Is mike webb crazy? or is it memorex?

Paul Simon's American Tune looped over and over on Mike Webb's Internet show, most of the day Thursday.

    Many's the time I've been mistaken
    And many times confused
    Many's the time I've been forsaken
    And certainly abused
    But it's all right, it's all right
    You can't be forever blessed
    When I think of another working day
    I've just got to get some rest.

Now there's a letter to friends and listeners: I will be taking a much-needed and long overdue rest. The show will be suspended for a brief time ... As some readers and listeners know, these have been some trying times on a personal level which I believe did not belong in the public spotlight.

Despite he says he doesn't want the public spotlight, Webb's acting out has been a magnet for attention of not only such as us, but the MSM as well. His actions Thurs. have made this into a major beneath-the-fold page B1 story - a delicious little anomaly that's among the "most e-mailed" along with "Canadian held after biting border guard."

The accusation has been made: Mike Webb's "mental deterioration" is a delay tactic, according to prosecutor Nancy Balin. "Webb was aware," she said,"that the jurors were watching" during Webb's outside the courthouse apprehension and at least one witness said she heard Webb say: "This is going to end my trial."

(The blogosphere isn't buying it either. Merciful Nate, the blogger that had the altercation in the hallway being used as proof of Webb's mental incompetence waxes ineloquently here).

Webb definitely had a motive for trying once again to change the subject and delay. A juror told BlatherWatch: "He was cooked."

Jurors felt guilty. The trial they'd been immersed in for two weeks that cost the taxpayers $1000 a day was declared a mistrial because of jury taint and they were taking it personally, they blamed themselves.

But many of them felt that Mike Webb had dodged a bullet. 

Balin spoke with jurors after the trial to see where she could improve her case. "We told her bottomline- she did awesome," a juror told Blatherwatch. "It was thorough, it was plain, it was convincing to me," another said. "A female juror told us, "It was obvious to me that he did it."

They agreed that if they'd polled the jury before lunch, they might very well have convicted him in a single vote.

His behavior on the stand- speaking loudly out of turn, and out of order, did him harm according to the jurors. The prosecution's cross examination and closing arguments seemed to overwhelm his legal prospects.

If you've been following Webb over the years as we have, you know his persona is always that of the embattled victim. He can be relied upon to interpret his troubles as the results of homophobia, George W. Bush, his celebrity as a "liberal with a capital 'L.'" He makes up stuff consistently to answer criticism, rationalize his indulgences, and explain his failures. His many, many bragging obfuscations have been chronicled ad nauseum in these pages.

It might be easier to empathize with Mike Webb if he hadn't always shown such vindictiveness. He tried to get former colleagues at KIRO fired. He threatened co-workers and others with law suits and criminal charges, and he once altered a tape of Lou Pate's voice for an opening montage that made it sound like Pate said, "I don't like black people." He went to publishers and editors of Seattle Magazine, and the Seattle Weekly in 2003 urging them to never publish our freelance work again. 

He's had troubles in his life. His long-time lover died of AIDS a few years ago, his dog died last year. His company, Mike Webb Media is all but moribund.

Webb got paid plenty as a major market personality for 10 years, yet in court he was revealed as broke, and desperate for cash at the time of the accident. His Lexus was undriveable and the repair bill was nearly $6000. There were 16 overdraft charges on his checking account which was nearly $400 overdrawn. Balin seemed to know more about Webb's finances than he did, what with all the "I don't recalls," and "I don't knows."

Webb filed for bankruptcy a month later.

It was an unusual scene Thurs. morning in courtroom 733E. One juror at a time was sat down in an otherwise empty jury box, and questioned by Judge Spector.

Mike Webb sat at the defense table next to his attorney; unresponsive, head slumped down on the desk in his folded arms. 

The judge asked what each juror saw or heard on Cherry Street at lunchtime the day before. Could they compartmentalize it and make a fair and unbiased judgment? They all said yes they could. Only two of six called actually saw the defendant being handcuffed and taken into custody, the rest had only heard about it.

Some thought it was a jay-walking incident gone very wrong.

One said she thought it was related to his bizarre and angry manner on the stand- a reaction to the stress of the day.

Seattle Times reporter Natalie Singer describes what happened in the street according to police reports:

According to a Seattle Police Department report, police found Webb acting "irrational and irate" on James Street and Second Avenue after testimony in his trial concluded just before 1 p.m. Wednesday. A woman [we now know to be Marian Bagni, Webb's sister] told police that Webb had threatened to kill himself if found guilty and that he had access to a gun in his house, the report stated.

When an officer contacted Webb on the street and asked if he would allow police to retrieve the gun from his home, Webb said no, according to the report.

Webb was not arrested, but he was handcuffed and taken to Harborview Medical Center for a mental-health evaluation, according to Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel.

In the end, Spector said she felt she couldn't erase or minimize the potential impact of jurors seeing a defendant in handcuffs. "The taint is too great," she said, and granted the mistrial.

