THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS CASE
THIS CASE EXISTS BECAUSE YOUR LAWYER,
JEFFERY A. GREENBERG AND THE FIRM OF BELDOCK,
LEVINE AND HOFFMAN DEFRAUDED ROUNDER RECORDS.
The reason we have been in court for the past four years is very simple. According to Rounder Records, your lawyer Jeffrey Greenberg defrauded Rounder Records regarding the ownership of the CD we made together, Got You On My Mind. This is not my opinion, it is the sworn testimony of Rounder Record’s counsel Marty Willard.
In fact, the sworn testimony of Rounder record’s counsel Marty Willard is in direct contradiction with the sworn testimony of Jeff Greenberg regarding what Greenberg told Rounder. Specifically:
Greenberg swears that he told Rounder specifically and repeatedly that you and I were joint owners of the CD, before the contract was signed in April, 2003 and that the only reason I couldn’t sell the CD anyway I pleased was that I had made a vague “verbal agreement” that virtually negated my right to sell the album.
TO THE CONTRARY, Rounder swears they were NEVER told that I had any ownership of the seven songs we recorded together until December 2003, when my lawyer Steve Robinson (not Greenberg or you) alerted them to the fact that I was joint owner of our CD. Rounder also swears under oath that they never were told abut any agreement limiting my rights to sell the CD
DID ROUNDER COMMIT PERJURY IN THE FIRST DEGREE OR DID GREENBERG COMMIT PERJURY IN THE FIRST DEGREE?
So Madeleine, is it Greenberg or Rounder Records that is lying under oath? In other words, is Greenberg guilty of perjury in the first degree or is Rounder guilty of perjury in the first degree?
Among the many reasons why it is clear that Greenberg, and not Rounder was lying are the following:
-
-A multi-national company like Rounder/ Universal would never accept Greenberg’s verbal account of your verbal account of my verbal “commitment” as the sole guarantee that a quality CD featuring Madeleine Peyroux would not be released many months before their release.
-
-
-
-A major law firm like Beldock, Levine and Hoffman would never rely on a vague, verbal agreement for anything, let alone a matter of critical importance.
-Furthermore, in the 48-page contract between Rounder and you, Greenberg (on your behalf) stated unequivocally that you were the sole owner of our Recordings, and no mention whatsoever was made about my ownership rights or any verbal contract limiting those rights. You signed that contract.
Unfortunately for Greenberg (and you), because he has already sworn under oath that there was no written communication about my ownership of the CD or any agreement limiting my rights, it will be his word against Rounder’s, and innocent or not, he (and you) will have found to have misrepresented my ownership rights.
AS THE DIRECT RESULT OF THE FRAUD PERPETRATED AGAINST THEM IN YOUR NAME BY GREENBERG, ROUNDER THREATENED TO CANCEL YOUR CONTRACT (AND PROBABLY TO SUE YOU INTO OBLIVION FOR CONTRACT FRAUD)
It is a fact that immediately after Rounder discovered that they had been defrauded by Greenberg regarding my right to sell the CD, they threatened to cancel your contract.
QUESTION: When did that happen?
In December [2003], during this period that we're talking about.
¨
QUESTION: Did Mr. Willard tell you on
December 12th that you had to make
this problem go away or any words to
GREENBERG:...yes. I could put it that way.
Of course, Rounder would have also been within their rights to have blacklisted you, Herbst and Greenberg’s firm in the music industry forever, and they could have sued you all into lifelong bankruptcy for contract fraud. But suing a powerful, New York law firm is a long, messy and expensive process, and they would have wasted the effort they had already put into your career, so instead of suing, they told Greenberg to “make this problem go away”, presumably by any means necessary, legal or otherwise.
The “problem” was me and my fundamental civil right under US copyright law to sell my CD.
ACCORDING TO YOUR TESTIMONY, YOUR LAWYERS AND YOUR MANAGER HERBST MISLED YOU ABOUT THE REASON FOR ROUNDER’S CANCELLATION OF YOUR CONTRACT.
Now, since you were presumably unaware that your contract was being cancelled because Greenberg and Herbst had defrauded Rounder, they had to make up a phony reason to explain why your career and life was about to be destroyed forever. Otherwise, you could have sued them for millions in malpractice, malfeasance, and fraud.
