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By
Matthew Heller
Daily Journal Staff
Writer
VENTURA
- Lee Mannheimer has a responsible job, lives in upscale Westlake
Village, volunteers as an assistant Cub Scoutmaster and says he has
never even had a parking ticket.
"The guy's like
Joe Dad," one of his lawyers said.
But strange things have
a habit of happening to Mannheimer. Seven years ago, he was suspected
of plotting to kill his estranged wife, Linda, while they were battling
in family court over assets and the custody of their 3-year-old son,
Maxx.
Then in October,
Mannheimer was arrested after Linda, who has remarried, was bludgeoned
in the head and left for dead in her home near Camarillo. Although no
criminal charges were filed, he spent five days in jail and lost
custody of Maxx for three months.
Now the 57-year-old
lighting company executive is fighting back, seeking legal redress for
his mishaps with two lawsuits.
"There comes a
point where you can't take it any more," he explained.
In a federal civil
rights action, Mannheimer is suing the Ventura County Sheriff's
Department over the Oct. 4 arrest that he claims "was carried out
without probable cause or reasonable suspicion" and in the face of
an "airtight alibi."
Additionally, he filed
suit against Linda and her attorney husband Richard A. Morrisset, who,
in a letter to Mannheimer's divorce lawyer, alleged, "Your client
has tried to kill my wife twice. We know he will try a third
time."
The Ventura Superior
Court case alleges defamation and breach of contract.
In 1995, Linda settled
an earlier defamation suit brought by Lee for $1,000 and a guarantee
that she would make no more "disparaging comments" about him.
The Morrissets declined
to comment on the new litigation.
"Due to the nature
of this case, we are not able to go into details about it now,"
said one of their lawyers, Christopher J. Olsen of Woodland Hills.
But Linda, whose
injuries have confined her to a wheelchair, continues to insist it was
her ex-husband who attacked her.
Lee Mannheimer
"committed this brutal attack with significant enough malice
aforethought and planning that he left absolutely no evidence by which
he could be physically connected to the crime," she alleged last
month in court papers.
When his wife filed for
divorce in May 1993 after eight years of marriage, Mannheimer was a
prominent Ventura County businessman. As chief executive of PerfectData
Corp., a publicly traded computer parts firm in Simi Valley, he earned
a six-figure salary.
The case of Mannheimer
v. Mannheimer, D212262, would be marked by acrimony. At one point, the
couple bickered over crystal champagne glasses that Linda alleged Lee
had thrown away to spite her. They also squabbled over PerfectData
stock and the family's Westlake Village home.
The child custody
issue only added to the combustible mixture.
Linda's "ongoing
goal," Lee claimed, has been "to take my son away from
me."
In court documents,
Linda has said she just wanted "what is best for Maxx."
The allegations that
Lee solicited her murder turned the case into a conflagration.
The Sacramento County
Sheriff's Department learned of the alleged plot from an informant who
said he had been offered $10,000 to kill a woman in Southern
California. In August 1993, police arrested Tony Gigliotti, a
PerfectData sales manager, and Jack Judd as alleged intermediaries.
Two months later,
prosecutors said Lee Mannheimer was under investigation.
But no one ever filed
charges against anyone, in part because the informant was unreliable,
according to prosecutors.
Mannheimer says he
lost his job as a result of the commotion.
"There was not one
credible witness; there was no connection to me whatsoever," he
insisted.
Linda, who had been
taken into hiding, certainly seemed to think she was in peril.
"I find it awful
to even think about someone who you were married to all those years
plotting to kill you," she told the Los Angeles Daily News.
She also asked Lee to
grant her sole custody of Maxx if he was ever charged with conspiring
against her.
The Mannheimers settled
the divorce case in June 1994, agreeing to share custody of the child.
But before the agreement was finalized, Lee sued Linda over her
comments to the Daily News and other newspapers.
She had implicated him
in a plot on her life "for the purposes of obtaining sole
custody" of Maxx, he alleged. Mannheimer v. Mannheimer, CIV147793.
That case, in turn, was
resolved out of court in August 1995. While Lee received only $1,000,
he says a key provision of the settlement allowed him to get Maxx a
passport.
"I just wanted to
be free to take him [abroad]," explained Mannheimer, who is a
frequent traveler.