But things before the noontime recess and incident had not gone well for Webb.

In her closing arguments, Balin asked the jury if it was believable that someone would carry an out-of-date Nat'l Merit proof of insurance card in his wallet for four years and give it to an officer at an accident, even though he says he had freshly-purchased Geico proof in his glove box?

Webb said it was "habitual," for him to pull that card out of his wallet- and blamed Geico for not issuing their proof of insurance in card form. However, Webb wrote Seattle Weekly reporter Geov Parrish in March: "It IS my nature to have been irresponsible as I was with National Merit, but that was a number of months, not years. I actually thought there was auto deduction. I didn’t check my statements correctly. I just have been really bad with money. And honestly, they paid me well. I have no excuse for that. But it doesn’t make me a criminal. Just …maybe a 'typical American'.”

He claimed his car insurance had been paid by a now-defunct dot-com he'd worked for called Stellar Networks- no relation, presumably, to the mysterious "Progressive Networks" that supposedly distributes his show to "25 radio stations," and similarly invisible to Googly eyes.

Balin pounded on the fact that he'd attempted to be secretive when being open and cooperative with the investigation would have been in his own self-interest- if he were innocent. The whole thing would have gone away if he'd let the investigator look at the Geico e-mails and documents on his own computer screen, or let him see untouched copies of his bank account.

Mike refused.

The prosecutor said the paper work he gave to the investigation was not even a good job of forgery- fonts were different, colors were wrong, type wasn't lined up straight- the running balance on the funny-looking bank statement didn't add up until the real Geico payment was posted- errata you wouldn't expect to find on untainted computer-generated documents. What they all had in common: they'd been in Mike Webb's hands before the investigation received them, they looked funny and didn't add up.

Webb's only defense of himself was that he said he thought Geico was pursuing the claim under the uninsured driver's policy and that he never told Geico to submit a claim against his policy. This was a new argument and one that didn't last long under Balin's withering arguments. "This is a big, fat, red herring," she said.

In the end, the avalanche of evidence amounted to The World vs. Mike Webb, and perhaps even Mike Webb finally grokked the reality and sheer volume of the evidence against him.

The evidence is still there, waiting for Mike. When all the legal delays are run out, and his obstructions removed, justice awaits him.

Meanwhile everyone must go through it all over again. Again it's all about Mike Webb.
~
Welcome Geico Company readers! There are quite a bunch of you coming to read here these days. Drop us a line- we'll give you some great dining recommendations for when you come back to Seattle- apparently we'll be seeing you sooner than later...

Comments

[shaniqua]

"Balin spoke with jurors after the trial to see where she could improve her case. "We told her bottomline- she did awesome," a juror told Blatherwatch." Awesome? A meteor shower is awesome. A prosecutor doing his or her job is "great," but not "awesome." If you don't want to be viewed as stoned/stupid/teenager, then don't overuse the word "awesome."

[Mike Barer]

It was such a sad deal for a man with such talent.

[sparky]

Awesome post, shaniqua

[Tommy008]

my remake of Sorcerer, the great film of the seventies by Friedkin director of The Exorcist- remember that old film about the four losers (a Palestinian terrorist bomber, a French embezzler, an American criminal who robbed a Catholic Church with his gang, and a Mexican hitman) who end up in that miserable South American hellhole? In my remake, Mike Webb flees before the retrial, and the owner of the Seattle pawnshop busted for being the alleged kingpin of the 12 year long theft ring using crackheads and derelicts to steal from stores to order,jumps bail and flees. Duane Dog Chapman and his son Leland run before their extradition back to Mexico (they were arrested today by U.S. Marshalls on Mexican warrants) , and by coincidence all three of them end up in the same torrid, sweltering stinkpot village in Uruguay.......

[Tommy008]

sorry, all four of them.

[Steve]

Maybe Mike could forge a newspaper headline that says "Bush says Webb guilty" and shove it in the next jury's face. That didn't help Charlie Manson but in our oh so careful and politically correct age who knows.

[joanie]

I don't get that. Sorry Steve.

[sclub]

What DID Webb spend all that $$$ on?

[joanie]

I was wondering that, too. Good thing he's got some family.

[Steve]

Joanie, watch the movie Helter Skelter and you'll get it. Or just google Charles Manson.

[sparky]

I read that book a long time ago..guess I will have to go back and look because I forgot that part...

[joanie]

Sorry, Steve. The last book I read about true crimes was In Cold Blood and that ripped me apart so that I would never read another.

I just don't have the mettle for that kind of thing.

[joanie]

I really don't watch those movies either . . .

[tarzan]

To me it was always obvious there was something very wrong with mike. Now he is threatening suicide and his own sister is notifying the Cops that he has a weapon at home. Where do you go from here ? whats the next headline ? .. "hallucinatory leftist mike webb scales white house wall ..... Someone needs to take some action here - it's about time mike really does go to a doctor bob