying to manipulate my saying that I do not need psychotherapy. Regardless of which it is, there’s a reason. Notwithstanding, my replies fit neither scenario. I say to The Doctor that my purpose for contacting him is to get my medical records and a summary or a profile of what happened in therapy over the years. And that’s all I said. The Doctor does not like my purpose. It is common and straightforward and makes too much sense, rendering him incapable of accomplishing his purpose, throwing a monkey wrench into my purpose. Unless The Doctor is acting (which he was still capable of doing even if the surgery cost him 30 I.Q. points). You see that he gets angry when he virtually gets cornered, has to relent, fold his cards, and submit to accepting what I had been requesting since the beginning of our conversation. And while doing so, he makes a lame pathetic attempt at redefining what I had been asking for all along. (See the last paragraph on Page 13) In fact, his comment is so stupid, you’d think that he was indeed putting on a show. At least, I am perplexed, because his words were asinine for a man who is and was at the time, in my opinion, still brilliant. His “communication pathways” must be really really “screwed up” to say such a thing, unless he’s resorting to deceit again. Either way and any way, the man is worried about legalities. Perhaps he is afraid that I might sue his estate after he is gone. (Knowing The Doctor as I did and do, he most likely allowed himself to recognize and accept the fact that he is/was probably on his way out. Dr. Sheuerman was not one to play around with or deny reality and its attendant facts and actualities. That is, with the exception of his dealing with me regarding the factuality and actual naked truth about Berberian v. Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank) I had no plans to sue The Doctor or his estate. Nevertheless, he knew at the time that I’d have access to some honest in pro per help in preparing a legitimate effective brief if I did decide to lawyer up in propria persona. (No Brother would take my case in an honest way even if I had the money to pay him. Trust me. The operative word here is “honest”) When I asked, The Doctor told me during my final intermittent visit with him in late December of 1989, that he had read all of the briefs (and other correspondence from me, for that matter) that I’d mailed to him previously. I am referring to my Appellate and California Supreme Court briefs which were prepared by me and a friend, confidante and “counselor,” so to speak, for the in pro per appeal of my San Francisco County Superior Court case. I provided the facts, data, details and minutiae, and my friend placed them into the general context of the law and/or my case in particular, whichever was warranted. I will be posting said legal briefs as soon as I’m finished finessing the commentary for documents which are presently or about to be posted. I continuously upchuck nuggets of information that I feel a need to post to this website or blog, if you will. During the first seven years of my legal saga, I kept a journal which grew to over 6,000 pages. This website has picked up where my journal left off. Once I’m done blogging, blurbing, blabbering, blathering, yakking and yapping, I’ll start posting more documents that will fill in the holes, connect the dots, get my ducks in a row, and cross all of my “T’s” while dotting my “I’s,” except for ones that are capitalized regarding the latter. Getting back to Dr. Sheuerman, he must have known that I’d eventually turn on him when it became clear that the matter was not going to play out the way that he had led me to believe over the years. That is, that my father was taking care of the same matter for our family under his legal umbrella and I should just sit tight. Alternatively, The Doctor may have thought that I would eventually “fall to pieces.” Well, even though I can tear up as much as anyone during Patsy Cline’s song on the subject, I did not fall to pieces and I have indeed turned on him. And rightly so. I repeat: The Doctor did irrevocable damage to me when his duty was, “first, do no harm.” The Doctor is the man most responsible for ruining my life. (Or, to be more precise, so far, the last three decades of it) During our posted conversation, he is probably trying to manipulate me into going to some other quack to do him the same type of favor that he did for Rudy Bilawski. That is, manage and manipulate me. Perhaps his highest purpose is to get me into the hands of some other doctor to clean up the legal and moral mess he made of me and my therapy. Actually, remove the “moral” part of it. That’s his least concern. He does not believe he did anything morally wrong. But how wrong he is and was. I will have no part of another doctor picking up where he left off, finishing Dr. Sheuerman’s unfinished business. No part of it. The Doctor can go to hell (which he doesn’t believe in, so instead, he can stick it up his ass). Or let him come back to life and deal with the real deal-what I know now. (He wouldn’t have a prayer) How could I even consider anything The Doctor suggested when he wasn’t honestly addressing the reason I contacted him and the “purported” reason that he contacted me back. That is, obtaining my medical records. Instead, he was trying to sell me a bill of goods: “Your records got shuffled around and I found some of the billing records here and a part of them showed up over there and the rest of them are here, there, and everywhere.” Regarding whatever The Doctor’s overall plan for me is/was, instead of complying, I am making his nightmare come true. Am I being vindictive? Among other motives, the answer is, you bet your ass, I am. Revenge is sweet and after thirty plus bitter years of agony, I’m throwing myself a party (Berberian Mystery Theatre). A decade or so before the posted conversation, The Doctor was protected by big lawyers and billions of dollars when it came to me. He was hiding behind their multi-billion dollar “skirt.” (I was hiding behind nothing, protected as it turned out by my naïveté) He knew that all three sides (i.e., my lawyers, my uncle’s lawyers, and whoever was representing my father) liked the role he was playing. That is, keeping me quiet and “on the couch.” Everyone was drunk with the power that The Doctor’s manipulation of me conferred upon and afforded them. No, I do not think that Dr. Sheuerman had a formal in-person heart-to-heart with The Brotherhood or any of the individual attorneys therein. But there was definitely a Cupid’s heart with arrow glowing brightly over their homo-legal bromance. (I do not know of any female barristers involved, by the way) Everyone was looking out for one another and no one was looking out for me, except me. And I wasn’t very good at it. (Until now.-Say hello to Berberian Mystery Theatre)As usual, I’m off subject. Regarding the main matter at hand, both of us knowing beforehand that he, The Doctor, has no intentions of giving me my files or reducing a summary of my profile therefrom (and he knows that I know this as well, because we had exchanged some correspondence immediately prior to his phone call), he is/was worried that I had plans to expose his deviousness with regard thereto. Why not. Such had been my modus operandi for the previous decade with regard to all of the players, himself included, though, to a very much lesser extent than now regarding The Doctor. I like honesty and I try to find it in people. I like consistency. But The Doctor’s words during my last four years of “treatment” were only consistent with the continuing hidden agenda surrounding my father’s activities, my potential legal case, and eventually my (pretend) lawsuit once it was instituted. And yes, implied in this statement is the fact that my legal case is virtually all I talked about during the last four wretched years that I was under The Doctor’s “therapeutic” spell. At one point, Dr. Sheuerman threatened to discontinue therapy if I did not cease and desist talking incessantly about the matter. (“But enough about my lawsuit, let’s talk about my lawsuit”) I wish I’d walked out on him right then and there. That would have taught the bastard that I would not stand for any more of his bullshit, as he was a big part of the reason for my frustration. But I didn’t know this at the time. So, instead, I shut up for a session or two. Come to think of it, The Doctor was telling me in so many words that I didn’t need him and I could handle the burden of the lawsuit on my own. Such a message by The Doctor seems quite pertinent in the context of the discussion in the posted transcript. (I didn’t need therapy then and I don’t need therapy now. What I needed and need are answers) Anyway, I walked out his door later on down the line and I have never looked back (aside from the retrospection found within Berberian Mystery Theatre). Curiously, The Doctor is trying to get me to go “back to the future” with him when I needed his help. (Sorry Doc, you were unfaithful, conspiring with a bunch of barrister/Brothers in some way, shape or form. But don’t feel too bad about it. The Brotherhood is the second oldest profession. Wait a second. I once heard a professor profess that the medical profession professes to be the first and therefore the oldest profession. But I’ll let you fight it out with the courtesans, Doc. May the best whore win) The Doctor may not have all of his communication skills during the posted conversation, but his cunning is quite healthy. Plying his con-game trade with me though, was unwise. Unless, of course, he liked exposing himself. And a “flasher,” he became. He was too smart for his own good, too clever by half down the stretch, transforming himself into an intellectual idiot. The dishonesty in The Doctor’s words and demeanor will be infinitely more apparent once I post the correspondence leading up to our subject conversation. (After The Doctor’s demise, the exchange of correspondence between me and The Doctor’s estate attorneys is telling as well. His esquires carried on in his stead regarding my medical files. Of course, had Dr. Sheuerman or his estate attorneys sent me my medical records, including those for the years 1980-1984, The Doctor’s notes about me for those last four years would have proven to be a barren wasteland, cherry-picked and cleansed, when, in fact, during that time period, I probably talked more than I had during the previous ten years put together) I will no longer tolerate The Doctor’s hypocrisy. And even though his double-dealing is technically in the past, for me it is ever-present, living on, and unfortunately, will always be a part of my life. Therefore, expose him I did, exposing him I am, and expose him I will continue to do until I get some answers, the honest answers which The Doctor failed and refused to provide me. 15 Notwithstanding, as it is ever-present on my mind, it seems like the live action in this matter took place not that long ago. No matter what I’m doing, no matter what’s on my mind, the legal case is somewhere in the mix, a lamentation that follows me around. And it’s not just the money (as I hope is evidenced by Berberian Mystery Theatre). I don’t know just how distant a memory I am in the players’ minds, but this website is and will be a constant and continuing reminder of what those players did to someone who in effect all but begged them to be honest and get serious about my lawsuit. My life hung in the balance or minimally my mental health did. Thirty-some years of “consternation” culminating in and evidenced by the commentary herein, I am not exaggerating. (Synonyms for “consternation” are as follows: bewilderment, mystification, befuddlement, confusion, agitation, disquietude, perturbation, amazement, astonishment, surprise, panic, alarm, stupefaction, paralysis, trepidation, dread, terror, horror, fear, fright, dismay, disheartenment, and disillusionment. Every one of these terms applied to me at one time or another and most of them apply right now. (Woe is me.-“Poor Richard”) The matter has consumed my life. I have studied my case like those who studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. I have examined every “scintilla of evidence” in my files as well as in my mind regarding that which I believe and have stated herein. Every bit, crumb, dab, driblet, glimmer, hint, lick, mite, nip, ounce, particle, ray, shade, shadow, shred, smidgen, spark, spatter, speck, splash, spot, sprinkling, strain, streak, suspicion, tad, touch, and trace of evidence, every hangnail of it, I have gone over and over and posted in the commentary and documents in this exposé. All of the commentary, every last word of it has been written by me, and a great majority of the data that I have produced on this website has been recalled by memory and rote. Very little reliance on my files, but for exact dates and whatnot. And I will live out the rest of my days tortured by this psychodramatic “dark matter.” The players all knew this about me and in effect they said: “So be it.” Hardball. Dr. Sheuerman knew this intimately for four years and especially the day that I walked out his door. He gambled with me and lost, thinking he’d get a chance before therapy ended to change his role as if he were the only honest one of the bunch. He didn’t get that chance, remaining the most egregious of the liars around me. When I went back to see him the few times that I did after my big break from his control, he couldn’t say an f-ing thing about my legal matter. He knew that I had become educated about it and if he did say anything, I would have cross-examined him and nailed him to the wall. I would have beaten the shit out of him. (Not physically. He was a boxer in the service. But he’d be throwing punches in the air to the body blows that I’d deliver were we to spar on this matter. And I’d knock him out with a liver punch. I now have this same confidence with regard to each and every other player when it comes to the fraudulent procedural history of the case) Over the years, I had bombarded The Doctor with courtesy-copied letters and documents, all of which he told me he’d read when I went to see him thereafter. Therefore, throughout the twelve years prior to the posted conversation, he was aware of the life sentence that he had given me, reinforced by the rest of the players. The repercussions of a “phantom lawsuit” filed on my behalf and the fraud and deceit surrounding the suit, he comprehended thoroughly, for he had facilitated the fraud and deceit. He paved their way and ran interference for the players perpetrating the legal hoax. He also knew damn well that I got my shit together enough to talk about the matter, be taken seriously, and take the matter public, most significantly on the court record. This is another major reason why he is apparently rather desperate to get me into the hands of another shrink. He wanted to either get a more recent “diagnosis” of some sort (something probably true about me, even if said diagnosis weren’t “clinical” per se), a diagnosis subpoena-ready and acceptable at the then-present time, so he could collude with the new doctor regarding whatever his agenda was. He needed something to cauterize his open legal wounds. He wants/wanted a new fresh opinion rendering select parts of his records mute, so as to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is why, during our conversation, you find The Doctor trying to prop up Jim Malone, the Phd/marriage counselor that I went to. From my response, you can also see that instinctively I knew something was up with that. Were he to succeed in elevating my marriage counselor/psychologist of sorts or manipulate me into the hands of another psychiatrist, he still would not be able to get around the MMPI test that Malone gave me, the results of which prove me extraordinarily honest. One cannot flunk the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. (And by the way, were I in the hands of another shrink, low and behold, some of my clinical records would probably miraculously turn up) I did not and do not need a shrink. I need the truth period. Dr. Sheuerman is the one who needs a head-shrinker. Any psychiatrist (or lawyer) who takes a look will know what The Doctor was up to in the posted conversation. And any psychiatrist (or lawyer) who takes a look will know that I am not the one who is being fraudulent and deceitful. I am not the one who is/was sick in the mind. (Physician, heal thyself) 16 Despite the fact that I feel and have felt that I have and had only one lawsuit within me, if I had legal representation, I’d re-file Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank in a nanosecond. And despite everything that I say and have said throughout this website, believe it or not, said representation includes that of Rudy Bilawski and/or Larry Drivon (my former business attorney and trial lawyer respectively). Of course, conversely, they would not have me. Assuming that they remember me (and that’s not hard for me to assume), they view (or viewed) me as too dangerous in every legal way imaginable. The most dangerous aspect about me is/was the fact that I figured out too much. “Too much” is/was defined as my knowing about the existence of the hidden agenda. There is/was no way for them to bring the matter to a close without opening up a ton of legal liability. However, Larry Drivon could handle the challenge, being the in-the-trenches trial lawyer that he is (or was.-He may be retired). He also had Melvin M. (Bellicose) Belli, “The King of Torts,” to help in the matter. Belli was then the most “celebrated” attorney in the country. (Drivon was partnered with Belli at the time in Belli, Drivon & Bakerink in Stockton, CA) But Rudy Bilawski is a business attorney from a stately dignified law firm of a dozen or so attorneys and he couldn’t expose his firm to such a legal mess. It would stick to them like white on rice, especially with me involved. (Bilawski’s law firm is [or was-he may be retired as well] Neumiller & Beardslee in Stockton, CA) It would be laughable were they to try to reframe the hidden agenda, masking its identity and nature, transforming it into something that ostensibly did not harm me. They’d remain open to glaring legal liability. That’s why I was and continue to be dangerous in their eyes and to their way of thinking. Be that as it may, in actuality, I am not dangerous and never was. All they had to do is simply say to me the following: “This matter is going to take quite some time, probably many years. We have it under control and this will not change. You need not worry about a thing, including your father. Don’t call us. We’ll call you.”-Done and done is what I would have said. Maybe a couple of questions to get further assurance. And if they refused to answer any question that crossed whatever line they had in keeping their “secrets” safe, so be it. Such would have reassured me that “something’s going on.” I may have written a letter now and then without asking questions. (This admittedly would have been a real feat for someone who, I’ve been told, asks questions for the sake of asking them–fetish territory) A little bit of honesty would have bought and brought my complete cooperation. That is, as opposed to the big bunch of letters that I wrote to them, which is no more than “noisy cooperation.” My personal attorney, Ralph Ogden (Modesto, CA), once said to me that there is/was nothing going on that resembled what I thought was going on. He certainly had never seen anything like what I was describing. I basically ignored him because I believed the word of “God”-Dr. Sheuerman. (Just a metaphor) But how would Ogden know unless he had communications with those in the loop? If so, he would be defined by me as a “conspirator.” And I do indeed believe this. In fact, I know it to be true. Get this. During the course of his representation, circa 1987, I became the trustee of my own trust, relieving Wells Fargo Bank of its fiduciary duty (i.e., screwing me). I then drove to San Francisco, with Ralph Ogden’s blessing, to pick up my trust files. But Wells Fargo would not release the files to me. Instead, they insisted on sending them to Ogden, because not only was he my personal counsel, he was my trust attorney as well. Guess what. Ogden wouldn’t open the box. I’ll say it again. Ralph Ogden would not even open the box! My former trustee, Wells Fargo Bank, sends my trust files to my new succeeding trust counsel, Ralph Ogden, and Ralph fails and refuses to open the box and look at them. Now, if that doesn’t smack of “hidden agenda,” then I need to enter into a suspension of disbelief. This is the type of attorney behavior that just drove me nuts. It would make anyone go mad. (Ogden’s secretary at the time, Susan Santerelli, was a witness. And I’ll bet she remembers. How could anyone forget such bizarre behavior. And no, Ms. Santerelli would not have known the true reason why her boss would not open the box. That would be a secret that only those in the loop would know. No secretary working on my case in any way anywhere would be in the loop of this case. Why? A man and estate worth up to a billion dollars and a multibillion dollar bank were involved and those hoping to get a little piece of that action) My trust attorney not opening the box from my former trustee to review my trust files is a symptom of someone who knows more about my trust and my lawsuit founded on my trust than he was letting on. Couple this with his just defining but not commenting on the defense of res judicata raised by Haig’s attorneys when I asked him what it meant, and you’ve got a strong indication if not proof of collaboration and collusion with others who know about something unknown to me affecting my case. If this be true, then either there’s a pot of gold out there for me somewhere over the rainbow or at the end of it, or there’s zilch, because the case is/was indeed settled, dead and gone. IMPOSSIBLE. I’ve settled shit! My case may have died, but it was never settled. And not a single attorney who has ever looked at or had anything to do with my case has been interested in finding out about the res judicata that has haunted it. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Well, it’s the “hidden agenda” that I’ve been referring to throughout Berberian Mystery Theatre. Why didn’t I fire Ralph Ogden on the spot? (I’m referring back to his not opening the box to review my trust files) Because I was dependent on him. And if I fired him, with God as my witness, I swear he would only have traded places with another Brother that I’d hire, who would do the same damned thing. Curious blatantly dishonest behavior. (Guess what, folks. This is exactly what happened when I replaced Ogden by a young attorney named, Michael W. Donahue. When he saw what and who was involved, he covertly made the calls to collude and exploit me and the situation. But I out-smarted him. And I can prove it. I’ll let you know where the proof is when I post it. Actually, I’ll link Donahue’s name in this paragragh with the proof when I post it. Hopefully soon) This is what Brothers do in big cases. They conspire. They are hidden agenders. Especially when they have clients who are kept out of the loop for one reason or another. Additionally, I was cooperating. If Ogden’s chess move in reaction to Wells Fargo’s chess move was part of the hidden agenda, I let it be. I didn’t force the issue. My cooperation didn’t pay off. But that’s why I stood back. I trusted Dr. Sheuerman who trusted Rudy Bilawski, as did I. And Ogden was in cahoots with their agenda, whatever it was. I’m telling you, folks, I did everything humanly possible to make this thing happen. I put up with all kinds of shit. Accommodated a whole bunch of horse-crap. Regarding me and my lawyers, I never questioned their competence. I questioned their agenda, their hidden one, mostly in letters like I said. And my letters and behavior as a whole was simply a result and reflection of their keeping me in the dark along with what Dr. Sheuerman was doing. Therefore (to get back on point), because I could not and cannot ever get honest help from any Brother, I may as well rehire the original already-proven very competent team. I still presume that they were competent (at whatever it was that they were doing, failing only to keep me from learning as much as I did). I mean, does it not make sense to rehire “not a business attorney” to handle the business law portion of the case and rehire “not a trial lawyer” for the litigation side of things? (For clarification, see Timeline at 09/13/84, “Interrogatories,” commentary, first paragraph) And, to top it all off, if I am to be genuinely crazy, I have to repeat the same failed behavior and expect a different and successful result. (Besides, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t”) 17 What rendered me “in essence clueless” was the fear which I had that my hidden agenda theory about the conspiracy and the conspiracy per se was the product of delusional thinking. I have a propensity to believe in conspiracies due to my skepticism about human nature regarding honesty when it comes to big money and power, especially when someone has their initial actual opportunity to acquire them, or someone who already has money and power, has a real chance of losing them along with their reputation. Of course, I’m not addressing The Doctor regarding the power part of that statement, because he had unbridled power the minute someone in deep mental pain, and therefore vulnerable, walked through his door. One such person would be me in January of 1971, when my initial session with The Doctor took place. That would also be me after I discovered fraud and after my first few sessions with The Doctor succeeding my discovery of fraud, when the hidden agenda started rearing its ugly head. People unfailingly abuse an abundance of power when they get it. A year or two prior to my filing suit and prior to any overt positive interest by Rudy Bilawski in my particular case, since I was so anguished about whether or not my father had taken some secret action regarding our family’s legal dispute (and I wanted him to take that action in the worst way because Bilawski did not want a case wherein my father would have been an adverse witness instead of my star witness), during a session with Dr. Sheuerman, The Doctor suggested to me, why don’t you just ask him about it? Pretty logical suggestion. So, I got my nerve up that night and I did ask my father about what he may have done regarding his legal case, a case that he had said to me a year or so before, was “shelved” indefinitely. At that time, he expected me to believe his notion that, “Haig will get scared now that we know what he’s done and he will come forward with what he owes us.” (This was true. That is, if Haig knew that he had been sued. But Haig did not know that he’d been sued. I’ll say it over and over and over again. Haig didn’t even know the gravity of the situation with regard to what my father had done, even though it was legally pussy-footin’ around. My father’s scenario set the calendar for the settling of this legal matter and the timetable thereof.