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wednesday, september 2, 2015two sections | $2.00
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Ed SilvErStEiN
It has been 10 years since hurricane Katrina hit new Orleans, but its lessons for preparedness continue to be critical for law firms. Firms, like other businesses, had tried to plan for the storm, but its impact was overwhelming for the Gulf region. the devastation was widespread. there were many casualties.
the obvious first priority was to get in touch with employees
to find out if they were OK. this was often hard to do given the breakdown in communica-tions technologies and the fact so many residents had left the region.
Michael hunt, now manag-ing partner at Phelps Dunbar, recalled that those employees whose whereabouts were not known were often located by “word of mouth” as colleagues connected with employees who had found temporary shelter.
Many firms also realized
A decade later, Hurricane Katrina Still Provide legal Operations lessons
Hurricane Katrina sweeps across the Gulf of mexico toward Louisiana in 2005.noaa
MErEditH HObbS | [email protected]
eMPlOyMent lItIGatOr Leslie Dent has left Paul Hastings for Littler Mendelson. Dent, who chaired Paul hastings’ atlanta employment law practice for a decade, had been at the firm since 1983, after earning a law degree from northwestern University. she joined littler as a shareholder.
Dent has litigated class and collective actions as well as individual discrimination cases. she’s successfully tried 25 cases for her clients, which include employers in the tele-com, retail, airline and restaurant industries. she is a fellow of the College of labor and employment lawyers.
her hire gives littler, which represents management in employment law, 40 lawyers in its atlanta office, and reduces the atlanta head count at Paul hastings to 34 lawyers, according to its website.
littler added four shareholders—all employment litigators—from Ogletree, Dea-kins, nash, smoak & stewart in January: Dan Turner, Tracey Barbaree, Beth Moeller and Lauren Zeldin.
“lateral recruiting is a key element of our growth strategy here in atlanta,” said littler’s atlanta managing shareholder, l.
Littler Picks Up Employment Litigator From Paul Hastings
See on the move, page 3
See katrina, page 2
Federal Judge Orders Kentucky Clerk and Her Staff to Court • a county clerk who invoked “God’s authority” as she defied the U.s. supreme Court yet again on gay marriage tuesday refused to resign and now must face a federal judge who could impose fines or send her to jail.
rowan County Clerk Kim davis turned away several gay and lesbian couples who sought marriage licenses—some for a fifth time—even though the supreme Court denied her last-ditch appeal the night before.
“to issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience. It is not a light issue for me. It is a Heaven or Hell decision,” she said through her lawyers. “I was elected by the people to serve as the county clerk. I intend to continue to serve the people of rowan County, but I cannot violate my conscience.”
april miller and Karen rob-erts tried first, trailed by dozens of television cameras. a deputy clerk said no licenses would be issued, and declined to make davis available.
david moore and david ermold, a couple for 17 years, then came in, demanding to speak with davis. “tell her to come out and face the people she’s discriminating against!” ermold shouted.
“We’re not leaving until we have a license,” ermold responded after she came out and told them to leave.
“then you’re going to have a long day,” davis replied. she retreated behind a closed door, sheltered from questions and rival demonstrations.
“Praise the Lord! ... stand your ground,” her supporters shouted, while the other side called davis a bigot and yelled: “do your job!”
davis’ son is one of the six deputy clerks also summoned to appear before U.s. district Judge david Bunning on thurs-day in ashland. davis has said four deputies share her beliefs, one was ambiguous and one had no problem licensing same-sex marriages.
—The Associated Press
r. rObiN MCdONAld
the wIFe OF a prominent atlanta securities litigator active in Democratic Party politics has claimed in court papers stemming from the couple’s divorce that he attacked her violently multiple times dur-ing their five-year-marriage.
Carol swanson Chitwood, the estranged wife of Martin Chitwood of Chitwood
Lawyer’s Divorce Reveals Abuse
Allegations
See chitwood, page 4
Martin and Carol Chitwood were married in 2009 but are now divorcing and fighting in court over a prenuptial agreement and her claims that he physically assaulted her.
textforhirethe Florida bar now allows lawyers to solicit for clients by text messages. It’s the second state to do so. Article, page 9.
ON tHE MOvE
Carol Chitwood says her husband caused these injuries in 2011. He denies it.
harley harnes, said that soon after their 2009 wedding he began a pattern of escalat-ing physical and emotional abuse.
