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Part 6. Steve Thomas Deposition

Q. Do you know what sort of analysis was actually done in the report of the handwriting?
A. Yeah, they -- I remember the language concerning Patsy Ramsey, which was included in that report. And then many other people's or people whose handwriting had been looked at were also reported in this document.
Q. Now, you say this document. Weren't there more than -- did they do separate reports for each individual's handwriting that they examined, to the best of your knowledge?
A. Not that I saw.
Q. So basically what was it that you saw, a single report?
A. Well, as I described this report probably less than four pages in length that was very compacted with a lot of information and not typically what you think of as a -- or what I think of as a police report with a narrative, but more exhibit number such and such corresponding to this, et ceter
A. Not -- it wasn't free-flowing narrative of any sort.
Q. The report that you actually were able to physically examine, do you know how 8 many subjects or persons were actually being discussed in that report?
A. Yeah, many. Many, many, many, you know, 20, 30, 40 maybe.
Q. Do you know whether or not the report drew any conclusions with respect to the authorship of the ransom note?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you tell me what you remember the conclusion to be?
A. As I sit here today without that document in front of me, I recall language in that document that along the lines, and I'm certainly paraphrasing, that there was evidence to suggest that Patsy Ramsey was the author of the ransom note.
Q. Is that the language that you remember "evidence to suggest"?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, with respect to your book, you make a statement in your book, I'm trying to find the page, but I'll just ask you generally, yeah, it's on page 282, in the next to the last paragraph on page 282, the paragraph that begins "Not only did certain 9 letters change." Do you have that?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you read that paragraph out loud, please?
A. Certainly. "Not only did certain letters change, but her entire writing style seemed to have been transformed after the homicide. There were new ways of indenting, spelling, and writing out long numbers that contrasted with her earlier examples, and she was the only suspect who altered her usual preferences when supplying writing samples to the police."
Q. Now, the she in this paragraph, who is the she?
A. This is referring to Patsy Ramsey.
Q. All right. Now, may I ask you how you acquired the knowledge that you have in this paragraph? How do you know that in fact is what was going on in her handwriting?
MR. WOOD: Let me say something I don't think that he stated that he knows that as a fact I think he's describing what Don Foster said, but I may be wrong.
MR. HOFFMAN: Okay. I'm just asking him how he acquired that information.
MR. WOOD: Okay.
A. Mr. Hoffman, surrounding or preceding this paragraph it's in relation to Mr. Foster's presentation in Boulder, if I'm not mistaken and his presentation overheads, examples, et ceter
A.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) All right. Do you know if anyone other than Don Foster shared that belief who was involved in the investigation?
A. What belief?
Q. The belief that there was an attempt by Patsy Ramsey to alter her handwriting when asked for exemplars?
MR. DIAMOND: Do you mean among the expert community?
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Among anybody that was investigating the case that you know of?
A. I don't know if Don Foster shared any of his findings or investigation with any of the FBI people that he sometimes works with, but as far as those people in the room that day for this presentation in trying to 1 recall what Foster presented and said and demonstrated, that was certainly where I came away with this impression.
Q. Mr. Thomas, are you aware of the fact that Patsy Ramsey was asked to give what is known as request samplers to the police on more than one occasion during the investigation?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you know how many times she was -- on how many different occasions she was asked to give request samples of her handwriting to the police?
A. If my understanding is correct, I think it was five.
Q. Do you know why she was asked to give five separate handwriting samples on five separate occasions?
A. That was not my assignment, but given what I knew through the briefings and the detectives who were handling that assignment I could speculate as to why it became known to me.
Q. Did anybody through hearsay or any other way communicate with you why they were 2 asking Patsy Ramsey to appear on more than one occasion to give exemplars?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you tell me why?
A. Yes. Because apparently the CBI examiner, analyst, expert, had questions or concerns about her handwriting and similarities with the note.