-When hell freezes over) According to Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., the “lawyer,” a complaint had to be filed in order to get any appreciable amount of money when large sums are involved, adding, “that’s what they tell me.” (Interesting information, Doc. Have you ever heard of a business case involving tens of millions of dollars wherein the idea is entertained by counsel that a lawsuit need not be filed prior to concluding that it must be filed, a given no brainer? You were talking to someone about this kind of scenario? There is just one case about which I can imagine this type of situation, a one-of-a-kind case. Does Vasken Berberian v. Haig Berberian [not!] come to mind?) Additionally, according to Rudy Bilawski, one has to “assume” that a case is going to court if $100,000 or more is at issue. (That minimum amount has undoubtedly doubled or tripled, because Bilawski made the statement 30 years ago) I have recently found out that one can serve an un-filed un-instituted case on someone, showing them what is theoretically in store for them, at which time the recipient can demand that the sender indeed proceed to file the case. Either that or try to settle. But inherent in Rudy’s declaration is that a suit must be filed when the amount involved is far greater than $100,000. I guess Rudy neglected to tell me that ten to one thousand times that amount (adding one to three more zeros) will never in reality go to court in Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank, “a case like no other.” (My case is/was head and shoulders above my father’s case in the unique department because of the story that goes along with mine, “a story like no other”) In fact, such a case cannot even be properly instituted. (For clarification, see Timeline at 8/30/83-5/30/90, “Case File–813484”) Therefore, Bilawski’s job was either impossible or he had virtually no job at all. In my opinion then and now, his toughest job, yet his only job just the same, was to exorcize Haygaz “Haig” Berberian from Vasken “Jim” Berberian’s psyche. The Old Country older brother/younger brother umbilical cord had to be severed, for one thing. Another thing, my father was deathly afraid of the power and menace of his older brother who despised if not hated him with a passion. And it was indeed pathological. When they had fights over money, time and again Haig had said to his younger brother, “I’ll reach out of my grave to get you!” (Of course, my father told me this)I guess Haig assumed that he would pass before my father and at such time, my father would legally settle the score. This is what investigation for my lawsuit and hindsight reveals to me. Had Haig predeceased my father, my father would have attended Haig’s funeral. Their deaths were vice versa and my father’s brother was nowhere to be found at the funeral. Now that Haig is gone too, it may in fact be his “graveyard reach” that has a hold of and won’t let me go. I not only thank Haig for this, but also his bastion of attorneys over scores of years who helped him plan for when he was gone. This was mostly in case yours truly wanted his money, that which should be mine. (I did and I do. I plead guilty) No one else in my family had the balls to go against Haig and his fancy schmancy San Francisco attorneys. Not my father, especially. (My father once told me that Haig would talk on the phone with his attorneys for hours upon hours. I’m sure that a good deal of that time was spent planning how to screw my family. So, I believe that I’m fighting a plan which was strategized over many many years, if not decades. And if I were to be successful in this legal matter, it wouldn’t happen for many many years, if not decades. Well, unfortunately, the latter has already won out without the success part) As an aside, I know that some might think that this is just a family squabble about money. Regarding my participation in the matter and the matter as a whole, it may have been that to begin with. But when the players screwed over “innocent” me, a different animal was born. They transformed the nature of the matter into one involving principle as well. This isn’t just about money any more. But addressing the money side of the matter, to some, it is money that I did not earn. However, I’m talking about the law, not worthiness. I take that back. Worthiness is defined by the law and they are interchangeable concepts in this business matter. And I can tell you exactly how worthy I am and was. I’m 5% worthy, 5% legally worthy. My trust owned 5% of the family business, period. No provisos. No qualifications. The law is the law. It doesn’t matter how I or anyone else feels about it. And therefore, I make no apologies. Why I was defensive about it in the first place, I haven’t a clue. I hope not to get that way again. Oh, and by the way, me and my trust are and were the worthy equivalent of any of the other beneficiaries and their trusts, all of whom received what they were suppose to receive by law, none of whom worked at the business. One last thing on that and an extension thereof. Haig and his family owned 80% of the business. My father and his family owned 20%. I should feel guilty about trying to get my lawful 5%? Anyone who has a problem with that is crazier than I’ll ever be. Aside over. Regarding my father’s (un-instituted) legal case, it would have superseded my case (albeit “apparently” instituted), being that he was the Grantor of my Wells Fargo Bank trust account. I had waited years thinking that my father had been taking care of the matter for our entire family. I wanted to believe and did in fact believe (by way of Dr. Sheuerman’s implantation of the notion, manipulation and orchestration of same within my brain, and then with his blessing) that at some point during those long, tortuous years, my father had given Rudy Bilawski (or his firm, Neumiller & Beardslee in Stockton) the legal power to do his legal job. That job was to settle the matter out of court (even though more than $100,000 was involved, a lot more). Unfortunately, early on, there was a plan to extricate me from the picture because of the dilemma that it posed for my father who had brought me into the matter originally when he thought that he was in no position to sue. (My father thought that he had signed too many documents absolving Haig of any and all possible fraudulent business activity targeting him) Additionally, and as I have said elsewhere, my father was embarrassed by how badly he had gotten screwed. To top it all off, even though he first made this matter my business by showing me a confidential memorandum (prepared by Pet, Inc., the company which purchased our family business when Haig decided to sell because my father was ill, said memorandum indicating fraud by my uncle [see “Confidential Memorandum” at 07/24/72 on the Timeline]), and then sealed the deal as my business by not legally taking care of the matter for our family, I’m sure that my father believed that as a whole, the matter was none of my god-damned business! He did not say this to me, but I can just hear that expression emanating from him. That’s what he thought and that’s the way he talked. He also wanted me out, because he knew that I wanted all of what was stolen and he did not. The principle of the thing did not matter to him. He was on the lawyers’ side. Law is a business to them, money being the object. Principles do not exist in their world. I was the one who was interested in the principle of the thing. (Hey, who’s the principled one, he who wants to recover every penny that can be proved was stolen or he who will settle for less [after settling for less a half a dozen times before]?-Case closed) However, to my father’s chagrin, he could no longer compromise my trust, if he had anything to say about it at all anymore. No lawyer would let him do so or they would be liable. So instead, thinking everything would work out his half-assed way, whatever that was, my father bum-rushed me out of the loop and in so doing, he hung himself. But I had remained on the prowl within. Three years of nothing eventful happening rattled my cage. And then I broke out by filing suit. With my lawsuit sitting there, there was no merging it with the compromise that was baked into the cake that was my father and his way of doing things. This is one of the reasons he wanted me to drop my case. But I’ll get into that later. If anyone was going to compromise my trust, it had to be me. I have to say that if my father had the power to compromise my trust again or compromise what he had the ability to recover of his own money, it would have been another screwing that he would have engaged in and enjoyed. As many times as he was knowingly screwed, one has to conclude that he liked it better than not being screwed. (I warned Rudy Bilawski several times that my father liked to “ride the white horse.” In so many words, I was telling him that my father liked to be screwed over. I’m sure that Bilawski knew this, but I’ll bet he’d never met any client who had been screwed over and over and over again, and then wanted to bend over again with glee, especially when the client himself was in the stronger, almost impenetrable legal position. No pun intended) However, how my father would have had the authority, during the business years, to compromise my trust as he did after it was created, I do not know. It was an irrevocable trust and he was not the Trustee. The Trustee was Wells Fargo Bank and it was their fiduciary duty to my father as the Grantor and to me as the Beneficiary, both individually and collectively, to make sure that the trust was neither cheated nor defrauded in any way, shape or form (even at the hands of my father, if he so chose, and he did so choose). I, myself, was never given the chance to ride the white horse, be a “good guy,” so to speak, and try to work things out in a decent amount of time and without continuous and continuing acrimony. No one gave me a call to see what I thought and how I felt about it. That being the case, with vim and vigor, “to court” and “all the way” it was, as far as I was concerned. That was my calling thanks to the conspirators and their conspiracy and the silence emanating from them and it respectively. Getting back to my being booted out of the case, the portion in which my father was involved, for the reasons mentioned above and because I was all gung-ho about the matter and my father was not, I had to get lost. I did not agree to it, but I fell prey to the well-orchestrated manipulated removal of me from whatever it was that my father decided to do and not do. Nonetheless, the ridding of Richard was blatant. Go time arrived abruptly. I was sent packing. Given the old heave-ho. “Don’t let the door hit ya on the way out.” Thrown under the bus. Cut off at the knees. Tricked and kicked aside. “Have a nice life.” Persona non grata and gone was I. “Buh-bye.” To put part of the story into a nutshell (there being reinforcing additional more nuanced happenings wherein I was being manipulated out more deviously), my father asked me to go with him to see the lawyers. I said that I would only go if he were not going to drop the matter. He had given off signals that he was interested in dropping out of the matter with me out as well. I wanted no part of that. He gave me his word that he would not drop the potential case, lawsuit, matter, what have you. We went to see Rudy Bilawski and Jim Askew, et al. News flash!-My father dropped the case. Or he “shelved” it. I turned and looked at Bilawski as my father was saying the words that he wanted to put the case on hold (or drop the case, as it were). Bilawski did not look at me in return nor did he blink or bat an eye. He was zeroed in on the circuitously pre-planned move by my father, albeit probably not directly through Rudy. This is part of the mystery that won’t let me go. End of that part of the story. (But I’d like to add that not only was I tricked and kicked out of my father’s legal matter, my father’s case being Rudy Bilawski’s main interest, The Brotherhood tricked me into thinking that in reality and in fact, I later went on to actually sue Haig Berberian and Wells Fargo Bank. For more on this, see the Timeline at 8/30/83-5/30/90, “Case File–813484″) Regarding my father’s deceit, my blood boils every time I think about it. Even these days, I go semi-bonkers when it comes to mind. (“Daddy issues,” I guess. Let me say within this parenthetical statement that over the years, somewhere along the line, I figured out and/or remembered what would have been and probably was my father’s greatest fear regarding what I would learn during discovery in this matter. But I cannot say what that is and was because I don’t want to reveal my hand. I will say that I’m either holding a royal straight flush or a pair of jokers in this regard. And keeping the players guessing is my ace in the hole) My father had shown his true colors (every one of them a shade of “yellow”) and in my mind, all became fair in the war that he waged with me. I have a clear conscience regarding every single thing that I am now doing and have done over the years in this matter and its affect on not only my father, but everyone else involved, both prior to and after my father’s death. Fuck everybody! (Oops, I said a naughty word) All I had around me were liars, crooks, thugs, and white-collar trash. My psychiatrist was even a piece of shit. After I realized what had happened, i.e., that I was chessboard-maneuvered out of the game, Dr. Sheuerman manipulated me into going along with it. That is, by leading me to believe that my father was in Neumiller & Beardslee’s back room taking care of the matter with Bilawski and Haig’s lawyers. The only overt symptom that my actions expressed from this screwing was the velocity of the research and letter-writing that I did. I placed whatever trust I could muster in Dr. Sheuerman and Rudy Bilawski (who, as I said, Dr. Sheuerman led me to believe was still on the job). It was especially a mistake to trust The Doctor. His comments were made more than twenty-five years ago (a quarter of a century!) and I’m still on the road to nowhere. Early on, Dr. Sheuerman made a point of telling me about his own legal matter wherein he had gotten screwed by a partner in some business venture. He said that Bilawski handled the matter for him. He included that were it not for his (The Doctor’s) two sons interning with Neumiller & Beardslee, Bilawski would never have taken such a small case. The Doctor told me that Bilawski asked him if he wanted to watch the guy’s deposition being taken. The Doctor said not. I have a friend whose case was handled by Drivon’s office a short time before mine. My friend got to watch his papers being served. What did I get to watch? I got to watch no Original Summons filed [though I didn’t know it until nearly three decades later], no depositions taken, no service of process on the main defendant, nothing but the years and decades passing me by. It is my belief that Dr. Sheuerman, through the grapevine, by hook or by crook, fair means or foul (and I suspect the latter of the latter two), had to pass the word on to the lawyers that I could take it. Well, I did take it. Up the ass. (Thank you, Dr. Sheuerman. But after I extricated you from my life, could the lawyers and players and actors play-acting take it? I don’t think so. That’s why they’re in hiding, especially now that you’re scattered at sea 3 miles off the San Francisco County Coast. No more Dr. Sheuerman running interference for them) But hey, I’m not running for Captain of the Poor Me Club. I’m just defining the difference between serious litigation and milksop/ milquetoast non-litigation. Getting back to Dr. Sheuerman and his former business partner, The Doctor went on to explain that the guy called him after Bilawski got involved. The Doctor told me that the man was literally shaking on the phone, scared shitless, asking Dr. Sheuerman to call Rudy off. The Doctor responded: It’s out of my hands. This is exactly what Dr. Sheuerman was suggesting that my father had done. And this is the exact thing that I wanted my father to do. I wanted him to give Bilawski an irrevocable power of attorney without any provisos and let Bilawski do his job. I made the mistake of conveying The Doctor’s story over to my father early on. I thought that my father needed to know that Bilawski was not only very smart, he was scary smart. Wrong strategy! My father did not need to know this, nor should he. Once I knew that my father had a killer case (“open and shut,” though lawyers don’t like to use that particular phrase), I should have pondered how my father would have to be advised of this before he would give the case over to an attorney. Of course, a smart attorney would say it in such a way that they wouldn’t run into the problem that I believe I may have helped to create. You know, there’s a legal strategy (which I alluded to earlier) wherein you don’t reveal to the opposition all of your cards. It keeps them guessing, less confidant, and at bay. I would hope that this method was used in dealing with my father. If so, it is probably one of the few times in history that such methodology was used to keep a client from knowing how strong his case was. This is how stupid and gutless my father was. The one thing that Dr. Sheuerman said to me that gives me hope that my father was not in the know in total is: Your father may not know any more about what’s going on than you do. However, my best guess is that they told him how strong his case was in order to get the case. After my father was in the hands of whatever counsel to whom most likely Rudy Bilawski referred him (since there was a potential conflict of interest pending with me), I remarked that his brother was a crook. My father responded: “Haig is sick.” Somewhere within me, subconsciously, I knew from this remark that my father had progressed to a level into the loop to which I was not privy. (Turned out that I never would be in the loop and privy to anything legally significant.-Thank you, players) Once my father knew that he was in the canary’s seat, he turned right around and offered his seat to Haig Berberian. (No pun intended) He went easy on Haig, which put Haig’s lawyers in a stronger position. And ultimately, Vasken Berberian ended up getting screwed every which way, blued all over the place, and tattooed upside and down and sideways too. As usual, that is. He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And here I am today because of his cowardice. (Yes, one can be a coward by not using one’s strength. Time and time again, I might add. I had expressed my concern about this to Rudy Bilawski on several occasions) My father used to like to say that we wouldn’t have what we have if he weren’t the way he was. What he was saying is that he could have quit being partnered with his evil brother and just worked some other job making a more moderate income. Yet he knew that his brother couldn’t have replaced him with anyone remotely as competent. Notwithstanding, bottom-line, we had what we had, because Haig Berberian let Vasken Berberian have what we had, even though our family should have had 50% of the business, I mean 33.3% of the business, I mean 20% of the business, no, I mean less. (That’s my analysis in all its glory. For clarification of the percentages, keep on reading, it’s on the way) Going back to Bilawski and his relationship with my father and I, I had all of the confidence in the world in Bilawski. Rudy had once stated that, “it’s all or it’s nothing.” He advised that my father could not go back and just ask for some more money. He had to ask for all of it. This time, he had to ask for what he did not know about, the fraud money. All of the fraud had to be cleaned up. I believed that Bilawski was the perfect lawyer for the job. I knew that Bilawski would figure out and get as much of what was fraudulently stolen as could be gotten. But my father did not have the same confidence regardless of who Rudy was. No one could take on “Haig the Terrible.” Actually, “Cain” might be a more apt description as my father insisted on being “Abel” at every turn, each and every time that they had a financial disagreement. “Render unto Haig that which is Haig’s, and render unto Haig that which is Vasken’s.” It was biblical (in my screwy way). History was set. No way to change it. And therefore, my father did not give Rudy or anyone else any power worth having. (I want to quickly mention that there may have been a conflict of interest in Bilawski representing both me and my father. Therefore, some other attorney or law firm may have had my father’s case with Bilawski associated with it in some barely legal or unprovable way other than overt and direct) I would not have had to file suit had my father authorized a lawyer the unbridled power to do what anyone with any brain cells should know would be necessary to end a matter of this nature and magnitude. My filing suit (albeit a phony one) is all one has to be aware of in order to see and know what my father did not do. My father was just too deathly afraid of Haig. Hard-wired that way, as I said, he was frozen with fear of his brother’s money and power. It pisses me off, because Bilawski could have ripped Team Haig Berberian’s illegal lungs out. Instead, my father would only invite Rudy to bend over with him so Haig and Haig’s sinister diabolical accountant, Peter Jeppson, could have their way with the two of them. As I said earlier, I doubt that Bilawski, in all of his years of practicing law, had ever been asked to assume that position, when they were the ones with a Herculean advantage. And I doubt that Rudy complied. However, even though Bilawski (or some other attorney and/or law firm which possessed my father’s proviso-laden power of attorney), declined to “bend over” with my father, he/she/they still ended up playing footsy with Haig. Such an approach was a part of my father’s nature and therefore a prerequisite for taking on my father’s case and keeping it once it had commenced. (In my case, I believe that not serving Haig with legal papers of any kind whatsoever from anyone whomsoever, would obviously fit into the snuggling-up-to-Haig category. The only way to expedite the matter would have been to make Haig Berberian aware that he’d been caught and using the power that comes with that circumstance. For more on this aspect of the legal, non-legal or illegal case, my case, again, see Timeline at 08/30/83, “Case File–813484”) The matter boils down to my father having had a fire-breathing monster case. And once he knew this, he turned into the mouse that he was (a dirty rat to me), didn’t exercise the power of his killer case, and emboldened Haig’s lawyers to come after him. And they got him. In hardball, if you are able to stab the opposition, you do so, and then you twist the knife. Instead, my father stabbed Haig by going to a lawyer. (He had never sought counsel regarding his brother in any way, shape or form before) But that’s essentially all my father did. (“If you strike against the king, be sure that you kill him.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson) He left the door open for Haig’s lawyers to stab him back, straight through the heart. And Haig’s lawyers had from their client what it took to twist the knife. That is, a continuing commandment set into legal motion by Haig’s signature years if not decades earlier in case something like this legal matter came about when he was dead, or alive, as the case turned out to be: “Not a penny to my brother and make it painful.” End of story. Nevertheless, whatever my father’s arrangement came to with his lawyer(s), fine. That was my father’s case (dead on arrival with him involved). Still, listening to all of Dr. Sheuerman’s stories, suggestions and hints, at one point, I was naïve and stupid enough to believe that my father had actually sued his brother in Stanislaus County Superior Court here in Modesto. (At the time, I did not know that a suit could be brought in any number of counties in California or even other states where Haig had done his crooked business, defrauding his brother and our family as a whole) After planting the idea in my mind, Dr. Sheuerman removed himself from having suggested it, behaving like the belief originated in my cerebral cortex. With perhaps a little bit of sculpting now and then, from time to time, he let the theory or belief or fantasy remain virtually unchecked, and he then let it evolve or morph into something just short of a belief about an actual lawsuit. And through it all, I was left in an, “it’s being taken care of”-mindset. Overall, Dr. Sheuerman was manipulating this whole psychodrama. It kept me hopeful and occupied and “on the couch.” As an aside, though it should be focused upon and not a side issue, I remember one time a year or so prior to my filing suit and before I’d know that I really did have to file suit (or feign filing a suit as the case turned out to be), I was passionately explaining my thoughts to Dr. Sheuerman. I was ranting and raving. Speaking in the future tense, I made the declaration: “This is why I’m suing!” The Doctor abruptly leaned forward toward me, cut in, and in an exclamatory outburst, he declared: Your father is suing! Yeah right. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have immediately straightened up, become unanimated, and said: Oh, yeah? Where? Which court? Can I see the Original Summons & complaint? How about the Notice & Acknowledgment of Receipt for, or the Proof of Service re, the Original Summons & complaint? Any one on the list will do, Doc. I’m listening. Dang, I’d love to turn back the hands of time and know then what I know now. The concept of my father having sued is so foreign to my now-known facts in the matter that I have just tucked The Doctor’s impassioned declaration away into the darkest recesses of my memory bank. It really shouldn’t see the light of day, because my father sued no one. He was an invertebrate. At the time, however, I believed The Doctor. I do know that whatever my father did do was because of me, one motive being, to keep me out of the matter. But he didn’t have the guts to sue. The Doctor was fantasizing and delusional or lying. Take your pick. This is the kind of history in my “therapy” of which Dr. Sheuerman is afraid. It is the practice of malpractice. Oh, you don’t believe The Doctor said this to me, that my father is suing? “It’s hogwash?” Get me a psychogalvanometer and a polygraph professional to take my psychogalvanic skin response. (Google and “Merriam-Webster”) Any time, any place. Every word is true and The Doctor’s “skeletons in the closet” are implied in The Doctor’s conversation with me and revealed in the posted transcription thereof. Additionally, my journal and correspondence with The Doctor and the various players are corroborating evidence of the validity of my statements. Why didn’t I investigate and find out for sure if my father had sued? Again, because I was afraid that I might be crazy. I didn’t want to risk having to come to that conclusion by finding out that I couldn’t find any evidence to support my theory and/or The Doctor’s, finding that nothing was going on outside of my own paranoid mind. And no, Dr. Sheuerman was not assuring me about my sanity in this regard. He’d say things to pacify me at strategic emotional times, but he wouldn’t elaborate such that the things that he did say made any real sense to me in the context of my father and the attorneys’ behavior. Their behavior said, nothing is going on, nada. Had The Doctor elaborated a bit, I might have investigated. And he knew this. He kept me in limbo, betwixt and between. It was a part of his conniving strategy. I know this now. Actually, I didn’t even know how to look for a suit in those days. If I did look in the Stanislaus County Superior Court records in Modesto, I wouldn’t have found anything in this regard. (Years later, I did do research at the Stanislaus County Superior Court Clerk’s Office in Modesto and several other counties as well. Not looking for a lawsuit, but acquiring records that might be pertinent to my lawsuit and eventually the story surrounding it) When The Doctor proclaimed that my father had sued, I could not ask how he knew this. Like Larry Drivon once said to me when I was being inquisitive, “I will not be cross-examined.” This is what happened if I ventured into hidden agenda-land with my questions. That was The Doctor’s way as well, although Dr. Sheuerman kept mum and un-cross examined by way of manipulating away any hidden agenda-probing inquisitiveness that I may have exercised. I know, this all sounds bizarre and schizophrenic. Hey, I admit it. This whole thing appears wacko or my account of it does. Not so fast with the strait-jacket. Hear more of the details. (And get me that polygraph professional!) Most all of the players knew what I thought about all of this. How did they know? Letters and letters and letters from me. Every letter that I wrote to one player, I courtesy-copied to most all of the rest of the players. I didn’t come right out and say that I suspected a lawsuit or definite legal action on my father’s part. I just kind of sort of insinuated legal activity because my insecurity about my sanity was involved. Therefore, for the most part, the implications were veiled. I have to say that Larry Drivon’s secretary, Judith Ann Miller, once told me to keep the letters coming when I mentioned my proclivity for writing them. Why she said this, I haven’t a clue. Perhaps I was making an ass out of myself. I believe that most of my letters were not asinine. I can say one thing for sure. Within Berberian Mystery Theatre, the letters will be corroborating evidence for what I am saying and what I say that I said back in the day. They will reveal what I believed and/or what I knew way back when and whatever the level of confidence I had with regard to same. In those days, the majority of the letters were written in long-hand. I couldn’t type as I am doing now (or key-boarding or punching computer keys or whatever computer typing is called). These were pre-computer days. So, the authenticity will be there for any skeptics out there. Any letters that weren’t written in my cursive writing, I had someone else type. And I have most of the rough drafts. Taking this topic to the ultimate pleonastic and needless extreme, I can prove that the font or type never belonged to any typewriter that I ever owned. And this would be easy to prove, because I never owned a typewriter. And I have people who could corroborate what I’m saying. And if necessary, they could take lie detector tests too. (Not to worry. I’ll get back to serious me, starting now) My letter-writing was documentary and cathartic. Evacuant too. Larry Drivon once said that I had “diarrhea of the hand.” Funny. Drivon is a very likeable guy. In fact, despite the way it looks in here, I still like Bilawski. But this does not mean that I don’t have issues and a score to settle with both men and that I won’t passionately address these issues in the most public way possible. Publicity is my only way to force the issues. I will do it until my dying day, until the end of time, till the cows come home, if I don’t get some honest answers. (If only I knew that the wheels of justice really do slowly turn and did not come to a halt. The cows do eventually make their way back) Regarding my letter-writing and courtesy-copying all of the players, don’t think for one minute that I’m too insecure these days regarding my potential delusional thinking and/or my sanity to constrain myself from saying that there was direct communication between most of the immediate players themselves in one form or another. Such a conspiracy is not just the stuff of movies. It happened in my case. And this conspiracy-oriented psychodrama is indeed movie or book-worthy. Hey, if any of you book or screenwriters out there would like a shot at this, it’s a true story. All we need to add is a little sex and violence. Seriously, should anyone be interested in writing the story (though, in reality, it has essentially already been written), beware and be forewarned. If anyone takes the story on and gets to where it looks like he or she might get something significantly off the ground, he or she will be squashed like a bug. Squish, a big foot will come down. The powers that be in this case have all sides covered. High-ranking Republican and Democratic connections, if not already well-greased, would become so, and if need be, could and would be prevailed upon for anything. (I’m sure that some favors have already been redeemed because of me. And I’m delighted to think and say so) On the monetary side, billions of dollars and the power that collectively comes and goes with them, are accessible. The Brotherhood and their cronies can buy with money and power anyone and anything that poses a threat. Author Ellen Hawkes sold the screen rights to her book about Gallo v. Gallo to Paramount Pictures. The book, Blood & Wine, revolves around the legal case wherein Joseph Gallo was sued by his two older brothers, Ernest & Julio Gallo, for using the name, “Gallo,” on his dairy products. The movie never got made. Oh, I wonder why. One of my theories as to why my case is so toxic is not only because some of the same issues are/were involved in both cases (most notably a very strange appearance of, and infection of the cases by, the res judicata doctrine), but there are some mutual players in Gallo v. Gallo and Berberian v. Berberian. What I believe is so alarming to the Brotherhood is that someone not a Brother, yours truly, knows about such secrets when such secrets, skeletons in their closet, should remain incestuously theirs and theirs alone. (See Timeline at 12/03/93, “Letter to Ellen Hawkes”) Judge Edward Dean Price is/was one of those common players to both cases. He covered his former client, Haig Berberian’s backside. (In so doing, he was covering his own ass. And that was a lot of ass to cover. The man was rotund) Yet Judge Price owed perhaps his life to Larry Drivon. Politics comes to mind, as federal judges are political appointments to begin with. (In my view of things, one of several reasons why Drivon was selected by Bilawski as the trial lawyer for me is apparent in Bilawski’s June 8, 1983 referral letter to Drivon. An explanation will be necessary to anyone looking at the letter who is not familiar with a case that is referenced therein. But such explanation is not germane to this account and so I won’t go into it) Judges who are appointed (as opposed to those who are elected) are not chosen for their integrity. They are selected for their politics and because they are smart enough to have never been nailed for the dirty deeds that they have done routinely for the big people whose influence eventually got them their judgeships. My mantra again, honesty goes out the door when big money and power are involved. Not an earth-shattering revelation. Though they give it lip-service, most people don’t truly realize that most big people and their reputations and big money are the definition of dishonesty and corruption (or maybe it’s vice versa). I was suing a multibillion dollar bank and an estate which is valued at up to $1,000,000,000 today. And big-time reputations were on the line. You’d better believe that there were secret communications, even between powers that be who are/were on “opposing sides” (albeit an oxymoron in Berberian v. Berberian-gotta say it again). I’m not necessarily talking “collusion” (though I’m extremely close). I’m talking “cooperation” with some benign “conspiracy” involved.-At this calm, cool, and collected moment, I must add. Okay, umpteenth digression over. And here comes another. (Is there such a thing as a footnote within a footnote? If not, someone should design one. It would make for better looking, better reading, less disjointed copy of my blogging, if that’s what this is) I want to note that all of my anecdotal evidentiary throwing-in-the-kitchen-sink talk on this website is motivated by my desire to have all of the dots present in case someone wants to take the time to connect the meaningful ones. It’s hard for me to do so in any concise manner because I’m so emotionally close to the matter, which, in my mind, is now a big jumble of thoughts, memories, and cerebral souvenirs from back in the day and way back when. I believe that I have proven my basic point that there is or was a hidden agenda guiding the path of my lawsuit, engineered by attorneys and supported by other members of The Brotherhood whenever others were involved. And this includes judges. And if not specifically, then the general nature of the secret agenda was understood by Dr. Sheuerman and he was aiding and abetting it. Regarding my account of it all, perhaps my mind is affected by my fourteen years of psychotherapeutic stream-of-consciousness free-wheeling yapping and yakking to The Doctor (the last four years virtually devoted to this matter). Who knows (and I guess, who cares), as I create another bunch of words that would look better in a secondary footnote. I guess I’ve got “diarrhea of the mind,” which goes along with my diarrhea of the hand. (One thing’s for sure. Minimalism and the concept that “less is more” is nowhere to be found in Berberian Mystery Theatre) I want to rewind and get back to the confrontation with my father. That story is not finished. What happened with my father after my inquiry about what he may have done to resolve our legal matter? It went well. He got red in the face, blew up at me, and mumbled a couple of choice words regarding Dr. Sheuerman. My father knew (because I told him) that The Doctor had suggested some things to me about what my father may have done. (This was way before The Doctor’s bold blunt statements to me, after he personally met with Bilawski, and in turn told me in so many words that my father, in fact, did what he needed to do to take care of the matter) My father went to see The Doctor early on. A record of this, of course, would be in The Doctor’s “missing” files. However, at the time that my father saw Dr. Sheuerman, I do not believe that my father had taken his boldest step toward resolving the legal issues with his brother. The counseling session may have produced the impetus in my father to do something meaningful about the matter, or so I would eventually think. If this be true, it would be the result of The Doctor having told my father that the matter was deadly serious to me, his only son. My life was at stake. The Doctor would not have worded it this way. But my father emerged from The Doctor’s office wiping tears from his eyes. The reason I was there is because it had been planned between my father and I that I take the second half of the counseling session. I waited in the waiting room. I did try to listen in from where I was waiting, but the damn elevator music was too loud. Hey, I’m no saint, if that’s what you were thinking. (Just joking. I am indeed a saint. I mean, that you might think so) Anyway, my father and The Doctor ended up using the entire fifty-minute session. Had I known that my father was going to need the entire time, I would have told the two of them that I would leave and be back afterwards. This way, neither of them would be worried that I was listening in and therefore the session might possibly be more successful. I knew that my father needed help with the matter and I wanted him to get that help. And yes, I knew that Dr. Sheuerman was the right man for the job. I’ll never deny his competence prior to his retirement and surgery. (However, Berberian v. Berberian, 1980-1984, me and him, is something all its own) In addition to the foregoing, my best guess as to why my father’s emotion, is the following. During my appointment with The Doctor the previous week, when I set up the session for my father to see him, I told The Doctor to tell my father that I loved him (words that were never used in our relationship). And this may have been the last thing that Dr. Sheuerman said to him. However, the implication of the message, my father did not heed. It did not sink into his thick skull that he was no longer the boss of me and that his son was in fact going to go after his brother, my uncle, if he did not do so, or unless he told me what he himself was in the process of doing to correct the matter. Additionally, implied in the message is of course the fact that I knew that my father would spare “the monster,” and when he did so, he’d have to face the monster in me. Unfortunately, the rest is history being documented in Berberian Mystery Theatre. About two months or so after my father had seen Dr. Sheuerman, my father asked me to tell The Doctor that he was playing golf and enjoying life. At a more apropos context within this website, I will go into the circumstances leading up to and surrounding my father’s going to see The Doctor and my belief about why my father wanted me to convey such a message to The Doctor. By the way, my mother as my father’s widow and my sister as the executrix of my father’s estate, were both denied the record of my father’s visit with Dr. Sheuerman. It crosses my mind just now that there may have been other visits by my father with The Doctor, but I know of none and I doubt that there were any others. If there were, such would throw a new light on matters. But I’ll never know. Why? The bottom line is that I am not respected. I was never respected enough to be in the loop. I will never be respected in this matter. Not by my opposition. Which includes everyone involved. But I respect me and that’s all I need in the matter to carry on. Pretty schmaltzy, but it works for me. Okay. Again, back to my confrontation with my father about what he may have done to resolve the matter. This took place sometime after my father’s visit with The Doctor. (My jumping back and forth in time cannot be presenting a coherent fully-understandable picture [unless you have a photographic memory and you’re a genius on top of it]. So, refer to the Timeline page when need be. That is our safety net for the orderly chronological flow of events [duh]) As my father left the room and as I sat there shaking uncontrollably, my father screamed that I was “crazy!” And I have been trying to prove just how crazy I was and am ever since (see Berberian Mystery Theatre). I called Dr. Sheuerman a few minutes after the incident with my father, but I can neither recall what I said nor his response. I was too shaken at the time for the short conversation to have been committed to memory. I do recall that I was mealy-mouthed and I babbled the ramblings emanating from soft brain tissue. Fast-forward, a couple of years later, on August 30, 1983, without advising my father, I would quietly file suit against Haig Berberian and Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco County Superior Court in order to preserve and toll the statute (by law, for five years or until a trial commenced) for fraud discovered, and to move forward with my own case. After I told my father that I had filed suit, my father wanted me to drop the case in the worst way. In essence, I said: “Sorry, wrong number.” I did not advise my father about my suit until several months after I had filed it. (What’s good for the “goose.” In my case, though, at least I eventually told the “gander” what I had done) I notified him in the same room where he denied his having taken any action, scaring the shit out of me with his terrifying eruption of wrath. It wasn’t his wrath that terrified me. It was the possibility that he had taken no action whatsoever (not necessarily meaning a formal lawsuit) and that I was delusional, or to use his word, “crazy.” And I adopt the label with open arms. After I stopped shaking and calmed down, I asked my father if he was bothered by my response (i.e., shaking with fear) to his response to my question. He coldly said, “no,” and he meant it. He had essentially told me to go to hell. (None of my god-damned business!) And I did go straight to and through hell, thanks to his secrecy. (My father could breathe fire and play hard-ball with his son, but it ended with me. When it came to Haig Berberian, he’d bend over. The two brothers Berberian had a sick relationship) The vital information that he would not reveal sealed his deal with me. He became my archrival and my archenemy as well. Probably my nemesis too, I’m sorry to say and have to admit. It was my case against his. We had pretty much the same grounds for suing, the same case as a whole. The biggest difference is that I wanted my case prosecuted and he wanted to turn his case into a cesspool of ankle-grabbing. And therefore, our cases were at odds. Even though they were cut from the same cloth, the two cases were diametrically opposed to each other. My father’s “action” of not suing and my lawsuit were a zero-sum game. As time has shown, he won and I lost across the board. (Just look at what I’m doing right now and for the past thirty-five years) It stands to reason that two cases cannot really co-exist and co-mingle when one case is pretending to go to court and the other case is pretending that it can be settled out of court. Actually, together, they make “no case.” And that’s that angle on things. (If repeating the same failed behavior over and over again hoping or expecting to get a positive result is one of the foremost definitions of insanity, then it was my father who was crazy as a loon) At the moment when I first told him that I had sued his brother (and Wells Fargo Bank), thinking I was bluffing, he disbelieved me, smiled and said that the statute had lapsed. I said not and that I had filed suit before the statute ran. My father’s eyes darted up at me and panic set in. I don’t recall just what happened during the next few minutes. But I do know that shortly thereafter, I was out the door and I never looked back. He’d made his bed and I left him there to sleep in it. I had finally handed my father his lunch or maybe it was his head. (Don’t get me wrong. This was not a competition to me. No dick-measuring. No pissing contest. It was a search for the truth as well as the pot of gold, although the two are part and parcel) Like I said, he had essentially told me to go to hell a couple of years before and that’s precisely where I went. I could say that I exacted revenge and my filing suit was none of his god-damned business! But that’s not why I filed suit. I had done my time in hell waiting for word that he had taken care of the matter. I knew that he was embarrassed by the extent that he had been screwed, blued and tattooed. So I let it be and remained “a good boy,” essentially keeping my nose out of what he wanted to be his secret affair to settle the matter. But the fact remained that I had to file suit because my father had not and the 3-year statute of limitations for filing suit for fraud discovered was approaching. (In so many words, Dr. Sheuerman had been telling me that Bilawski was handling the matter for my father. And therefore, for the next three years, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. But when I had to file my own suit, I knew that instead of taking care of the problem, my father and Bilawski and Haig’s lawyers had only been playing some kind of out-of-court footsy and/or negotiating in the context of a mutual admiration society. Still, I waited yet another three years while Drivon fiddle-farted around. When he pulled out, “no good deed goes unpunished” was the word, and all bets were off. And here I am today doing what I should be doing. That is, whatever suits my fancy. The matter is now mine and mine alone until proven otherwise) Why should my filing suit have been painful to my father, anyway? Why in the world would he want me to drop my case? Why would he have wanted the statute to have lapsed? Let me answer that. It is because he had a secret and he thought my suit might interfere with his soft and flabby limp-wristed plans. That’s why. My father took his secret to his grave. I still don’t know what the hell he did. Had he been honest with me, perhaps we could have worked something out. There are many many lawyers out there who know exactly what my father’s secret was. But no one’s talking. There is no honest lawyer when it comes to my case, which is unfortunately intertwined with whatever it is or was that my father did or didn’t do. So I’m doing what I have to do. I’ve got too much skin in the game to do otherwise. Some months after I told my father about my lawsuit, he said to me: “Bilawski is your enemy.” I ignored him. But the right retort would have been: “No, Bilawski with his hands tied makes you my enemy.” He then mumbled: “It will take longer this way.” This crazy man, me, the one with mental problems, asks: “What the hell does that mean?!” Pussy-footin’ around is what eats up years and decades. A lawsuit means that one is serious. (That is, in cases other than mine, mind you. Had Drivon been serious and gone to trial [notwithstanding the fact that I have shown elsewhere in this website that theoretically, he didn’t even go to court], this matter would have been over decades ago, not only for me, but for anyone and everyone else who has to worry about what I did back in the day and what I’m doing now. And what I am doing now is nothing more than erecting and building Berberian Mystery Theatre. If someone can’t handle that, they may as well go dig Dr. Sheuerman up, erect his skeleton on a chair and get the help they need) A real lawsuit means that you’re not going to swap dollars for pennies, which was my father’s way of doing things. Anyway, it hadn’t been all that long before my father was no longer panicked about my lawsuit. Why? Because he had someone that he could go to for answers, honest answers. (Just speculating, but no other scenario fits and makes sense) And that lawyer or law firm had his power of attorney, albeit encumbered by their client. And the “encumbrancer,” my father, was probably told in a circuitous legally safe way that Larry Drivon was not serious about going all the way to trial, that Drivon had another purpose unbeknownst to me, a purpose that my father probably figured out without being directly told. Why not told directly? Because it would have been the professional death of every single lawyer involved with his case and mine, past and present, a legal landmine, judicial quicksand for the judges involved. This, especially if he told me. And especially now that I’ve pretty much got their number. The answer to this is why all of the lawyers involved are in hiding today. Question: “Who could I go to for answers?” Answer: “Dr. Sheuerman, psychiatrist turned lawyer for my father’s side and his hidden agenda.” A psychotherapist who was giving me cryptic messages and playing guessing games when I was going out of my mind. Not going nuts required me to believe in the words and the behavior of The Doctor, my father, Bilawski and Drivon. But it also required intellectual suicide, the willing suspension of disbelief on my part. I chose craziness. More accurately stated, I was forced to go nuts. I didn’t have it in me to consciously fantasize or change reality. Thinking counter-intuitively beyond belief might be another way to put it. Could I go to Drivon and/or Bilawski and ask a question which would essentially have been calling them deceitful liars, fraudulent phonies? Try this out: “Is there something else going on in some other venue involving my father that is affecting the procedure of my case in an adverse way? Something that I should know about? Something that you would necessarily have to know about if it is adversely affecting my case or affecting my case in any way whatsoever?” That’s what the subject necessitates. And I did inquire quite specifically once I knew that Drivon was seriously pulling out. But I got denials from Drivon about what amounted to a hidden agenda on his and Bilawski’s part. (Hey, don’t blame me, guys. Dr. Sheuerman started it!) Okay, back to my father and his secret. Like I said earlier, my father never copped to what he had done. But he had obviously done something and I don’t truly know what it was that he did. I speculate within this website in the documents posted and the commentary/blurbs thereto as to the general nature of what he did. But it’s all guesswork. I really don’t have much understanding. And not one lawyer on the face of this earth who does know will tell me and not one Brother not in the loop will even make an educated guess. Does, “your father dropped whatever it was that he was doing, ‘if anything,’ and your lawyers dropped you,” work for you? Do you buy the words, “if anything”? Believe me, those words would be part of the shtick. They’d lose me then and there. If they admitted that my father did do something with some lawyer(s), how could Bilawski and Drivon remain looking like tolerant kind attorneys who did every single last thing within their power to help Richard Berberian, the poor basket-case? It’s a Brotherhood, folks, people out there (if you’re there out there, that is). They watch out for their own. (Not to re-mention the fact that the inner workings of their incestuous relationships are not supposed to be made public, especially by the likes of someone crazy like me. How embarrassing) Okay. What I do know for a fact is that what my father did, affected my case in an adverse way. He knew it and he knew that I knew it and my knowledge of this coupled with any possible element of guilt that he had about it, may have been a contributing factor in his death. I need to know how and why his abominable actions castrated my case. Precisely so. However, like I just said and implied all along in this entire website, no one is talking. No one. If I had any money, I’d offer a reward, a big one for the info. I remember telling Dr. Sheuerman once when I was in a fit of rage over being kept out of the loop: When this matter is all over, they’d better not tell me a fucking thing! Sorry about the f-word (again), but that’s what I said, and the most fitting word needed to be used. Well, the matter may be over for the other players and they may not have to tell me anything anymore. But the matter is not over for this player and I have a “fucking” thing or two to tell them (see Berberian Mystery Theatre). By reviewing just a few choice documents, any top-notch lawyer could make a real good educated guess as to what my father had done. Since no Brother will do so, I have learned just about all I need to know about the legal profession when big money, big power, and big reputations are involved. And any top-notch lawyer would also know that I did not make up the herein-above referenced comments (as well as those yet to come herein-below and elsewhere on this website) spoken to me by Dr. Sheuerman, because his words and their inferences probably nestle perfectly within the nooks and crannies and the cracks and crevices and each and every orifice of the “hidden agenda whore” to which I was not privy, and of which I had and have, then and now, very little if any understanding. (And any psychiatrist or psychologist, for that matter, top-notch or not, would know that I’m not making this stuff up) Being that I do not actually know what the hidden agenda is, how could I possibly come up with the statements that I claim The Doctor said to me? I own Dr. Sheuerman. I have owned him for a long time. He is and was made. By me, yours truly, moi. No brag, just fact. And this is another reason why the lawyers who engineered the whole thing are in hiding. Though it will not come to pass, if I am ever given the truth about what my father had done, it will be clear that I was lied to by my father, taken for a ride by the lawyers, and heinously manipulated by The Doctor who was doing The Brotherhood’s bidding, the latter being of continuing great concern to the lawyers, despite the fact that The (Good) Doctor is dead. (Hey, it’s one thing to prove just how sleazy the legal profession can get, but Doctors of Medicine, especially those in mental health, are not supposed to be bottom-dwelling scum-suckers. And certainly not Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., M.D.