By Stan Welch
The libel lawsuit brought by Doreen Montepara against radio talk show host Rick Driver, Rick Freemantle, and reporter Stan Welch continued to grind along desultorily Tuesday afternoon as Freemantle was deposed by Montepara’s attorney, Candy Kern Fuller.
The deposition lasted just over an hour, and covered much the same ground that Driver’s had covered a couple of weeks ago. Freemantle had been scheduled for deposition that same day, but could not attend.
Freemantle is an uncle to Nick Alden, a U.S. Airman who was killed by a Muslim terrorist last year while waiting to board a planer to Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, Alden’s two year old son was killed in a tragic accident in the home and Freemantle was attending the funeral of the child.
According to Freemantle, Kern Fuller asked that he bring a program from the service to prove that he was actually in attendance. “I don’t know how you could get any lower than that,” said Freemantle, wielding the program before the deposition began.
Once inside, Freemantle questioned the purpose or relevance of several questions, refusing to give his full social security number in front of the entire room, which included his attorney, Charles R. Griffin,III; Welch and his attorney, Jimmy Cox; and Doreen Montepara, as well as the court reporter.
Freemantle later also refused to provide information about a conviction he suffered at the age of 18, saying that the record had been expunged and sealed and was no longer public record. “That will remain that way until or unless I am arrested in the future”, said Freemantle.
Kern Fuller asked Griffin to instruct his client to comply, but Griffin said he was unfamiliar with New Hampshire law concerning such matters. “I’ll have to get a court ruling on that, I believe.”
Kern Fuller asked a number of questions about a man named Jerry George Welch, who sent Freemantle a PDF file in the weeks preceding the events leading to the lawsuit. That file apparently contained the information about the Doreen Keefe who lost her certification in Connecticut for administering the wrong drugs to a patient during a procedure.
The fliers placed under windshield wipers at a County Council meeting in 2009 linked Doreen Montepara, Keefe, to that situation; a link that later proved to be false and coincidental. The lawsuit resulted.
Jimmy Cox, attorney for Welch, who was scheduled for deposition last week, instead filed a motion to quash the subpoena and filed for an order of protection. Welch is seeking to be released from the lawsuit because Kern Fuller has failed to amend her complaint to specify what actions he is being sued for, despite instructions from the court two years ago to do so, said Cox.