Q. Did anybody ever express the belief that she was attempting to alter her handwriting?
A. Yes, Don Foster.
Q. Any other person in the investigation?
A. And, again, as I sit here, from memory and without the QD examiner's reports in front of me, Mr. Hoffman, let me think for a moment. No, not that I can recall.
MR. HOFFMAN: Since I'm drawing near, how is my time doing, does anybody know?
MR. RAWLS: You've got 17 more minutes.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Mr. Thomas, I would just like to direct you to page 286 of 3 your book.
A. Okay.
Q. All right. Now, this is a rather lengthy series of paragraphs and it runs to 289 and it's basically from what I can understand your theory of how this crime was committed, who was involved in it; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And have you had a chance to review pages 286, 87, 88 and 89 since the book was written?
A. Yes.
Q. Are these statements still accurate?
A. Well, I don't know the current state of the evidence of what may or may not have changed or come to be known by Mike Kane and the cops. But at the time I left, this was certainly a hypothesis that I felt was consistent with the evidence that I felt was certainly reasonable.
Q. Have you had any occasion to change your mind with respect to your analysis and the conclusions that you draw in 4 these pages?
A. Well, will you give me just a moment to reread quickly these three pages? MR. HOFFMAN: In fact, would anyone object if he read this out loud into the record?
MR. WOOD: If you want to spend your time having him do that, Darnay, I have no objection whatsoever.
MR. HOFFMAN: Well, yes, would you mind? Let's do it this way. Why don't you silently read this to yourself and then I'll ask you that question again.
MR. WOOD: He might as well read it out loud because it's on the clock.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Okay. Then why don't you read it out loud. Begin with "There was no doubt in my mind that Patsy wrote the note."
A. "'I believe she committed the murder' I told Smit and proceeded to lay out what I thought had happened ... "In my hypothesis, and approaching fortieth birthday, the busy holiday season, an exhausting Christmas Day, and an argument with JonBenet had left Patsy frazzled. Her beautiful daughter, whom she frequently dressed almost as a twin, had rebelled against wearing the same outfit as her mother. "When they came home, John Ramsey helped Burke put together a Christmas toy. JonBenet, who had not eaten much at the Whites' party, was hungry. Her mother let her have some pineapple, and then the kids were put to bed. John Ramsey read to his little girl. Then he went to bed. Patsy stayed up to prepare for the trip to Michigan the next morning, a trip she admittedly did not particularly want to make.
"Later JonBenet awakened after wetting her bed, as indicated by the plastic sheets, the urine stains, the pull-up diaper package hanging halfway out of a cabinet, and the balled-up turtleneck found in the bathroom. I concluded that the little girl had worn the red turtleneck to bed, as her mother originally said, and that it was stripped off when it got wet. "As I told Smit, I never believed the child was sexually abused for the gratification of the offender but that the vaginal trauma was some sort of corporal punishment. The dark fibers found in her pubic region could have come from the violent wiping of a wet child. Patsy probably yanked out the diaper package in cleaning up JonBenet. "Patsy would not be the first mother to lose control in such a situation. One of the doctors we consulted cited toileting issues as a textbook example of causing a parental rage. So, in my hypothesis, there was some sort of explosive encounter in the child's bathroom sometime prior to one o'clock in the morning, the time suggested by the digestion rate of the pineapple found in the child's stomach.
I believed JonBenet was slammed against a hard surface, such as the edge of a tub, inflicting a mortal head wound. She was unconscious, but her heart was still beating. Patsy would not have known that JonBenet was still alive, because the child already appeared to be dead. The massive head trauma would have eventually killed her. "It was the critical moment in which she either had to call for help or find an alternative explanation for her daughter's death. It was accidental in the sense that the situation had developed without motive or premeditation.