Therefore, according to your own sworn testimony, your lawyers and your manager Cynthia Herbst misled you by telling you that Rounder threatened to cancel you contract because I had threatened to sue Rounder for breaching a contract with me. You testified:
“My understanding was that ... William Galison was threatening to Rounder that I had breached my contract with [him] by signing a contract with Rounder. [He was] threatening various other things related to that accusation including lawsuits. And as a result of that, my understanding is that ...Rounder had directly decided to end my contract with them immediately as a result of the statements that they were getting from ...Mr. Galison”
QUESTION: And you got that from your lawyer?
PEYROUX: ... I got that from more than one source...
QUESTION: ...who did you get that information from? And if you got that information from your lawyer, don't tell me...
PEYROUX: Thank you. I do believe that I got that information from my manager....
Now, either you are lying under oath in this testimony or else your lawyers and your manager Cynthia Herbst had been lying to you for the past two years!
If either Greenberg or Herbst or Beldock had allowed you read my lawyer’s initial letter to Greenberg, you would have seen that it includes no threats or claims and mentions no contract between me and you. On the contrary, it comprises a clarifications of my rights, and a conciliatory effort to find out how you would like to proceed so that we could all benefit from the sales of GYOMM without interfering with your Rounder project. But unfortunately for you, they hid this letter from you in order to turn you against me and to keep you from discovering their fraud.
In that letter my lawyer specifically offered to hold off on doing anything with our CD until you had the opportunity to make decisions regarding the cover art the re-mixing and the additional material to complete the album:
”....in the interests of proceeding amicably, Mr. Galison will voluntarily delay making arrangements for the commercial exploitation of the Recording for a reasonable period of time in order to give Ms. Peyroux an opportunity to raise with him any and all concerns that she may have with regard to the Recording.”
For example, I had not yet designed the cover or recorded the additional material, and I wanted nothing more than to complete both with your equal participation in the cover design and the additional songs.
In fact you wanted the exact same thing: In August 2003, several days before canceling our Bottom Line gig, you wrote to your manager Cynthia Herbst: “Although I have not spoken to William Galison, I wish we could just get back to working together again….It would make sense to kind of put a stamp on the recording we did by adding songs, redoing the cover and licensing it on Rounder ”. You and I were on the same page, but Greenberg and Herbst knew they couldn’t let Rounder know that they we were joint owners of the CD, so they told you lies about me and prohibited you from speaking with me, so that you could not find out the truth.
Lying to you about the reasons for Rounders cancelation served two purposes:
-
a) It prevented you from suing Beldock and Herbst into the stone age (and getting the lawyers disbarred)
-
b)It got you really mad at me because you thought I was trying to torpedo your career. It got you so mad that you were willing to play along with their scheme to to defame and threaten me, in order to make me go away.
The most shocking thing about this lie is that ALL of your lawyers; Greenberg, Beldock, Stryker, Hernstadt, Minkoff, Friedman, AND YOUR MANAGER CYNTHIA HERBST, CONTINUED TO LIE TO YOU FOR AT LEAST TWENTY TWO MONTHS; From the time they lied to you in December 2003, to the time of your deposition. It could well be that you have not known that Rounder’s threat to cancel your contract was %100 the fault of Greenberg and Herbst and %0 percent my fault, until this very moment, nearly FOUR YEARS after they started lying to you.
All I did was to tell Rounder the truth, which was right thing to do.
IN ORDER TO “MAKE THE PROBLEM GO AWAY” GREENBERG THREATENED ME WITH FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS AND CONSPIRED WITH BELDOCK AND HERBST TO FALSELY ACCUSE ME OF CRIMINAL ACTS, INCLUDING “PHYSICAL ABUSE” AND “CRIMINAL HARASSMENT”.
Greenberg and his fellow thugs had no legitimate legal recourse to stop me from selling the CD, so they tried to intimidate me into giving up my rights by threatening me with frivolous civil lawsuits. To this end he wrote his infamous letter of December 17, 2003, which is the direct cause of the lawsuit against you. Specifically, he wrote:
“Based on the foregoing, it is the position of our client and Rounder that if Mr. Galison or his designees proceed in the manner described by Ms. Minor to Rounder, such claims will give rise to material breach of the agreement between Mr. Galison and Ms. Peyroux concerning exploitation of the recording, tortious interference with the contractual relationship between Rounder Ms. Peyroux and Rounder Records, infringement of Ms Peyroux's rights in the recordings and her performance thereon, unauthorized use of our client's name, likeness and trademark, false designation of origin under the Lanham act and violation of various state and common law unfair competition and unfair trade laws. Ms. Peyroux and Rounder records will advise any third party seeking to sell, distribute or otherwise exploit any of the recordings that such release is unauthorized and actionable.”
