1990

My attorney walks out on me

April 25 1990, Popkin sent a letter to the Clerk of U.S. District Court: Enclosed please find my Motion to Withdraw in the Cochran ...case. As I informed you, I am going to the Attorney General’s Office where I will be doing child protective litigation in Augusta and Waterville. My Motions ask that my withdrawal be deemed effective as of April 30 (Eleven days before trial).      I was devastated. He and I had done all the depositions together, except for Roy’s. I had supplied him with all my information and had driven the eighty miles to Augusta for many conferences to acquaint him with the case. When I said, “My God, you’re going to leave me now, we only have a few days to trial,” he tried to made me feel guilty by saying that I should be glad that he was going to be protecting children in the State of Maine.      Mr. Popkin’s attitude toward my lawsuit changed after he did Roy’s deposition. After Popkin had gone to the Attorney General's Office, I found a letter that he had written to the Attorney General’s office concerning Mike's case. This told me that he had been was in contact with the AG's office.      I wondered how far the State of Maine would go to protect Paul Pollard and why? I believe that Attorney Popkin sold me out and he helped Maine law officials to continue the cover-up of my son’s violent murder. The $30,000 I borrowed against my home to get justice for my son went down the tubes the day he walked out on me. Sometime after Popkin was gone, I found information that shows Michael Popkin was an Attorney General in New York in 1991. This tells me that he didn’t work long at the Maine AG’s office protecting children in the State of Maine.

April 27, 1990. Defendant’s Trial Brief Mr. Pollard was awakened sometime in the early morning hours by the smell of smoke. He left the building once, went back into the camp to get some clothes, and left the building a second time. He then left the area and went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Clark sometime the next morning after spending the night in the woods.      Mr. Pollard has not been charged with any crime by the Maine State Police. Mr. Pollard will testify and the evidence will show that Mr. Pollard was very cooperative with the police. He gave them all the information that he had about the fire. Testimony will be offered by Mr. Pollard on this issue as well as members of the Maine State Police.     There is no indication based on the pathologist report that Micheal Cochran died of anything other than carbon monoxide poisoning. There was no indication of trauma or any other injury to Micheal Cochran. ...      The other issues deal with how much information the Court will allow the Plaintiff’s counsel to elicit on the exact location of where Mr. Pollard live, works, etc. This is because Mr. Pollard has been hounded by the Plaintiff by telephone calls over the last several years prior to the commencement of this suit. Counsel is concerned, regardless of the outcome of this suit, that the Plaintiff is most likely to continue calling the Defendant. Therefore, the less know about Paul Pollard’s whereabouts the better.

April 27, 1990. Defendant’s Witness List  ...  469  Barry Shuman and or Ralph Pinkham: Both these individuals will testify as to the investigation of the fire and the reasons why the Maine State Police did not believe that Paul Pollard was involved in the death of Micheal Cochran. How could Shuman and Pinkham testify as to the investigation of the fire—they were not arson investigators. Mr. Ricker said during his deposition  “I don't recall any investigation—you mean done by the state police or other agency?”

New attorney May 1, 1990 One day after Attorney Popkin walked out on me to go to work for the Maine Attorney General’s Office, Attorney Jed Davis submitted his first Motion to the U.S. Federal Court with only ten days before trial.

