In contradiction of Karen Nakamatsu's blatantly perjurous statements to the benefit of her fellow middle-aged female Asian-American "Local" Hawaiian friend Hollydee Gadow, Blaine McManus provided the following Letter to the Court.
TESTIMONIAL
John Hathaway Bates has shown me the court transcript of proceedings Monday August 22 between he and former wife Holly Gadow. I can state from first hand personal knowledge that nothing Holly says is true and it does not reflect the John Hathaway Bates I know, nor the wishes of his son David as he has shown me or my son Trace. My son Trace and David Hathaway Bates entered kindergarten together at Beverly Vista Elementary school, are now both 12 years old and have become great friends and have spent a great deal of time together over the years. I would like to take several of the statements made in the material and apply my first hand knowledge of them in order.
Statements on page 14, line 7-11 describes David's father as being controlling and will not allow David any access to his friends. This is untrue. My son goes to John's home anytime he wants to, as David can come to my home anytime he wants to. To my knowledge, any of Matt's or David's friends are allowed in John's house anytime they would like to go there. And I state this from my own first hand knowledge. In addition, from my experience, I have seen that John also allows them to go their friend's homes also.
Statements on page 8, lines 22-23 state that John attempts to "place a rift" between the two brothers, Matt and David. From my experience, I have never seen any such behavior. I have always seen John to be nurturing and caring for each of the boys, including in regards to their relationship with each other.
Staements on page 15, lines 9-17, portray John to never have food in his house for the boys and that the boys rarely have a cooked meal. This is a flat out lie. I have never seen there to be anything but an over abundance of food at John's house at any given time. Anytime I am over to John's house, I am always invited to stay for lunch or dinner. My son and I have had dinner at John's house with the kids on several occasions and can say with 100% accuracy that John takes great pride in his cooking and in his dinner/lunch preparations. From what I have seen, John has more food in his earthquake supplies than most family's have in their home at one time. At his mother's house, however, David has said that even the most simple meals like breakfast, he has to make for himself if he is hungry.
Whereas David's mother chooses to leave her sons to fend for themselves while she takes vacations to Hawaii several times a year, John Hathaway Bates chooses to invite friends and family to dinner almost as a hobby. There was always a parent/adult there to look after David and Matthew when they were living with their father. The same is not true while the children are living with their mother. In fact, David is, to my knowledge, completely unsupervised often, mostly after work and during holiday breaks while at his mother's home.
Karen Nakamatsu also implies continually that John is an abusive alcoholic. I have been to his home many times and spent time with him over several years and can honestly say I have never seen him intoxicated. Her descriptions of him are completely opposite of the man I have known for years.
Nakamatsu also states that David has told her that he wants to live with his mother, but I doubt it. The impression I have always gotten from David is that he would much prefer to live with his father. When I asked my son Trace, as his best friend, what he thought, he said he felt the same way.. .that David would much rather live with his father. From my experience, this is the way David has felt for quite a while. In fact, I can state that when David was living with his father, he seemed happier and more well adjusted than 1 have ever seen him. After he was taken from his father and his step-mother, Joy Hathaway Bates, I could see a difference in David. According to my son Trace, he was very upset. When he asked his father why his mom was doing this, all John could say is that he could not talk about it because the courts would not allow it. How this must confuse, scare and otherwise emotionally wear down a child is a crime in my opinion.
In conclusion, I will state that I have been witness through the years to many sad situations with David and have often thought about getting involved and taking some sort of action against his situation with his mom. From early on in 1st grade at Beverly Vista, I have had parents approach me on several occasions and express their concern with rny son Trace hanging out with that "David kid" who's mom is "trash" and is a neglectful parent who is rarely home while David is out out all hours of the school weeknight skateboarding through neighborhoods alone. This is not my personal statement, but rather those of several parents on several occasions. Because 1 knew David to be a smart, good kid, I did not shut him off from Trace as a friend as a result of the parents' warnings. In my opinion, David is a victim. As a single Dad, raising my son alone, with mom living out of state, I am especially sensitive to these situations. David needs and deserves to have a better life. I am not suggesting that David not be allowed to see or be with his mom, but it is imperative that his mom finally stop the damaging behavior she has displayed in regards to John Hathaway Bates, who simply wants to be part of his children's lives and give them a fighting chance to survive in life ahead. My honest opinion is that Holly is and has been for some time, suffering from bi-polarity personality disorder and should be (seriously) tested and evaluated for this. In the best interest of the children, and since Holly lives in the vicinity of John (and because John actually resides in the permitted area of Beverly Hills School District for David's school), I feel strongly that John should be allowed no less than equal physical custody of David and Matthew.
Signed, Blaine Mc Manus
06/25/2006 12:17 8055842725 ACCOUNTING PAGE 02
Bruce M. Clay
President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
207 W. Los Articles Avenue #277
Moorpark, CA 93021
In 1998 I went to Court to testify on behalf of John Hathaway-Bates that it was and still is my belief that his ex-wife Hollydee Gadow had irreparably harmed The Business Forum by deleting a unique and valuable data base and backups of that data used to substantially operate the The Business Forum. I was willing to swear under oath that my belief was based upon the fact that only Hollydee Gadow and I had the necessary passwords and security access to access the data base on the Novell Netware network (isolated and secured from the outside world), and I had not had physical access to the computers involved for several months preceding the data loss. The loss was due to the deletion of the data and backups, and not from user error. It was reported to me by Ms. Gadow's personal assistant Beyes Zelaya that she had witnessed Ms. Gadow accessing the computers and utilizing many discs in a manner common to copying data from a computer (clearly unusual and suspect as backups were performed on the file server) while Mr. Hathaway-Bates was out of town moderating a meeting for one of our sponsors.