All of these causes of action listed by Greenberg are utterly irrelevant and legally invalid, which is why only one was ever actually brought against me. As discussed below, you are suing me for one MILLION dollars for using your name and a cartoon of a woman with a guitar on the cover of the CD we made and which you proudly sold and signed to hundreds of fans with a close up photo of you and me. (That suit has no merit and will be disposed of in court, but it will cost you a fortune to prosecute and the publicity of the trial will be so unflattering to you that it will turn even your most hardcore fans against you.)
But just in case I refused to be scared off by a bunch of transparently irrelevant legal mumbo-jumbo, Greenberg did something so cynical, unethical, destructive and downright evil that it is well on its way to leading to his disbarment and disgrace:
Jeff Greenberg falsely accused me of “physically abusing you” on “numerous occasions”, among other crimes, and threatened to pursue criminal charges against me if I didn’t give up my rights to the CD. In other words, he was threatening to use his position as a lawyer in a powerful law firm to have me wrongfully tried, convicted and imprisoned if I did not get him out of the mess he got into by lying to Rounder. Specifically, he wrote:
“Over the course of this year, we have obtained directly and from Ms. Peyroux, evidence of numerous incidents of physically and verbally abusive behavior by Mr. Galison against Ms. Peyroux. This behavior contributed in part to Ms. Peyroux's ultimate decision to discontinue her business association with Mr. Galison with Ms. Peyroux in mid- 2003. Thereafter Mr. Galison made numerous libelous and slanderous statements about Ms Peyroux to her business colleagues and representatives. Mr. Galison has also made documented claims and threats against Ms. Peyroux and her business representatives, which caused her to contemplate filing criminal harassment charges against Mr. Galison when such behavior continued and began impacting her career.”
(Jeffrey A. Greenberg's Letter of December 17, 2003 to Steven H. Robinson, page 4.)
BY FALSELY ACCUSING ME OF
“PHYSICAL ABUSE” AND “CRIMINAL HARASSMENT”,
GREENBERG FORCED ME TO THREATEN A LAWSUIT
Immediately after receiving this letter from Greenberg, my lawyer Steve Robinson asked me if I had ever physically abused you in any way, and I answered truthfully that I had never harmed you or threatened to harm you or your representatives in any way. He told me that since Greenberg had already sent these false allegations to Rounder and Herbst, he was ostensibly threatening to destroy my career by proliferating these vicious lies to others. If I did not take immediate action to stop you from sending these allegations to more people in the music industry, my career could be destroyed. Therefore, in response to his December 17 letter, Robinson wrote Greenberg a letter demanding that he immediately retract several specific phrases or face charges of libel:
“The statements of purported fact set forth in this quotation [above]are false. Without limiting the foregoing:
1. Mr. Galison never "criminally harass[ed]," assaulted or menaced Ms. Peyroux;
2. Mr. Galison never physically abused Ms. Peyroux at any time, in any manner;
3. Mr. Galison never "threatened" Ms. Peyroux or her "business representatives." Any claims he made were related to his legitimate business interests and were made in a reasonable manner; and
4.Mr. Galison has never made a "libelous or slanderous" statement concerning Ms. Peyroux….
I have been authorized to prepare litigation papers to assert Mr. Galison's claims for defamation and any other causes of action that arise from the dissemination of these falsehoods by Ms. Peyroux, you and your firm. That effort will go forward through the holidays without interruption. Litigation will commence as soon as the papers are ready. The only thing Mr. Galison is prepared to accept in settlement of his claims prior to the commencement of litigation is a statement on your firm's letterhead recanting the false statements of fact in the quotation set forth above, in a form acceptable to him, with proof of receipt of that statement by Ms. Herbst and Mr. Willard.”
Greenberg NEVER showed you this letter!
We gave Greenberg not one week, not one month, but over three months to recant the false allegations, but Greenberg chose to ignore us completely.
