I know a little about creepy attorneys and Small Smiles. See, it was about this time of year in 2008, Small Smiles Dental Centers sent a creepy attorney, named Thor, knocking on doors, of anyone in a 100 mile radius of me that had my same name. (By the way, there are several) It was well into the night when he knocked on mine. He was searching for the person (me) who was exposing the secrets of their criminal dental scam, which was defrauding Medicaid from hundreds of millions of dollars. They wanted me to shut the hell up!
Now, Small Smiles Dental Centers and their malpractice insurance carrier want to silence the post-trial proceedings dealing with their jury tampering in the first malpractice trial in Syracuse, New York. I’m shocked! (sarcasm)
National Union Fire Insurance Company (NUFIC) a subsidiary of American International Group (AIG) hired New York attorney, Scott Greenspan to “monitor” (a.k.a. “stalk”) the jurors of the first Small Smiles Dental/FORBA malpractice trials in Syracuse, New York. Mr. Greenspan is a partner at Sedgwick Law, with offices around the world. According to Mr. Greenspan he was hired by Denise D’Assaro, AIG Complex Claims Director and it was pure coincidence he was in every restaurant they jurors visited.
Read:
NUFIC/AIG wants State Supreme Court Justice Deborah Karalunas to seal all records and court documents related to the jury stalking event. Frankly, they would like to wave a magic wand and have the whole incident removed from, not just the record, but the memory of all parties. I would think they especially want the transcripts where their employee Mr. Scott Greenspan is said to be“creepy” and “seedy” buried under the courthouse.
They also want the public barred from any hearings about said jury stalking event. Well, of course they do! They would like it if the jurors didn’t notice they had a creepy and seedy stalker but that ship has done sailed.
Apparently, on October 16, 2013 - shortly after the verdict, Judge Karalunas called at least one juror back to court for a hearing. I’m sure this judge wanted to hear more details of the jury stalking incident. Heck yeah, I want to know just how far Mr. Greenspan went in his intimidating and harassing of the jurors during the 10 day trial. What line did he not cross? What lines did he cross without hesitation? No doubt NUFIC/AIG wants the transcript between Judge Karalunas and the juror marked “Super Duper Top Secret”,
If there is anything that should NOT be sealed it would be this! The public doesn’t need to know the jurors names or other person information — that should be redacted. But, boy oh boy, the public sure needs to know the extent NUFIC/AIG will go to in order to deprive young children from being compensated for injury, pain and suffering at the hands of one of their insured.
NUFIC/AIG attorneys said in their pleading that they have “good cause” to seal these records. Well, getting caught jury tampering by intimidating jurors with a hired stalker may be a good cause to bury the act from shareholders of AIG, but it’s not good cause to hide it from the public.
NUFIC/AIG is whining that they could suffer “significant and concrete harm.” Well they are in the insurance business, right? They have hundreds of people to risk analysis on everything from stumped toes to hangnails on elephants. I guess they missed the risk involved of hiring an attorney to stalk jurors.
Were they worried about “significant and concrete harm” their hired gun could do to the case? No. To the jurors? No. To this child!? No. Only if the public knows about the “creepy and seedy stalker” of the jurors is there “significant and concrete harm” and of course it would be suffered by them. Hogwash!
NUFIC/AIG wants the judge to enter a gag order stopping anyone involved from speaking about the stalking issue. Well, hell! Of course they do! Can you imagine the nasty information that will be coming out in days ahead. Greenspan back on the stand, and I’m sure Denise Trombetti D’Assaro! God only knows what this guy really did. I know the jurors felt they were being video recorded by Greenspan. What did he do after court was over for the day, did he become a peeping tom?! What will we find out, phones tapped? This is AIG we are talking about here, nothing is too down and dirty to save executives their multi-million dollar bonuses.
Despite the fact this is actual jury tampering, NUFIC/AIG argues that these matters are “traditionally considered private in nature.” NUFIC/AIG argues that anyone remotely interested in the hired jury stalker incident would be for “mere curiosity”. WHAT!
I dunno, maybe the New York Bar would be interested. Just saying…
They also basically call the judge a disgrace to her professions (not the first time during these proceedings I might add. They say when she called the one juror back on October 16, 2013, she asked “leading questions” and actually “suggested information to the juror”.
NUFIC/AIG also aren’t too happy that only she asked questions of the stalker, Scott Greenspan, about his behavior at the October 10, 2013 hearing. Well, Boo, the hell, Hoo!
The whole courtroom was full of attorneys! Certainly the defendants attorney looked more like deer caught in headlights than attorneys. As for AIG needing a “monitor”. They had about 20 attorney’s monitoring! I guess they had just one too many didn’t they.
A hearing is currently set for December 18, 2013 at 10:00AM on this matter.