Carol Chitwood’s allegations appear in divorce papers filed in Fulton County superi-or Court and in a detailed assault-and-battery suit she brought against him in san Diego, where they have a home. she contended that her husband has knocked her unconscious, shoved her down flights of stairs, strangled her until she passed out, pulled a knife on her and forcibly sodomized her. her injuries—noted in medical records included with her court papers—have required trips to the emergency room, stitches and surgery, she said.
Marvin solomiany, who represents Martin Chitwood in the divorce, said that Carol Chit-wood is trying to ruin her husband’s profes-sional and personal reputation as part of “an attempt to extort a settlement in the divorce case.” Martin Chitwood, he added, “is very saddened by the divorce taking the turn it has taken.”
the reactions by law enforcement authori-ties and the courts to Carol Chitwood’s claims illustrate the challenges faced by a woman who alleges domestic violence, especially in the context of a divorce.
twice police have been called to the Chit-woods’ homes—once in atlanta and once in la Jolla, California—in response to 911 calls regarding Carol Chitwood’s safety. atlanta police didn’t arrest Martin Chitwood, but last year san Diego police did. after his arrest, two san Diego County judges issued restrain-ing orders against him—the second in force through 2017. san Diego police said they rec-ommended that Chitwood be charged, but city prosecutors declined to do so.
a spokesman for the san Diego city attor-ney told the Daily report that the case against Martin Chitwood wasn’t winnable because Carol Chitwood had not wanted her husband arrested and the likelihood that Martin Chit-wood would attack her again was “pretty low.”
a supervisor at the san Diego police unit that handles domestic violence cases said that even though police did forward the case to the city attorney for prosecution as a misde-meanor, Carol swanson Chitwood’s 911 call “looked to us like part of their divorce” and that Carol Chitwood may have been “postur-ing for money.”
Michael runner, a lawyer with san Fran-cisco-based Futures without Violence, called san Diego’s handling of Carol Chitwood’s allegations “kind of surprising,” and her behavior “typical ... under the circumstances.”
“In the old days, you could say the vic-tim was not cooperating and justify closing the case regardless of what was there,” said runner, who trains judges in how to handle domestic violence cases. “It’s not that simple any more. you have to really look and see if there is enough evidence to move forward with a prosecution.”
advocates for domestic violence victims are also disquieted by how Carol Chitwood’s abuse allegations so far have been sidelined in her Fulton County divorce case.
disagreement over the Prenup atlanta attorney Jeff bogart had argued
on Carol Chitwood’s behalf that a prenup-tial agreement that left virtually all marital property in Martin Chitwood’s hands was unenforceable because the physical abuse was unforeseen. that made the prenuptial con-tract unconscionable and inherently unfair, bogart said.
but Fulton County superior Court Judge Doris Downs rejected the bid to break the agreement. she found the abuse claims “whol-ly irrelevant” because they did not qualify as the kind of unforeseen circumstance that could break a prenuptial agreement. Downs then denied Carol Chitwood’s motion for an immediate appeal.
bogart told the Daily report that in Geor-gia, the appellate courts have never consid-ered whether repeated physical, sexual and emotional abuse during a marriage consti-tutes a “sufficient change in circumstance” that would void a prenuptial agreement.
“this issue of spousal abuse is a case of first impression,” said bogart. “who would ever anticipate that they would be a punch-ing bag?”
holly tuchman, chairwoman of the Geor-gia Commission on Family Violence, said she was distressed by Downs’ ruling.
“we know of cases where there is no evi-dence of physical violence or mental abuse prior to becoming married,” tuchman said. “the concern I have is the message we are sending to victims is that you should have known violence may happen. ... the appellate court needs to look at this.”
Martin Chitwood’s legal team includes the former district attorney in san Diego and, in atlanta, solomiany of Kessler & solomiany. Carol Chitwood now is represented in atlanta by sandy springs attorney Christine stadler.
solomiany said that Carol Chitwood’s domestic violence claims are baseless and that she fabricated them only after Chitwood told her he intended to divorce her.
Martin Chitwood’s attorneys and court pleadings filed in both the Fulton County divorce case and the California cases claimed that any injuries Carol Chitwood allegedly sustained during their marriage resulted from falls or were old injuries from Carol Chit-wood’s years as an international gymnast. any visible facial bruising Carol Chitwood may have reported, they claimed, stemmed from the falls or plastic surgeries.
