3ABN & Danny Shelton
v.
Gailon Joy & Robert Pickle

Plaintiff 3ABN's Interrogatories to Defendant Robert Pickle (First Set)

Interrogatory No. 3

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Interrogatory No. 3:     Describe in detail and with particularity all efforts undertaken by You or by anyone acting on Your behalf, to ascertain or to verify the truth and/or accuracy of any Statement of Fact or other statement You have made about Plaintiff 3ABN or about Plaintiff Danny Shelton, by which description You are, at a minimum, to set forth the statement of fact at [page 7] issue, the identity any person with whom You have communicated as part of your effort, the identity any firm, partnership, corporation, proprietorship, association, or any other organization or entity with whom You have communicated as part of your effort, the identity of any document You have created, disseminated or received as part of Your effort, the identity of any conversations, conferences, or meetings that You have attended or in which You have participated as part of Your effort, the identity of any written research You have conducted, setting forth the name and location of the publications, documents, records, archives, or other written materials You reviewed, as part of Your effort, the identity of the original source of each Statement of Fact or other statement or, if your source was not the original source, then the identity of each person you know of in the chain of communication leading to you receiving the Statement of Fact or other statement.

Response by Defendant Pickle:     See auto-discovery documents for statements of fact made and for particulars concerning "publications, documents, records, archives, or other written materials." We will add a few comments below.

We relied heavily on statements made by Danny Shelton and Walt Thompson. Statements by others who were biased against Linda Shelton or whose concerns could not be attributable to either opposition toward Adventism or anger over Linda Shelton's dismissal were also given greater weight. Official documents were of particular interest.

Here is an illustration of the carefulness of thought we used in the verification process: (a) Emails purportedly written by Danny Shelton surfaced, emails consisting of attempts to convince Linda Shelton to (i) accept a cash receipt for a donation of horses on her tax return for 2004, (b) without getting appraisals since there was no guarantee what the horses would appraise for, (iii) not telling the accountants about getting those cash receipts for the donated horses, and (iv) accepting a cash receipt for each horse valued at 4 to 40 times the value of each of 15 horses Danny Shelton itemized in July 2004. (b) These emails also claimed that this same scheme was done in 2003, resulting in a cash receipt of $20,000, and would be done in 2005 for a cash receipt of $10,000. (c) Danny Shelton in his July 2006 affidavit stated that his charitable contributions amounted to $500 per month, which would be $6,000 per year. (d) Danny Shelton reported $7,690 in charitable contributions for 2001, all cash, a figure which is reasonably close to the $6,000 figure. (e) Danny Shelton reported $11,575 (cash) and $26,000 (horses) in charitable contributions for 2002, the horses being (i) a black and white mare in good condition that he had raised after acquiring in January 2000, valued at $6,000 with no adjusted basis reported, and (ii) a homozygous stud in good condition that he had acquired in January 2000, valued at $20,000 with a reported adjusted basis of $11,000. (f) Danny Shelton reported $27,500, all cash, in charitable contributions for 2003, which amounts to about $20,000 in excess cash contributions. (g) Due to this excess of $20,000 in cash contributions for 2003, the emails in question are likely genuine.

In order for the emails in question to be spurious, the forger would have to (a) have had access to the information on Danny Shelton's tax returns, (b) noticed the general annual giving pattern of $7,500 to $11,500 in cash contributions, (c) noticed the donation of a horse in 2002 for $20,000, (d) noticed the $20,000 excess cash donations in 2003, and (e) been creative enough to have concocted the tale that (i) the excess cash donations in 2003 were really for a horse or horses, and that (ii) Danny Shelton wanted to do the same thing for 2004 and 2005.

This combination of factors necessary in order to arrive at the conclusion that the emails in question were forged just seems impossible. Much simpler is the conclusion that Danny Shelton did in fact try to convince Linda Shelton to violate IRS regulations for the 2004 tax year.

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