Re “Hearing Canceled After Martha Harris Family Hires a New Attorney”
At 6-foot-5, Gerald Bennett is an imposing, strapping gentleman of middling age. You are inclined to believe him when he declares with the solidity of stone he is not budging in his fight to gain financial justice for his two sisters and himself.
“This case should have been settled,” Mr. Bennett says.
The siblings’ mother, Martha Lou Harris, the leader of the family, died last month after an illness, shortly before her 72nd birthday.
Four years ago last month, Mr. Bennett’s sister, JoAnn Crystal Harris, six months pregnant, was bludgeoned to death by her boyfriend, Sgt. Scott Ansman, while he was on duty in the Culver City National Guard Armory, hours before the start of Fiesta La Ballona a few feet away.
A year later in civil court, the victim’s family sued the state of California and the National Guard for alleged negligence, but there has been hardly any courtroom activity.
Postponed from last winter to two different dates in spring to late summer and then early autumn, a hearing the first week of October has been delayed until Monday, Nov. 7.
Mr. Bennett and his sisters, Deborah and Suzette, are pressing for a jury to determine a settlement in the case that also has been wracked by quarrels with lawyers. Mr. Bennett maintains that his adversary, Dep. Atty. Gen. David Adida, “knows he has no chance in court with a jury.
“He is trying to starve us out, make us suffer and settle for a much lesser amount than I believe we deserve.
“He wants us to take something like what was being offered a year ago when we were dealing with Robert McNeil and associates ($400,000, minus lawyers’ fees).”
The present figure of $400,000 is a country mile from the opening numbers that lawyers initially mentioned to the Bennett-Harris family.
According to Mr. Bennett, the upscale attorney Mr. McNeill — who departed the case under disputed circumstances — introduced $20 million as a prospective settlement goal.
“It went from $20 million to $10 million, down to $5 million, down to $3 million, to $2 million, down to $400,000.
“Remember, the lawyer we had at the time, a year ago, tried to say my mother accepted the $400,000 right after she came out of surgery. But she was heavily sedated. She couldn’t take any decision.”
(To be continued)