A subsequent marriage
ended in divorce in February 1999. But as executive vice president of a
lighting firm, Mannheimer returned to respectability and, by last
summer, had saved up enough money to remodel his kitchen.
He was, he says,
satisfied with the arrangement for custody of Maxx. Things were
"so settled, so good," he recalled.
But then, again, all
hell broke loose.
Linda Morrisset, who
had remarried shortly after the divorce was final in December 1994, is
believed to have been attacked at her Santa Rosa Valley home late on
Sept. 11. She was found the following morning lying unconscious in a
pool of blood and was rushed to the hospital with two severe head
wounds.
According to an arrest
warrant affidavit, Richard Morrisset, an attorney and accountant, told
police at the hospital Sept. 12 that Linda and her ex-husband
"have had numerous conflicts over their joint custody
situation."
And by the end of that
day, Lee Mannheimer was under surveillance.
After Linda awoke from
her coma, Ventura County sheriff's detectives interviewed her Sept. 27.
She identified Lee as her assailant, the affidavit states, describing
him as "scary" and saying "he hates me." Maxx, she
said, was with her when she was attacked.
Lee Mannheimer's alibi,
corroborated by his au pair, placed him at home watching television
with Maxx.
Nevertheless, after
Linda again implicated her ex-husband, police filed the warrant
affidavit, citing the 1993 murder plot allegations and "the
current child custody problems" as a basis for suspecting Lee.
There was no mention of his alibi.
On Oct. 4, Mannheimer
was arrested for attempted murder as he was driving in Thousand Oaks.
"It was the most
unbelievable experience of my life," he recalled. "I thought
I was going to get a traffic ticket."
Held on $2 million
bail, Mannheimer spent four nights in jail.
No charges having been
filed, he was released Oct. 8. There was "insufficient evidence to
establish the identity of the perpetrator," Ventura County
District Attorney Michael D. Bradbury explained in a statement. But
soon Mannheimer was facing another trauma: the loss of his son.
While he was in
custody, police had filed court papers seeking to have Maxx declared a
ward of the juvenile court. On Oct. 13, county social worker Donna
Kuonen petitioned the court to terminate Lee's custody rights.
In support of the
petition, Linda again identified him as her attacker.
"It was just like
a torture," Mannheimer said, sobs choking his voice. "I got
to see my son one hour a week."
After the county Human
Services Agency moved to dismiss the petition for lack of evidence,
Linda accused her ex-husband in court papers of emotionally abusing
Maxx, even exposing him to Internet pornography. Lee Mannheimer denies
the allegations. On Jan. 20, a judge restored his custody rights.
Lightning apparently
had struck Mannheimer twice in six years.
"This has been a
very traumatic experience for him," said Michael E. Eisner of
Eisner & Associates in Beverly Hills, his attorney in the
defamation case against the Morrissets.
That suit, filed April
26, includes a breach of contract claim because Linda allegedly
violated her 1995 pledge not to disparage Lee. Mannheimer,
Mannheimer v. Morrisset , CIV195861.
The civil rights action, filed May 30, names two sheriff's deputies and
Kuonen as individual defendants .
Mannheimer v. County of Ventura , CV-00-05777.
"Police misconduct
... really can happen to anybody," argued John Burton of Pasadena,
Mannheimer's lawyer in federal court. "This case really shows
that."
Mannheimer said,
"What [happened] to me is no different than what happened in
Rampart."
A sheriff's spokesman
declined to comment on the case.
In a demurrer to the
defamation claim that will be heard Thursday , Linda says her
statements were privileged. Eisner contends that no privilege applies
because the statements were made "with malice and knowledge of
their falsity."
The animosity shows no
sign of abating. In his letter accusing Mannheimer of trying to kill
Linda twice, Richard Morrisset told attorney Gary Fishbein, "As
Christians, we know that, even if Lee is not punished in this life, he
will be judged in hell."
Linda has asked that
exchanges of Maxx, now 9, take place at a sheriff's station.
"The mere thought
of coming in contact with [Lee] ... instills fear in me," she
declared in court papers.
Mannheimer agrees that
further litigation against Maxx's mother is an unpleasant prospect. But
he believes recent events have left him with no choice.
"I lost my
inclination to look the other way," he said. "I said, 'That's
it, I've had it.'"
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