In a strategic move that might have been anticipated after a putative settlement fell through, Dep. Atty. Gen. David Adida said this morning the state of California is considering counter-suing 71-year-old Martha Harris, the mother of a murder victim, and naming her son as a defendant for “convincing” her to breach the reputed agreement.
“We believe the plaintiff should comply with her agreement to settle the case at the amount that was agreed upon by her attorneys as well as the judge,” Mr. Adida told the newspaper.
“My mother never accepted the settlement,” an aroused Gerald Bennett said this morning. “She never signed anything, either. When I got to the hospital (two months ago), she asked me what was going on. I said, ‘They say you said it’s okay.’ She said, ‘I did not settle my case.’”
While the killer is starting the second year of a life-without-parole sentence in a Northern California prison, the fireworks continue in attempts by the victim’s family to gain a satisfactory monetary compensation for the loss of the pregnant Ms. Harris.
At stake is a $400,000 settlement offer in Mrs. Harris’s wrongful death civil suit against the state and the National Guard in the murder of her daughter, JoAnn Crystal Harris, three years ago at the hands of Sgt. Scott Ansman in the Culver City National Guard Armory.
Briefly, the parties appeared to have a deal, struck on the same day the plaintiff’s family expected a jury trial to get under way.
Robert McNeil Jr., Mrs. Harris’s original attorney in the civil case, told a downtown Superior Court judge on Oct. 4 that his client, in intensive care at a nearby hospital at the time, had accepted the state’s proposal. When Mr. Bennett heard the news, he vehemently denied it. Within hours, Mr. McNeil left Mrs. Harris’s employ following a stern-faced telephone call from Mr. Bennett.
From the moment he heard about the deal, Mr. Bennett has strongly maintained that his mother was in no condition to make a weighty decision, and she did not sign any affirming documents.
“They bothered my mother when she was in ICU,” Mr. Bennett said of Mr. McNeil’s team. “They told her, ‘You have got to settle this.’ She’s like, ‘I didn’t understand what they were saying. I was heavily medicated.’ And that’s the truth.”
According to Mr. Bennett, “My mother has no recollection of her attorney coming to her hospital room and urging her to accept the state’s offer. She said he said something about he was going to try and do the best he could do. That’s all she remembers.”
Following surgery in September, Mrs. Harris is continuing her recuperation in a convalescent home.