Carol Chitwood’s lead lawyer in the Cali-fornia civil case, lisa bloom of los angeles, responded, “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that in a domestic violence case the alleged perpe-trator is going to look for alternative reasons for the injuries.
“when a woman is battered by her hus-band,” bloom added, “she will typically cover up and cover up and cover up until she reaches her breaking point.”
‘soulmate’ and ‘southern Gentleman’
born and raised in Canada, Carol swan-son Chitwood was a rhythmic gymnastics champion and a member of Canada’s 1980 Olympic team. she went on to a career as a senior recruiter for Ge energy in Canada and was working for Pitney bowes when she met
4 dAily rEPOrt wednesday, september 2, 2015
CHitWOOd, from page 1
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Martin Chitwood through a high-end inter-national professional matchmaking service. she is currently the technical director of Usa aesthetic Group Gymnastics and judges its competitions.
Martin Chitwood earned his undergradu-ate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. he is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam war who served with the U.s. army’s special Forces. he also co-produced and wrote with author Pat Conroy the script for “Unconquered,” a 1989 Cbs movie.
as a lawyer, Chitwood has served as co-lead counsel in multimillion-dollar securities litigation on behalf of investors, pension funds and private mutual funds across the country. he has also served as a special assistant attor-ney general representing Georgia’s pension funds in securities class action litigation.
Chitwood was a key member of the Georgia Democrats’ advisory committee that recom-mended to the Obama white house potential nominees for federal judgeships and the U.s. attorney and U.s. marshal posts in Georgia.
Court papers filed in atlanta by Martin Chitwood’s lawyers estimate his net worth at $23 million.
In affidavits filed in California and in atlanta, Carol Chitwood has described the couple’s 2009 marriage in a toronto castle as a fairy-tale wedding to a man she viewed as a “soulmate” and a “southern gentleman.”
but the courtly gentility that her husband demonstrated during their courtship van-ished abruptly within days of the wedding, her affidavit said. while on their honeymoon at his la Jolla home, her husband—appar-ently enraged over wedding bills—attacked her on the stairs and ripped out hanks of her hair and hair extensions still in place from the wedding, screaming that she did not deserve
to be his wife, she said. her new husband, she added, soon
morphed into a frightening, cruel and violent man who inflicted serious injury, then secured her silence with warnings that he had “killed people before” with his bare hands and could easily kill her too.
Carol Chitwood said her husband also iso-lated her from family and friends. “he hated it when I talked to anyone on the phone,” she said. “he kept tabs on me. … I always had to be under his watch.”
she said her husband’s assaults left her feeling helpless, vulnerable and terrified but that she was unable to find the strength or the courage to leave. “I felt my life was utterly worthless and disposable,” she said, adding that she told family and friends that if she were killed, “Martin had done it.”
according to seven affidavits signed by Carol Chitwood’s friends and family mem-bers that are part of the atlanta divorce case, they became alarmed by the increasing fre-quency and severity of the violent attacks she reported by her husband, her growing sense of helplessness, and her fears that her husband eventually would kill her.
the atlanta Police CallOn Dec. 6, 2010, atlanta police were sum-
moned to the Chitwoods’ atlanta residence by Carol Chitwood’s father, who had placed a call from his Canada home to alert police that his son-in-law had threatened to slit his daughter’s throat. when the officer arrived, he observed that Carol Chitwood appeared to have been crying and asked her to step outside so he could speak to her privately, according to the incident report.
Martin Chitwood, who had come to the door after his wife answered, repeatedly
refused to provide any identification to the officer until he was threatened with obstruc-tion, according to the report.
Carol Chitwood told the officer she had been diagnosed with a heart condition and that her husband had then informed her that he wanted a divorce. she qualified her father’s urgent call to police, explaining that her husband had threatened “to legally slit her throat” with a prenuptial agreement that would strip her of all financial support. her father “must have misunderstood it to be a threat on her life,” according to the police report. her husband, she told the officer, had never physically hurt her.
In divorce pleadings, Carol Chitwood said that just before she opened the door to the police officer that night, her husband had whispered to her, “you do anything to hurt me and I’ll kill you and you’ll never see it com-ing” and that he had eyed her through a win-dow while she and the officer were talking.
In his only comment on the record about his wife’s allegations, Martin Chitwood told the Daily report, “I can say those words did not come out of my mouth. I don’t use a term or phrase like that. I would not say ‘slit your throat’ in any context. that’s not the way I speak.”
