Day Fourteen - Gundersen defense starts; Seal on stand again - UPDATED

UPDATED:

◼ Former Blue Lake Police Chief David Gundersen has been cleared of all major charges first filed against him in 2008. - Arcata Eye MARCH 2012

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☛ ER Gundersen defense starts; Seal on stand again
...Gundersen is charged in this trial with 24 counts of alleged spousal rape with an intoxicant, along with five other charges, including two related to illegal firearms....

...Seal testified that when Gundersen’s ex-wife called her Jan. 28 to tell her that Humboldt County District Attorney Paul Gallegos told his wife, who was Gundersen’s ex-wife’s attorney at the time, that he was willing to prosecute Gundersen for allegations of rape against his ex-wife, they both discussed what they wanted to happen.

Seal wanted him out of their house, she testified, and Gundersen’s ex-wife wanted him out of the county.

She testified that by making the rape allegations and using the nude photographs Gundersen took of her as leverage, she believed Gundersen could be compelled to leave.

Delivering the hard drive containing the photographs to Gundersen’s ex-wife on Feb. 8 was not part of a plan orchestrated by Gundersen’s ex-wife to win a custody battle, she testified.

“It didn’t go down like that,” she said. “I was pissed off about the pictures. I wanted to find the pictures.”

“It wasn’t like we sat down and put a plan together,” Seal testified. “We talked about it in passing.”

On Feb. 8, what was meant to be a confidential venting to investigators turned into rape allegations leading to Gundersen’s arrest. Seal testified that, in hindsight, she wouldn’t do it again.

“Once everything went down, I felt set up,” she said.

“By whom?” Clanton asked.

Gundersen’s ex-wife, she answered.

Seal repeated previous testimony that the prosecution threatened her with several felonies to compel her to testify, including charges that she traded drugs for guns, and that these threats didn’t surface until she made it clear that she wouldn’t testify at the preliminary hearing.

“I didn’t have the right not to be a victim,” she said of what Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office investigators told her.

Seal also testified about a complaint she sent out to media, the grand jury and the attorney generals of California and the U.S.

The complaint was a way for her to get her side of the story out and provoke an independent investigation into the case in hopes of getting it dismissed, she testified....

And...Toward the end of the day, Times-Standard reporter Thadeus Greenson testified that Gundersen’s attorney, Russell Clanton, did not threaten him, which Seal had claimed in taped conversations with investigators....

☛ TS Gundersen's wife describes alleged plot
...Referring to two stories in the Times-Standard this summer, Seal said she contacted reporter Thadeus Greenson because she felt no one in the District Attorney's Office was listening to her about the alleged plot hatched by Gundersen's ex-wife. The first story was about a letter she sent to the grand jury, to the state Attorney General's Office and other agencies about the case. The second story was based on interviews with Greenson.

Clanton called Greenson to the stand and asked him to review the articles. Greenson testified that he was contacted by Seal sometime after Gundersen's preliminary hearing and that he met with Seal a total of three times for a total of about four hours.
Greenson also testified that Clanton had never threatened him....

That explains why Greenson isn't the one reporting, I guess. That's too bad.

UPDATED:

◼ Former Blue Lake Police Chief David Gundersen has been cleared of all major charges first filed against him in 2008. - Arcata Eye MARCH 2012

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