Courtroom antics

Joe’s behavior in the courtroom left everyone, including the judge, bewildered.

Getting reprimanded by his lawyer

Joe would speak out of turn, interrupting the judge or counsel. Over and over again. His lawyer reprimanded him like a child in the middle of court. Joe made one payment of $10,000 to me prior to the trial and he testified to only doing this because his lawyer told him it would look good. His lawyer said “NO!!!" extremely loudly and smacked his hand onto his forehead, obviously not what had been rehearsed.

When I was testifying and it was proven that Joe had been lying about having access to business accounts, his lawyer admonished him audibly. It was like watching a toddler misbehave.

Harassing me from the witness stand

Joe was testifying and the defendant’s table, where I was sitting, was next to the stand where he was seated. All three lawyers got called up to the judge’s bench. Joe leaned over to me during this time and started going “PSSSST PSSSSST PSSSSST” repeatedly.

I reported it immediately to my lawyer and the judge.

I have been through a lot of his crazy antics, but in this instance I remember clearly thinking, “ This man is just not right in the head”. If he was willing to act like this in a court of law, just imagine what it was like when he was not around anyone else but us.

Nonsensical rambling

At the end of his testimony, Joe’s lawyer asked him if he had anything else he wanted to tell the court. My lawyer told me that this was lawyer code for “I think my client is crazy and going to sue me”. Joe took off on a fantastical, 20 minutes long, nonsensical, circular rant that had the judge looking at the ceiling and taking deep breaths. I’m working on getting the transcript. It was BANANAS.