She could have called for help but chose not to. An emergency room doctor probably would have questioned the 'accident' and called the police. Still, little would have happened to Patsy in Boulder. But I believe panic overtook her. "John and Burke continued to sleep while Patsy moved the body of JonBenet down to the basement and hid her in the little room. "As I pictured the scene, her dilemma was that the police would assume the obvious if a six- year old child was found dead in a private home without any satisfactory explanation. Patsy needed a diversion and planned the way she thought a kidnapping should look. "She returned upstairs to the 8 kitchen and grabbed her tablet and a felt-tipped pen," and flipping "to the middle of the tablet, and started a ransom note, drafting one that ended on page 25. For some reason she discarded that one and ripped pages 17-25 from the tablet. Police never found those pages."
On page 26, she began the 'Mr. and Mrs. I,' then also abandoned that false start. At some point she drafted the long ransom note. By doing so, she created the government's best piece of evidence. "She then faced the major problem of what to do with the body. Leaving the house carried the risk of John or Burke awakening at the sounds and possibly being seen by a passerby or a neighbor. Leaving the body in the distant, almost inaccessible, basement room was the best option. "As I envisioned it, Patsy returned to the basement, a woman caught up in panic, where she could have seen--perhaps by detecting a faint heartbeat or a sound or a slight movement--that although completely unconscious, JonBenet was not dead. Others 9 might argue that Patsy did not know the child was still alive.
In my hypothesis, she took the next step, looking for the closest available items in ... desperation. Only feet away was her paint tote. She grabbed a paint brush and broke it to fashion the garrote with some cord." She then -- "then she looped the cord around the girl's neck. "In my scenario, she choked JonBenet from behind, with a grip on her broken paintbrush handle, pulling the ligature. JonBenet, still unconscious, would never have felt it. There are only four ways to die: suicide, natural, accidental, or homicide. This accident, in my opinion, had just become a murder.
"Then the staging continued to make it look like a kidnapping. Patsy tied the girl's wrists in front, not in" the "back, for otherwise the arms would not have been in" the "overhead position. But with a fifteen-inch length of cord between the wrists and the knot tied loosely over the clothing, there was no way such a binding would have restrained a live child. It was a symbolic act to make it appear the child had been bound. "Patsy took considerable time with her daughter, wrapping her carefully in the blanket and leaving her with a favorite pink nightgown."
As "the FBI had told us ... a stranger would not have taken such care. "As I told Lou, I thought that throughout the coming hours, Patsy worked on her staging, such as placing the ransom note where she would be sure to 'find' it the next morning. She placed the tablet on the countertop right beside the stairs and" put "the pen in the cup. "While going through the drawers" and "under the countertop" -- "While going through the drawers under the countertop where the tablet had been, she found rolls of tape. She placed a strip from a roll of duct tape across JonBenet's mouth. There was bloody mucous under the tape, and a perfect set of the child's lip prints, which did not indicate a tongue impression or resistance. "I theorized that Patsy, trying to cover her tracks, took the remaining cord, 1 tape, and the first ransom note out of the house that night, perhaps dropping them into a nearby storm sewer or among the Christmas debris in wrappings in a neighbor's trash can.
"She was running out of time. The household was scheduled to wake up early to fly to Michigan, and in her haste, Patsy Ramsey did not change clothes, a vital mistake. With the clock ticking, and hearing her husband moving around upstairs, she stepped over the edge. "The way I envisioned it, Patsy screamed, and John Ramsey, coming out of the shower, responded, totally unaware of what had occurred. Burke, awakened by the noise shortly before six o'clock in the morning, came down to find out what had happened and was sent back to bed as his mother talked to the 911 emergency dispatcher.
"Patsy Ramsey opened the door to Officer Rick French at about 5:55a.m. on the morning of December 26, 1996, wearing a red turtleneck sweater and black pants, the same things she had worn to a party the night before. Her hair was done, and her makeup was on. In my opinion, she had never been to bed. "The diversion worked for seven hours as the Boulder police thought they were dealing with a kidnapping.
