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By Root 1062 0

files or notifications which could delay the process or disrupt them altogether. Unfortunately, Bollard reminded us that this is a sad reality in the court system in Mexico. His suggestion to counter against this happening was to have Enrique use someone from his office to “babysit” the file and the court functionaries until such time as the hearing could take place and a ruling was made. Bollard knew that Enrique had been paying Enrique’s staff to fly to Guadalajara and do this non-stop, but he was once again asking us for an additional payment of $35,000 to keep this vigilance going. He believed our “adversary’s” efforts to interfere would soon be stepped up, as the matter had been formally assigned to one of the two appellate panels.

For us, this meant this was a case of the Luster family money against ours until this could all be sorted out. To be clear, the Luster family’s pockets were much deeper than mine. Money was getting tight. That’s when I started asking questions, which is how I gather information in everything I do from bounties to my fight for freedom. Still, I was worried if I didn’t supply everything my attorney asked for, he’d throw his hands up, walk away, and abandon my case.

The lawyers kept telling me it could take years to go to trial. I was facing four years of hard time if I was found guilty. There’s no “time served” credit whatsoever when you’re waiting for a trial in Mexico, so even the ten days I’d already spent in jail there wouldn’t count against a new sentence. If I was convicted, I’d start serving from day one. There was no doubt I was far better off in the comfort of my own country than I would have been surrendering.

The final blow came when Bollard asked me for that additional thirty-five thousand dollars to pay Enrique to hire clerks to watch over all of my court files so no one could steal them. This request made no sense. What were they going to watch over, my empty file folders?

When this call came in, I was deeply involved in a bounty hunt and couldn’t face dealing with another threat or more drama. I couldn’t deal with the request, so I called my accountant and told him to just pay the money. When I’m on a hunt, I’ve got the eye of the tiger. Bollard’s requests were so distracting to me that I was really losing my edge. I couldn’t let anything get in the way of capturing fugitives, but it was becoming nearly impossible for me to do my job like I used to.

The accountant was concerned I wasn’t making clear choices, so he called Beth to tell her what was happening. Beth hit the roof when she heard I had okayed another payment to Bollard. Unbeknownst to me, she had already asked the accountant to slow down his payments so she could look into the validity of Bollard’s requests. She and I got into one of the worst fights we’d had in years.

CHAPTER 3

Lucy Pemoni

Beth was positive something wasn’t right. She instinctively thought things were not going well with my defense in Mexico. Whenever there was a press conference, Beth would stand by my side, acting the part of my supportive partner, but she no longer trusted anything happening with this case. Her female intuition was telling her something I suspected but didn’t want to believe.

I made a decision to make a change of who should be representing me and my sons. But I realized I needed to be very careful about how to do this, as switching attorneys on any case can be detrimental. I realized it was time for me to get actively involved in the day-to-day proceedings of my case. Beth had been handling the brunt of it for so long, I owed it to her and the rest of my family to become present in the matter.

I discussed the situation with James Quadra and he told us that it was his recommendation to find highly qualified counsel in Mexico to evaluate the status of the case. We basically wanted a second opinion regarding the legal work that had been done. The network was reluctant for us to change the entire team as well. Everyone was nervous and not sure what to do. They asked if we could just shift our representation in