“Your Honor, I object,” Mr. Jordan said. “We have had no chance to depose this or any other witness in Discovery.”
“Under the rules of an administrative hearing, there is no Discovery requirement of any sort,” Judge Crenshaw said. “Objection overruled. Please continue, Mr. Smithers.”
“Your Honor, due to the seriousness of these allegations, I request that all witnesses be sworn,” Mr. Smithers said.
“But these are your witnesses, Mr. Smithers,” Judge Crenshaw reminded him.
“Nonetheless, Your Honor, I would so request to prevent any legal silliness down the road,” Mr. Smithers said.
“Very well,” Judge Crenshaw said. “Mrs. Kumms, please raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help your God?”
“I do,” Susan said.
“Are you aware of the penalties for perjury, Mrs. Kumms?” Judge Crenshaw asked.
“Not in particular, though I imagine that it would include jail,” Susan replied.
“Indeed,” Judge Crenshaw said. “You may proceed, Mr. Smithers.”
“Mrs. Kumms, what is your relationship to Mr. Quinn Reginald Kumms?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“He is my son,” Susan replied.
“Is he your only child?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“Yes,” Susan replied.
“In your own words, please tell this hearing why you are alleging moral turpitude in regards to your son,” Mr. Smithers said.
“A little over three months ago, my husband told me that a very private data server had been compromised, that someone had accessed it by hacking,” Susan began. “He had forensic computer experts examine the system and they were able to track the hack back to a single computer, a MacBook Pro, which is owned by my son, Quinn. David, that was my husband’s name, was concerned that Quinn would do something stupid like try to blackmail him over the data that he had discovered on the server. It wasn’t anything illegal, but it was very personal, very private.”
“Why would your husband have thought that your son would do such a thing?” Mr. Smithers asked.
“Quinn’s behavior the preceding six months had become increasingly erratic,” Susan replied. “He seemed dissatisfied with his role as Chief General Counsel of the Kumms Corporation. He wanted more control, more power. My husband resisted this, and I agreed with him. Quinn was a fine general counsel for the Kumms Corporation. Most of his work consisted of making sure that contracts were properly structured. He has no background in science or finance, the two pillars of what the Kumms Corporation is all about. In short, he is not qualified to run the Kumms Corporation.”
“Please continue,” Mr. Smithers said.
“David was scheduled to leave for our research facility in Manaus, Brazil a few days later,” Susan said, “but he was concerned about the data breach and what it represented in terms of being able to trust Quinn, something that broke both of our hearts. Quinn had always been a bit difficult in that he was never satisfied with anything, most especially himself. No matter what we provided, how we encouraged him and supported whatever he did, it was never quite enough. Quinn was always disappointed and dissatisfied.”
“We finally decided, we didn’t feel as though we had a choice, to remove Quinn as a Trust beneficiary and as general counsel,” Susan said, seeing the horror intermingled with hate on Quinn’s face as he stared at her across the table. “Only by doing that, we thought, would we have the leverage to force him to get the help that he needed. We wanted what was best for him. The path that he was on could only end in total self-destruction without a serious intervention, we felt.”
“But we were too late,” Susan said sadly. “Not a day of our married lives, almost 35 years, had gone by that David didn’t call me at midnight wherever I was if he was away on business. After he had been in Manaus for two days, he didn’t call. Or the day after. I was terrified. I knew that something must have happened to him. There was no way that he would miss calling me if he was physically able. So I jumped on a plane to Brazil, to go to Manaus to see what was wrong.”
“The day I got there, there had been a terrible fire,” Susan continued. “It turned out that the fire was in our research facility building in Manaus. Then they announced that they had found bodies in the building. I was totally panicked. I checked the hotel where David usually stayed, but they hadn’t seen him. I had a photo of him with me, I always carry one, and had 100 photocopies made. I then went down to where the building was, or had been. There was very little left of it.”
“I started going into each of the shops and restaurants in that neighborhood, giving them a photocopy of David’s photo and asking if they had seen him,” Susan explained. “A man I had seen in one of the shops followed me as I left, telling me that he thought that he had seen David and asked to see the photo. I showed it to him. He told me that he had seen someone who looked very much like that and that he was staying nearby and that he would show me.”
“I followed him and he led me down a small lane,” Susan continued. “Suddenly, two men jumped out and attacked me. They both had knives in their hands. I couldn’t see the man anywhere. He seemed to have disappeared. The two men pushed me down onto the ground. One of them, big and fat, ripped my dress away while the other one, a skinny man, held my hands and arms above my head. When the one on top of me tried to rape me, I was screaming and struggling to get away, and suddenly a man came flying through the air, literally, and kicked him off of me, then lunged at the one holding my hands. I heard a gun fire very close by and then the man who had saved me picked me up in his arms.”