Why?
He has not paid any of the $500,000 judgment which was first rendered by the Federal 9th District court, then upheld by the 6th Circuit, the second highest court in the US. The US Marshals did not depose him but rather delivered a Notice of Deposition, Request for Production of Documents and Interrogatories, as well as collect any cash, jewelry, personal property on his person. Today, the amount of monies owed is in excess of $900,000 given 10 years of interest. He was deposed the following day in Lexington. His home in FL was transferred to his then-girlfriend (with whom he has a child) one day before the emergency order was registered in FL in the year 2000.
For more info on this case, go HERE.
It's generally true that our behavior speaks volumes about us as people, and all I can say to the people who follow this man's training methods is this: look at how he lives his life. A lot of us believe that how we ride our horses speaks volumes about who we are as people. We know how he rides his horses. If that's not revealing enough, this, as far as I'm concerned, tells the rest of the story.
Why do I care?
It bothers me deeply when people who have great influence use it wrongly, for their own gain, and further, use animals as the means to their greedy ends.
That people fall for it upsets me more, as it seems indicative of some of the craziness in the world we live in today.
There's nothing I can do about it, except write about it and hope that when people read, they look at all the pieces they can find, and manage to put together a complete picture for themselves.
And maybe use it as a measure for themselves and their own dealings in the world of horses.
billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
17 comments:
one of my favorite proverbs of all time kind of says it all:
"Show me your horse and I will tell you what you are."
That's exactly what I was thinking of, j.
Today I'm enjoying the autumn, the happy horses in my barn, and sending good energy out into the world, hoping that eventually the light will shine bright for horses everywhere.
I was on the verge of commenting on what I really think of this man, but then decided to take the high road and agree with jme's comment.
I'm glad you're enjoying the lovely weather in the company of your happy horses.
Billie, on reading the title I thought - excellent, at last a fitting reaction by the authorities to hyperflexion! But it's just the story of another human taking advantage of his reputation to behave in a base and criminal fashion.
I struggled a bit with posting this, and with how to write it in a measured way. Ultimately I want to help put out there some of the truth about this man, so that when people google his name they get something other than "trainer for the gold medalists at WEG."
There were a few other things happening at WEG that did not involve gold medals.
And the weather is glorious!!
Sheaffer, we could only hope that would happened! That's what SHOULD happen, and I'm going to think about it today - and get that energy out into the world.
aha! I was surprised he'd gone, and wondered if he'd paid ... and pleased that his presence has been noted LOL i felt sure that Tennessee would be able to have the Kentucky courts enforce that judgement...
Claire, me too. I don't like to think that people can do that kind of business and get away with it.
How did you find out about the US marshals? I can't find a single news article about any of this. The court documents are easy enough to find though. The Neals apparently filed a separate suit in Kentucky just days before WEG 2010 started.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/kentucky/kyedce/5:2010fj00003/65034/
That may be what led to Janssen being served by the marshals. I wish the dressage journals would actually report on this sort of thing, but I suppose they're worried about being sued like Astrid Appels.
I read and google widely on the internet. :)
And sometimes people send me things too.
In this case it was an eye-witness account that was linked to an article reporting that a certain rider's warm-up was interrupted when the marshalls arrived. Not being mysterious about the rider, but just don't recall her name at the moment.
All of this is a matter of public record, so there's no reason to fear lawsuit.
If he sues anyone in the US, anyway, he'll have to appear in court and then he'll have to deal with the unpaid hunk of cash he already owes here!
Do you mind if I quote you in my blog?
http://donkeysense.blogspot.com/
I'm writing a post about the Janssen fraud case inspired by your blog post. If you give me an email address, I can email you a copy of the post and/or a direct link to it. I haven't quite finished writing it yet.
I think it's probably best in this instance if you do your own research and post your own words on your blog - you can certainly LINK to my blog, but I'm not sure I see the point in quoting me - I wasn't there, didn't see anything first-hand, and am not really "quote-worthy" on this.
I appreciate your asking - and am happy I've inspired you to look further and write more about it!
Oh, I am doing my own research. But I couldn't have found the article in Eurodressage.com that mentions the incident with the marshals without your statement about it happening during warm up at WEG. I'm planning on quoting from your original response to me to show how I found the article.
One of the things I am going to discuss in my blog entry is the lack of news articles written about both the original suit and the fact that the US marshals had to interrupt a dressage warm up during WEG to serve Janssen a notice of deposition.
Let me be clear:
I am not giving permission for a quote in this instance, as the original info is already unattributed, and I don't want to be part of a chain of information that gets more nebulous as it is repeated.
You are welcome to link to this page, but I am not offering permission to print a quote from this blog.
Ok. Sorry. I will link to your blog, but I won't quote anything.
Here is a link to my finished article:
http://donkeysense.blogspot.com/2010/10/us-marshals-interrupt-dressage-warm-up.html
Thanks for your help.
Thanks for the link!
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