American Politics Journal — John Fund Goes On Trial

UPDATE—July 13, 2006 [3:15PM]—Trial is scheduled to resume Friday; presiding judge is Robert Lippmann. A source familiar with him tell us Lippmann is a "no-nonsense jurist who cuts through the crap, treats both sides with equal toughness, and has a low tolerance for disrespect and stupid behavior."

July 12, 2006 [updated 5:05PM EST]—NEW YORK (apj.us)—The civil trial of conservative pundit John Fund on charges of abusing former girlfriend Morgan Gell (née Morgan F. Pillsbury) is under way.

A source close to the case has told American Politics Journal that a final attempt to arbitrate the matter yesterday morning failed; jury selection began yesterday and was completed this morning.

Hot Links:
New York State Unified Court System Data Portal—follow the e-paper trail
NY Daily News: Awkward PR, to put it conservatively
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster's open letter to John Fund
Mirror of John Fund's own comments on the matter (alternate mirror) (Note: Allow a few seconds for these archived mirror pages to load. The page seems to have been removed from johnfund.com sometime between July 11 and 12, 2006; fortunately, it remains in numerous caches throughout the Internet.)
UCSD's Gail Heriot Takes a Shot at Defending John Fund... and Misses

A witness to a part of the proceedings described a scene not atypical of civil cases that are heard in the small cluster of judicial buildings that dominate southern Manhattan's Centre Street: an early meeting with the arbitrator at 80 Centre Street was followed by a trip across the street to 60 Centre Street (a building instantly recognizable to viewers of the various Law and Order series) where Judge Walter Tolub set into motion the jury selection, and finally all parties proceeded to the sixth floor of 111 Centre Street, where the first jurors were selected yesterday. Mr. Fund, according to our source, looked subdued, a bit deflated and drenched in sweat as he entered a courtroom at 111 Centre Street; Ms. Gell, who is late into pregnancy with her second child, appeared amazingly unruffled and relaxed as she chatted with her attorney Gary Fish.

Four years ago, the ugly denouement of the Fund-Pillsbury relationship became the grist for gossip columns and Internet political and celebrity chat rooms following the publication in September 2001 of an article about John Fund's caddish behavior toward Ms. Pillsbury and her mother by renowned investigative journalist John Connolly. The article was accompanied by a damning taped telephone conversation in which Mr. Fund and then-Ms. Pillsbury heatedly discussed an abortion. In February of the following year, Mr. Fund was arrested following allegations by Ms. Pillsbury that she had been physically abused by Mr. Fund.