"John Ramsey, in my hypothetical scenario, probably first grew suspicious while reading the ransom note that morning, which was why he was unusually quiet. He must have seen his wife's writing mannerisms all over it, everything but her signature. But where was his daughter? "He said in his police interview that he went down to the basement when Detective Arndt noticed him missing. I suggested that Ramsey found JonBenet at that time and was faced with the dilemma of his life. During the next few hours, his behavior changed markedly as he desperately considered his few options--submit to the authorities or try to control the situation. He had already lost one child, Beth, and now JonBenet was gone too. Now Patsy was possibly in jeopardy.
"The stress increased steadily during the morning, for Patsy, in my theory, knew that no kidnapper was going to call by ten o'clock, and after John found the body, he knew that too. So when Detective Linda Arndt told him to search the house, he used the opportunity and made a beeline for the basement. "Then tormented as he might be, he chose to protect his wife. Within a few hours, the first of his many lawyers was in motion, the private investigators a day later. "That's the way I see it, I said to Lou Smit." That's how evidence -- "That's how the evidence fits to me. She made mistakes, and that's how we solve crimes, right? I reminded him of his own favorite saying: 'Murders are usually what they seem.'".
Q. All right. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Now, I want to ask you, do you still agree with this analysis of the murder of JonBenet Ramsey?
MR. WOOD: Are you asking him as to the state of the evidence in August of 4 1998?
MR. HOFFMAN: No, I'm asking him whether now he still agrees based on his own personal knowledge of the case whether or not he still stands by these statements.
MR. WOOD: I want to make sure that we understand, Darnay, because he, as I understood it, testified that short of media reports and public statements he doesn't know anything about the state of the evidence from August of 1998 through September of 2001. And I think in fairness, we ought to make sure that we are asking him what he is standing by.
MR. HOFFMAN: All right.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Do you regard the statements that you make on page 286, 287, 288, 289 as being true to the best of your knowledge? MR. WOOD: We've got a conference again.
THE DEPONENT: Just a second, Darnay.
MR. HOFFMAN: Yeah, um-hum. (Discussion off the record between 5 the deponent and Mr. Diamond.)
A. I'm sorry, Mr. Hoffman. Yeah, as I said, given what I knew when I resigned in the summer of '98, I don't know the status of the evidence now but this was a hypothetical scenario that I purported that I felt was consistent with the evidence at the time. And unless something is changed drastically or markedly, that I'm unaware of, yeah, it's still my belief that something -- or let me state it this way: It's still my belief -- or I still stand behind this hypothetical scenario in that regard.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) All right. That's really all I need to know. Now, I want to ask you about the 911 tape which was -- became controversial because of alleged background noise and voice, possible voice identifications. Did you ever have occasion to listen to the 911 tape analysis that was done by a lab in Los Angeles or somewhere in California purportedly to show that Burke's voice was on the back of that tape?
A. Yes. 6 MR. WOOD: He listened to the analysis?
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Did you ever have occasion to hear the tape and actually hear what the people were reporting as being Burke's voice in the background?
A. Not on the aerospace engineering equipment but on lesser equipment inside the Boulder Police Department, yes.
Q. So it was actually audible on that equipment at the Boulder Police Department?
A. No, Mr. Hoffman, let me make sure I understand you. What are you -- what was audible?
Q. Burke's or the voice of someone who could have been Burke Ramsey talking in the background at the very end of Patsy Ramsey's, you know, conversation with 911.
A. Well, you're cutting right to the punch line. There is a long story behind it but, yes, myself and others listened to that tape and heard this third voice.
Q. So do you -- were you able to identify that third voice, you personally?
A. Well, I don't have any training in 7 voice identification, but certainly it sounded to me to be a young male voice. MR. WOOD: Are you asking him, Darnay --
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Were you able to draw based on your own personal experience of hearing this tape that there was a voice of somebody who sounded like a young boy?
