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Russ Whitney’s latest attempt to get yet another delay

I am supposed to take Russ Whitney’s deposition on Tuesday, July 5, 2005 and his corporation’s deposition on Thursday, July 7, 2005.
At a deposition, Russ Whitney is put under oath then has to answer my questions.
On June 28, 2005, long after I made my travel reservations including non-refundable plane tickets, Whitney filed a motion for yet another continuance (postponement). This time, he wants a 20-day delay.
Can’t proceed without Rothstein?
The reason they said they needed the last three delays was that one of Whitney’s lawyers—Scott Rothstein—has some undisclosed illness. In oppositions to these motions, I have complained long and loud that Rothstein has had little to do with this case for a couple of years. Virtually all the papers filed with the court during that period have the signature of Christina Kitterman.
If she prepared them, what do we suddenly need him for? If he prepared them, why did she sign them? Who signs can be important. Signing federal court papers that contain things they should not contain is a no-no—prohibited by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 which requires all papers to be signed by the attorney. Rule 11 also provides for sanctions (punishment) against the attorney or client for harassment, frivolous arguments, or a lack of factual investigation.
I also complained that this is a 23-person law firm. What difference does it make if one guy is missing?
The court granted all three previous delays to Whitney. The court also ordered that the depositions of Whitney, Whitney Information Network, Inc., and me be completed by July 10, 2005.
That same day, I scheduled the depos of Whitney and WIN as described above and suggested that my depo be done on 7/8/05. Whitney’s lawyers refused to say yes or no when I suggested that schedule. So I went ahead and noticed Whitney’s and WIN’s depos for the dates I suggested. Whitney then scheduled my depo for 7/8. I then booked my travel reservations.
Now they need the delay because he’s NOT sick
I wondered if they were going to try to get a fourth delay out of Rothstein’s illness. In a backward way, they have.
In their June 28, 2005 motion, they say Rothstein’s doctor cleared him to travel on June 27, 2005. And guess what? He just happens to have tickets on a cruise that requires him to depart the United States on June 28, 2005. What an amazing, lucky coincidence!
His cruise ship—the Silver Wind—departs Rome at 11PM on July 1st for Palma De Mallorca, capital of a Spanish island in the Mediterranean (Voyage 2516).
No Notice of Nonavailability
Normally, when a lawyer is not going to be around during a certain period, they inform the court and the other parties using a document called a “Notice of Nonavailability.” Whitney’s lawyers have filed a number of such notices during this litigation. But Mr. Rothstein never filed one to cover his cruise absence which is June 28 through July 14.
Indeed, they complained that I was out of line asking the Lee County, Florida Court not to schedule an evidentiary hearing during the period July 11-22 because I am coaching at a high school football day camp those weeks.
Why do you suppose Rothstein issued no such notice? After all, his motion says he made the cruise reservation “over a year ago.” That means he has known about it since way before May 9, 2005, the date he suddenly learned he was too sick to attend the evidenitary hearings scheduled for May 13, 2005 and June 15, 2005 and too sick to help prepare answers to interrogatories that were due June 20, 2005. He could have and should have issued the Notice of Nonavailability as soon as the reservations were made.
Rothstein attached a letter from the Executive Assistant to Mr. Albert Peter, Chief Executive Officer of Silversea Cruises, Ltd. that says the cruise cost is nonrefundable. Well, there’s some poetic justice. Just like the nonrefundable Russ Whitney seminar fees that pay Rothstein’s legal fees.
Why do we have a letter from the CEO’s assistant? Either we are supposed to be impressed with Rothstein’s connections to prominent Fort Lauderdaleans or there is some court decision that says that a CEO’s assistant letter about nonrefundability carries more weight in a court of law than a photocopy of the receipt saying the exact same thing.
Returning to the issue of why Rothstein did not issue a Notice of Nonavailability, such a notice would have looked kind of bad when he was using his illness to get the previous continuances and an enlargement. If you cannot expend the energy necessary to answer an interrogatory (written question)—with the help of four other lawyers—it’s hard to see where you would get the energy to fly to Rome, cruise to Mallorca then fly back home.
Poor baby
How about this line from the motion?
Mr. Rothstein has not taken a vacation for more than a few days in over three years and it would be in his best interest healthwise to travel on the trip.
I must have missed that issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. You know, the one that says travel from Fort Lauderdale to Fort Myers, Florida for a two-hour court hearing is too stressful, but that flying on a plane with no medical staff or facilities over the Atlantic Ocean from Fort Lauderdale to Rome, sailing the Mediterranean Sea on a cruise ship with limited medical facilities and staff to Mallorca, and flying back home in another non-hospital plane is an indicated therapy for certain illnesses.
Rothstein has, “…not taken a vacation for more than a few days in over three years…” Hey! Me neither. Can I sue or something? If my late mother were alive, she would say, “No, but you can get your T.S. card punched.”
Wait, there’s more!
Paragraph 7 of the motion tells us,
Additionally, Mr. Rothstein would be traveling with eighteen (1 Cool

of his friends with whom this special vacation was planned, and Mr. Rothstein was the person that principally coordinated the vacation, the activities at each of the destinations, and will be acting as host on board the ship for all of his guests.
This is a “healthwise vacation!?” Sounds like the guy who mistakenly boarded a galley slave ship instead of a cruise ship and asked the rower next to him, “How much are we supposed to tip the whipper?”
My astonishment at the sudden, convenient turnaround in Rothstein’s health is exceeded only by my amazement that he has eighteen friends.