In her affidavit, Carol Chitwood said that after she sidestepped the police inquiry about her safety, her husband’s physical attacks escalated. she said that on March 2, 2011, she had just finished talking with a friend on the phone when her husband began shouting, “you bitch,” and gave her a violent shove. she fell, striking her head, and was knocked unconscious, leaving her with a black eye and a gash above her eyebrow that would take 40 stitches to close. she said she came to as her husband was screaming at her to clean up a
growing pool of her blood that was beginning to accumulate on the floor.
Carol Chitwood said her husband refused to take her to the emergency room that night. the next day, he took her instead to a buck-head plastic surgeon who stitched her up, drained a large hematoma in the middle of her forehead and then urged Martin Chitwood to take his wife immediately to the hospital.
the couple went to northside hospital’s emergency room. Medical records from the hospital in the divorce case report that Carol Chitwood told er medical personnel that when her husband had arrived home the pre-vious evening, he had found her “covered in blood” but that she had “no recall” of what had happened. she was diagnosed with a concussion. “Inexplicably,” an er doctor wrote, “she was not brought to the emergency department” immediately.
said Carol Chitwood later: “I was too afraid to tell anyone what really happened.”
Calling 911 in san diegoOn aug. 13, 2014, according to Carol Chit-
wood’s affidavit and the san Diego police report, Martin Chitwood attacked his wife again, shortly after one of her Canadian friends, who had been visiting, departed. Carol Chitwood said her husband, angry about the woman’s visit, shoved her so vio-lently that he nearly knocked her over the stair rail 20 feet above a marble floor. she said the ceiling chandelier struck her in the head as she scrambled to keep from falling.
she said her husband then pursued her to the study where he slammed her down on a credenza, breaking the glass top. he spat repeatedly in her face, she said, and as she again attempted to flee, he grabbed her and
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dAily rEPOrt wednesday, september 2, 2015 5
See chitwood, page 6
shoved her down a flight of stairs. the force of the fall was so great that a
gastric band implanted in her abdomen nine years earlier ruptured and several fibroid tumors in her uterus burst, according to the affidavit and medical records filed in the Ful-ton County divorce case.
when her husband left the house, Carol Chitwood called the police. her maid had been hiding in the bathroom and overheard the altercation, according to Carol Chit-wood’s affidavit, two affidavits by the maid and the san Diego police report.
the officer who responded to Carol Chit-wood’s 911 call said she told him that she wanted police to talk to her husband “and let him know what he did was not right.” she also told police, “I don’t want him arrested though because if we get divorced I’ll be left with nothing.”
while the officer was taking statements, Martin Chitwood returned home. Chitwood told the officer that he had asked his wife to check an email “and she pushed me back and told me no.”
“I instinctively pushed her back also when she pushed me, and then she walked away and went upstairs. nothing more happened,” the officer quoted him as saying. the officer determined that Martin Chitwood “was the dominant aggressor” and arrested him.
notes from Carol Chitwood’s la Jolla phy-sician the day after her husband’s arrest docu-ment Carol Chitwood’s account of the assault and noted injuries to right wrist, bruises to thighs and legs, scalp pain, a pinching back pain around the sacroiliac joint, and a persis-tent headache. the physician also diagnosed her with battered spouse syndrome, which leaves a victim of abuse feeling depressed, defeated and, often, helpless to leave her abuser.
During a follow-up visit, her physician noted abdominal swelling at the site of the gastric band and recommended surgery for what was diagnosed as a “fracture” of the band “secondary to blunt trauma.” Carol Chitwood underwent surgery in september 2014, and again last month, to repair the gas-tric band.
solomiany, Martin Chitwood’s atlanta lawyer, said that Carol Chitwood made the allegations that led to her husband’s arrest immediately after he informed her that morning that he intended to divorce her. “she knows the only way she can get a financial out-come better than what she negotiated in the prenuptial agreement is by alleging family domestic violence,” he said.
los angeles lawyer Jivaka Candappa, co-counsel for Carol Chitwood in the California civil suit, said that after Martin Chitwood was released from jail, he boarded a plane to atlanta, where he filed for divorce. he also hired former san Diego County District attorney Paul Pfingst to defend him.
the day after her husband’s arrest, Carol Chitwood secured a restraining order barring Martin Chitwood from coming within 100 yards of her, her car and their two dogs. san Diego County Judge Cindy Davis ordered him to immediately move out of the couple’s la Jolla home and granted sole care of the dogs to Carol Chitwood. a second judge renewed that order and extended it for three years.
affidavits for martin Chitwood Pfingst said Martin Chitwood did not con-
test the California restraining orders because
neither he nor his wife wanted any further contact. “If both partners want to stay away from each other, I see no reason … to go to court to fight about it,” he said.