-Stockton, California. I’ll take it all back and offer apologies eternally if someone proves me wrong. And if I am right, that will never be proven either. Why? Because we’re talking about Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank. Nothing will ever see the light of day regarding what really went on. That being said, “let there be light”) Regarding my father and what he did, he had played his cards all wrong with me. Minimally, somewhere during the course of events, he had an ethical obligation to be honest about what he had done, knowing first that, as well as he, I had a potential suit, and second, that I had instituted my suit. But my father was not ethical enough to be honest about the matter at any time at all. And we’re talking about each and every one of the 1604 days that he was alive after he and I discovered fraud. Actually, there was one honest day on his part. The one honest day that we had together in the matter was the day that he showed me the confidential memo indicating fraud which was given to him (under curious circumstances) on September 2, 1980. Almost immediately, he started to revisit the nightmare that Haig Berberian and Peter Jeppson had inflicted upon him and he essentially got cold feet. Soon thereafter, in order to go easy on himself by going easy on his brother and therefore Peter Jeppson as well, he stabbed me in the back and he used a big knife. And yes, he twisted it as well. (As I have said before, he played hardball with me. But when it came to his brother, he looked upon himself as did his brother. Vasken was just a piece of shit to be scraped off the bottom of Haig’s shoe) I had very little if any love left for my father at the end of his life. In fact, Haig Berberian’s immediate family has more respect for him than I do. Why? Because my father spared his brother and sacrificed rotten good-for-nothing me. My father left me to finish what he had gotten us into. And he would not even begin a minor role as a witness for my case, even though he had an obligation to be my star witness. Though the hidden agenda was the overriding factor, both Drivon and Bilawski knew that since my father would be an adverse witness, they did not take his deposition. Not on my behalf, that is. The closest that they came to anything of the sort was an audio recording that Drivon made of a meeting between himself, my father and me. Do you think that I could even obtain a copy of that? Nope. Drivon denied making the recording when I asked for a copy as he was withdrawing from my case. For all of you other former and present Drivon clients out there, does the following ring any bells?: “Is this thing on? Let’s see. The red light is on. Yes, yes, it’s recording.” That was Drivon’s modus operandi for obtaining an acknowledged cassette recording without having to ask the client to say anything in that regard, which might make the client uncomfortable and more likely to withhold their thoughts and comments. (Though not true for me. I was ready for an anal exam if they needed it, the scope right there, video tape and all) Additionally, Drivon wanted a record of the fact that he advised my father and I of whatever it was that he said. Drivon was sitting on his office couch there at 215 S. San Joaquin Street in Stockton, facing my father and me, his back facing East Channel Street through the one-way window in his office. (Yes, it was a big corner window through which one could see out, but no one could see in) My being told thereafter that this important recording for my case was never made? Additionally, being told by Drivon that he couldn’t remember the last time that he made any kind of recording at all? And you wonder why I’m still driven after three decades. You know, if Larry Drivon can make a disclosed audio recording of a meeting with me and my father and thereafter deny that he made it, thereby denying its possession to its rightful owner, me, the plaintiff in the case, then I can make an undisclosed recording of meetings and discussions in the same matter and thereafter disclose and post it for everyone in the world to have and to hold. See, nice and tidy tit for tat. And being open and honest thereafter, my way is infinitely more ethical. I gave them a tit for their tat. A boob for a tattoo. I’m glad I got that straightened out. In thinking about the matter these days, my father’s actions were for the most part based on his fear of Haig. Therefore, my father did not necessarily spare Haig in toto because my father had such a good heart and he did not sacrifice me totally because he was rotten to the core. He was afraid of Haig’s power and menace and therefore the attorneys had to work with his fear in order to get the case. They had to assure him that there would be no legal and financial liability, no counter-measures by Haig that would come back to bite him. (My guess is that somehow my father’s counsel indemnified him in a truly legal way, not the fraudulent way that Haig and Jeppson got my father to be a signatory on some settlement agreements. More on this elsewhere) Despite his counsel’s “owning” the case and both its positive and negative aspects, his counsel couldn’t tell him that he was totally in the driver’s seat nor tell him how much money might be involved. Why? Because (as exemplified above in an alternate way), my father would say right off the bat that he’d settle for half the amount: “No make that 25%. Let’s get this thing over.” (You think not? When the matter first got under way, before we had any inkling about how much money and land might be involved, my father hopped onto the “Bend Over Express” and asked me if I’d settle for $500,000.-Case closed) Notwithstanding, when it actually came down to it, why couldn’t he say that he’d take less when he did know that he’d been robbed into the seven figures? The answer: Me. Big fat me. Vasken’s trouble-maker son was standing there. “Richard the glitch.” My trust could not be compromised (not without my approval) and he had to ask for the trust assets along with his own if he was going to keep me out of the matter. (Additionally, now that everyone was lawyered up, Wells Fargo Bank would have to toe the line as well. No more letting Vasken be the fall guy, bending over on behalf of the trust) As I said earlier, Bilawski once declared: “It’s all or it’s nothing.” So, no one can fault me for wanting every penny that should have been mine and saying so. No compromise. Bilawski cannot make a statement like that to me and my father and then, both of them, kick me out of the matter, and then, not expect me to hold Bilawski and my father to Bilawski’s word. My ass is covered, folks. Other than Bilawski’s word on this and what I have discussed above, if, for no other reason, my father couldn’t discuss compromise or anything else about the matter with me, because he had shamelessly lied to me over the years about his doings, or rather his not doing, as the case turned out to be. His biggest mistake regarding me was underestimating my intelligence (not that I’m a brain) and especially my will and follow-through. Another take on the matter is/was as follows. My father was 72 years old in 1980. Rudy Bilawski told me more than once: “Your father is no spring chicken.” Taking a look at my father’s sick relationship with his brother during their fifty years in business together, beginning to end (not to mention their seventy years as brothers by birth), Rudy was spot on, dead on, and right on. (Get it?) Outsiders and even other family members could say that the two brothers had their screwed-up relationship all of their lives.-Let it be. My retort: “What does the law say about it?” The law is all that matters. The law is what this whole thing is about. Law is what’s involved, not the personal relationship between the two brothers Berberian. Were the latter the case, Haig’s (crooked) lawyers and/or accountants would not have been called in to draw up the two brothers’ partnership agreements and then the settlement agreements after Haig breached the partnership agreements. By the way, these agreements do not have a law firm name on them. This leads me to believe that they were not drawn up by any of Haig’s lawyers. They were drawn up by someone or a firm wanting to remain unnamed. Well, my guess is that the agreements were drawn up by someone at “The Atherton Whorehouse.” Namely, The Atherton Whore’s boss, George Atherton, the only man qualified to delve into law, because he is/was an attorney in addition to being an accountant. (I’d like to note that the Defendants in my case accused me of having “dirty hands,” a legal concept meaning that I previously knew about the fraud involved in my case. Therefore, I couldn’t sue over it. The statute had lapsed. Laughable. Let me tell you, if I had known that there were any “errors” whatsoever in the accounting, let alone that I was “defrauded,” I would have raced over to an attorney’s office to rectify the matter in a nanosecond. (That’s why Haig Berberian was afraid of me. Oh, I can hear the sycophant-worshipers now: “Haig Berberian wasn’t afraid of that screwball twerp”) Reading through this website, do you think that I was ever any other way? The other side would have you believe that I’m money hungry. If one takes a second to think about it (I’ve taken thirty-five years to think about it), they are saying, “all of a sudden, Richard likes money.” Not when I knew there was fraud back in the day. See how stupid that is? Actually, “knowing about the fraud” is an oxymoron. By definition, I didn’t know about the fraud perpetrated by Haig Berberian, The Atherton Whore, and others. You can’t know about what you don’t know about. Fraud is being cheated by someone without knowing about it. When I post my MMPI test results, the end of assumptions about me by everyone involved will necessarily come to an end. Bar none, one can’t become more transparent than their MMPI. The above-mentioned legal bullshit (“dirty hands,” etc.) raised by the defense will come to an end as well. No one tricks the MMPI into believing that someone’s a saint. No, my results don’t say I’m a saint. I can’t even recall what the results were. All I remember is that I “passed” with flying colors. I’d love to see anyone else involved do the same. I’m waiting. Okay. Addressing the personal and business relationships between Haig and Vasken Berberian, here’s a brief history. Setting his sights out west, Haig Berberian came out to California after screwing my father in their haberdashery business in Boston. Haig saw a business opportunity in Modesto. He called my father, asking him to forget the screwing, and told him to bundle up his family, move out west, and before coming, to wire his entire savings in order to help purchase a business in which Haig promised my father a 50% interest. My father did so. (California, here I come, right back where I started from, where bowers, of flowers bloom in the spring, each morning, at dawning, birdies sing at everything, a sun-kissed miss said, ‘don’t be late,’ that’s why I can hardly wait, open up that Golden Gate, California, here I come! Just a suggestion for “Berberian Mystery Theatre.”-The movie. My father used to sing this song when he was happy. Happy? Which reminds me. Here’s another. Happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again, let us sing a song of cheer again, happy days are here again! That’s another song my dad sang when he was happy. Which wasn’t very often. Because of Haig and Peter Jeppson-fat bastard accountant) My father told me that Haig pled poverty and asked my father to send all of his possessions, i.e., pots and pans and furniture, etc. My father did so. My father said that this turned out to be a ploy such that my father would have to stay once here in Modesto when Haig’s memory got hazy about “50%.” In 1957, when the business started to make big money (in large measure due to my father’s superb skill at running the plant and providing a superb finished product which landed, among others, the See’s Candies account) and formal partnership agreements were being drawn up (by Haig’s crooked lawyers and/or accountants), Haig said to my father: You get 33.3% retroactively, not 50%. My father essentially acquiesced. In 1963, my father decided to establish trusts on behalf of his two children identical to that being established by Haig for the benefit of his descendants. One reason why my father wanted trusts for me and my sister with Wells Fargo Bank as Trustee was, he didn’t want his children to be screwed. He knew that Haig despised if not hated him, but he thought that Haig would never screw his niece and nephew, especially with a bank as trustee. Wrong. Wells Fargo Bank’s nose had long before become “Haig Berberian brown.” (Haig Berberian was one of Wells Fargo Bank’s largest and most important clients back in those days. Larry Drivon told me this, adding that such clients are how small banks get to be big) Wells Fargo Bank did not administer said trusts as my father had intended nor even as written. That is, identically to the trust/entity established by Haig for his descendants. Therefore, Wells Fargo Bank breached their fiduciary duty to me and my sister as the Beneficiaries and my father and mother as the Grantors/Trustors. When my father established the trusts, Haig said to my father: You and your family get 20% retroactively, not 33.3%. (This part, of course, was not Wells Fargo’s fault, unless that 20% cut had been actually proportioned to my father all along, i.e., since 1957, and hidden in the yearly accountings prepared by fat bastard Peter Jeppson in cooperation, collusion and conspiracy with Wells Fargo Bank) My father essentially acquiesced to that additional decrease in his percentage. It was my father’s belief that by reducing our percentages so much, Haig would not feel compelled to cheat us. (How stupid is that?!) My father underestimated my uncle’s greed and he was totally unaware of how sinister and evil the sanctimonious latter day saint family accountant, Peter Jeppson, was. What was also asinine of my father is that he accepted these reductions in percentage retroactively. The idiom, “what part of stupid don’t you understand,” is exemplified by my father. Industrial-strength stupidity was he. In 1972 when the business was sold, among other things, Haig denied my father his share of the sale of the name and goodwill of the business and proceeded to pay my father roughly half of what he should have gotten. Again, my father relented. He more or less “obeyed.” He was in no shape to argue with any real passion. Why? Because he was sick. My father had been very ill with a bad case of the flu which apparently altered his sense of taste and brought to a screeching halt his three pack-a-day cigarette habit. However, this cold-turkey change still unleashed upon him the agony of nicotine withdrawal. Add to this the fact that, according to my father, at this time, he had become impotent. (Maybe because of Haig and Jeppsons’ treachery. We don’t know) Add to this the fact that, at this time, I had just come home from college after having a nervous breakdown. Add to this the fact that, at this time, his daughter moved out of his home at an age that my father thought was too young. Add to this the fact that, at this time, my father went to his older brother for some emotional support. And as mentioned above, Haig stepped on him instead, using the occasion to squeeze as much of my father’s 14-hour days, very hard-earned money out of him as possible without taking everything. (Haig would have executed the latter as well if the law would have allowed it. “Consideration” and quid pro quo are legal concepts that Haig wished never had come into existence. Then he could have had absolute power over my father and enjoyed the ultimate schädenfreude for which he lusted when it came to his brother. By law, Haig had to let my trust stand as well, although, with Wells Fargo Bank’s help, he robbed it blind) As indicated above, participating in the screwing with my uncle was the self-righteous religious con-artist, Peter B. Jeppson, CPA, the accountant for the family business. The world had crashed down on my father in the worst way and he was very ill, yet both men terrorized and traumatized him. Both men were cold-hearted bastards. Let me say right here and now that even though my father was cowardly with Haig from the very beginning of their business and personal relationships, it was probably during the sale of the business that my father had become impotent not only physically, but mentally through and through. I blame my father’s condition on his mean and callous brother. I also blame my father’s ill-health equally if not more so, on the evil religious hypocrite and big fat pig with continuously batting-blinking eyes, Peter B. Jeppson, C.P.A., whose “Mormon” character matches that of any Catholic priest who molests young boys. But it’s okay as long as no one else, except Haig, knows. Haig and Jeppson together were a very potent diabolical team. They screwed my father from beginning to end, 9125 days, 300 months, 25 years, 2.5 decades, a quarter of a century. However you want to measure it. Berberian Mystery Theatre wants equal time. (By the way, at that time, all my father had to do is go to a lawyer. Then Haig could buy him too. I’m sure that my father believed this or he may have sought counsel. On this one point, my father was smart. He got it right. The fact that my father never sought counsel was a legal advantage for him. Which he eventually finally and forever flushed down the toilet like he did any other advantages, legal and otherwise, that he may have had) Okay. Moving on to another aspect of the matter, regarding my father’s relationship with me, yes, he had provided a trust for me. But with it came emotional and psychological consequences, especially during the many times when he was having trouble with his brother. Haig is the person with whom he should have gotten tough. (My father could have kicked Haig’s ass physically. Haig was frail and my father was hearty) Leaving aside 1972, if not a bona fide coward, my father was a lamb with the man who unabashedly despised him (and his long-haired son, though my hair was not long relative to that era, my hair being longer today than it was back then. And my hair today is not long). As I said, Haig was malicious toward my father in their personal and business relationships. However, instead of kicking Haig in the groin in return, my father was tough on his own family, yelling and swearing, etc. Too often was he in this kind of mood at home when his children acted up. By the way, in case anyone out there thinks that I am being inconsistent, expecting my father to kick anyone’s ass when he was impotent (probably directly caused by his brother and fat-ass bastard Jeppson), I am not. It would not take balls to prosecute the matter on my father’s part. It would merely take believing that his brother was not God (more powerful than). And eight years later, it would take the humility to recognize the intelligence of, and trust how competent Rudy Bilawski was, that such counsel was at his disposal and he should use it to end the matter once and especially for all and forever. Case closed. Show over. Fade to black. I remember my father asking Rudy Bilawski at the outset of our discussions with Rudy, if Haig could make our legal matter come between my father and I. That question had “foolish compromise, pennies on the dollar” written all over it. Bilawski slowly shook his head, “no.” I did not know then, but I do know now, what Rudy chose not to verbalize: “You’re the one who could do that, Mr. Berberian.” And my father proceeded to do so. At Haig’s legal behest, my father drove a stake through the heart of his relationship with me. (I will say, however, and it may come as a surprise, that no son, for most of his years, loved his father more than I did mine. To bring my mother into the picture, whatever opinions if any she had on all of this, she kept to herself. But she hated all of the yelling and screaming that my father and I engaged in when the subject arose. My mother was simple and simply the kindest person that I have ever met. I’m lucky for her having been my mother and my having learned that such good human beings exist. She continues to redeem the human race for me to date. Always will. I do have to credit my father for marrying her. After Haig told him to do so, of course. Haig had married my mother’s sister. Yes, this is true. The two brothers Berberian married the two Hatzakorzian sisters) As far as my father asking if this legal matter could come between me and him, he was telling Bilawski that he’d want to behave as always, compromise up the ying-yang. To Haig’s lawyers: “50 cents on the dollar? Fine. Let’s wrap this up.” Bilawski’s, it’s all or it’s nothing, flys out the window .Bilawski said early in the matter that my father couldn’t go back and ask for another partial payment regardless of the amount. He had to ask for everything. My father was defrauded, he didn’t know it, give me my money. That’s what he’d have to tell a judge and/or jury. Look at this. I’m figuring this out thirty-five years later. Everyone else in the room could read between the lines instantly. I was clueless. You know, there is something involving me that I finally recalled over the years that I believe had my father scared shitless. He’d probably forgotten about it, but I’m sure somebody on Haig’s side reminded him early on. This was psychological warfare. And that’s my department. I was afraid of nobody and nothing. (Just like Rudy Bilawski) That is, I was afraid of nothing aside from the possibility of being nuts because of all of the deceit going on around me by everyone involved.-Yes, everyone (emphasis added). (And don’t forget: “You aren’t paranoid if everyone really is out to get you”) But my father’s fear of that one thing angers me horrendously because I didn’t then and don’t now give a shit about it. It wasn’t anything constituting res judicata. I’ll just say that. (Only that for now, because the bad guys might be reading what I write. In fact, I know that at least one of them is. And most likely more than one. “So bad guy(s), go screw yourself”) The only thing my father had to worry about was giving or having given res judicata to Haig and his army of reprobates. But he didn’t do that or Larry Drivon and Rudy Bilawski would never have had me sue. I’m sure that there was something that looked like res judicata out there. But the real thing, never. No way. Nevertheless, since my father’s fear of something unreal was as good as it being real, Haig’s side won. Don’t get me wrong. Haig was no he-man. He would have been scared just as shitless as my father about going to court. But that arrow was not in Drivon and Bilawski’s quiver. They removed it. They removed taking Haig’s deposition from the fight as part of a deal with the other side. The problem is what they got in return aside from Haig’s lawyers not taking my father’s deposition. That was an equal swap. The real question is what they got in return for not serving Haig with my lawsuit. What they got in return for not making it known to Haig that I had sued him. It is quite evident that I got nothing out of the deal. Nothing. And being that I’m here writing these words, it is clear that they got nothing out of it either except my wrath, now that I know about the non-service of legal papers on Haig Berberian. And unfortunately, my wrath will live on until the day I die. Full stop. End of story. Except to say that I could have easily been talked into being a member of the “Don’t Serve Haig Club” were I privy to the strategy, were I allowed into the loop of my own god-damned case! But oh no, others knew better than I. That’s why I’m here doing this. Now, as I continue my (end of) story, Haig was the “real bad guy” in all of this (according to Larry Drivon). Yet Haig’s fear of me, not my father, is for the most part, what shaped the sequence of events in the legal matter as a whole. (I discuss this in detail in the commentary of the 8/30/83 Timeline entry titled, “Case File—813484”) But the sequence of events, by the way, according to all lawyers with whom I consulted, big surprise, included no conspiracy. This would be true if my father had not taken some sort of action unbeknownst to me. I’m supposed to believe that there was no conspiracy in light of another come-on that Dr. Sheuerman made to me a couple of years prior to my filing suit and while I was in the “hurry up and wait” phase of my history in the matter. (“Hurry up and wait” was the definition/description that The Doctor had given to my involvement in the matter during the three years leading up to my filing suit. It was Dr. Sheuerman who generated that expression to define that passage of time. Unless The Doctor was more delusional than me. Maybe he was the loon) One day, looking reflective in a direction away from me, The Doctor contemplatively remarked: I wish I could be there when Bilawski and [Jim] Askew are taking Haig and Jeppsons’ depositions. It really pisses me off, because the bastard knew that no one was going to take Haig’s deposition. (You gotta first tell the man that he’s been sued before you take his deposition. But hey, that’s just me. I’m just sayin.’) So tell me something; were these the words of a medical doctor or those of a lying deceitful manipulating con-man scum-sucking one-case-only lawyer? I’m beginning to wonder if, “follow the money,” will lead me to the answer. And there’s an outside chance that I could end up in San Francisco as opposed to Stockton. It would make much more sense at this point. (I’ll explain later) Regarding Dr. Sheuerman’s comment about Bilawski and the depositions, by and through that statement (not to mention a dozen or so others), a statement made several years before I myself instituted suit, The Doctor bred my belief or fed the one already in existence, that Bilawski had a secret and had a hidden agenda. With his “dirty hands,” The Doctor essentially “sicced” me on Bilawski for the days, weeks, months, years, and decades to follow. My belief about a hidden agenda was bred and/or fed and allowed to blossom, by one, Arnold Aaron Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. of Stockton, California. There was a real deep-seated reason why The Doctor wanted me to believe what I did (and to a large extent still do), and thereby keep me seated and in one spot. He wanted me to remain “on the couch” and “under his spell.” Keeping what I have just laid out about The Doctor in this notation and on this page in mind, as well as what I have said in every other nook and cranny of this website/exposé, with the exception of Dr. Sheuerman, according to every knowledgeable player that I ran the “hidden agenda” concept by, nothing was going on nor had gone on that I did not consciously or otherwise know about regarding my father’s and my legal matter(s). Alright, therefore, once again, I give to “every knowledgeable player that I ran the ‘hidden agenda’ concept by,” the one, the only-Berberian Mystery Theatre. 