"Motion in Limine First document by Jed Davis. Plaintiff moves the Court as follows: 1. Defendant has filed his Witness List, dated April 27, 1990. In it he lists “Barry Shuman and/or Ralph Pinkham, members of the Maine State Police.” 2. Defendant has never before listed Ralph Pinkham as a possible witness. Plaintiff objects to his use on that ground. 3. In his Witness List, Defendant describes the anticipated testimony of Shuman and Pinkham as follows: “Both these individual will testify as to the investigation of the fire and the reasons why the Maine State Police did not believe that Paul Pollard was involved in the death of Micheal Cochran.” 4. The anticipated testimony of Shuman and Pinkham would be irrelevant and inadmissible for various reasons. How could they testify as to the opinion of the “Maine State Police”? They might testify as to their own opinions as to Pollard’s guilt of innocence. However, their opinions are irrelevant.      Furthermore, the bases for their opinions would statements of third persons, which would be inadmissible hearsay. In short, Defendant wants to present Shuman’s and Pinkham’s opinions as to the Defendant’s guilt or innocence based upon hearsay information. Such testimony would be far more confusing than probative. Why would Shuman’s and Pinkham’s testimony be any more admissible than that, for example, of a newspaper reporter who has been following this story for several years.      Plaintiff would not expect the Court to allow her to call such a reporter to offer his opinion as to Pollard’s guilt or innocence based upon what he had learned during his investigations over the years. Indeed, it is almost certain that the Plaintiff, herself, has spent far more hours investigating her son’s death than Shuman and Pinkham combined.      If Shuman and Pinkham are allowed to offer their opinions based upon what they learned in their investigations, then the Plaintiff should be allowed to testify about her opinion that Pollard murdered her son and to relate everything she heard and read which led to that opinion. WHEREFORE, Plaintiff asks the Court to order that the Defendant may not present Barry Shuman and Ralph Pinkham as witnesses.

May 4, 1990 Three days after Mr. Davis took over my lawsuit he wrote the Deputy Clerk of the U.S. District Court stating that a friend of his “was killed in a freak accident yesterday" in Topsfield and "the funeral is scheduled for May 7, in Ellsworth” and he “would very much like to attend.”       He wrote that “in the event a jury is to be picked in this case on Monday, could it be scheduled so that I can attend the funeral.” Before Mr. Davis headed for Topsfield, he contacted me and asked if I could meet him for lunch on his way and after lunch he wanted me to take him to the murder scene at Phillips Lake so he could familiarize himself with where Mike had been murdered and show him the path Pollard had taken when he ran into the woods, away from the murder scene.      Mr. Davis had not been involved in Mike's case and now, one week before trial, he was trying to familiarize himself with the case.

May 8, 1990. A letter from Mr. Davis to Mr. Glazier: I enclose the page of the telephone bill for February 1981, for 207-285-3517, which you gave me yesterday in court. Based simply on this one page from a phone bill which was not in Pollard’s name or paid by him, I am unwilling to stipulate to its authenticity. It seems mighty peculiar that, after years of litigation, this portion of a phone bill is suddenly produced on the eve of trial.

I believe anyone can see why I felt that I was always hitting a brick wall when it came to Shuman and Pinkham investigating Mike's murder.      It never entered my mind when I brought suit against Paul Pollard that Shuman and Pinkham would be in court to continue their protection of Paul Pollard. I know the respect that juries have for police officers’ testimony. If someone had warned me that I would have problems with the Maine State Police and the Maine Attorney General’s office when I filed my lawsuit I don’t think I would have believed them. My attorney first deleted all Fire Inspector Ricker's testimony of an accelerant on Mike and then used only Dr. Roy's testimony of no trauma, no stab wounds and no gunshot wounds to Mike’s body that was burned beyond recognition before he walked out on me and went to work for the Attorney General's Office.      Roy’s testimony supported the information in the February 25, 1981 death certificate that reported the injury to Mike occurred from “trapped in hiuse [sic] fire.” (This was information we were given on the 25th, the day after Mike was found in the six-day-old fire rubble. But Ricker’s testimony disputed that. He said Mike was on the floor before the fire was set and said he was willing to fight with Shuman and Pinkham when they said Mike fell down from his bed.)      There was someone within the Maine law enforcement agency who felt they had not damaged my lawsuit enough, they now wanted Shuman and Pinkham to testify for Pollard. Attorney Davis asked the court to order that the Defendant not present Barry Shuman and Ralph Pinkham as witnesses. But MSP Det. Shuman was allowed to testify for Paul Pollard and I don’t have any record of why that happened other than believing the court must have allowed it.