Awaiting my opportunity to testify (I felt strongly about the harm done to The Business Forum as I was a shareholder), I sat outside the Court from 8:15am until 5:10pm and was not called. When Mr. Hathaway-Bates and his daughter Christina came out of the Court at lunchtime, they explained to me that every time John tried to have me called, Judge Isabelle M. Cohen changed the subject and prevented John from calling me to the stand. I stayed, hoping for an opportunity to speak in the afternoon.
In fact Christina Hathaway-Bates told me that Judge Cohen just did not see the importance of the deliberate destruction of company property and the resultant harm it caused (including the inability of Mr. Hathaway-Bates to continue to make a living with the company) and that the Judge walked down into the Court, after conferring with Holly Gadow and her attorney for the third time privately in her chambers without Mr. Hathaway-Bates, and had told John to "just buy another data base"! Judge Isabelle M. Cohen obviously did not understand that The Business Forum data base (the very best on the West Coast, if not across the world in regards to influential "who's who" Information Technology decision makers), had taken him decades to build and was unique to the point of being a proprietary asset.
It is my belief that Ms. Gadow did deliberately copy this valuable data, then deleted the data base and backups, with the intention of harming Mr. Hathaway-Bates, and in so doing caused permanent harm forcing The Business Forum out of business. Eight people lost their jobs in less than two months! The Business Forum stopped operating in six out of seven States within days and all but completely collapsed financially within six months. Mr. Hathaway-Bates was made homeless within three months -simply because the Judge did not have the business experience to understand the importance of the deliberately destroyed data. Ms. Gadow's actions destroyed the company that John and his partners had spent over sixteen years building! I can understand that she may have been angry at John, but the timing and surgical precision she used to harm the business was certainly not accidental, and her deliberate actions caused financial hardship for everyone involved.
Also, please understand, that when the data base was deleted, and the back up tapes removed, I personally lost more than ten thousand dollars of my investment with The Business Forum, Inc., as did all of the people who had backed John in his unique and successful business venture concentrating on the economy of the Pacific States of America (seven western states). I and many of John's partners and friends have since chosen to pay his rent on numerous occasions due to the difficulty of rebuilding the data base from scraps of paper and mental notes. It is my belief that Judge Cohen's inability to understand the business reality that "the data was the business" and that Mr. Hathaway-Bates was only the spokesperson has harmed a great many people. John's efforts have been recognized by many of the largest corporations in the world as well as Governments and Universities - in fact the first testimonial on the web site http://www.bizforum.org (which I have built and host out of my own pocket) reads "/ commend The Business Forum for once again providing this important opportunity for the exchange of ideas and information." Senator Barbara Boxer - The United States Senate
From holding twelve Forums a month spread over several States for many years, the data base loss forced the business back to holding only one or two forums a month and only in Southern California. It is ironic that John's ability to earn a living was stripped from him by the same person the insensitive and uneducated Judge ordered him to pay support to, at a rate preventing re-investment of the business.
For several years (1998 to 2001), The Business Forum's computer network was regularly subjected to viruses we believe were linked to emails Ms. Gadow sent to John, while she was the IT Solutions Manager for Global Crossing Corporation. I personally spent dozens of hours recovering our computers from these attacks. Once Holly was let go from Global Crossing these problems immediately ceased. I also witnessed a falsified email header (akin to the phishing and fraudulent spam attacks prominent today) that was altered to appear as though it was sent from The Business Forum when there was no such transmission. This email paper copy was entered into evidence against John (and The Business Forum) although the authenticity was highly suspect. If I wanted to, I could create a fake email making anyone look like a terrible person simply be editing some computer text and printing it. It proves nothing, yet was admitted as evidence.
John has suffered beyond any normal person's comprehension as a result of "losing it all", and in my belief it was because Judge Isabella M. Cohen just did not have the experience to understand the concept of The Business Forum, the importance of the data base, the indisputable fact that it was deliberately deleted, and the requisite knowledge to distinguish between a story and the truth. Had I testified I would have provided a great service to the court.
I have been personally harmed, but not as badly as Mr. Hathaway-Bates.
As for the latest hearing where Mr. Hathaway-Bates was accused of being an abusive alcoholic racist by everything that Karen Nakamatsu said - let me state that nothing could be further from the truth. I have known John and his family for more than twenty years and Karen Nakamatsu is absolutely wrong! I understand that there is a strong "Hawaiian Heritage" tie with Ms. Gadow, but allowing this bias to result in an inaccurate and slanted report to the court is unacceptable, and is certainly grounds for re-examination. It is my belief that a fair assessment would only be possible if the court would personally interview and validate the claims and counterclaims, including interviewing the children involved.