DAILY UPDATES CONTINUED: Wrongful Death Trial — Freddy Nelson, Jr.
Check back daily for informed thoughts on the latest testimony, evidence, and arguments
DAY 10 (9/18/24): TMT Development President and CEO, Vanessa Sturgeon
For ten days, we’ve heard a lot about the urban hellscape that Delta Park shopping center was in 2019 and 2020… so riddled with drugs, gangs, sex-trafficking, drag-racing, and violence, that even the Portland Police said it was “too dangerous,” and “that they didn’t feel safe” there.
Vanessa Sturgeon, head of TMT Development, which manages Delta Park, has repeatedly stated that these were the reasons she hired armed security in late 2019 — and then nearly doubled it because a single line at the BottleDrop redemption center had become too “dangerous” in May 2020.
Well, it’s pretty fascinating then, that Sturgeon said this under oath today:
Sturgeon is describing Schrödinger’s shopping center: simultaneously such a shithole that it requires armed security, yet safe enough for her son’s little league team.⁴
Of course, nobody fact checked Sturgeon in real time, so the jury could see how wildly contradictory her own testimony was.
Another thing that Sturgeon was not asked to show receipts for, was her claim that Nelson’s murder had nothing to do with TMT’s firing of Cornerstone a few weeks later, because they were “already in the process of letting [Cornerstone] go.”
She also doubled down on a story that she had found two bodies at Delta Park, and described them graphically; then added an anecdote about how a truck driver had come after her with a chain wrapped around his hand.
Testifying to the research she did before hiring Cornerstone, she stated that she went to a government website and made sure their license and registration were up to date — which is the absolute bare minimum one could do to check up on a business. She did not do any investigation with DPSST, because she “didn’t know how to,” and because she simply trusted the security company’s representations.
Sturgeon also defended signing such a skimpy contract with Cornerstone, saying that the length (one page) was appropriate. Despite her praise for her lawyer that worked on the contract, she believes that TMT was “defrauded” by it. That’s interesting, considering that she’s been on the other end of that stick before.
She then went through her long list of kudos, but didn’t mention that she was indicted for felony campaign contributions in 2004, along with her grandfather; and that the charges were dropped only because he was unable to assist in the defense. Sturgeon had her own record expunged, but left poor, sick grandpa’s bad name out there, floating in the breeze.
As an aside, earlier this week it made the news that she had donated a lot of money to mayoral candidate Rene Gonzalez, whose main deal is eradicating homeless camping. Sturgeon already enjoys extraordinary access to local and state officials and agencies, and even got TriMet to create a costly new bus route over this stupid BottleDrop non-situation.
It shouldn’t be so hard to believe that she was the driving force behind this mess: fanning the flames with her underling’s nasty emails⁵ to Lowe’s; whipping Cornerstone guards into a confused, zero tolerance frenzy of aggression; and granting herself the sole authority to investigate BottleDrop’s claims — then providing findings to herself that her hefty invoices to BottleDrop were warranted.⁶
⁴ Sturgeon’s son’s little league team was not just practicing at her crime-infested shopping center… it was practicing at a vacant lot behind her crime-infested shopping center.
⁵ Anti-homelessness sentiment clearly pervaded TMT’s culture, as evidenced by the dripping distaste in Marc Wilkins’ emails.
⁶ Sturgeon repeatedly attacked the honesty of OBRC/BottleDrop and exec Jules Bailey, who was the sole voice of reason throughout the fiasco over the line at that store.
DAY 11 (9/19/24): Vanessa Sturgeon continued
Sturgeon began the morning by doubling down on the fact that Freddy Nelson was not an “approved vendor,” and repeating that TMT had looked up Pacific Pallets in Oregon’s online business registry, “and of course he’s not — he doesn’t even have a business license… did not have a business license.” (Past tense, because he was murdered.) She was drilled on Cornerstone’s own business registration, and that the company was working out of an apartment in Wilsonville. Asked if TMT had a “zero tolerance policy,” she responded, “not that I knew of.”
She was then questioned some more about those two bodies she purportedly personally discovered on her property in 2006 and 2007. It was noted that Delta Park didn’t get armed security until years later, in 2019.
Finally, there was an important line of questioning that is quite material to this case (and others), but it requires some unpacking:
Sturgeon was asked about two videos entered into evidence — both taken at BottleDrop — of guards manhandling customers. BottleDrop has consistently asserted that they were Cornerstone guards, and used the videos to reassert that BottleDrop did not want armed security there.