A. Yes, that was my personal observation coming away from that.
Q. Do you have any reason to believe that that voice could have been the voice of Burke Ramsey?
A. That's what I believe.
Q. Is it based on ever having heard Burke Ramsey speak?
MR. WOOD: You're talking about just listening to the child speak, whether or not he has done a -- that's a sufficient voice exemplar for testing purposes?
MR. HOFFMAN: No, no. I just want to know in the same way that you can look at handwriting for, you know, purposes of article 9 -- article 900 in the Rules of Evidence, that whether or not based on his own personal experience if he's ever heard Burke Ramsey and whether or not he thought that was Burke Ramsey based on his own knowledge of what Burke Ramsey sounded like.
MR. WOOD: I understand. I'm not -- he can answer. But I'm certainly not acceding to your interpretation of rule, whatever you're talking about, article 900.
MR. HOFFMAN: Okay. Well, I'm not asking you to accede. Actually, Lin, you don't really even have to be involved in this, so quite frankly it's my question --
MR. WOOD: I will because I represent --
MR. HOFFMAN: And I don't know if it's appropriate for you to always to be trying to clarify it and put your spin on it. I'm asking Mr. Thomas whether or not --
MR. WOOD: Why don't you ask him a question --
MR. HOFFMAN: -- he could identify the voice as being that --
MR. WOOD: -- that makes some sense and I might not have to try to clarify it.
MR. HOFFMAN: -- of Burke Ramsey.
MR. WOOD: Why don't you just ask him a straight-up question. I want to make sure and I have a right to make sure that the record is understandable. You may not like that and I'm not trying to spin it. I'm trying to make sure we understand because candidly and respectfully some of your questions are difficult to follow which apparently --
MR. HOFFMAN: Okay. Well, you know, you have that problem yourself, Lin. So and I've --
MR. WOOD: I agree.
MR. HOFFMAN: -- heard Mr. Diamond have to go in and ask for clarification; lawyers sometimes have that problem --
MR. WOOD: I agree.
MR. HOFFMAN: -- not personal to you or to me.
MR. WOOD: I don't disagree with you.
MR. HOFFMAN: The fact is --
THE REPORTER: One at a time, please.
MR. HOFFMAN: I would like to be able to ask Steve Thomas this question without your helping with the clarification of it.
MR. WOOD: Well, just as long as the record -- go ahead and ask him the question. I just want to make sure that I have the right to understand what you're asking, too. But go ahead and ask him and let's get an answer.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Okay. Do you have any reason to believe that the voice was Burke Ramsey that you heard on the tape?
A. Yes, that's my belief and, absent there being other parties of whom or which I'm unaware in the house that morning, this third party to me is believed to have been Burke Ramsey.
Q. What do you base that belief on --
MR. WOOD: I think your time is up, Darnay.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) -- that that voice is Burke Ramsey?
MR. WOOD: Darnay, I think your time is up. Is it up?
MR. RAWLS: Yes.
MR. WOOD: Go ahead and ask your last question. I didn't mean to cut you off.
MR. HOFFMAN: Given the fact, Lin, that you've interjected and eaten a little of my time up, I think you should allow me that. Thank you.
MR. WOOD: As long as it doesn't cut into my time of what I know today to be 3 hours and 50 minutes.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Mr. Thomas, can you answer that?
MR. DIAMOND: It cuts into my time, Darnay.
MR. WOOD: I don't think you have time today.
MR. DIAMOND: I've got time to go home. Go ahead, ask your question.
Q. (BY MR. HOFFMAN) Yes. Mr. Thomas, is there any -- what is the basis for your concluding that the voice that you heard on the 911 tape was the voice of Burke Ramsey?
A. The basis of that and very -- having to synopsize this for you, Mr. Hoffman --
Q. Um-hum.
A. -- was Detective Hickman's travel to the Aerospace Corp. in Southern California, their enhancement of that garbled noise at the end of that 911 call, those engineers preparing a report and making findings I think identical to the detective who was there with the tape, her returning to the Boulder Police Department with this information and then each of the detectives listening on admittedly lesser equipment inside the Boulder Police Department to these findings, I concurred with others that there was a third voice on that tape that I believed to be Burke.