WHEN GREENBERG and you ignored my entreaty to retract the specific allegations of “Physical Abuse” and Criminal Harassment”, I had no choice but to sue him and you for libel. As you well know, I have performed and/ or recorded with some of the most celebrated female vocalists of all time, including, Peggy Lee, Ruth Brown, Barbra Streisand, Astrud Gilberto, Carly Simon, Maureen McGovern, Bonnie Raitt, to name a few, and many, many other women artists of lesser fame. None of these women or any other women (and many men) would ever work with me if they believed I was a “physical abuser”. Besides for the damage it could do to my career, the label of “physical abuser” could damage every aspect of my life and relationships.
When your manager told the owner of the Blue Note that I constitute a threat to you and the club I have frequented and performed at for the past 30 years, that is an attempt to destroy my career. I cannot allow a woman with contacts at every level of the music industry to continue claiming that I am a dangerous abuser. I am not, and Even your sister has testified that she would trust me with the care of her five special needs children.:
“Regarding Mr. Galison: I have come to know him quite well over the past several years. My experience is that he is a gentle, honest and patient man. I have trusted him to take care of my children on several occasions, and I would not hesitate to do that again. That represents the highest confidence I can place in anyone.”
From: Sworn Affidavit of Mary Reilly, sister of Madeleine Peyroux.
By falsely claiming that my alleged behavior had caused you to consider filing “criminal harassment” charges against me Greenberg was saying that if I exercised my right to sell GYOMM, you and he would try to get me imprisoned for something I did not do. I could not sit back and let Greenberg and you hold that threat be over my head. In fact, I could have brought charges of blackmail and coercion against you, Herbst and Beldock.
MOST SHOCKING OF ALL, GREENBERG NEVER SHOWED YOU THE LETTER EXPLAINING HOW YOU COULD AVOID THE LAWSUIT ALTOGETHER, according to your sworn testimony, Greenberg NEVER showed you Robinson’s letter specifying which statements were libelous and the simple apology you had to take to make to avoid litigation. Had Greenberg shown you that letter, you would have had the chance to avoid four years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, simply by admitting, as you did two years later, that I never “physically abused” you in any way and that you never told anybody I “physically abused” you in any way.
I would not have sued you for saying that I threatened to break my guitar “on the floor”, or that I broke the mirror in your truck “accidentally”, even if those allegations were exaggerated, malicious or untrue because those statements would not harm my career. But Greenberg didn’t say “we have obtained evidence, directly and from Ms. Peyroux that Mr. Galison threatened to break my guitar on the floor”, because that would not have served his purpose of trying to scare me into giving up my rights (and he would have looked like an idiot). I sued you for the SPECIFIC STATEMENTS that I had “PHYSICALLY ABUSED” you, “CRIMINALLY HARASSED” you and made “LIBELOUS STATEMENTS” about you, all of which are incredibly serious and all of which are totally false.
NOTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING
PHYSICAL ABUSE EVER TOOK PLACE BETWEEN US
There is a mountain of evidence that during the time Greenberg claimed I was “harassing” and “physically abusing” you, you were feeling affectionate towards me, and sad and remorseful that your lawyer and manager had forced you to stop working with me. Among the evidence is this:
- You testified that I never harmed you in any way, ever.
- You testified that you never told anyone that I physically abused you
-
-You wrote a sad, affectionate, conflicted letter to me three weeks before Greenberg’s letter was sent.
-
-You wrote an affectionate, apologetic letter to me on October 29, 2003, (six weeks before Greenberg’s libelous letter was sent) in which you stated that our friendship is eternal and that we will have many opportunities to work together in the future.
-
-You wrote to your manager that you “just wanted to keep working with me” in your letter of August 2003.
-When I was finally were told what the “numerous incidents of physical abuse” comprised, they turned out to be neither “physical” nor “abusive”.
If you had felt abused by me in any way at any time during our relationship you would have written me a letter like the one I wrote to you, when I felt that you had been verbally abusing me, in June 2003. or you would have told, your sister, your mother, your brother, your father, your lawyer. your therapist, your friends, our mutual friends, my family, or at least ME, but you never did.
In your “response to interrogatories” you specified the alleged incidents that Greenberg described as “physical and verbal abuse”.
They are enumerated and explained here:
WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF OF “PHYSICAL ABUSE???”
