Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [8]
Beth and I thought that something wasn’t right. She has incredible instincts on many things, it’s extraordinary really, and she shared with our manager her concerns that the pieces of the puzzle were not fitting together properly and she had a terrible feeling about our legal team. The defense costs were ongoing and Bollard had asked us and our manager to make some payments which made us feel uncomfortable. I was dumping every last penny I had into lawyer fees to keep my family and me safe from extradition.
I told Quadra how Beth and I were shouldering the brunt of the day-to-day stress of the case. We didn’t want the boys to know what was going on. They put their faith in us and buried themselves in their lives while we got things figured out.
Once there was finally some money coming in, I still wasn’t able to save any from the first three seasons of my show because of the extraordinary legal fees involved in my case. Beth wasn’t even paid a salary for the first two seasons, so she couldn’t help out either. I had one of the top-rated television shows on the air and the number one show on A&E, yet I was short on money. It was frustrating and maddening. I didn’t deserve to be in this position after my successful capture of Luster and I felt all my hard work was eaten up in legal fees.
I sometimes sit back and think how different things would have been for Luster if he had been caught by me before he was convicted. Could I have saved him or made a difference? I would have told him I could help him. I would have encouraged him to take a deal, serve his time like a man, and put the situation behind him. I would have treated him like any fugitive I capture, by trying to help him get his life on the right track. I guess I’ll never know, and at the time, I had to focus on my freedom.
A&E bought two specials from us, The Fight for Freedom and The Family Speaks, as their way of helping us out financially. Everyone who worked on those two shows donated their fees to our legal defense fund. We were overwhelmed by that demonstration of support from our A&E family. The encouragement we got from the staff was a tremendous help, and the love and adoration we’d received from our viewers and fans was beyond my wildest dreams. There is safety in numbers, and we were surrounded by millions of people who gave us strength when we needed it the most. And still, as fast as I was raising money for my defense, it went out the door quickly. Bollard was calling upon us to make more legal payments that would hopefully make our case progress easier, including payments to people on the ground in Mexico who would be able to gather information for us, as he was telling us there were still people associated with Luster attempting to thwart my case.
The situation in Mexico created so much fear and panic in me that I’d sometimes just shut down. If I shut down during production, the show came to a screeching halt. If we weren’t shooting, we fell behind schedule, which costs money—a lot of money. It wasn’t fair to anyone, especially the network.
I felt like Bollard was slowly pecking away at my flesh—taking every dime I had and then some. He’d ask for money and then warn me that if I didn’t pay we’d suffer the consequences. So I sent him the money. He’d send e-mails with yet another reason he needed additional cash. His e-mails scared me to death so I’d send the money.
In one particular e-mail, Bollard explained that Enrique, his co-counsel in Mexico, had been warning the lawyers that while the magistrates in Mexico were beyond the reach or influence of Luster’s powerful friends and family, the court support staff could be reachable and could cause considerable “mischief.” He went on to remind Beth and me that we had already seen examples of this, especially in the case of the late-night announcement by the court typist which included misstatements attributed to our lawyers that caused considerable confusion.
Bollard said that Enrique was concerned about additional incidents of “mischief,” including misplaced