MR. HOFFMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Thomas.
THE DEPONENT: Thank you, Mr. Hoffman.
MR. WOOD: If we can go for about five or a few minutes I want to just kind of touch on a few things that you brought up, Darnay, and then we will break for lunch. Is that okay guys?
MR. DIAMOND: That's fine.
MR. HOFFMAN: Fine.
FURTHER EXAMINATION BY-MR.WOOD:
Q. The FBI analyzed the 911 tape and they did not find any such language, true?
A. I don't know what the FBI and Secret Service did because it was my understanding there may have been equipment that was incompatible to conduct this testing or for whatever reason but bottom line is the Secret Service and --
Q. The FBI?
A. Federal Bureau -- yeah, were unable to --
Q. They didn't hear the voice that Aerospace heard, right?
A. I don't know what they did or didn't hear or what they did or didn't test. I don't -- I think one of those agencies didn't even have equipment to test the tape.
Q. So you think the FBI didn't reach a conclusion with respect to the 911 tape; is that your testimony?
A. I don't know what the FBI or Secret Service concluded, I know what Aerospace did.
Q. And you also know that the tape was taken to a fourth group and they came up with different words from the tape than what Aerospace had come up with, true?
A. I know that Mr. Hofstrom took the tape to his brother-in-law for enhancement.
Q. Are you suggesting that his brother-in-law somehow falsified a report?
A. Did I say anything like that?
Q. No, sir, I'm just asking you're not suggesting that, are you?
A. No, you mentioned a fourth testing facility and I simply replied that Mr. Hofstrom took the tape to his brother-in-law.
Q. So for whatever reason the FBI doesn't hear the third party, the Secret Service doesn't hear the third party, Aerospace claims to hear it and then the fourth group hears something different; is that a fair generalization of the 911 tape?
A. I'm not sure that the first two agencies ever heard anything because I'm not sure they ever listened to the tape. I'm just --
Q. Did you not bother to ask the FBI, I mean, you -- please, Mr. Thomas?
MR. DIAMOND: Two questions.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) Did you ever bother to call the FBI and say, gentlemen, what did you find about the 911 tape?
A. I'm sure Detective Wickman, whose assignment this was, may have done that.
Q. Well, what, did you ask Wickman what did the FBI say? You know, we've spent a lot of time with the FBI, Tom, what did they say? Did you ask him?
MR. DIAMOND: Did he ask him what?
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) What the FBI had to say about the 911 tape?
A. Again, as I've said it's my understanding, Mr. Wood, that I don't know whether or not the FBI or Secret Service even tested the tape. The first testing that was done on it, to my knowledge, was through the Aerospace Corporation.
Q. And did you -- have you ever tried at any time as you sit here today to make any efforts to find out about whether the FBI or the Secret Service even tested the tape and if so, what their results were?
A. I don't know that.
Q. Have you made any efforts is my question?
A. No.
Q. As we sit here today, you've never made any effort to find that out --
A. No.
Q. -- right? Am I right? Sometimes the no comes out differently. The question is you've never made any such efforts to find out about the FBI or the Secret Service testing of the tape?
A. I have not made calls or efforts trying to determine that to the FBI or Secret Service.
Q. As we sit here today you have not done that?
A. That's right.
Q. You slipped once, maybe inadvertently, in referring to Darnay by Darnay as opposed to Mr. Hoffman. When did Darnay Hoffman first contact you about his offer to represent you for free and to absorb your legal cost in connection with the civil litigation filed against you by the Ramseys?
MR. DIAMOND: Can we just get a predicate that that fact occurred?
MR. WOOD: Yeah. I've got the New York lawyer, you know what I'm talking about, don't you, Darnay?
MR. HOFFMAN: Yeah.