18 Just a simple phone call to me with some candid information could have prevented much of the misery I experienced throughout the process. Just a bit of honesty. Some kind of meaningful gestures. But no one trusted me, including Dr. Sheuerman, whose information was so barren and bare bones, and its impartation having been so enigmatically-delivered, that I was still left twisting in the wind. And the particular powers that be wanted me devoid of any and all information as to what was transpiring, even though it would have eased my anguish and anger and perhaps circumvented my bouts of depression. I was on a need-to-know basis and no one thought I needed to know a fricking thing. Dr. Sheuerman thought I needed to know whatever it was that he told me. But the information was minimal, just enough to keep my sanity. Additionally, he’d be up shit creek ethically if he did not throw me a bone now and then. He even said one time, “a little information would help,” meaning information from someone other than him, and this was a long time prior to my filing suit. He was talking about the hidden agenda. It was up to him to give me something to chew on. People were watching and he had a reputation to maintain, not to mention the asses that he had to save legally. But all of my actions were reactions to the duplicity of all of the rotten stinking players, most notably The Doctor. Early on, my behavior was essentially dictated by my father’s behavior which, in my mind, reflected what Dr. Sheuerman had been “cryptically” telling me. (I want to emphasize the fact that said suggestions also defined and dictated my thinking and behavior with my attorneys) However, as the years grew on, my father’s behavior reflected just the opposite of what The Doctor had suggested had been going on. My father had not done a damn thing to rectify our legal matter(s). He was never serious and therefore any steps that any attorney may have taken on his behalf were essentially ignored by the other side. Any power of attorney of my father’s was useless because the other side knew that it was a power in absentia. The client who gave the power would not back it up if push came to shove. My father could be pushed and shoved, screwed, tattooed and barbequed. And that’s what happened to him. Any legal steps taken out of said power were dead on arrival, because the other side knew exactly who the client was. At some point, there must have been some kind of a crack that was open such that Haig’s lawyers could get to my father. Even if they were to just ask his middle name, my father would cave, they win. My father couldn’t even extricate himself from his brother with that question. The two brothers Berberian had the same middle name: “Garabed.” (The Armenian meaning of this name is “forerunner”) Of course, to my father, he didn’t have the same middle name as Haig. He had “Haig’s middle name.” Anyway, this leaves just one question that my father could answer without shitting his pants: “What’s your favorite color?” Vasken’s answer: “I have to ask my brother and I’ll get back to you.” (My answers: “Yellow, like himself.” “Brown, like his nose for Haig.” “Green, like Vasken’s money is Haig’s money.” Or “black like Richard’s heart when it comes to Vasken”) And that’s essentially what happened in one form or another. (What about my uncle? My father’s lawyers getting to him? That’s a whole nother story that I discuss in “Case File-813484” at 8/30/83 in the Timeline) I believe that Dr. Sheuerman knew all of this virtually as it happened and thereafter and this state of affairs is reflected in his attitude and behavior during the posted conversation. The Doctor had not forgotten exactly (nor generally) who I was after twelve years. He said as much during the course of the telephone call. He could not and would never forget me and the baggage he left me with, thereby making me, his former patient, baggage for him. Four years of deceit on his part was left brewing over the years, haunting his life (and mine) since the day that I walked out his door. (My correspondence was a constant reminder to him of the malpractice he’d wreaked in “therapy,” although this was unbeknownst to me at the time, because I did not know that he was one of the “bad guys.” In fact, the worst of the worst. And when I finally got some honest help from a friend, who is/was as smart as they come, the matter became deadly serious for The Hypocratic Doctor) So, Dr. Sheuerman, my father, the lawyers on both sides, and even the judges involved, all in the loop, can take credit for creating this story. Berberian Mystery Theatre is my way of “giving back.” A taste of their own medicine they get, using all of their caliculus gustatoriuses. Hardball. Scorched earth. War without human sensitivity. Revenge, if you will. Hey, I can’t help it, I’m a Scorpio. 19 Yes, I’m aware that I may be talking to myself right now. Then again, I’m talking to you. I’m writing a book and/or screenplay as we speak. In real time, the word count of just this post is 46,733. The length of a typical novel is 43,000 words. Of course, in order to bring it all together and make it understandable to the reader, I need a pro. Who might need a shrink:) The story is presently called: Berberian Mystery Theatre. It’s about a guy who is by nature paranoid, seeing a psychiatrist while involved in a legal matter in which a conspiracy is involved, or so he thinks. But he doesn’t know if what he’s witnessing and dealing with is a bona fide conspiracy. And he’s worried that he might be nuts. He looks to his psychiatrist for answers and all he gets are cryptic messages about the matter, things that The Doctor can only know from sources other than his patient. This means that The Doctor himself is necessarily a member of the conspiracy. And this is why the psychiatrist’s formal name is: The Hypocratic Doctor. 20 I would submit that Dr. Sheuerman’s “therapeutic suggestions,” in reality, were imparted despite my father’s contraindicated behavior. Notwithstanding, it stands to reason that I was not cognitively sound or The Doctor would not have resorted to his “therapeutic suggesting.” It is my disquieting belief that in so doing, The Doctor sent me into a torturous life-lie that has haunted me ever since. Clinically speaking, The Doctor’s horseshit is what was at the bottom of and behind the way I behaved with the lawyers. When coupled with letters from lawyers to me and some of the court documents, my personal letters to the players will prove this. And this is one of the main reasons why The Doctor is and was not about to give me my medical records. They would seal the deal and his fate as a proven charlatan and a practitioner of malpractice with reference to me in the context of this case among cases. I have copies of all of my correspondence with The Doctor which is proof positive in favor of the case I’m making. In thinking about the matter, if I was a “difficult client” to my lawyers (though I was advised by my personal attorney that I was not), it would no doubt be the fault of the line of bullshit being fed to me by The Doctor during the period of time leading up to my filing suit and thereafter as my lawsuit sauntered along. As one example among dozens that I could cite, why should I not have been frustrated and a “difficult client” in some sense other than legal, as I scrutinized a lawsuit wherein my attorney fails and refuses to take the depositions of my father (my star witness) and my uncle (the primary defendant) when both men are in their 70’s? This, when I know or falsely believe, because my psychiatrist had lead me to conceive and allowed me to believe, that another agenda revolving around my father is the reason. I’ll say it again that all I had around me were a bunch of liars and their sack of lies. I experienced a justice system that was and is corrupt to the core (when it comes to big cases involving big money, big power, and big reputations). And the only thing that I can do is expose it. Shed light on it. That’s it. Berberian Mystery Theatre. I have no back-up plan. I have never had nor will I ever have an attorney to help me rectify the underlying injustice. If justice had been in the cards, I would have nothing to expose. If there were no hidden agenda, I would have nothing to expose. If I were clued in on the agenda, there would have been no hidden agenda and I would have nothing to expose. If any Brother did try to get me some justice, even without adjudication, he would necessarily expose the rest of the story which is the secret agenda that the lawyers felt was necessary to implement in order to avoid “truly” going to court, thereby opening up the biggest can of worms that the justice and judicial systems had ever seen. (This, of course, put me through hell since I was not being advised in the matter and as a result, it was incumbent upon me to file suit and go to court) Said Brother would be exposing the dirty deeds of the players and the Brothers among them. And this would mean no more substantial cases for said “rat” attorney. Not to worry. If any attorney were to prosecute my case and the legal shenanigans connected thereto, said barrister could purchase and retire to a small island somewhere and enjoy wine, women and song for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, which Brother is going to poke his nose into the carefully-engineered and crafted legal enigma that is/was my lawsuit? Think about it. Have you ever heard of a case where a lawyer files a phony “phantom” lawsuit on his client’s behalf and all of the judges ruling on the piece-of-crap non-case know damn well that it’s phony bologna? After some kind of a wink and a nod by the attorneys involved (in a smoke-filled back room or on the golf course), the judges would see, comprehend, and know for a fact that, inherently obvious and fundamentally knowledgeable to both sides, there is/was no Original Summons filed and in the file nor a proof of service pertaining thereto, and they would see and know that there is/was no Notice & Acknowledgment of Receipt filed and in the file signed by the primary defendant regarding the phantom Original Summons (and the original complaint) in the matter. Therefore, the judges would know that the primary defendant was neither served nor “summoned” in the case (or non-case, as the case may be), and there is/was, in fact, no bona fide lawsuit in the file as thick as it was. And said judges would also know through the grapevine or otherwise (or else the lawyers would have been in judicial officer-of-the-court hot water) that the elderly primary defendant had no clue that he had been sued (not!). And since it was obvious that both sides were in accordance with this charade, the judges (to my detriment) let it be. (For a more in-depth discussion of this, see Timeline at 08/30/83, “Case File–813484”) Again, what attorney is going to stick his or her nose into such a phantom case agreed upon by all of the attorneys and judges involved? Poke one’s nose into that and get one’s legal manhood cut off. (Whatever language was used to bring this matter, with all of its complexities, together and in agreement between all of the Esquires and Honorables, would be a foreign form of communication to someone not a Brother) “Oh, Richard’s blowing things out of proportion.” Keep your eyes on the Timeline, folks. It could only happen in Berberian v. Berberian, a case like no other.–I have said in times past that I only have one lawsuit in me. I’m not holding my breath, but if there are any lawyers out there who would like to expose a one-of-a-kind legal scam and sham and a miscarriage of justice by among others, the justices themselves, do let me know. I’ve still got that one in me. 21 I doubt that anyone would disagree with me that Larry Drivon making my personal and confidential letter to him a part of the court record and therefore going public with it, was unethical and “dirty.” To tell me as he did when I confronted him about the matter, that he filed it with the court because it was “part of the case,” without explaining why it was part of the case, made it all the worse. Whether or not filing it was actionable, I do not know. Actually, I guess not, if the letter is/was part of the case. (Of course, I’m assuming that Drivon was being hon, that Larry was being tru, that my lawyer was being hon, never mind) I wouldn’t have taken any action even if it were actionable. (Of course, no Brother would have honestly taken my case going against Brother Drivon anyway, because all of the attorneys and judges involved were in agreement and because it was just crazy ole me who was being bamboozled) I’m not a litigious, sue-happy guy. I have sued just once in my life, in this matter (though I did go on to sue the same defendants as an in pro per in related matters which I have described in commentary elsewhere on this website). And besides, I did trust Larry’s word on this. That is, my letter was “part of the case,” though I became incensed when I first found out that he had filed it. His doing so gave me the moral authority later on down the line to call all of the letters that I had written to him and other involved players regarding the matter and everything that I filed in my related cases, a part of this case and vice versa. I remember one time during a meeting between myself, my father, Rudy Bilawski, his top trial lawyer, Jim Askew, and if I recall correctly, a research attorney, Rudy was reviewing a couple of settlement agreements that my father had signed wherein my father received some money belonging to him that my uncle had originally decided to keep for himself and his immediate family when the family business was sold in 1972. Of course, Haig kept the money to begin with so my father would sign such follow-up settlement agreements in the future, which would second and re-ratify particular portions of the original settlement agreement pertaining to fraud. In a minute or so, I will tell you more precisely why. But first, I’d like to make it clear that such a legal maneuver was not in Haig’s own bag of tricks. It was his crooked lawyers who knew how to connive such things. They would convey the devious idea to Haig, and of course, Haig, being the greedy, mean, callous man that he was with my father, would respond, “by any means, by all means,” let us proceed. Go go go go go! I’m sure that the deviousness and cruelty of the language in the settlement agreements were not stated outright, but Haig understood. They needed someone as cruel as Haig Berberian and as evil as Peter Jeppson (both men lacking any conscience whatsoever) to execute their legal planning, which of course was necessitated by Haig and Jeppsons’ original looting of partnership assets. And I don’t rule out the possibility that Haig’s lawyers had a hand in that as well. Nor do I rule out the possibility that the head of Jeppson’s accounting firm, Atherton & Associates in Modesto, George Allen Atherton, had a hand in the fraud, for he was both an accountant and a lawyer. How coincidental that there was a fire of suspicious origin at his accounting firm relatively soon after this entire matter got going and under way. Such synchronicity, contemporaneousness, simultaneousness, and at-the-same-time-ness, all rolled into one. No! It was divine providence. I forgot, Peter Jeppson is a religious man). The actual point I want to make is that whenever I say that Haig had “crooked lawyers,” I am referring to all of the gimmicks and tricks that they know how to employ in order to legally and sometimes illegally, but always amorally and immorally, screw people out of their money on their clients’ behalf. (I know, if someone is legally screwed out of their money, it isn’t “immoral” per se. It’s business. And they weren’t “screwed.” Let me go on record and say that I am only interested in the money out of which I was illegally screwed. Pay that back and you’re rid of me. But it will never happen. Were I to get any money out of this thing, at whatever point in time that would be, said money was always mine, being held for me without my knowledge, for some legal reason. I can bank on that being the perspective. And guess what, if that’s the official case, you’re not rid of me, because the money was “stolen” by way of fraud. I’m really into semantics, a total stickler thereof. However, no one else needs to know) Do you think that Rudy Bilawski would be worried about how conniving and deceitful my father was and how he may have screwed Haig? No, because my father was honest in the money department and he was also too stupid to put one over on Haig, though my father once or twice told me that he could have secretly lifted millions of dollars out of the business had he wanted to. Knowing what I know now, damn it, why didn’t he! (Dr. Sheuerman animatedly pointed out to me one time: You have so much truth on your side! Usually, in a lawsuit, each partner has dirty hands in one way or the other, though, as implied in The Doctor’s statement, their levels of culpability vary in degree. And we had the cleanest hands going for us. Mine in particular were spick-and-span) What Bilawski had to be concerned about was what Haig’s million-dollar attorneys had Haig do and what Haig’s lawyers themselves did to sanitize Haig from the egregious stealing and fraudulent things that he did to my father (that is, with the help of his fat-ass bastard accountant, Peter B. Jeppson). Getting back to the meeting with Rudy Bilawski, Jim Askew, et al., while reviewing the settlement agreements dated 1976 and 1978, he noticed an “indemnity clause” in each of them to which my father was a signatory. He explained to my father that in the context of our family’s case, the clause means that were I to sue Haig for whatever he did that was monetarily detrimental to me, for that same amount of money, Haig would have to be reimbursed by my father. As indicated earlier, this is probably the main reason why Haig kept the money to begin with, money which was so obviously and legally my father’s. Haig or Jeppson or both of them knew that if, but more likely when, my father asked for his money back, Haig could then put my father into a head-lock with the indemnity clause. Haig, Jeppson and Haig’s lawyers also knew that when the time came, were my father to ask for anything more than what he knew about (i.e., money acquired through fraud), in effect, he might have to go through me, because I did not have “dirty hands.” I could sue without hesitation, because I was neither a party nor part and parcel to the settlement agreements nor the issues that necessitated said agreements to be drafted and signed by my father. In these agreements, Haig would also get my father to sign off once again from taking legal action regarding any possible fraud of which my father was not cognizant, as I mentioned a minute ago, arising out of the original agreement in 1972. (Of course, if my father was “cognizant” of the fraud, then it wasn’t fraud. Fraud only applies to that which one doesn’t know about at the time it was stolen) And like I said, if I sued Haig, my father would have to cover Haig for any assets recovered by me according to the indemnity clauses. (I’m not sure if this meant that my father would have to pay me, or Haig would pay me and then collect same from my father. Actually, who cares. Either way, it’s legally evil, concocted in the mind of some Brother somewhere sometime past) Haig also needed the signed settlement agreements with my father such that at any time further into the future, if my father came to believe that everything stolen and/or held back had not been accounted for (as was the case in 1980 when my father came into possession of the confidential memo which got this entire legal saga going), my father would then have a harder time saying that he did not know about the other unknown monies that Haig had kept. (I guess I’m repeating myself in different words. Hey, I’m just figuring this stuff out myself. Or I think that I am. I need a professional on this. But it ain’t gonna happen. Moi is all I get) This is precisely why Rudy Bilawski told my father (and me) that it was a matter of “all or nothing.” Every last single stolen Deutschemark or it’s nada. Just exercising my German and Spanish skills) In my father’s case, he had been the signatory to the settlement agreements. I had not signed anything nor agreed to, or disagreed with, anything, and therefore, I believe that it was possible for me to settle for less. However, since I was excised from the case early on, I was never given the chance. Therefore, I saw to it, albeit subconsciously, that no one else could to do so on my behalf. It was “all or nothing” with me too. (I’m leaving out of the equation Wells Fargo Bank’s fiduciary duty to me as Trustee to look out for my interests, because they were in a conspiracy with Haig Berberian and therefore their fiduciary obligation to me was a joke) The legal maneuvering that I’ve been discussing is/was “dirty” crooked lawyer tricks executed by Haig Berberian, aided and abetted by his fat flabby flatulent accountant, Peter B. Jeppson. The lawyers, Haig and Jeppson were giving my father the “dirty hands” that they needed him to have in order to hang around his neck the legal memento branding him as a participant in such fraud. Then also, it could be said that my father knew or should have known about the assets being labeled as fraudulently acquired by Haig from my father’s percentage of ownership in the business. There was one problem for Haig, however. My father was in a state of diminished capacity in 1972 when the money was originally stolen. And stolen the known money would have been, if my father was sick at the time that he gave up the money. And my father was indeed sick in 1972 in more ways than physically. (Such an important factor in the legal picture, my father did not want to own up to, and therefore, the attorneys did not want to use it when I suggested its use. As I said elsewhere, among other things, my father had become impotent during that time, thanks to Haig Berberian and his attorneys, Peter Jeppson, and Wells Fargo Bank. Let me say, for the record, that unlike my father, my ego has never been involved in this matter. Never. Letting one’s ego get in the way of solving a problem is the method of idiots. Well, I do have an ego and I do have a method and I may be an idiot and I may, in fact, be mad. But the method to my madness is sure to be revealed within the parameters of Berberian Mystery Theatre. Most all questions about me are sure to be answered herein. As I have said elsewhere, I have written every single word of the commentary within this monstrosity) Because my father was sick, Haig and Jeppson knew (granted, from Haig’s lawyers and/or the Atherton accounting firm) that it was imperative that further signatures from my father be had once my father recovered. So, after my father was screwed in 1972, Haig and Jeppson laid in wait (especially the latter latter-day saintly shit-ass). My father told me sometime down the line that in 1976 when he asked that his money be returned, Peter Jeppson said to him: “I knew that you wouldn’t be able to live with it.” See how caring, spiritual and soulful Peter Jeppson was? This evil sinister big fat pig, the Devil’s spawn, was my father’s conscience. This bottom-dwelling scum-sucking self-righteous lard-ass with a religious front, who my father relied on to make sure that Haig didn’t cheat him, did not tell my father that what he was going to sign in order to get the money back, would cause him untold distress later on if and when my father found out that the money he was receiving was a pittance, small change, peanuts, when compared to that out of which he was being defrauded by signing these agreements. From what my clueless father later told me, if I glean correctly, it was the black-hearted satanic Jeppson who diabolically manipulated my father into asking that the known “stolen” money be returned in 1976 for some statutory reason. But don’t get me started on this devout saintly Mormon bastard. (I sure hope that this latter-day fat-ass had a miserable life since this matter got started. Probably not. He has been protected by his church, Atherton & Associates, “Haig Berberian,” Wells Fargo Bank, and my father, not necessarily in that order. In point of fact, sheer lack of conscience was the biggest help of all to this religious asshole) The indemnity clauses that my father signed, pointed out by Bilawski during that meeting hereinabove-referenced, caused fear and alarm in my father. In my father’s mind, it gave him more reason, or better yet termed, more of an excuse (among several hundred other excuses with a few reasons mixed in) to be afraid of his brother. During our meeting with Bilawski, et al., with the indemnity clauses in mind, everyone in the room was down in the dumps. I didn’t know it at the time, but the lawyers’ down-in-the-dumps “act” was exactly that. Actually, I virtually knew it at the time. I have to get away from a situation in order to more clearly analyze what transpired. When I got home and reflected on what had happened during that meeting, I was thinking not only “dog and pony,” but Barnum & Bailey. (But not my