During her testimony yesterday, Sturgeon stated that the guards were not Cornerstone guards. Today, she reaffirmed that “we determined that it was unlikely that they were Cornerstone guards.”⁷
Asked today how she arrived at that conclusion, Sturgeon stated, “I looked at the videos, but we — like I said, we were relying on a third party to do the majority of the investigation on that, because we had so many issues with [BottleDrop] giving false representation about” the incidents.
Cut to the two videos: There is a red SUV at forefront in both, strikingly similar — identical? — to the vehicle of Cornerstone officer Patrick Storms.
Sturgeon testified that she did not believe that the two red SUVs in the BottleDrop videos were the same; and she did not recognize either as the same SUV Storms drove in a September 2019 video, in which he hassled Nelson behind Lowe’s.
All of this underscores a fact which should be obvious, even to an idiot: People who are allowed to investigate their own interests, unsurprisingly and frequently find for themselves — especially when money is involved.
And in this particular instance, which underlies Freddy Nelson’s murder, there was a lot of money at stake… but also a power struggle between a redemption center that served a vulnerable community, and a wealthy business woman who had the Governor on speed dial, and who did not like to hear the word “no.”
⁷ OBRC subsequently refused to pay TMT’s Cornerstone-related invoices. TMT then sued OBRC, and they case settled out of court.
DAY 12 (9/20/24): Jury instructions and closing arguments
After the jury instructions were read, plaintiffs’ attorney Tom D’Amore gave his statement of the case: We are seeking “recovery, reimbursement, and accountability from the defendants,” and the punitive damages “are to send a message” and “to punish.” He added that “sending a message to the kind of people who engage in this [type of] conduct is an important thing.”
The conduct that D’Amore referred to, was the “culture of violence” that TMT Development and Cornerstone Security Group created at Delta Park. That culture “caused the harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against Freddy Nelson,” and it “caused Logan Gimbel to murder” him.
He also stated that if there was any truth to the defendants’ claims that Nelson was a constant threat over the months, there would be a video record of it. “There has been no evidence about Mr. Nelson threatening anybody, fighting back against these security guards. In fact, look at the video tapes… he did just the opposite.”
“He did have some things to say every once in a while, but for the most part he is the guy who got in his truck and drove away, or the guy who walked away from it. Maybe he is a guy who stands up for his rights, or what he believes are his rights. But no matter what you call him — a trespasser, somebody that’s been dismissed, or just another regular patron out there trying to make a living — you don’t have a right to murder that person. You just don’t do that.”
He finished by asserting, “This nightmare for the Nelson family… it starts with TMT and it ends with TMT,” implying that he believes that the developer is most responsible for Nelson’s murder, aside from shooter Logan Gimbel.
TMT’s attorney Sharon Collier of course pushed back on that, stating that it’s “a case of misplaced blame.” She asserted that TMT was not negligent in hiring Cornerstone, or relying upon their expertise as security professionals.
Collier also blamed Nelson in part for his own death, despite insisting she was not victim-blaming. “I’m not here telling you that you should place blame on Freddy Nelson, I’m just telling you, consider all the facts. And it would be — it is inaccurate to say he did nothing except innocently retreat, because that’s just not what happened.”
And then she said something truly repellent, while gesturing to the courtroom’s gallery:
“Plaintiffs are asking for $200 million dollars. Where are they? I see in the back a whole bunch of legal staff. Where’s the family? Where are the kids? Where are the parents? [Son] Damien Nelson didn’t even show up to testify. Yet they’re coming in here and asking you for $200 million.”
Cornerstone’s attorney C. J.Martin took the baton and put heavy emphasis on an event that underlies the case: BottleDrop’s “suspect” complaints to TMT about Cornerstone. She impugned the testimony of exec Jules Bailey, asserting that invoices totaling $241,000 provided ample motivation to lie.⁸
And that’s a pretty crazy message to send to the jury, right before they deliberate on whether her clients and the other defendants should be on the hook for up to $200,000,000. Money makes people lie.
As a juror, that would be ringing in my ears as I reviewed the stilted, incomplete, and finger-pointing testimony of TMT and Cornerstone witnesses — most or all of whom had significant gaps in their memory, from events that were really not that long ago.
It’s in the jurors’ hands now.
⁸ OBRC, BottleDrop, and Jules Bailey have not returned requests for comments about their alleged dishonesty, despite those allegations appearing to be at least partially false.