Though your lawyers Greenberg, Beldock, Levine, Hoffman, Friedman, Minkoff, Stryker and Hernstadt may have thought that there was enough ambiguity in the term “physical abuse” that it should somehow immune from libel, that notion was as ignorant as it was arrogant, In one half hour of research on the internet, I discovered a 1999 ruling, from the very court that our case is now before, (the New York Apellate Court First Division) that unequivocally defines “physical abuse” as “tantamount to assault”, and the NY Penal Code unequivocally defines assault (in every degree) as “inflicting physical harm”, which you have sworn under oath I did not do. Why didn’t Greenberg and his firm do that same fact check before they allowed to you to become embroiled in a four year lawsuit? Because they figured it would be easier being sued by me for libel than by Rounder Records for contract fraud.
Why didn’t your lawyers advise you to deny that you ever told Greenberg that I had physically abused you, so would not be defendant in this case? Because your lawyers Stryker and Minkoff were chosen by Beldock to defend Greenberg’s interest at the expense of yours.
Why didn’t Greenberg write a letter affirming that you had never told him that I physically abused you? Because that would prove him to be a liar, and he would rather blame his libel on YOU.
WHY THE LEGAL DEFINITION OF “PHYSICAL ABUSE” IS IMPORTANT
In your deposition, you stated that it wasn’t your business what the legal definition of “Physical Abuse” is. You are very wrong.
When I sued you and Greenberg for libel, I didn’t care what Greenberg’s private, whacky definition of physical abuse is. Under New York, law a statement is libelous if it is defamatory and false, under the commonly understood definition of that statement. Everybody knows that “physical abuse” means somebody gets hurt.
If this concept is hard for you to understand, consider this imaginary analogy:
Imagine that you were involved a civil lawsuit against the mother of a child you used to babysit for. Imagine that the lawyer of that person, falsely claimed that he had “evidence FROM HIS CLIENT OF NUMEROUS INCIDENTS OF SEXUAL MOLESTATION against his client’s child, by Madeleine Peyroux” and that his client is considering filing criminal charges against you. Imagine that your lawyer wrote a letter to that lawyer saying that if he didn’t retract that allegation of “child sexual molestation” he and the client would be sued.
Now imagine that the lawyer ignored the threats.
Now you sue the bad lawyer and his client because the fact that you have been publicly accused of child molestation prohibits you from teaching, or from seeing your nieces and nephews, or from being with anyone who would want to have children with you.
Finally, imagine that two years later you learn that the client NEVER TOLD his lawyer that you had molested her child, but only that you had spanked him once when you were baby-sitting for him, (which you didn’t do either). However, the client writes a sworn affidavit saying that “One of the incidents of sexual molestation was when Madi Peyroux spanked my child when he was three. “ So for two years, you went through life with allegations made by a prominent lawyer that you were a child molester, just because the client didn’t care what the definition of “child molestation” was.
How would you feel if three years after the fact the lawyer said “Well, I feel that spanking is a form of sexual molestation” and the client says “well I’m not a lawyer, I’m not responsible for what my lawyer thinks “child molestation” means, in fact I don’t really care what the definition of “child molestation means””? You would be upset, as I am upset.
That is EXACTLY WHAT YOU AND GREENBERG HAVE DONE IN THIS CASE. Do you see why this is wrong? Everybody knows that the term “child molestation” refers to a broad range of terrible acts, but that it does not include a gentle spanking. Likewise, everybody knows that the term “physical abuse” refers to a range of acts from slapping someone in the face to bludgeoning someone to death, but it does not include threatening to break one’s own guitar on the floor or accidentally knocking a mirror out of its socket. Ditto for the terms “Criminal Harassment” and “libel”.
GREENBERG ALSO ACCUSED ME OF ABUSING YOU IN ORDER TO INVENT A FALSE EXCUSE AS TO WHY YOU HAD STOPPED WORKING WITH ME.
There is a second important reason why Greenberg needed to falsely accuse me of abusing you. He needed a false reason for why you stopped working with me in September, 2003 because he wanted to claim that:
-
a)you had a verbal contract with me agreeing to sell the CD only at your shows until the Rounder CD came out.
-
b)You had a valid reason for breaking that contract so that I could not sue you for the verbal agreement that he made up.
THE REAL REASON YOU STOPPED WORKING ME IS THIS: IF WE HAD CONTINUED PLAYING TOGETHER AND SELLING THE CD AT OUR GIGS, ROUNDER WOULD HAVE FOUND OUT THAT GREENBERG AND HERBST HAD LIED TO THEM.
The real reason you didn’t work with me is dead simple. We were selling a CD at our shows that gave us equal billing, that had my picture and name on it as big as yours. More importantly, the CD had a copyright notice on it of Waking Up Music, which is MY COMPANY.
