Church responds to county’s objections to trial witnesses
The attorney representing a former Bullskin Township church in a federal civil suit against Fayette County filed a response to objections the county raised regarding the addition of seven witnesses to the list of people expected to be called to testify at trial next month.
In the response filed last week, Gregory O. Koerner, the New York attorney for the Church of Universal Love and Music (CULM) and several of its members, summarized the issues the witnesses are expected to testify about that are relevant to the claims in the lawsuit when the case goes to trial next month.
The lawsuit contends the church and its members’ First and 14th Amendment constitutional rights were violated when the county engaged in a pattern of discriminatory behavior against the church, based on the church’s religious expression, which included outdoor concerts on the 150-acre tract located in Acme. The suit contended that the pattern culminated in a raid conducted by the county drug task force on Aug. 9, 2011, in which some of the plaintiffs say they were unreasonably searched and in some cases physically assaulted by task force members.
Koerner said the additional witnesses will specifically testify to the church’s status as a non-profit religious organization; the church’s actions following a settlement agreement in a previous lawsuit that illustrate its policies and beliefs regarding illicit drug use; the county’s actions before, during and after the previous lawsuit that evidenced the county’s alleged practice of harassing the church or turning a blind eye on harassment of the church; evidence of persecutory animosity toward the church related to the investigation and raid of the church grounds; and the unreasonable search and seizure of the individual plaintiffs and other attendees of the festival.
Koerner took issue with the county’s objection that the additional seven witnesses were not announced in a timely fashion and, therefore, should not be permitted to testify, writing, “The mere fact that an individual was not deposed during discovery does not preclude their giving testimony at trial, and at the time plaintiffs notified the defense of their intent to add these witnesses, there were still six weeks until trial during which time defense counsel could call and attempt to interview these individuals.”
At minimum, two of the witnesses should be permitted because they were listed as individuals who may be called at trial in a document the church filed late in 2011, Koerner added.
Those two witnesses, Ben Ansell and Craig Zaffaras, are being offered to contradict the county’s contention that the church and its outdoor music festival events operated as an “open air drug market,” Koerner wrote.
“This testimony would undercut Fayette County’s alleged justifications for its clandestine investigation, unconstitutional warrant and raid in pursuit of that unconstitutional warrant, all of which followed soon after the settlement of the prior litigation,” according to Koerner.
Ansell’s testimony, Koerner went on, would establish CULM as a legitimate religious, not-for-profit organization. “The church’s status as a religious organization undoubtedly is relevant to plaintiff’s constitutional claims,” he wrote.
Koerner said other witnesses will provide testimony concerning the backdrop to the present allegations, including information about the county allegedly interfering in the sale of the church property after the raid and the county’s alleged pattern of discriminating against the church in zoning hearing board proceedings, which gave rise to the previous lawsuit.
The county has also asked to amend its witness list to add William Jacobs, who recently came forward to say he was a security guard employed by Sonrise Security, the company owned by plaintiff James Stephens, and that he was working on the date of the raid.
The county said Jacobs will testify that Stephens told security guards who were to work at church festivals in the summer of 2009 that “they were not to intervene if they observed activities involving the sale or use of illegal substances,” wrote county attorneys Marie Milie Jones and Jeffrey Cohen.
Jones and Cohen claim Jacobs’ testimony supports the county’s position that the search warrant, which a federal judge previously declared unconstitutionally overbroad and tossed it from the case, was appropriate and reasonable “based upon the prevalence of the use of illegal substances on church property.”
The church is asking for $2 million in the suit, and Koerner has said the county has made no offer to settle so far. The trial is slated to begin July 22 in Pittsburgh in Western District Court.