Whitney incommunicado
When Whitney’s lawyers last sought a delay based on international travel, they said Whitney could not work on his interrogatory answers because he left the country and went to Costa Rica when he was supposed to be working on them. In my opposition, I said he should have stayed here until they were finished. I also observed that persons who go to Costa Rica in 2005 are not incommunicado. There are still cell phones, DHL, regular phones, the Internet, faxes, and so forth.
Apparently anticipating my “He’s not incommunicado” argument again, this time the Whitney folks say that Russ was out of the country and “not reachable until June 27, 2005.” How come? Was he being held hostage by Contra rebels? Was he on the far side of the moon? How can the CEO of a $140 million a year publicly-traded corporation be unreachable for an extended period? He can’t afford a satellite phone?
‘Whitney demanded’
But my favorite part of the motion is where they say this,
Upon returning, without waiving any attorney/client privilege, Mr. Whitney demanded that Mr. Rothstein represent him, stating that he was hired to represent him and he would not allow anyone else from the undersigned firm to appear on his behalf at something as important as these depositions. This has placed Mr. Rothstein between a rock and a hard place. If the brief continuance is not granted, Mr. Rothstein will either appear at the depositions or lose an important client damaging his law firm. If he appears, he will lose all the money for the trip, flights, and hotels.
Sounds like Mr. Rothstein is eligible to get his T.S. card punched.
And what kind of client is Russ? His ill lawyer hasn’t had a vacation of “more than a few days in over three years.” Now he won’t let the poor guy take a little cruise? C’mon! Where’s “Russ Whitney cares about you?”
Is the Mediterranean cruise the rock or the hard place?
‘As important as these depositions?’
How did my taking Russ’s deposition get to be important? I am a pro se. That is, I have never attended law school. I am not a lawyer. I have never even taken anyone’s deposition. Seems like they could have a law student handle me. I would think a big shot managing partner like Rothstein would be embarrassed to face little old me in a deposition or even a motion.
Didn’t even tell his ‘important client’
So not only did Rothstein not tell the court or me about his June 28-July14, 2005 nonavailability during the year since he made these cruise reservations, he apparently did not tell his “important client.”
How much did you say he paid?
And this stuff about an important client “damaging” the firm is interesting. Conspicuous by its absence is the amount of fees Russ Whitney and his companies pay each year for Rothstein’s services. Normally, I would think that would be confidential. But it appears to me that Mr. Rothstein has “opened the door,” as the lawyers say, to that information by basing his motion plea on the importance of Russ Whitney as a client and the loss of that client “damaging” the firm. As far as I know, such damage only has one dimension: legal fees.
The other four lawyers are worthless?
And how about Mr. Whitney demanding that Rothstein and no one else from the firm represent him? It doesn’t appear that Mr. Whitney has much confidence in lawyers Christina Kitterman, Shawn Birken, Michael Pancier, or Christopher Sharp. That’s odd when you consider that Birken was the sole Whitney representative at a hearing against my motion to dismiss in Lee County Court.
Russ Almighty
I am confused. In legal briefs, you usually cite legal authorities like Supreme Court decisions or Acts of Congress. Quoting Russ Whitney like this seems to suggest that he is some sort of legal authority. Like the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida has to grant this continuance because the mighty Russ Whitney has demanded it.
Russ doesn’t understand and we are afraid to tell him
Russ says that Rothstein “…was hired to represent him…” and that’s that.
Whatever Russ wants, Russ gets, and no mere U.S. District Court judge had better get between Russ and what Russ wants.
The motion seems to say, “Your honor, you and we know that Russ demanding Rothstein and only Rothstein is not dispositive, but Russ will get really mad if he has to give this deposition on Tuesday, so can you just grant the continuance so we don’t have to withstand the Mount Saint Russ volcanic blast that will occur if he doesn’t get his way?”
Whitney says they will pay my travel expenses
This is the fourth delay Whitney has sought—the third that would require me to cancel court-ordered travel plans.
Rothstein promised me that he would reimburse me. He promised the court that he would reimburse me. He was ordered by the court several times to reimburse me. Then, when I wrote an article saying that he had not reimbursed me, he sent me an email saying,
“You were paid.”
That is a lie. I asked Rothstein to send me a photocopy of the cancelled check. You can add that photocopy to the list of things they have not sent me.
Now they are promising to pay for my airline tickets “in whole,” whatever that means.
Court denied the delay
On June 29, 2005, the U.S. District Court in Fort Myers denied this request for a delay noting that it was the third request for a continuance and that it was not “timely filed.”
John T. Reed
Copyright 2005 by John T. Reed
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CONSUMER WARNING NOTICE: I recently saw Russ Whitney on a late night TV infomercial and then attended one of his "free" seminars. Unfortunately I believed all of their LIES and FRAUDULENT CLAIMS and I paid thousands of dollars to go to his "training camps". Needless to say I was clearly ripped off, cheated and lied to by Russ Whitney and his employees (band of thieves). My mistake was not searching the Internet to find out more about Russ Whitney and his company's HORRIBLE reputation for fraud, deception and illegal activities. Had I searched online I would have found out about THOUSANDS of customers being cheated, HUNDREDS of investigations by the Attorney General into the fraud of Russ Whitney and his company's, and that Russ Whitney himself is a CONVICTED VIOLENT FELON and spent years in PRISON. I saved the cached pages from the major search engines of the John Reed lawsuit with Russell Whitney and the TRUTH and FACTS that Reed discovered during his investigation of Whitney. I am posting this information on real estate discussion boards so other people do NOT get cheated and ripped off like I did.