When Herbst and Greenberg realized that we were planning to sell our CD’s at major New York venues like the Bottom Line, they freaked out. It has already been established that Rounder did not know that I was the joint- owner of GYOMM until DECEMBER,2003. If just one of the thousands of CD’s we were going to sell at North- eastern gigs were to find its way to someone at Rounder, Greenberg’s lie to Rounder would be exposed. Rounder would realize that they had been lied to and Greenberg and you would have been toast before you even began preproduction on Careless Love.
In fact Greenberg was so desperate to keep Rounder from finding out that I was the joint owner of the seven songs that he made a comically obvious attempt to trick me into giving up my rights.
I am very curious to find out what reason Greenberg and Herbst gave you for why you had to stop working with me in September, 2003. If they had told you that I was abusing you, you would have replied “no he’s not”
WHY GREENBERG THOUGHT HE COULD GET AWAY WITH LYING TO ROUNDER ABOUT THE OWNERSHIP OF GYOMM? SURELY ROUNDER WOULD FIND OUT SOMEDAY THAT I WAS THE OWNER AND THAT THEY HAD BEEN LIED TO.
First of all, Greenberg probably didn’t think that I had the wherewithal to produce four additional songs for GYOMM that would be compatible with the seven songs you and I had recorded. He thought I would just let the tapes sit on the shelf.
But just in case I did dare to release our album, Greenberg got an idea. An awful idea! GREENBERG GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!
JEFF GREENBERG GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA TO TRICK ME INTO GIVING UP MY OWNERSHIP OF GYOMM.
Greenberg’s plan to trick me into relinquishing my rights went like this:
-
1)First Greenberg would tell you cancel my performance with you at the last minute, so I would be upset.
-
2)Then Greenberg would instruct your manager Cynthia Herbst tell me that you “were not going to pay [me] under any circumstances.”
-
3)Then, Greenberg would instruct you to write me an email promising to pay me for the gig at the Tin Angel
-
4)Immediately after having you send me that e-mail, Greenberg would write me this cheerful little e-mail of his own:
-
5) “William : I hope this finds you well. Madeleine told me you and she spoke today, and that you and she have agreed on payment to you for cancelation of your appearance with her at the Tin Angel this weekend. Given that good news, I suggested to Madeleine that this seemed like a good time to try to resolve any other open matters that may still exist between you two, and wrap everything up together. Let us know if you would like to work together towards that end.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best, Jeff “
(It is touching the Greenberg felt so close to me that he would address me on a first name basis)
In case Greenberg’s clever trick is not obvious, I’ll spell it out for you. If I agreed to “resolve all other open matters” between you and me, signed a release to that effect, and accepted a check from you, Greenberg would then use that release to “prove” that I had accepted payment for my contribution to GYOMM, as producer, co-author of “Playin’”, performer and financer. After all, I would have admitted in writing that I had been payed everything that you owed me.
Greenberg would then be able to argue in court that because I had been paid for my “services” on the CD and my contribution to the album could be considered a “work for hire”, and you would thereby be the sole copright owner of GYOMM.
With me unable to assert my rights to GYOMM without a lawsuit being brought against me by Beldock, Levine and Hoffman, Greenberg would be safe from having his lie discovered by Rounder before “Careless Love” came out. If Rounder found out that I was making pathetic noises about owning the CD they would all laugh at me.
I immediately saw what Greenberg was trying to do. Although I did not yet know that Greenberg was trying to avoid the consequences of his lie to Rounder, this was the first inkling I got that I was dealing with a truly evil and perverted person, and the first horrible intimation that you might be collaborating with him to steal our album from me.
What followed was the surrealistic two month long exchange between me and Greenberg, in which I tell him that I don’t want to be paid for anything but the Tin Angel Gig, thank you very much, and he desperately tries to dodge the question of what you are proposing to pay me for.
YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THIS MATTER
There are three possibilities as to your participation in this matter.
-
1)Your lawyers and your manager Cynthia Herbst conspired to defraud Rounder, destroy my reputation without your knowledge or consent, by lying to you, manipulating you and possibly by assuring you that it would all work out for everybody in the end, once you were a big star. You had no idea that you were doing anything wrong, and should never have been in this case to begin with.
-
2)Your lawyers, your manager Cynthia Herbst and you plotted together to perpetrate every aspect of this case.
-
3)Some combination of the above. You were aware of some aspects of the scam but not others.
