Stephen Webster — Direct/Cross

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes, sir. I do.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Thank you, judge.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Good afternoon. My name is Stephen Webster, S-T-E-P-H-E-N W-E-B-S-T-E-R.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I'm an attorney.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Since 2005.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I did.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I think it was May of 2014 until he was murdered.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I spoke to him that morning.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: So I had just started my firm and, you know, like any small business, you're scared and you're hungry. And a friend of mine called me — Tor Friedman — and said, "I have a client for you." I was like, "Okay." And he said, "He's a law professor." I was like, "Okay." And he said, "It's a family law case." And I said, "Well, Tor, I don't do family law, and you know that." And he said, "Well, it doesn't matter. He's a law professor. He'll teach you everything you need to know." And I said, "Okay, well, that makes sense." So I agreed to meet with him. And the night before, I read all the papers, and they were voluminous. I printed them and actually read every word.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And we'd already set up a meeting at Voodoo Coffee on Tennessee Street.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And I really didn't think I was going to accept the case.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I could just tell from the tenor of the papers that it was really, really contentious.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And it just didn't feel like something I probably wanted to get involved in.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: But I wanted to meet them anyway.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And so I met them and I liked them. I liked them a lot. And so I decided I would take the case. I mean, it's not a prerequisite that I like you to represent you, but in something like that, I didn't want to get involved in a contempt-type case with law professors where ultimately it could end up being disrespectful to the court, and I didn't want to be involved in something like that if I really felt like it was going to be that kind of a relationship. But when I met him, I didn't feel like it was going to be that way, and so I agreed to take it. And his primary concerns were — he wanted to get more time with his children if at all possible, but he didn't want to change the time-sharing. He had kind of an unusual request: he wanted to see if there was any way that he could see the children every night when he didn't have them, to tuck them into bed and kiss them good night. And he said, "Look, I'll only stay five minutes, I promise. I won't bother anybody and I'll leave." And I said, "Dan, man, that's probably never going to happen. That's just probably not reasonable."

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And then he was really concerned about parental alienation, which at the time I wasn't really familiar with. I didn't do family law, but I was familiar with it from the perspective of — I learned about it in law school and stuff like that.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: But he was really concerned that the grandmother, Donna Adelson, was really trying to drive a wedge between him and the children. And he actually told me that he heard her refer to him as stupid on a Skype call.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: He couldn't see her in the Skype screen, but he heard her say something to the effect of, "Stupid's on the phone."

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And he was livid about it. And he was ready to basically kind of go to war over that.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: That sort of referenced the filing that we're familiar with, where grandma says, "You're stupid." And he was seeking to have grandma enjoined from having unsupervised contact with the kids.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yeah, and I didn't have the opportunity to actually talk to him about that yet, because he was killed.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: But it was my understanding that after that filing, he heard her.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Actually, he heard her — because that's what he told me. He said, "I heard her call me stupid. She wasn't in the screen, but he knew her voice." And so he was very upset about that. And then the other thing that he was upset about — he wanted the Holocaust diamond back. So the property, his family property that Wendi had — yeah, and he wanted that back.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: No.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: No. No.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: It's untrue. There's a reason he hired me.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: He didn't retain me because he needed a friend.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Tor basically told me on the phone call. He said, "Look, there's going to be a trial, and it's going to be acrimonious, and he needs a lawyer that can go into the courtroom and be prepared to fight." He said, "That's why I think you could handle this case." And we were heading towards a trial, and he certainly — I mean, he sent me an email the day before talking about how he was irate because Wendi, unbeknownst to him, had actually enrolled — or applied to have been enrolled — at the School of Arts and Sciences, and she didn't even talk to Dan about it. So he found out the day before when he got called from the school saying that Ben had been accepted. And so he emailed me and said, "I'm irate about this." He said, "You know, I don't think it's appropriate." So, no — I mean, there were a bunch of issues still going on. Yes.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: You mean, like, with the contempt and all of that?

STEPHEN WEBSTER: No. I mean, I would not have gotten involved if I thought he was going to lose on the contempt. You know, my reputation travels with my clients, too, if they're doing things like that, right? I mean, if you're representing a client who is disrespecting the court, it's hard not to feel like that's bleeding off on you and you're disrespecting the court. And in Tallahassee, Florida, if you practice in this circuit — you know, if I disrespect Judge Everett today, every judge in this circuit that matters to me is going to know about it before lunch tomorrow.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And it's just — no. So, no. I would not have accepted. That's why I didn't think I was going to take the case when I read all that.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes. I mean, contempt is — you know, it's a very ugly kind of prospect. And as a lawyer, that was one of my main concerns. She was a lawyer, and I did feel like she should be held in contempt. She didn't disclose things on her financial affidavit. Dan convinced me of that. But that was to be determined, right — by a court. Yes, but in my mind, yeah, that was the only reason I took it. Okay. And, you know, at the end of the day, you can lose your law license for that. I mean, I guess you would have to report that to the bar — I didn't research it — but the court would refer it to the bar if the court found you were in contempt. The court would refer it to the bar, and, you know, you could lose your law license. So, yeah, it's pretty serious in that regard.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yeah.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I mean, it was why I decided to take the case.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I liked him. You know, he was actually funny. Like, he had good humor about it. But even as acrimonious as all of this was, the big-picture stuff didn't really — he didn't have any anger. You know, he was angry about the calling him stupid. That made him angry. But I think in his mind, eventually a lot of this stuff would, you know, would resolve and should resolve.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: You know, he wasn't vindictive or vengeful. And that was a big part of the reason why I was willing to get involved. I felt like he was kind of looking at it like a business deal still, with the exception of the stupid comment.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: And, you know, so he was funny and — I mean, obviously smart. Smarter than I am, that's for sure.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Well, I mean, I think that depends.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes, ma'am.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes, ma'am.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: You have a duty to keep your client informed. That is an actual affirmative duty on every lawyer, that you have to be in contact with your client, keep them informed of important events that are going on in the case. There are certain decisions that only the client can make, like whether to testify, things like that, but there are certain decisions that a lawyer can kind of make, procedural decisions on filing certain things, but you have a duty to keep your client informed of important events.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Absolutely not.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Good afternoon.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes, sir, I believe so.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: No.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I mean, I had done some. Like, I worked for other firms, you know. But for the most part, if I was going to take it, me personally, it would have to be no kids involved in, like, you know, one of those situations where the assets were already, like, agreed upon how they were going to be split up. I didn't want to get involved in fighting in cases where kids were going to get hurt. It's not how I wanted to use my law license. Excuse me. I'm sorry.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I mean, as an attorney, I don't think I'm allowed to say I specialize in anything unless I'm board certified. So I'm not board certified in anything.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: At that point in my career, I'd primarily done a lot of criminal defense work.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yeah.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I guess that's fair to say.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I saw in the filings that lawyers had withdrawn, and yeah.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: No, he got killed before I had my chance.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: I don't know if I was familiar with that. I read the papers if it was in the papers. I mean, look, it appeared to me that, you know, it was very acrimonious, and, you know, there were lengthy pleadings and filings. And, you know, it was — it was one of the things I talked to Dan about. I said, you know, you need a lawyer, you need to stop drafting voluminous pleadings, and we need to just get this on the rails and focus on what matters.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yes, sir.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Mm-hmm.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Yeah, that's fair.

STEPHEN WEBSTER: Thank you, Your Honor.

JUNE UMCHINDA: I've been here like twice.