MR. WOOD: For the record, you stated that several months prior months of April of 2001, you offered to represent Steve Thomas pro bono, for free and absorb all of his legal costs, right? MR. HOFFMAN: Yeah, at one point I did, yes.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) Right. Tell me about that. When did he contact you?
A. I don't know. What's the date on the document you're looking at?
Q. Maybe Darnay can tell us that if you don't know.
MR. HOFFMAN: I don't remember that either.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) But you know he called you? I don't know that --
MR. HOFFMAN: No, I did not call him. MR. WOOD: How did you contact him?
MR. HOFFMAN: I sent him an e-mail. I don't have a phone number for --
THE REPORTER: Wait. One at a time.
MR. WOOD: E -mail, whatever. I'm not trying to -- I mean, you e-mailed him.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) Did you get the e-mail, Mr. Thomas?
A. This today is the first time that I have ever spoken, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Hoffman, that I have ever spoken personally to Mr. Darnay Hoffman.
Q. Thank you.
A. And yes, I do recall not only did he send me this e-mail but that on occasion I would be on an e-mailing list that would 9 receive e-mails from Mr. Hoffman.
Q. So it is true that Mr. Hoffman sent you, Steve Thomas, an e-mail in which he offered his legal services to represent you for free, pro bono, and to absorb all of your legal costs in connection with any litigation brought against you by the Ramsey family; is that true?
A. Very generously so, yes, he did.
Q. Why did you not accept it?
MR. DIAMOND: He had a better offer.
MR. HOFFMAN: Better lawyer, Lin. He got a better lawyer, trust me.
MR. WOOD: Why don't you all let Mr. Thomas figure out what to say about this, without being disrespectful.
MR. DIAMOND: Where is your sense of humor, Mr. Wood?
A. In addition to that e-mail --
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) Why don't you answer my question, Mr. Thomas?
A. I'm trying to, Mr. Wood.
Q. My question is why did you not accept it?
MR. DIAMOND: And you can continue.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) Yeah, but please, just answer my question and we can move on to something else.
A. In another e-mail, Mr. Wood also e-mailed me the name and business address and telephone number of a Mr. Daniel Petrocelli in Los Angeles who he also suggested as a fine attorney.
Q. Let me make sure we get that right. Mr. Wood didn't e-mail you Mr. Petrocelli's name. Are you saying that Mr. Hoffman did?
A. Yes, my mistake, yes, that's what --
Q. But Mr. -- and was that close in time to his offer with respect to his offer to represent you?
A. I don't recall.
Q. Do you think it was a few days, a few weeks, a few months apart?
A. I don't recall the timing on either of these e-mails. Maybe Mr. Hoffman can help me out.
MR. WOOD: All I know, Darnay, is I've got your e-mail that you posted on April 1, 2001, where you stated you made the offer to him several months before.
MR. HOFFMAN: Yeah, I don't remember exactly at what point after that I also suggested Daniel Petrocelli who is, quite frankly, a better lawyer than I am in these areas, so.
MR. WOOD: Well, now we know how Dan Petrocelli gets some of his business. Let's go on to something else.
MR. HOFFMAN: Through referrals, Lin, just like most lawyers. MR. WOOD: Let's go on to something else.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) I want to make sure you very clearly have stated to Mr. Hoffman you don't know the state of the evidence as of the present date with respect to this investigation, true?
MR. DIAMOND: State of the evidence? What do you mean by that?
MR. WOOD: That's his term, state of the evidence.
MR. DIAMOND: That's his term?
MR. WOOD: Yeah, it's why I'm asking.
Q. (BY MR. WOOD) You said very clearly to Mr. Hoffman you do not know the state of the evidence with respect to the JonBenet Ramsey investigation, as you sit here today, the state of the evidence as of September 2001, true?
A. After leaving the police department, yes, that concluded my official participation. I have followed the case through the media, but as far as being privy to anything that occurred in the grand jury or continued evidence testing, I'm unaware of that.

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