If it is true that you have been manipulated into colluding with your lawyers and your manager Cynthia Herbst, then I imagine you will be shocked and horrified, but deeply grateful to learn the truth, so that you may take immediate measures to rectify the damage and make ammends.
If you have deliberately colluded with these people to harm me and break the law, but have hoped that nobody would find out, then I hope this letter will shame you into finally severing your allegiance with these people and making ammends.
If, as I hope. you have been at least partially duped or coerced into cooperating with these people, this letter will provide you with the facts you need to justify severing all association with them, as well as the ammunition to sue them for many, many millions of dollars. Even after all this time, I cling to the hope that you will examine your decisions, make amends, and start anew. Nothing in the world would make me happier than to restore my affection and respect for you. I literally dream of our reconciliation on a regular basis. Unfortunately I have no such hope for your lawyers and other “handlers”, who as far as I can tell, are corrupt beyond redemption.
WHAT HAVE I DONE TO HARM YOU IN THIS CASE?
In a letter of October 29, 2003, you wrote:
“You must forgive and forget- forgive some part of me at least, and begin again. You must know that I do-you that we are friends already, even now as I am writing, because everything is eternal...I don't ask that you change your mind or yourself, or the things in which you believe, just that you'll turn back with one second glance on everything...and what’s more guilt is so lonely!....I believe there will be many more chances after this little one to make amends. of course I hope that between the sooner and the later, you will choose the sooner.I respect and admire you deeply for all you have been through with me...”
In a letter of May 5, 2005, you wrote:
“I never knew someone could be capable of what you have done, what you have become. You give new meaning to darkness for the human race.... Everything about you is destructive and despicable to me... There is nothing about you that doesn’t mean me harm in fact.”
Holy smokes!..new darkness for the human race!!!!!..... I must have done something truly terrible to you between October 29, 2003 when you wrote the loving letter and May 5, 2005 when you wrote the venomous letter. What could it be?
It couldn’t have been anything physical, because I didn’t see you in that entire period except for when I watched you from the audience with my girlfriend at the New Orleans Jazz fest where I had played days before.
It couldn’t have been something I said or wrote to you, because the only communication I had with you in that 15 month period was the affectionate and concerned phone message I left on April 10, 2004.
Maybe it was something your lawyers TOLD you I did... that I didn’t do at all. Your lawyers and your manager told you that I tried to sabotage your relationship with Rounder, that I stole your Mark Twain book, that I threatened to sue your manager for no reason, and God only knows what else.
This letter proves that all of those allegations are untrue: I rescued your relationship with Rounder by alerting them to Greenberg’s fraud (can you imagine if they had first learned of my ownership of GYOMM after it came out on Sony!) I sent your book to Herbst to give to you, but she destroyed it. I threatened to sue Herbst because she falsely told me that YOU had refused to pay me for the Tin Angel gig, a statement you contradicted in your email of the next day. My suing you results from the lies and deception by your lawyers and manager against you and your record company. I didn’t “attack you by suing”! My suing you was 100% defensive, to defend my reputation and my rights and I gave you every possible opportunity to get out of the case.
SO, if I am the most evil person in history can you please tell me and the world what exactly I did to earn this distinction? As far as I can see, all I have done is to stand up for my right to make a living and to save my reputation from libelous statements by your lawyers.
In your deposition you mention that you were furious at me because I questioned your lawyers assertion that you didn’t attend the mediation meeting because your father had recently died. That is true. Because your lawyers had told dozens of lies up to that point, I had no reason to believe them about anything. Furthermore, I checked your touring schedule and found that you had not cancelled any tour dates immediately following that day, and this seemed strange to me. I did not question you, I questioned your integhrity-challenged lawyers. For that reason, I called your brother Ned, with whom I have always had a warm and friendly relationship. About two months before the conference, Ned wrote me to ask if he could stay with me for a few weeks). Ned confirmed that your father had indeed died, and from that moment I never brought up the subject or questioned your motive for missing the conference again.
During the course of our relationship I yelled at you, and you yelled at me. I used bad language and you used bad language. But I didn’t accuse you of “physically abusing” me, and I didn’t try to stop you from making a living.
So Madeleine, tell me what I did wrong and I will apologize. If I did nothing wrong, perhaps you should think about apologizing to me.
Finally, consider this: How many times have I lied to you...ever? How many times have your lawyers lied to you? Who should you believe?