father, who still had no clue) You see, fraud cannot be signed away and/or swapped for something else. Dr. Sheuerman, the lawyer, was the one who thereafter drilled that into my brain by declaring: I don’t care how many things your father signed, he could not sign away fraud! Back to the circus and the clowns in the room. After I saw that the indemnity clause had caused suicidal thoughts in the lawyers, I asked Bilawski: “Can’t we do something ‘dirty’ but legal?” Rudy quickly responded: “There are no such things!” And this is the “law” that I have wanted to point out since the very beginning of this page. In a most convoluted way, after throwing in the kitchen sink, I have arrived at this maxim: If it’s legal, it’s not dirty. This is the meaning of Rudy’s denial that there are actions that are both “dirty” and “legal.” It would be applicable to Drivon’s filing my personal letter to him, the topic on which I started the present commentary. Because it was “legal,” it wasn’t a “dirty” thing to do. (Yeah, right) Oh good, I just thought of something. Being that Dr. Sheuerman and Haig Berberian are both now deceased, I cannot libel either of them no matter what I say, that is, put into print on this website. A lawyer once told me that this is the law with regard to those who have passed. You cannot libel or slander the deceased. Therefore, what I might say and write about the two men, even were it not true, is not dirty because it is legal. (I hope it goes without saying, though I’m saying it just the same, that everything that I have put into print and posted to this website about anyone and anything, I believe to be true, and in most cases, I have presented documentary evidence of their validity and their being “part of the case”) There is no denying that both Dr. Sheuerman and Haig Berberian are “part of the case.” (One of these days, I gotta thank Larry Drivon for adding that phrase and concept to my lexicon) I cannot say a “dirty” word about The Doctor or my uncle. (And I owe a debt of gratitude to Rudy Bilawski for advising me that no matter what I say and do, as long as it is lawful, it’s not “dirty”) Regarding Peter Jeppson, as far as I know, his fat putrid ass is still stinking up the planet. And he is still “part of the case.” He’ll always be “part of the case,” as long as the case is alive (which means, as long as I’m alive investigating it, even if only within the confines of my mind and this website). Actually, dead or alive, Jeppson will always be “part of the case.” And presently, I can still in fact libel him, because I can still smell his stink. He’s out there somewhere. Notwithstanding, he would never sue me. Why? Because I could prove most everything that I have written about him by coupling the law with the documents filed in my lawsuit. I guess this means that I wouldn’t be libeling him after all, except with respect to those few things that I might write that I cannot prove. (I often call him a “big fat pig.” I could prove that he’s big and fat. Just look at him. But I might not be able to prove that he’s a pig. He just stinks like one) I do believe that many of the decent, civil, and mild-mannered people out there who might become factually familiar with what I know about this man, would probably start using my type of language to describe this vile degenerate lardaceous scumbag piece of shit. 22 When I first saw that Larry Drivon had made public my personal and confidential letter to him, I was livid, shaking with anger. When I confronted him about his making it a public document, he said (as I have noted elsewhere within this chapter), “the letter is part of the case.” I guess he thought it to be an important part of the case. One of the reasons for the existence of Berberian Mystery Theatre is to give that important letter its context. (I guess you could say that I have the same kind of moral authority to post and make public the subject transcript. It is a personal conversation [as was my letter to Drivon, a personal communication], but it is “part of the case,” especially in view of the fact that Rudy Bilawski amplified The Doctor’s making himself a “part of the case,” by courtesy-copying The Doctor his 09/28/84 withdrawal letter) Thinking about this, I would like to contact every single legal secretary and paralegal who ever dealt with and remembers me and my lawsuit, and invite them to take a look at what was going on in reality when they were working on and part of the history of Berberian v. Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank. (Of course, they can actually do this right now, here, there and any/everywhere by going to Berberian Mystery Theatre, which is revolving and spinning and bouncing and vaulting and doing summersaults and back-flips throughout cyberspace) They did not have a clue. For the most part, at the time, neither did I. I wonder what said legal secretaries and paralegals (or any other person whose career involves jurisprudence) would say, if they found out that they were working on a stratagem-laced lawsuit that was not in reality legally founded by virtue of the absence of the filing of an original summons and therefore a case which was not filed per se and therefore did not meet the test of empirical reality and intrinsic meaning to anyone outside of those in the loop. (That is, no one on the outside until the Summons on First Amended Complaint and First Amended Complaint were filed) I wonder what they’d say were they to know that said “phantom lawsuit” was not even served on the main defendant (not by way of the original complaint nor by way of the “Summons on First Amended Complaint,” which eventually came about as noted above), a defendant who had no idea that he had been in fact sued (not!). Such a lawsuit would thoroughly define the attorney behavior and mine as well. The attorneys were engaged in “masturbatory litigation.” And each and every esquire on “both sides” (though an oxymoron, because of the existence of the hidden agenda of which each and every lawyer was part and parcel no matter whose side they were on), had their staff, all judges involved (with a wink and a nod), and me following suit (no pun intended). Now tell me, who would be the respectable person and who would be the “difficult” one in a situation like this? The client/plaintiff who was following the course and procedure in his very personal and vital case and reacted to it according to its merits? I reacted as anyone with any appreciable degree of reasoning skills would react. (Hey, even a crazy person can have reasoning skills) I knew instinctually that something which stunk did not pass the smell test. After Drivon had successfully withdrawn from my case and after I had selected the documents from his (most likely already telltale document-cleansed) case-file, copies of which I wanted, I remember telling Judy Miller, Larry’s secretary at the time, that it was interesting to see the matter from their side. In the files, there were memos between Larry and his staff concerning me, some of which included difficulties that they had in dealing with me. (Hopefully soon, I will post the ones that I have) Had it been known that I’d eventually get my shit together and have a world-wide website (the Internet was about ten years away at the time), I’m sure that before I got to them, some of the documents and memos in those files that I did in fact obtain, would have joined my Dr. Sheuerman files. For a fact, I do know that any Notice & Acknowledgment of Receipt signed by Haig Berberian regarding his having received the “Original Summons” (and Complaint) in my case had joined my Dr. Sheuerman files simultaneously with the advent of my uncle “theoretically” signing it. 23 Being that Larry Drivon did not tell me why that particular letter, out of the many that I had written to him, was “part of the case,” I will assume that all of my letters written to him, as well as those to each and every other player (and vice versa), were and are, collectively and individually, “part of the case.” And being that Larry himself is no longer formally a “part of the case,” and being that, in fact, I am the only one, to my knowledge, still involved with my case, in my mind, it follows that, I am my case. Therefore, in view of the fact that there is no one left but me trying to find some truth and justice (and money?) and therefore closure in all of this, all of what I think and say and do with regard to my case as I see it, and my mind as a whole, for that matter, is therefore, “part of the case.” I think about my case, therefore, I am my case. (You can turn back over, René. I don’t literally mean it. For you, I am. For me, a plaintiff, I was. And therefore, a thing of the past, my lawsuit is, I think) 24 My records contain plenty of evidence if not proof that I was a good guy for all of the time (every last second) that both attorneys represented me. I have scores of letters and other documents revealing good faith behavior on my part all along. One of the best examples is the self-originated release that I provided on my own to The Doctor and Bilawski within the first few months after meeting with Bilawski. I gave each of them an absolute right to release to the other any personal or other information about me that they so chose. I even gave Rudy the right to tell my father anything he wanted regarding me and what I was up to. (Of course, this wasn’t just a good-guy magnanimous overture on my part. The idea was to provide Rudy with every liberty I could to make his job easier and make this thing happen. I knew that my father and I were eventually going to butt heads, collide, explode) No player wants these or any other gestures of good faith on my part to see the light of day. Bilawski’s withdrawal letter and my angry letter to Drivon are the only documents of a personal nature which are part of the San Francisco County Superior Court record. The full context of both items should brighten their day. And we’ll see who wins in the theater of reasonableness, good faith, and lawfulness of purpose. My gratitude to The Doctor, Bilawski and Drivon is reflected, once again, you guessed it, within Berberian Mystery Theatre. 25 Speaking of “karma” and the like, I remember the first day that I went to see Dr. Sheuerman. It was toward the end of the sixties. Specifically, it was January of 1971 (which, along with 1972, is considered to be the end of “the 60’s”). During that first session, I used an excuse for something I had done and The Doctor responded as follows: That’s a cop-out! I looked at him, snickered, and said: You’re using that term, “cop-out,” because I’m in my twenties. He was put on notice then and there, at the very outset, that I was a different kind of cat (or is that a beatnik word?). I was just too much, something else altogether. I was analyzing what he said as he was analyzing me. (The Doctor was forty-nine years old at the time. Was it he who wanted to be cool? Nope. That wasn’t him. And he learned that it wasn’t me either. Never my bag. Not my thing) Not once did I ever utter the expression, “cop-out,” during the sixties. “Like, what’s happening?”-Man, I never said that. Never got off using that language. And I didn’t consciously get into the “movement” going on in those days. My bowel movement, I did know about on any given day. Butt that’s about it (constipated-which made me a “gas,” I suppose). Bought just one Beatles record. And I did not think that The Beatles had the answer to a single one of my problems. Or the answer to world peace. No long hair did I wear. No peace signs. I didn’t dig this or groove on that. I was never blown away by anything and nothing ever blew my mind. Never went to a love-in or a be-in or a sit-in. No flowers in my hair with other flower children. No promiscuous sex or free love. (Dang it! Too shy with girls, even though they were very open, easy, and nonjudgmental at that time) No special brownies. Never drank any electric kool-aid. Never on any “bus” or off one. I never turned on, tuned in, or dropped out. (I may have been “out of it” though, “freaked out” and “far out” in a sense, and “trippin’ out” in some other form or fashion, when I first saw The Doctor. But that’s a whole nother story for a different time and a different day) I’d burned incense a few times. Some fish net on my apartment walls (insisted upon by the one friend that I had in college). But that’s about as “in” as I ever got. Heck, I wore Old Spice cologne during that era. That should be proof-positive that I was no hippie. Anyway, needless to say, The Doctor never again used 60’s “hippie”-speak with me. (Right on!) I wasn’t trying to be hip or be a hippie. I was there in his office to get better with medical help. No nonsense. I’m sure that he strategically-directed some important things into my brain when I wasn’t looking (turning me into the screwball that I am today, albeit hopefully, a functioning one, the proof in the pudding being found herein as every word of each and every chapter of commentary was written by me and me alone). Actually, Dr. Sheuerman was exceptionally competent. Notwithstanding, the part of the getting-better process that was mine, was watching what he was doing and more importantly, how he was doing it. I was analyzing The Doctor in return. The practice paid off nicely in latter times here and now that I have finally figured out that it was him, Dr. Sheuerman, who was part of, and colluding with, a movement.-The Establishment. The legal establishment. Yeah, man, materialism.—Money, power, prestige, and position are groovy, even when it comes to an “aesthetic” doctor of renown. (Peace) 26 Aside from my penchant for the scent of patchouli (one of the ingredients of the cologne that I wear today), one fun thing coming to mind that got popular during the sixties is astrology and zodiac signs. There does seem to be something to this astrological sign thing. I was born on November 14. The most common characteristics of Scorpios are in the following descriptions. “Psychology is a field that often interests the Scorpio. [I was a psych major in college] Human nature intrigues them. Scorpios love mystery, secrets, loyalty, privacy, trust, honesty/integrity, and knowing where they stand. But they cannot stand lying and deceit, and insincerity. Scorpios carry the deceits of the past with a hurt as fresh as if it were yesterday…For the Scorpio, the truth is a given and it is their life’s mission to seek it out.” I’m pegged and pigeon-holed. (No more mystery about me. Look to the heavens) The Doctor should have thought about my astrological sign. Scorpios also seek revenge. 27 Early on, right after we both discovered that we had been defrauded, my father and I had gone to see Edward “Tom” Taylor, Jr., a crooked lawyer (yes, I can prove it-libel him, no, he’s deceased) who used to do work for my father as well as my uncle. Taylor had drawn up my mother and fathers’ wills and some of the partnership-related documents involving Haig Berberian. With a smile on my face, I remember telling Dr. Sheuerman that Taylor, with his mop of white hair, reminded me of Melvin Belli. (Dr. Sheuerman had treated Taylor’s son, so The Doctor and the lawyer knew each other. When I told Taylor that I was seeing Dr. Sheuerman, Taylor called him a “sarcastic bastard” and added that his son was doing just fine. I assume that Taylor yanked his son from Dr. Sheuerman’s care after The Doctor spoke his mind to Taylor on some issue that arose requiring Taylor to go see The Doctor. I then told The Doctor what Taylor had said about his son doing just fine. The Doctor retorted, “then the therapy didn’t hurt.” Vintage Dr. Sheuerman) Wearing a serious demeanor, The Doctor said that Taylor might be good for drawing up wills, but I needed a more competent attorney for the type of matter at hand. I asked his recommendation and that’s when he gave me the name, “Rudy Bilawski.” I recall all of the dates in this regard. I discovered fraud on Tuesday, September 2, 1980. I told The Doctor about it on Tuesday, September 9, 1980. He recommended Bilawski that day. I called Bilawski later that day. And on Friday, September 12, 1980, I went to see Bilawski and Thomas J. Shephard, Sr. (The latter is/was an attorney in Bilawski’s law firm, Neumiller & Beardlsee in Stockton, who was familiar with who Haig Berberian was, as Rudy was not) From the moment I met with them, I tried to do everything I could think of to cooperate and make their job easier. They wanted to speak with my father. I asked if they wanted my father to call them or me to call them to make an appointment after I told my father that the lawyers wanted to speak with him. They wanted my father to call. I made it happen. Done. Not a big deal. But this is how I behaved for five and one half years. Even in the beginning, as things got under way and I started to sense that my father’s and my agenda might clash in a big way thus placing Bilawski in an awkward position (as noted elsewhere in this chapter), I wrote out a release for Bilawski and a release for Dr. Sheuerman such that they could exchange any information that they wanted regarding me and/or my case. I even authorized Bilawski to tell my father anything that he wanted to tell him about me, my case, and what I was doing. I wanted to give Bilawski all of the power that I could give him such that he could do his job. (I will post these documents sometime soon. And by the way, after a year or so, I asked and Dr. Sheuerman said that he never received a request for any information from Bilawski) These were “good faith gestures” on my part. However, as time wore on, and after I started getting a better taste of what was yet to come my way, that is, a taste of the lying and deceiving and of whatever else it was that I got a preliminary taste, I remember telling Dr. Sheuerman: I feel something ugly growing inside. I wasn’t necessarily referring to Bilawski, who was as competent as hell and at that point, in my eyes, could still do no wrong. This “growth” of which I speak, revolved mostly around my father, his “bad faith,” and his enablers, as well as Haig Berberian’s lying lawyers and the dirty religious sociopathic con-artist fat bastard with continuously blinking/batting eyes, Peter B. Jeppson, CPA-the family accountant. Thereafter, in a relatively short period of time, and before his very eyes, The Doctor did in fact see something ugly grow inside of me. (As you can see, jolly “Melvin Belli” turned into “Jabba the Hutt”) Pretty soon, I was no longer the “young at heart,” totally naïve person who had been popping up to Stockton from Modesto to see him every week for the previous decade. The Doctor should have known, and in fact, I believe that he did know, that once he crossed over to the other side, the proverbial “dark side,” participating in those things that “grew my ugliness,” and once I was no longer under his “spell,” he in particular would be getting a great big taste of that ugly monster in me that he and the other players had created with their duplicity. When I quit therapy, stunning The Doctor, he knew in no uncertain terms that he was no longer in a position to keep the powder dry. And he must have known that I would eventually turn on him should the course that he defined, if not “suggested,” for me and my case, turned out to be a primrose path down the “old dirt road.” The Doctor had a four-year lead during which he could plan for my vengeful counter-attack. The Brothers involved had six and a half years to cover their tracks, anticipating the inevitable payback that they’d receive from me. Yet here they all are, The Brotherhood and The Doctor, suspended by their balls in Berberian Mystery Theatre. As time wears on, the knot will cinch tighter. People like The Doctor and the lawyers use duplicity, but they do not like publicity regarding their use of duplicity. Makes sense. And people like me don’t like publicity either. I am actually a very private person. But publicity is and was all that I have, my greatest weapon, and out of necessity, I have had to use it. It is the only vehicle that can work in a situation like mine. (Berberian Mystery Theatre is such a weapon. Only time will tell if it is, in fact, working) Over the years, I had learned that all is fair in cutthroat, scorched-earth hardball. And no thanks to Dr. Sheuerman, once I was armed with some substantial truth which bolstered my confidence, I could terrorize The Doctor with that truth. (Revenge is sweet, payback delicious) The Doctor is my main focus presently, my current archrival, adversary, antagonist, whatever, as I know that he is and was the worst of the bunch. And I am his nemesis. (First and foremost, “do no harm,” Doctor) Despite the fact that he always wanted the truth during therapy, if my dispensing the truth and truth-telling, post therapy, terrorizes him and/or his surrogates (or anyone else for that matter), then he and/or they unquestionably deserve that emotion. Dr. Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr.’s behavior reflects what The Brotherhood was up to and it is not a pretty sight to behold. Said behavior begets a battle from me. (I’m ready when you are. Hey Doc, I’m up here!) 28 I will never have closure on this legal/psychological matter, better described as a psychodrama. Try as I did, I could not do anything about my father’s deceit in his dealings with me regarding this matter. Would that I could have broken him with respect to what he had done, but I couldn’t. I failed. I was not psychologically strong enough at the time to fight him. I was worried about my sanity, the problem being the tentativeness of my psychological grasp of the matter at that time. As time wore on and after I filed suit and I had more of my wits about me, I had the problem of seeing how red in the face my father would get when we argued about the matter. I was afraid he’d literally drop dead of a heart attack if I brought out all of my guns. So I didn’t put up too much fight. I looked to my lawsuit to solve the problem. (The joke was on me) These days, armed with the information giving me more confidence than ever, there is something I can do regarding the fraud and deceit of The Doctor, the lawyers and the judges involved.-Build Berberian Mystery Theatre and expose all of it and all of them. If I do a good enough job, my father’s Brotherhood-hatched and manipulated cloak and dagger act will get exposed as well, becoming transparent in all of its ugliness. 29 Something just struck me. An “aha moment” is upon me. After three decades, I figure this out! After Larry Drivon gave me a copy of Rudy Bilawski’s referral letter referring me and my case to Larry, I showed it to Dr. Sheuerman upon my next visit with him. (I had read it at Bilawski’s office and tried to get a copy of the letter from his secretary sometime shortly thereafter, before I actually met with Drivon for the first time prior to his representation. Bilawski’s secretary failed and refused to give me a copy. I remember The Doctor’s remark when I told him about her refusal: I wonder if Rudy’s secretary likes her job. Folks, I had no clue at the time why I couldn’t get a copy beforehand. As stupid as this sounds, I didn’t even know there was a reason. But The Doctor did) After reading the letter, Dr. Sheuerman made an infamous comment to me. (That is, I made his comment famous about five years later. See Timeline at 04/26/88, “‘The Jig is Up’ Letter to Rudy Bilawski,” Page 8) The Doctor remarked: “You were born with a silver spoon up your butt.” (Ha ha ha. There you go again, Doc, with one of your premature ‘ejac-suggestions.’ I was already filthy rich, just because this referral letter had been written? What happened to: ‘Let’s hope that this matter can be legally and financially rectified’? You know, a normal logical response. I had no lawyer yet. I had no lawsuit yet. Who’s the one who’s delusional? And by the bye, where’s the silver spoon? Still up my butt? If so, where’s the money?) Then The Doctor curiously made a copy of the letter. (See Timeline, 06/08/83, “The Referral Letter”) I could never figure out why he made himself a copy. (So I’d think at the time that he didn’t already have a copy? A little conspiratorial fun for you there, folks) Of course, he did not ask me if he could make a copy. He wasn’t going to take “no” or “yes” for an answer. (No liberties or opportunities are offered and allowed in hardball, which The Doctor was already playing. He’d been playing it since I first discovered fraud going on three years earlier) In thinking about the matter now, were he to read and have a copy of this letter, when asked about the legal matter, he could always use it as a reason why he could say things to me about my case. He knew some things from the letter. Doesn’t hold much water, because he wasn’t “formally” a lawyer and the letter didn’t go into much detail regarding the legal aspects of my case nor my father’s case. I now think that The Doctor knew that he would be needed and he knew his role from the very beginning. Among other reasons, he knew that Haig and his lawyers would pit me against my father. The Doctor knew that among other wonderful tactics in business, one way you can keep a person from going after you legally for wrongdoings is by manipulating you into a compromised position. Haig Berberian and Pete Jeppson had done this with my father. If you go after he who screws you, you screw yourself as well. (That’s why I take pride in having done whatever it is that I needed to do in my case, no matter how I looked, no matter the consequences. Now I know. I wanted to show that it was a cake-walk for me [although I was running with scissors] regarding one of the major problems in the case for my father and any attorneys representing him. My ego was not involved. I had nothing to lose and if I did have something to lose, I was willing to lose it in order to win. This was subconscious, however) The settlement agreements signed by my father (as previously mentioned in this chapter) would reflect a screwing a hundredfold worse than what my father was settling. And if my father took Haig and Jeppson to court with regard to these agreements (not to mention the various other things revealing unbelievable hoodwinking of my father), this would come out. My father’s ego could not handle the embarrassment. It is also my belief that Haig and Jeppson probably forced my father to do something in his role as plant manager that might be illegal tax-wise, which would hibernate, remaining a threat to my father if he ever threatened to go to court. If so, this would have my father scared shitless more so than anything else. All of what I have just described would also become public if my suit were to go to trial. So, my father would be against my suit for these reasons among others. This is, of course, mere speculation. But it is also what I came up with upon reflection about a declaration that my father made during a three-way meeting between me, my father and Rudy Bilawski on February 29, 1984. And I quote: I would give $100,000 to get Pete Jeppson! Of course, my father did not mean it, because Bilawski could have easily nailed Jeppson’s fat ass to the cross for a piece of that ass, financially speaking. Any decent attorney could do it. (It was such a big target) Therefore, my father was not serious. (I have relatively recently remembered something from the past that I believe was the foundation for my father’s comment. Had Bilawski taken my deposition at that time, I think I would have remembered it then. And had I remembered it then, it would have been very helpful to my case, because I would have said to my father in that regard: “I don’t care what you did in the past. It’s what you do now that matters.” And he could have divested himself of that which petrified him the most out of everything involved with regard to me and my involvement. But no one believed in me to get close to the subject. And it pisses me the hell off! I’m sorry, but I feel I have to keep the specifics on the subject close to the vest for the time being. But I will indeed cough it all up in due course) One more thing about my father’s comment before moving on. It was vengeful, even though it meant absolutely nothing. I remember that during a meeting between just me and Bilawski, I mentioned “revenge” and Rudy didn’t want to hear about it, threatening to tell Drivon. I adjusted my comment to include “justice.” Bilawsi said nothing to my father about his vengeful comment, although it wasn’t my father who had filed suit. Too bad I didn’t remember this at the time, reason being, I had very limited instant recall during the emotional turmoil I was experiencing. I was therefore no match for the lawyers when it came down to it. Countering anything my father said was easy now that his game was no longer puzzling to me. Okay. It is my belief that my father playing victim was accommodated by whoever my father’s attorneys were. He had a need to believe that he was not in the canary’s seat, even though he was. An open and shut case he had. And as I indicated earlier, he had a need to be deathly afraid of his brother, a situation also accommodated by my father’s attorneys. “You cannot reason someone out of something they didn’t reason into.” (Jonathan Swift) My father was neither reasonable nor a reasoning man. He was emotional with far too much estrogen dictating his thoughts and behavior when it came to his brother. He was dead set upon thinking that Haig Berberian was omnipotent and no one was going to talk him out of it despite his counsel’s assurances. (This was so stupid, because Haig knew shit. It was all between the lawyers. But my father never knew this and I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was, let Bilawski do his job. I didn’t care who knew what) My father was even afraid of me. (I was no longer afraid of what he might say or do at this point because I had already filed my own lawsuit which I intended to prosecute through to trial by jury. My father did not matter much to me at all at this point. He’d made his bed) At various points, he was shaking like a leaf during that February 29, 1984 meeting with me and Bilawski. But being the good guy that I was at that time [I never said that I was modest], I leaned back in my chair so my father could collect himself. I didn’t want him to embarrass himself in front of someone who I thought at the time was also representing him in ways that would not make it a conflict of interest. My father was very afraid of what I might find out from questioning Bilawski about some of the curiosities of my case, which was the very reason that I called the meeting. (It must have been interesting to Bilawski to see that I had some confidence about the hidden agenda and was referring to it almost openly. But I didn’t know enough to cause any real trouble. Dr. Sheuerman had told me only so much. And Bilawski saw that his Brother, The Doctor, had done a good job) As an aside, I want to mention that during the course of that meeting, at one point when I couldn’t get answers to questions regarding the glaring hidden agenda that I suspected, I turned to my father and said: “I’ve got mental problems. Maybe that’s the issue.” My father said nothing. I then turned to Bilawski. But my eyes were batting. He said nothing as well. It was an uncomfortable thing for me to say. But say it, I did. (“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to take correct action in spite of your fears and insecurities.” A non sequitur. Doesn’t fit, does it. That’s not me. Not in that setting. But I like the quote, so I’m throwing it in) Both men were put on notice that my going to a shrink and all that that implies would not be any issue for me at all. I remember, pretty early on, as another one of my father’s excuses to cover for his cowardice, my father said to me that were there a trial in the matter, it might come out in court that I was seeing a psychiatrist. I exploded: “For the kind of money involved, they can tell the whole world I’m crazy!” I think that Berberian Mystery Theatre reflects just how scared I am that the world might know that I was seeing a shrink. And this website is my answer to my father and to any others who think that I have a psychiatric history to hide. I do crazy real good. I got all kinds. Now back to the three-way meeting. One of the things in my query was that in Bilawski’s referral letter to Drivon, Bilawski stated that my father did not want to sue his brother “at this time,” the time that the referral letter was written, i.e., on June 8, 1983. I questioned whether or not my father had sued since then. For some reason, my father laughed. (I guess I could say that between the two of us, when it came to this matter, I eventually had the last laugh. With me, my father had overplayed his hand, his knowing what was going on versus my knowing virtually nothing. He abused that power. Overall, my father’s deceit and cowardice was his doom and he died a very lonely man. But I’m certainly not having any last laugh. I’ve lived a lonely life since then) Regarding any possible lawsuit instituted by my father, I didn’t get a straight answer from Bilawski, though I know now that the answer was and is a resounding, no! (emphasis added). I could never extract information from Bilawski that he might not want to divulge. He was too smart. I knew that. Unfortunately, my father did not. And Bilawski was exceedingly tough. I believe that Rudy could and would prosecute the Mafia if he had to. He would know how to do it such that there would be no retaliation. That’s how smart and tough I believe he was (and is). But he couldn’t win with a man who derived pleasure and delight in being screwed, folding when he was holding a royal straight flush in spades. That, Rudy could not conquer. How do I know that my father’s hand was such a winner? Not just from things that Dr. Sheuerman said. But also by watching the “Jim & Rudy Show.” At a meeting between me and my father and Rudy and Rudy’s trial lawyer, Jim Askew, after Bilawski had figured everything out and knew where everything stood legally-speaking (though I was in the dark and my father wasn’t in the loop yet, at least, not that I know of), Bilawski was looking at certain things in a bunch of documents and kept turning to Jim saying, “should we ask for this back?,” “should we ask for that back?” The message was that the opposition didn’t have a leg to stand on, the house of cards had fallen, done in by the proliferation of fraud throughout the years performed by Haig Berberian and Peter B. Jeppson and probably others of less significance. We’re talking about fraud by their actions, symptoms of which can be found in some of the documents relating to the matter. Even after he was allowed into the loop of just how strong his case was, “reversal of fortune, just for the asking,” my father restrained his counsel. If push came to shove, he would not lift a finger to help. He would not authorize his counsel to do anything more than, more or less, talk to opposing counsel in order to straighten things out. “Legal whispering” and nice doesn’t work in hardball. Making beds in a burning house. Whatever he had them do turned mine into a “dead lawsuit walking.” And that is why I have had to endure three decades of agony. Getting back to the master manipulator, Dr. Sheuerman (as we play musical chairs), The Doctor’s role was to manage me, the party who could and would sue, while my father assumed his usual position (albeit, in this instance, his position having been manipulated by the cunning con-artist and dirtbag, Peter B. Jeppson, CPA). The lawyers needed The Doctor to help them with the precarious position they were in, a scenario wherein I was needed to file suit and then sit still. My father was needed to threaten as much for almost the same causes of action. (This scenario is discussed in great detail in, “‘The Jig is Up’ Letter to Rudy Bilawski,” Timeline, 04/26/88) Now I know why The Doctor told me from the very beginning that he didn’t care how many things my father had signed, that my father could not sign away fraud. The Doctor wanted me to know that my father could indeed still sue, because he knew that I knew that one has to sue in order to recover big money. And the necessity of suing in order to recover big money was a fact that The Doctor had previously drilled into my head. I would never have sat around twiddling my thumbs for three years had I not been manipulated by The Doctor into first believing that my father had sued, subsequently believing (after further sculpting and manipulation of my cognitive understanding of the situation by The Doctor) that my father had been handling the matter in some other legally significant way short of suing. Of course, my sitting still was aided and abetted by Bilawski telling me once that I could never get my foot through the front door of a high-powered law firm with my case. (Maybe not, but I may be able to get my foot through the front door to Hollywood with a story that includes his telling me that) Anyway, at some point down the line, The Doctor said, in response to something that I said about my father’s behavior, it sounds as though your father dropped his case. The Doctor, in his role, was preparing me for my role. (Getting my case through the front door of a not-so-high-powered law firm?) My role? Suing. Nevertheless, my father’s case was so good that he really didn’t have to sue at all. That is, he would not have to sue if the statute of limitations were tolled. My lawsuit accomplished this at the time. (The Doctor knew all of this without being directly advised. He was that smart. And his comments, chronicled throughout this chapter, are a telltale trail to his mind on all of this. Even were I not providing the context of his statements, The Doctor ends up a guilty man) My suit could have been joined by my father’s case if necessary. (This also meant that my case was even stronger than my father’s, because, as I have said more than once before, I had no potential way of knowing about any possible fraud. I was not involved in the business and I never dreamed (or is it dreamt) that my uncle would defraud us. I looked up to him. I was young in those days and trying to deal with a host of my own problems, not the least of which was trying to recover from a nervous breakdown. I doubt that I’d ever heard the word, “fraud,” used in the business sense) A suit had to be set in place or else a century it would take to settle the matter. And I was used for this particular unavoidable necessity. And I do mean, “I was used.” (I wouldn’t have minded so much if someone had told me just what I was being used for. And what I was being used for, was, in my opinion, a highly actionable offense. And with several judges in the know, wow. Therefore, regarding what my role was, someone could have told me, but then they’d have to kill me) If my father had to file suit, everyone involved knew that my father would be afraid to have his deposition taken by the other side. He’d be afraid to have his deposition taken by his own side. (I have stated elsewhere that I believe that my father’s counsel did indeed take his deposition. They couldn’t operate without it, especially if he died. And it’s out there somewhere in some Brother’s safe) Among other reasons, and like I said a bit ago (and just about everywhere else on this website), my father was very embarrassed about how badly he had been “screwed, blued, and tattooed” (to use Dr. Sheuerman’s words). Of course, this would be laid out in detail in any court case. I myself assured my father that I did not give a shit about what he had done in the past and up until we discovered fraud, how he’d been taken. All I cared about, now that I was involved, was what he did from this point on. My problem was, he did not care about what I cared about. And he was still deathly afraid of embarrassment, deathly afraid of his brother. He didn’t understand that the nature and extent of the criminal activity of his Haig, Jeppson and Wells Fargo Bank, was assurance that he would not be embarrassed. They would be more afraid of court than he was. (That is, of course, in any case like his without him as the client holding the power) My father was not man enough nor smart enough to understand that Rudy Bilawski and/or Larry Drivon could have mopped the floor with Haig Berberian, Peter Jeppson and Wells Fargo Bank. I was the one who knew this. And this is why it has been so frustrating that my father and his case were a part of the picture. My father’s “ass” was in my way. Metaphors aside, you see, folks, I’ve figured out enough about the procedural history of my case and the hidden agenda affecting its course (i.e., whatever my father and his counsel were doing), to embarrass not only Dr. Sheuerman, but all of the lawyers and judges who were ever involved. I now know enough to expose the legal and judicial systems for what they are, whores for the lawyers and judges who populate and embody what I have been calling, “The Brotherhood.” That is why, after thirty years, three decades plus, the silence of the “dark matter” monstrosity out there has been deafening. Hopefully, I’ll be heard through Berberian Mystery Theatre and that “beautiful noise” (thank you, Neil) will reverberate throughout cyberspace. 30 An example of another undisclosed recording that I made was in the Estate of Haig Berberian, here in Modesto, Stanislaus County, California. In a town then mostly “owned,” so to speak, by the Gallo brothers and Haig Berberian (in that order), I made an undisclosed recording of a hearing that was held regarding a petition that I filed in my uncle’s estate after he died. (The time-period of the probate estate was 1987-1989) I knew that I was not going to get a fair hearing and I knew that the judge in the case, Hon. Frank S. Pierson, although well-respected, was going to look upon me as a piece of shit. Hey, I was a troublemaker. Outside that courthouse, I had erected a bus-bench advertising my case. In the Judge’s eyes, that bench was the idea of a screwball. Why the bench? Because the matter was kept secret for five and one half years and I was party to that secrecy. I had been a good boy for a long long time. When I ultimately got screwed over, it became time to use the weapon that the players, then my enemies, feared most–publicity. That’s why the bus bench. I had also placed bus benches advertising my case outside courthouses in Fresno (the courthouse where E. Dean Price was a judge), Stockton (just a block away from Drivon’s office), and Sacramento, referring to my case as, “Walnutgate.” I had a contact phone number of [209] “522-SUIT.” I only received one phone call during the several months to a year that the benches were in place. It was a friend of one of the heirs of the estate. This affable fellow asked if the lawsuit involved his friend. I said not, that I had no disagreement or grievance with his buddy. That was about it as I recall. I still have no problem with the heirs. Getting back to the probate, during one of the hearings before Judge Pierson, I was citing law in support of my petition. (Yes, I was citing it mostly by rote) The Judge cut me off by saying: “That’s enough law.” Thereafter, when I read the transcript of the hearing from the court reporter’s notes, the Judge had miraculously said instead: “That’s enough of that.” Judge Pierson’s aborting my citations of law did not look good, especially because it was law that an in pro per was citing. (I guess he was saying, instead of law favoring me, he would make his decision based on something else) Therefore, I was right in recording the hearing. I recorded it for the “hearing-impaired.” That’s a good cause and I had good cause to record it. By hook or by crook, one or more of the players stooped so low as to change what the reporter heard, her notes, and/or the transcript thereof. You do whatever an Officer of the Court tells you to do when you’re just a lowly court reporter. (No, I do not know at which scumbag player’s behest the notes got altered. But I think that anyone reading this account could make a good guess) Actually, my recording that hearing wasn’t much of a breach of anything. This was a public hearing and recording it shouldn’t cause or have caused any kind of stink. (Then again, the Judge’s ruling against me stunk. And rightly so. It came out of his rear end) They videotape hearings these days, twenty-five years hence. Therefore, I was simply ahead of my time. 31 I remember Dr. Sheuerman telling me how easy it was for him to talk in circles during a deposition or when he was on the witness stand as a lawyer was trying to pry confidential information out of him. This was many years before my litigation days. He would never have made such an admission after my suit came along, because he needed to employ that same technique with me as he played for the other team. On the lawyers’ side, that is (and my father’s side). He started protecting himself as well as The Brotherhood. Knowing as I did that he knew and understood a lot more about my legal matter than he was telling, if I asked him a question about attorney behavior or how he knew what he knew about my suit (which, of his own volition, he interjected himself into and had addressed at what he believed were necessary points in my “legal therapy”), he would talk in circles or get cryptic on me. Or he became flippant and comedic, and I quote: I am not now nor have I ever been a member of any conspiracy. I could not cross-examine him by asking follow-up questions. He would make comments which could very well be considered inside information. But if I asked him how he knew such things, he would act like a piano player in a whore house. He didn’t know what was goingon upstairs or downstairs or down the hall. Or he’d say that he only knew what I myself had told him.(What, he ran with my delusional fantasies too?) One example of how he’d slip and slide when I asked how he knew things about my family’s legal matter before it had officially commenced, and pointing to me as his source when I asked, is as follows. I remember early on when I was delivering some of my research results (newspaper clippings about the business, etc.) to Rudy Bilawski, Rudy asked me to deliver a pretty thick case file/folder to the accountant he had often used when he needed accounting help in a legal matter. I did so and I did not peek in the file to see what was enclosed. Not that I was as honest as the day is long, but the file could have been rigged on the inside, revealing that it had been opened. Of course, the accountant would have to let Rudy know that I had opened the file prior to its delivery to him. (Uh-oh, Richard’s paranoid) Let me first say that I did not ask Rudy what was in the file nor did I ask why I was being asked to deliver it. It was still my goal to empower Rudy with as much freedom as I could deliver. I wanted to be a good soldier by not asking questions that I knew he shouldn’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to answer. (Dang. What if the key to this entire mystery was in that file and Rudy was giving me a heads up, assuming thereafter that I snooped in it like 99% of the people who might be starving for information would do in some similar situation?) Anyway, this delivery happened when nothing was officially going on with my father, since he’d shelved or dropped the case earlier in the timeline of things. I was worried that my delivering the file indicated that nothing was going on outside of whatever it was that I was doing at the time, that being research for the case of my father’s which Dr. Sheuerman led me to believe was still going on. But, if true, Bilawski couldn’t admit to this. Why? Because he’d be involved in a conspiracy. Another factor in the scheme of things was that Bilawski had indicated that he wasn’t interested in my case being that my father was my star witness yet an adverse witness just the same. So what I was doing by bringing him my research was rather meaningless. Bilawski knew, however, that The Doctor was manipulating my meaningful movements or my non-movements, as it were, so Rudy was pacifying me and trusting The Doctor by accepting the research that I had performed, yet explaining just the same that he still couldn’t help me without my father’s cooperation. The other possible scenario or reason for my delivering the file Bilawski gave to me to the accountant (who would later become my accountant at my own choosing, Raymond Wiley being his name), was that it was work-product for the suit I’d eventually have to file without Bilawski, on my own, my father having retreated to whatever world he was in and wanted to be in, divested of his case and me and my case and Bilawski as well. I was stressed out thinking that it could be the latter. And that I was therefore nuts. This is how confused and tormented I was. When I expressed my fright, fear and dismay to Dr. Sheuerman that nothing was going on except my research for my potential legal matter, The Doctor assured me that something was indeed going on. I asked what that activity was. My delivering that file to the accountant for Rudy was his answer. (Was this Rudy’s reason for giving me the delivery job as well? To say without saying to sit tight, that things are happening? He knew how I believed in his competence. Uh-oh, Richard’s paranoid) So, there you go. My father’s case was my case and/or vice versa, joined at the hip regardless. Or what I was doing was the only thing going on. That’s just great. Well then and therefore, the weight of the case was on my shoulders and I had to do the doing. Dr. Sheuerman’s answer to me with regard to “something’s going on,” is an example not only of The Doctor’s modus operandi when it came to my inquiries, but it is an example of why I forged on until this day regarding my case. Out of principle. And, “it’s The Doctor’s fault.” (Did you hear me, Doctor? It’s all your fault. So put that in the pipe you used to smoke and smoke it) As time wore on, I not only talked the talk with The Doctor and in my letters to the players (including Bilawski), but, to their chagrin, I walked the walk. My father’s cowardice is, of course, the most important factor in the equation. If my father had been properly taking care of the matter, his “action” would have had symptoms that couldn’t be disguised and those symptoms would have been and be apparent to me. The final point is that, with regard to Dr. Sheuerman, he is apparently talking in those circles of his during the posted telephone conversation, though the circle turns are “a little screwed up.” 32 It is when I go back and re-read my aforementioned April 26, 1988 letter to Rudy Bilawski (which caught him and all of its nine other recipients off-guard), that I re-remember, re-realize, and re-understand why Dr. Sheuerman peed the bed and was scared shitless about his role in this legal/medical psychodrama. Catching The Doctor with his pants down is an understatement. The eight quotations of The Doctor that I listed in that letter are a pretty devastating indictment of The Doctor’s take on reality in the matter. If he said those things (and he most certainly did), then unquestionably it follows that he led me to believe or endorsed my believing in the hidden agenda. The icing on the cake, making my argument, is the fact that The Doctor said those things one to two years before I instituted my lawsuit. (See “‘The Jig is Up’ Letter to Rudy Bilawski” at 04/26/88 on the Timeline page, pp. 4-5) So stripping The Doctor down to his birthday suit is not an overstatement. Since then, my memory of The Doctor’s “offerings” has become more extensive and clear (though you’d think it would be the other way around) and my list of The Doctor’s revelatory yet enigmatic quotes has swelled to more than twenty. Would that I had the rest of them in mind when I wrote the letter. (Would that I could take a lie-detector test and post the results for added verification) Said letter only scratched the surface of his particular participation in the matter and he was worried about just how far I’d publicize his role. On second thought, he knew me like a book. Therefore, he did, in fact, know how far I’d take the matter. He knew full-well that I am “anal” and obsessive/compulsive and I usually overdo those things which are serious to me and about which I am passionate. The subject letter is most certainly a serious one, co-written with a very intelligent (non-lawyer) friend and confidant who I brought on board after I left The Doctor’s “care.” The letter is/was deadly, fissionable, and when it was delivered and detonated, it mushroomed up like an atomic bomb, radiating out in different directions under cover of the solicitation materials that I sent to hundreds of potential counsel, thus making The Doctor’s role in the matter infamous. He was worried about what I might do (especially with my new partner in crime by my side), yet he never truly saw it coming. Why? Because I was no longer under his “watch” and more importantly, I finally found some honest help, no thanks to him. So, after my friend joined my cause célèbre, the job of the attorneys became exponentially harder. The lawyers on both sides in my lawsuit not only had to protect the egos and reputation of the two brothers Berberian (Haig and Vasken), they had to try to protect the integrity (or lack thereof) and reputation of their “Brother,” Arnold Aaron Sheuerman, Jr., M.D., J.D.-de facto, who ran interference with respect (and without respect) to me for his conspiratorial friends as they did whatever it was that they were doing aside from colluding. All of a sudden, the barristers had a lot on their plate. And I just love giving them extra heaping helpings as evidenced herein. No one planned on me. And there was no Plan B. (It even rhymes)-Of course, Sir Walter Scott said it best (and to quote him once again): Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! 