Chitwood’s atlanta lawyers have given the Daily report affidavits they say back their contentions that Carol Chitwood has fabri-cated her domestic violence allegations. they claim she got the idea from one of Martin Chitwood’s longtime lawyer friends—who in recounting his own divorce had claimed that allegations of domestic abuse had inflated his eventual financial settlement with his ex-wife.
In January, Martin Chitwood’s longtime personal trainer signed an affidavit suggest-ing that any injuries Carol Chitwood claimed had been inflicted by her husband may have been old athletic injuries—including lower back pain, stomach issues associated with her gastric band and “issues with her right wrist.”
trainer randy haas said that, while at a workout with her husband, Carol Chitwood had explained a gash above her right eye in 2011 as the result of a fall after she passed out. haas said she had told him during the joint training session that she had been taking a nutrition supplement that had caused her to be light-headed, and that she had fainted, apparently striking her face on a closet door latch.
another Chitwood employee, Gregg Gan-nett, said in an affidavit that he too, recalled the facial injury Carol Chitwood sustained in 2011. he said she told him she had passed out and hit a door jamb in her fall and that her husband later had found her semi-conscious on the floor.
san Diego interior designer rebecca robe-son, who redecorated the Chitwoods’ la Jolla home in 2013 and is currently involved in the design of a rooftop living area and cabana for the residence, said in an affidavit that Carol
Chitwood had confided to her that her mar-riage was in trouble and that Martin Chit-wood had removed his wife from the couple’s checking account.
robeson said that Carol Chitwood also told her that if her husband were to divorce her, she would, because of the couple’s pre-nuptial agreement, get “absolutely zero.”
robeson said she was concerned. “I asked her if Martin had ever hit her or if she was afraid that he would ever physically hurt her. she told me that Martin was ‘too smart’ to ever hit her because he knew if he did he would ‘lose everything.’”
Police responsesan Diego police lt. Misty Cedrun heads
the san Diego Family Justice Center, which acts as a clearinghouse for social services for battered women and investigates domestic violence cases. she told the Daily report in June that no charges were filed against Martin Chitwood after his arrest because Carol Chit-wood “refused medical treatment” when the
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6 dAily rEPOrt wednesday, september 2, 2015
CHitWOOd, from page 5
Marvin Solomiany: Carol Chitwood’s allegations are attempt to improve financial outcome in divorce.
fILe PHoto
officer responded to her 911 call and “demon-strated a level of unwillingness” to cooperate because she didn’t want her husband arrested.
Cedrun dismissed the housekeeper’s account to police corroborating Carol Chit-wood’s allegations because, she said, the housekeeper had only overheard the alterca-tion. “she didn’t see anything,” Cedrun said.
even though neither Martin nor Carol Chitwood had filed divorce papers when Martin Chitwood was arrested, Cedrun said the case looked “like part of their divorce.”
“what’s going on with these two is tit-for-tat,” she said. “there really isn’t much smoke here as far as domestic violence.”
she also said that because san Diego police were not aware of any previous incidents of domestic violence involving the Chitwoods, the case was not as urgent as cases where a victim might face imminent harm.
asked if san Diego’s treatment of domes-tic violence cases was similar to Georgia’s “one free bite” dog law, where owners are not criminally or civilly liable unless their dog has already demonstrated it will bite, Cedrun said: “you get your first free kick, punch or push without a traumatic injury, you get it for free here.”
“I’m telling you that’s what it is,” she said. “It is frustrating, yeah, but it is what it is…. when it comes to pushing and shoving, we let them go and focus on the ones where they are going to kill them or break every bone in their body.”
Cedrun said she was unaware that Carol Chitwood had sustained internal injuries that required surgery after her husband’s arrest. but, she said, “we’re not going to proactive-ly go follow up, to see how they’re doing, or whether there’s anything new. we don’t have the resources. we cut and go.”
Cedrun said that if Carol Chitwood “has a change of heart, and she wants to bring all these medical records forward, and wants him [her husband] prosecuted for a felony,” police might revisit the case.
