The Out-Lawyer's Blog

You can’t make this stuff up.

Hans’ father, Ramon, apparently a former security & intelligence operative was a very difficult witness.

He has been described as a former Army “researcher” – evidently serving in Vietnam - who later worked in “private security” while in Russia.  Ramon Reiser gave a rambling account and evidenced a strong paranoid streak that may well have influenced Hans.  Apparently Dad hasn’t been the same since he was “hit by a bus”.  Since then, as he put it -- “I talk in a spider web…and often I lose track of where I was.”
Ramon Reiser was in Russia when Hans and Nina both lived there. 

Later, when it came to Dad’s attention that Nina was missing, his advice to his son was very strange. He warned that any mysterious figures following Hans “were not likely police”. 

Dad apparently believes that former KGB goons of the type that he had encountered in California and Seattle, or the Russian Mafia or “S & M techno-geeks” could have been after Hans. 

His reasons for this suspicion were never clear, but the implication was that one does not mess with Nina.   

This line would be more persuasive if Hans had suddenly disappeared without a trace after giving his wife a hard time.

There were other points as well, difficult as it was to separate them from this witness’s ramblings. 

• From Ramon Reiser’s perspective, Nina appeared to be a devoted mother in public, but in private she was somewhat diffident.

• There were references to Hans’ childhood and an anecdote about cars.  In the old days, Dad frequently grove his old ’56 Beetle with at least one seat missing.  So we are to believe that it runs in the family? 

In all, Dad was a sympathetic but confused and confusing witness, a handful for the lawyers and the judge to keep on topic. 

Dad’s advice to Hans, given after Nina had vanished, may provide a partially innocent explanation for Hans’ evasive tactics, post Nina.  But I’m afraid another take is equally plausible, – assuming arguendo, that Hans really did kill Nina: If he took his father seriously, Hans might have been more afraid of Russian retribution than of the minions of OPD!

The reference to “S & M techno-geeks” will be probably understood by the jury to relate to the still mysterious Sean Sturgeon.  But, at this juncture, there is simply no credible evidence before this jury implicating anyone by Han Reiser in his wife’s otherwise unexplained disappearance.

Without more details and corroboration, Dad’s ramblings to his son might become for this jury little more than idiot’s tale in Macbeth, “full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”   (Macbeth, Act Five, Scene Five)

As the curtain rises again, Dad is back on the stand….

Afternoon Addendum

Ramon Concludes…

The direct examination of Ramon Reiser concluded uneventfully. 

On cross examination DA Hora tried unsuccessfully to get Ramon to identify a picture of a sleeping bag found in Hans CRX.  Mr. Reiser was apparently still babbling a non responsive answer when the DA gave up. 

On redirect, DuBois tried, over objection, to get Ramon to read into the record an email received from Nina in later 2001.  After a long exchange between counsel and the judge, Ramon eventually read portions of the email, to the general effect that Nina had never wanted a second child, that Hans had overruled her, but that the couple’s daughter (the second born) would not ever come between mother and son, “will never be fully part of us”…

Then Ramon commented about the email exchange to Paul Hora  “it was bizarre..something very sick the way she said it. She was furious…”

And that was the end of Ramon Reiser’s testimony. 

Why, one is tempted to ask, did Bill Dubois even bother with this witness, unless it was to humor his own client?

In any event, the forensic impact of this testimony is marginal.  Even if it is true that Nina was predisposed to reject her daughter, none of the American witnesses who have testified to her obvious devotion to the children would support the notion that this young mother of two would voluntarily abandon both children.

3:00 PM 

ENTER THE "SHRINK"

Dr. Beverly Parr, a psychiatrist, was called to the stand to discuss Asperger's Disease as a possible affliction common to "Computer Geeks".  She had examined Hans at age three.

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I'll pick up this thread tomorrow, but it is clear enough where DuBois is going with this evidence.  This is not a mental defense as such, more of an "it's not Hans' fault he's so weird" parry, designed to deflect the "cold hearted evil genius" image. 

Stay tuned…