33 Why I didn’t think to point this out to him at the time, I do not know. My best guess is the fact that I’m not a good hands-on thinker/analyzer. Therefore, I’m usually honest in most settings. I’m unable to lie right and left, finesse my words, and thereby maneuver and manipulate another person’s thinking and right reasoning into wrong. As indicated elsewhere herein, it isn’t until I’ve gotten away from a conversation with someone who talks out of both sides of his or her mouth, and I think about it, that I figure out the double-talk. And if I have a recording of the spoken words and a transcript thereof, analyzing the dialogue is a piece of cake, as exemplified by the present posted transcript of my conversation with Dr. Sheuerman. Given the comments and declarations that The Doctor made to me over the course of my final four years under his “watch,” does anyone out there believe that it is more likely that my files are/were “misplaced,” or is it more likely that The Doctor is lying in order to cover his ass? Who cares? So far, just me and the one heroic friend who helped me immeasuably with my case. (What am I talking about? Why am I still talking about my case? The case is dead?-The case may be dead, but the matter and the story surrounding it as a whole is alive and well. At least, in the crazy mind of a loon) 34 I believe that the most critical reason why Dr. Sheuerman can’t find my records and therefore cannot provide a summary thereof is because my lawsuit occupied 80% of our counseling time from September 1980-September 1984. He would have had to address the matter in his notes. What did he notate? This is the big question that he did not want answered. This is the big question that, when answered (and I am doing so as we speak in the posted transcript), the score will be settled once and for all as to just how crazy I am, and who the good guy throughout the history of this matter is, has been, and was, from September 2, 1980 to date. 35 In his day, Dr. Sheuerman was the best, brilliant in his field. “Preeminent,” as they say. Actually, The Doctor was so good, he groomed me for the day that I would come back, analyze his words, his behavior, and the information that he imparted to me, and then send him out to face the world (see Berberian Mystery Theatre) 36 Dr. Sheuerman’s job as a psychiatrist/physician was to help me recover from my emotional/psychological breakdown such that I could take on anything and everything in this cold cruel world that came my way. He got that done. I took this on. (I also took his lawyers on after he passed trying to get my records. I mopped the floor with them–tit for tat/ letter for letter) I had to take this on partially because of The Doctor and/or it turned out as it has partially because of him. As with any patient, the most important goal of my getting a stranglehold on life is that I go on to enjoy that life. The Doctor failed miserably. I have essentially lived a life of misery because of the man. The matter has haunted me mostly because of the secrecy involved. And I’ve been living with seething anger for the bastard once I figured out his deceit and deception and the role they played. But then again, satis ambire culpam: There’s enough blame to go around for the entire cast of characters. Except me. This was not my fault. Just one of the things that this website is out to prove along with its exposition of the secrets of The Hypocratic Doctor and the other players with whom he was, in some capacity, clandestinely working. Hopefully, Berberian Mystery Theatre will also exhonerate me for saying what I just said and that which I say throughout and within its parameters. 37 The major crime perpetrated by Haig Berberian, Peter Jeppson, and Well Fargo Bank, as stated in my lawsuit, revolves around the concept of “fraud.” What is so egregious about what happened to me while trying to rectify the problem, is that my lawyers engaged in the same type of crime that they were supposed to resolve on my behalf. The most vile player to engage in this same behavior (which seems to be contagious) is unquestionably Dr. Arnold A. Sheuerman Jr. When he is supposed to be abiding by The Hippocratic Oath, instead, along with the other players, he is abiding instead by the following: Fraud.-Intentional perversion of the truth or false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his legal injury. I wanted to put this legal concept into print, since its nastiness is easier to see and understand in writing. However, believe you me, being the recipient of this behavior by a medical doctor, a doctor of the mind, no less, is nothing you want to feel. It is demoralizing at best. 38 I’m going to metaphorically liken my website to an experience that I had many years ago. I was in my back yard cleaning up some debris when I saw this big ugly plump evil-oozing black widow strategically located within its web which was stretched across a sliding glass back door to my house. When I approached to kill it, it saw me coming and dropped down into the runner/track. I couldn’t get to it down in the crevice. Then I thought to get a bottle of Windex and I sprayed smothering amounts of the ammonia-rich glass cleaner down into the creviced track area where the wicked eight-eyed octo-legged she-monster was hiding. Finally, the hideous thing came back up for air at which time I turned to my side and smashed it against the glass pane with my shoe. That made for a real ugly gob of black widow goo. Well, that’s my website. Not the poisonous gunk, but the various facets of the occasion. As soon as Berberian Mystery Theatre gets potent and toxic enough, one or more of the players for the hidden agenda that I have been describing throughout this exposé are going to have to surface. And they’ll have to try to limit the proliferation of this website and/or its most toxic components or take this site out altogether. (The players had better be hoping that I never hit the lotto, for if I do, I’ll see to it that if anyone puts any word containing any vowel into any search engine, they’ll come up with Berberian Mystery Theatre as the first listing on the first page) If some player does surface and in so doing, somehow, some way, reveals himself or herself, and if somehow, some way, I manage to find out precisely what his or her secret agenda is and/or was, the players as a whole run the risk of my legally smashing them into a gob of Brotherhood goo. I’m fighting the unknown which delivers its venom in a stealth-like manner. They’re invisible. And they know each and every dark nook and cranny crevice, every angle everywhere, and everything else that there is to know about the game of my seeking and their hiding the truth about this legal matter. And they’ll use that knowledge to squish me and this little legal “playpen” of mine. (Okay, “cobweb,” to keep things allegorical.-Ugh!). So why do I bother with any of this, knowing as I do that I’m fighting the all-knowing/all-seeing? I’ve got too many years and too much invested in this matter to do otherwise. Too much emotional skin in the game. The matter is organic and second nature to me now. Additionally, to use the old worn-out adage, “I gotta do what I gotta do.” It’s what I do, and as a result, this website is what it is. Trying out one last metaphor, Berberian Mystery Theatre is kind of sort of like my Frankenstein monster. It’s an experiment which I am hoping will ultimately breathe life into this legal matter.—“It’s alive! It’s alive!!” 39 Until I know what my father did behind my back, “if anything,” there must remain the distinct possibility that I was, have been, am, and continue to be not only paranoid, but a couple of french fries shy of a Happy Meal, not playing with a full deck, out of my gourd, touched in the head, bereft of reason, deprived of my wits (if any I had), off my rocker, and non compos mentis. And if it is concluded that I’m not all there, then The Doctor must have been here in the same crazy world that I’m in. (How do you like being on the edge of insanity, Doc? And being diagnosed by yours truly? Who knew) 40 As mentioned earlier, I took an MMPI Test (the gold standard of psychological testing) when I was seeing Jim Malone, MFCC. (I was seeing him for marriage problems at the time. This was about seven years after Dr. Sheuerman retired) If the test has any validity within the medical, psychological, and psychiatric professions, the results should authoritatively say something about me. “Diogenes, I found your man.” They say, never trust someone who says that they’re honest. I’m not saying this. My Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test results said this. My MMPI test results should certainly tell you just how “paranoid” I am and whether or not all of my talk about “conspiracy is rooted in mental illness or founded on something resembling evidence. And by the way, no one beats or tricks the MMPI, angling for a particular result. If the test found me honest and not paranoid, then that’s what I am and am not, respectively. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that I did trick the test into saying that I’m honest and sane, then one must conclude that alternatively, I’m as smart as hell, smarter than the test’s authors, Drs. Hathaway and McKinley. (I just love to play my own devil’s advocate. I win the argument every time, either way, on either side) In time, I will post the test with my answers as well as the results that Jim Malone presented to me. I’d post them now, but, my files have been moved two, three times in the last several years. And that’s resulted in some disturbance in the files. I spent considerable time trying to find said MMPI materials, and to make it simple, can’t find them…(For clarification, see the pdf/transcript attached hereto, Page 1, first full paragraph spoken by The Doctor) 41 I know for a fact (by way of the overwhelming corroborating evidence presented on this website) that not a single player (other than myself) would submit to a polygraph test regarding these matters. If I had a million dollars, I would offer $100,000 to any and all players in the loop who would submit to an examination of just two “yes” or “no” questions. They are as follows: “Do you know anything whatsoever about an agenda relating to Richard’s father affecting Richard and/or his lawsuit, which Richard does not know about?” Second question: “Was Haig Berberian aware at any time whatsoever that Richard had sued him?” The needle would go bonkers at “no” and “yes” respectively. Were I asked these questions, I wouldn’t know if I should answer in the affirmative or the negative to the first one. I knew and know it’s out there and it affected me and my case, but then again, I do not know. It’s a “dark matter” that affected me and my case from start to finish, although “finish” hasn’t happened yet. Or has it? You should know without a doubt by now the answer to the second question regardless of what I have to say about it. If any multimillionaire out there would like to finance the subject polygraph offer (though it could be termed a “reward” for bravery), I’ll make you a partner in the book about the matter and/or movie rights or both. Contact me at: resjudicata@berberianmysterytheatre.com. (Not to worry. It won’t cost you a dime. There will be no takers. Not one) 42 I have said at various times throughout this exposé that Dr. Sheuerman is the man who is most responsible for “ruining my life.” I know this sounds dramatic and extreme. But it is true. The hierarchy in terms of importance in the destruction of “Richard Berberian” (and/or thirty-plus years of his life and counting) is as follows: 1) Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., M.D., 2) Vasken G. Berberian, 3) Peter B. Jeppson, CPA, 4) Haygaz G. Berberian, 5) Wells Fargo Bank, 6) the rest of the players, 7) Richard C. Berberian. Yep. I’m on the list. But I’m dead last. Why am I last on the list? Here’s why. From the moment the ordeal began, I did anything and everything asked of me by Dr. Sheuerman, Rudy Bilawski, and Larry Drivon. I tried my damnedest to reason with an excruciatingly unreasonable man, my father. I was patient as hell with him. My letters prove this. My actions prove all of this. My entire history throughout the first five point five years of the matter bear this out. Regarding The Doctor, I believed everything that he said to me from day one on. Here is an example of Dr. Sheuerman’s influence on me. It isn’t the best example, but it happened early on and it comes to mind. After the matter got started and I (mistakenly) thought that Haig Berberian knew that his jig was up and there was a bad moon rising, every time I heard the siren of an ambulance in the neighborhood (which was my uncle’s neighborhood as well), I called his house to see if the voice which answered was calm, cool and collected. It was always my aunt who answered. Her voice was always calm, cool and collected. When I told Dr. Sheuerman that I was doing this, he said: Your uncle isn’t going to die on you. (This is before I had a lawsuit, mind you. More evidence why I think what I think about the existence of a hidden agenda regarding my father and the legal matter as a whole) The Doctor was simply saying that it no longer legally mattered if my uncle passed. In other words, “it’s now in the lawyers’ hands.” I immediately ceased and desisted making such phone calls. I regret that I did such a thing, though said calls weren’t meant to harass. I always said that I had the wrong number. But it was a stupid thing to do. And I loved my aunt. (By the way, I have never looked at her probate files) Anyway, my point is that I believed The Doctor’s every word. (It was my father dying on me that was never addressed by The Doctor. I left his care four months prior to my father’s passing) Additionally, at all times, I was at Bilawski and Drivons’ beck and call. I would have done anything and everything that they asked of me. I bent over backwards, touched my toes, did summersaults and cartwheels and double back-flips for both of them and my case as a whole. (Much of what I just listed is and was loyalty in my heart and mind, because I was asked to do very little, even though the matter, were it on the up and up, demanded a ton of to-do’s, not the least of which would have been been, hello, taking my deposition!) After I said good-bye to Dr. Sheuerman, both Bilawski and Drivon dumped on me by dumping me. They piled on. And I didn’t deserve it, because I was, in fact, in all matters Berberian v. Berberian, the good guy. “Good guys finish last,” they say. Therefore, by definition, I’m last on the list above for bad behavior that ruined my life. Evil behavior ruined my life. I’ve got a little bit in me too. But The Doctor is at the top of the trash heap. (And I think that Sigmund Freud himself would more than agree) 43 I have to admit that I did in fact once semi-secretly record a meeting that I had with Rudy Bilawski. I went to see him, because he did not write a letter on my behalf that I had meritorious grounds for my San Francisco lawsuit. I needed such a letter for my lawsuit filed in the Estate of Haig Berberian in Stanislaus County. Larry Drivon had written such a letter on my behalf. But not Rudy. I wonder why. This was long after both he and Larry Drivon had withdrawn from my case. I’m sorry that I did such a thing, i.e., the microcassette recording. (For one thing, it may have ruined my chances for getting another meeting with him. I tried through a letter, but Rudy did not respond) My sorrow about the recording, however, may be based more than anything else on the fact that I know that Rudy knew what I was doing. For some reason, I believe that it is more ethical that the “recordee” does not know. (But then again, I believe that I can debate anybody regarding my lawsuit and run circles around them. Not “screwed up” circles, mind you. I need no recording and transcript thereof to beat anyone in a discussion of the realities and actualities of the procedural history of my case) Rudy did not call me on it, the recording, that is, though he could have, which would have embarrassed the shit out of me. I have to give him that. I have never listened to the tape. From what I can recall of the discussion and my lack of need to listen to the tape, there is nothing enlightening or damning on it anyway. Frankly, there is just one comment by Bilawski that sticks in my head. That is: “I have told you in the past and do so again that I cannot help you.” Or words very similar and to that effect. Everything else, gone. Well, looks to me like I remembered the most important thing he said. I should have asked him, “well then, who can and will help me?” There is only one answer to that question. That answer is me, moi, yours truly. (See Berberian Mystery Theatre) I do want to say on my own behalf that there are a couple or so conversations that I had with Bilawski, which I have never divulged to anyone except Dr. Sheuerman. And the memorializing of those conversations died with The Doctor (although they obviously remain in my brain). I have never even told my one confidante about those coversations. (I’m referring to the one friend of mine that has ever been involved in the matter, the one I have referenced here and there) Were I to divulge the contents of thoses communications here in Berberian Mystery Theatre, it would probably be perceived as a positive addition to my character. How the substance of those conversations might change any perceptions that are apparent from my presentation of Bilawski within this website, I don’t know. It would probably diminish him and make me look better. In my opinion, it would be further clarified herein as to who was honest in this whole matter and those who were not. But the jury is out until those conversations are thrown into the mix. The reader will decide this when those communications are presented herein, if “when presented” ever comes. Notwithstanding, there will probably indeed come a time when I believe that I have nothing to lose (though I should feel that way right now), and those conversations with Bilawski will be introduced into this account, and every last single thing regarding Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank will be out in the open and posted to this website. When I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty that I was screwed by Rudy Bilawski (like I do, in fact, feel, believe, and know for a fact, with regard to Dr. Sheuerman), that’s when there will be no loyalty left, no secrets to keep. This is not a threat because nothing scares Rudy Bilawski. So why mention it? Don’t really know. I have neither a reason nor a rationale for my statement(s) in this regard. If I figure it out in time, I’ll include the answer in Berberian Mystery Theatre, the book/movie, in which the conspirators will depict me as a full-blown bubble off plumb. 44 Let me say that any lawyer involved in my case past, present, and/or future, in any way, shape, or form (even mentally/intellectually so from just reading about it in Berberian Mystery Theatre), who wishes to send me an e-mail about any aspect of my case or anything that I have said about the legal/judicial justice system in my various commentaries, letters and documents posted hereto, will have the opportunity to see his or her e-mail posted to this website. I will make a special chapter for all submissions. In fact, I will post to this exposé any e-mail submitted by any bona fide lawyer anywhere within the fifty states (and any other English-speaking country) who wants to add his or her two cents in the matter. But you must be a “Brother.” (“Now is the time for all good Brothers to come to the aid of my website”) This proffer extends to any judge anywhere as well. I’ll even extend this proposition out to any employee of any law office connected in any way whatsoever to my case (or that of my father’s), past, present, and/or future. I have nothing to hide, including anything pertinent that you wish to say. I have to include your name, however, to keep the riff-raff out. Actually, not necessarily so. I can just post your credentials to go along with the comments. To be honest, I am making this proposal knowing in advance that I will have no takers. But I am granting it nonetheless because miracles do happen. Wait a second. Not when it comes to Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank. No miracles. “Mum” to the nth degree is always and forever the word. And one more thing. I am going to extend an additional special invitation to any licensed psychologist (M.A.’s and PhD’s) and any psychiatrist with a medical degree out there to review my writings and the documents found herein. Analyze me. Go ahead and take a stab at it. Again, I have nothing to hide. I’ll post the comments along with your name or without your name if you prefer, just your credentials. Eventually, I will be posting to this site my MMPI Test results (albeit from 20 years ago-the only one that I have), to aid you in your deliberations. But I want to cut you off at the pass regarding one item: “Richard Berberian has delusions of grandeur thinking his story warrants professionals to take their time and energy to comment on his self-involved cause celébrè/website exposé.” Don’t say this, because I just said it for you. (Send any and all e-mails to: resjudicata@berberianmysterytheatre.com. I’m waiting) 45 Actually, my one confidante, my friend to whom I have referred from time to time throughout this chapter, has been the only person who took interest in my very personal emotional agonizing legal matter. I did not force it on him. (He was the last of my friends to know. I have explained as to why elsewhere in this exposé) I do not force the subject on anyone. Actually, I don’t even talk to anyone about it anymore except this friend, and not with any regularity. The only other ally in my case is the general public, you, the reader. Like me or hate me, at least you listen. Regarding Richard Berberian v. Haig Berberian & Wells Fargo Bank, for moral support, and with open arms, I can always count on my trusty friend, my journal of sorts, my memoirs, i.e., Berberian Mystery Theatre. 46 There is a mental disorder listed in the DSM-IV called folie à deux. It is described as follows: “Two people share the same delusion or delusional system and support one another in this belief. They have an unusually close relationship. Temporal or contextual evidence exists that indicates the delusion was induced in the passive member by contact with the active partner.” Whoa! Uh-oh. Is this us? May be. Other names for the disorder are “double insanity,” “shared delusional disorder,” and commonly, “folly for two.” Now let’s get this straight, I am not a psychiatrist. (There has to be one person out there who thought I was. Just one) So, if any of you head-shrinkers out there want to diagnose the relationship that I have been describing with this friend of mine, I’m all ears. And Berberian Mystery Theatre welcomes your comments. Just as I have extended an invitation to all bona fide lawyers out there to send in comments on my theory about the “hidden agenda,” I say the same to all bona fide psychiatrists and psychologists (M.D.’s, PhD’s, and serious M.A.’s) who want to send comments about the “secret agenda” and the shared views I have with my friend regarding same. And like I said to the lawyers out there, I will post your comments to this website. But they have to be serious. This is not a game. (However, if something strikes my funny bone, who knows. I might post it) The address to which you should send your “diagnoses” is: resjudicata@berberianmysterytheatre.com. 47 I have compiled a list of Dr. Sheuerman quotations, all of which were said to me before (some as much as three years before) I had a lawyer and a lawsuit. One must be familiar with some of the details of my story in order to make much sense of the quotes. I can provide the context of each and every quote which would provide their overall meanings. As you should know by having read this chapter and elsewhere, I have already provided the context of most if not all of them. Keep in mind that The Doctor’s two sons are lawyers who were interning at the time of said utterances, or had interned, in Rudy Bilawski’s law firm, Neumiller & Beardslee in Stockton, California. (The Doctor told me, however, that he had never discussed my matter with his son(s)) Also be mindful that my father, Vasken Berberian, went to see and was counseled by The Doctor in late 1980-early 1981. Notwithstanding, I think that it is now quite obvious by looking at my thinking, analysis and commentary throughout Berberian Mystery Theatre, were the following items said to me before I had a lawyer and a lawsuit, “something was going on” that Dr. Sheuerman knew about and he was speaking to someone who was not in the loop and was in dire need of any such information. Unfortunately for me, it was bare bones. But these “offerings” were just enough to get me by, barely enough for me to make it at the time that they were offered. I have listed the quotes in as close to chronological order as I can recall from memory. There may be a couple or so which need to be reversed in order. Most of them can be found elsewhere on this page and in this chapter and elsewhere within this website. However, I felt the need for a separate footnote containing an entire list of those memorable quotations, all of which were said to me prior to my filing suit, to be presented alongside their author (whose head I hand to him therein), the leading villain in this saga/psychodrama, The Hypocratic Doctor: Arnold Aaron Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. 1. It’s gonna be a long winter. 2. I don’t care how many things your father signed, he could not sign away fraud! 3. When a lot of money is sought in a legal matter, a complaint must be on file. 4. It’s not every day that a million-dollar case walks through your door. 5. Your uncle isn’t going to die on you. 6. Something’s going on. 7. Perhaps you’re approaching this matter from the wrong premise. 8. Your father was screwed, blued and tattooed. 9. Your uncle had to have help with the fraudulent bookkeeping. 10. I wonder if Bilawski’s secretary likes her job. 11. I wish I could be there when Bilawski and Askew take Haig and Jeppsons’ depositions. 12. Between your father and your uncle, Bilawski’s gonna have to earn his money. 13. These things just inch along and inch along, especially when they’re trying to get twenty-one lawyers from four different cities together into the same room at the same time. 14. Some lawyers like to consider a case their own once the client has signed on. 15. Your father may not know any more about this matter than you do. 16. It sounds as though your father dropped his case. 17. I don’t think that this is a matter of “if” you’re gonna get any money out of this thing, I think it’s a matter of “how much.” 18. You won’t have to pay any taxes on the money you get. 19. It’s your father who’s suing! 20. Bilawski said that it came down to a matter of whether or not your father was going to do it. 21. I didn’t say anything about what your father did or didn’t do. 22. They’re getting ready to do something. 23. You have so much truth on your side! 24. You were born with a silver spoon up your butt. 25. I am not now nor have I ever been a member of any conspiracy. Did Arnold A. Sheuerman, Jr., M.D. instill into me a life lie?
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