Gerry braun, spokesman for the san Diego city attorney, said Martin Chitwood wasn’t prosecuted in part because the Chitwoods had no prior record of domestic violence or criminal history. like Cedrun, braun labeled Carol Chitwood as “not cooperative” and dis-missed the housekeeper as a witness because “it was just the maid’s testimony.” he said his office also was not aware that Carol Chit-wood had sustained any serious injury. “Our office has a legal obligation to only prosecute cases where we believe we will prevail,” he explained. “If we believe we are not going to prevail, we have a legal obligation not to pursue it. … what’s the likelihood [Martin] Chitwood is ever going to do this to this lady again?” he added. “It’s probably pretty low.”
but Gerald Fineman, a supervising assis-tant district attorney in san Diego’s neigh-boring riverside County, which includes Palm springs, told the Daily report that in California responsibility to pursue the case “doesn’t rest with the victim” even if a victim won’t cooperate.
Fineman said that California prosecutors, by and large, tend to evaluate whether domes-tic violence charges can be proven indepen-dently of an alleged victim’s testimony . he also said that in his experience it is “extremely rare” for women to fabricate allegations that they have been assaulted by husbands, part-ners or boyfriends.
atlanta divorce CaseIn the divorce proceedings in atlanta, Mar-
tin Chitwood has, so far, prevailed. he won a motion to litigate the divorce in
atlanta over his wife’s objections to have a California court, where she filed for divorce, hear the case.
Chitwood’s lawyers also persuaded Judge Downs to enforce the prenuptial agreement, which barred his wife from claiming any of his assets and virtually all of the couple’s marital property. It also limited alimony to $2,000 for each month the couple had been married and a $30,000 lump sum payout if the marriage ended before the couple’s fifth anniversary.
the prenup agreement also made it vir-tually impossible for Carol Chitwood to lay claim to any property or assets that were acquired during the marriage unless she had been given written title or could prove she had received them as gifts. the agreement also made her responsible for her legal fees should there be a divorce.
Carol Chitwood’s lawyers have contended the prenuptial agreement is invalid because the repeated, violent abuse she endured was a “sufficient change in circumstance” that made the enforcement of the agreement unreasonable and unfair.
Downs disagreed. In February, she ruled that evidence of conduct, including allega-tions of physical abuse, “has no relevance to the enforceability of the agreement in this case” and that she would not consider any of Carol Chitwood’s allegations that her husband had abused her in deciding whether the prenuptial agreement was valid.
the judge also held that the “rare circum-stances” in which a prenuptial agreement could be voided “were intended to encom-pass only that conduct having a financial impact on one or both of the parties.” In the Chitwoods’ case, she said, Carol Chitwood did not show how the physical attacks she alleged her husband had committed had resulted in any financial hardship. Downs also held that in the prenup, the Chitwoods agreed that conduct would have no impact on the agreement’s enforcement.
the judge noted that if Carol Chitwood disagreed with the ruling, she was free to file a separate civil damages claim regarding the abuse allegations.
Martin Chitwood used his prenup victory to reclaim the la Jolla residence and the cou-ple’s two golden retrievers. his lawyers also have filed multiple motions for contempt against his wife, claiming that she “looted” the la Jolla residence.
they also have filed a cross-complaint in Carol Chitwood’s personal injury case accusing her of trespass and vandalism.
In June, Downs completed her rotation on Fulton County’s family court while the divorce was still in litigation. the case has now been assigned to Fulton County supe-rior Court Judge todd Markle.
Martin Chitwood’s lawyers also have sought, so far unsuccessfully, to scrub from the public court record his wife’s allegations of physical violence and sexual or emo-tional abuse, saying that he had been falsely accused, and that his wife’s “ability to lie when it suits her purposes is seemingly with-out bounds.”
Carol Chitwood’s lead California lawyers, lisa bloom, said that Martin Chitwood’s legal strategy “is to bombard us with motions, dis-covery. It’s a tired old strategy.”
but ultimately, she said, “he has to comply with the law. I’m confident that the judge and, ultimately, the jury, is going to see through all this.” DR
dAily rEPOrt wednesday, september 2, 2015 7
Thursday, September 18, 20146:00-9:00 p.m. – Cocktail Reception
Olmsted of Atlanta1180 Peachtree Street, Suite A, Atlanta, GA
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Wednesday, september 16, 20156:00-9:00 p.m. - Cocktail Reception
the Peachtree club999 Peachtree Street, #2800Atlanta, GA
An evening of celebration
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Justice Harold D. Melton
(class of 2003), our On the Rise
Luminary Award recipient
and keynote speaker.
