-4-
Before an adverse inference may be drawn from a party's refusal to
testify in a civil case, there must be independent corroborative
evidence to support the negative inference beyond the invocation
of the privilege. See Baxter [Baxter v. Palmigiano, 425 U.S. 308
(1976)], 425 U.S. at 318, 96 S.Ct. at 1558. (“the Fifth Amendment
does not forbid adverse inferences against parties . . . when they
refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against
them”); “[L]iability should not be imposed based solely upon the
adverse inference.” United States v. Private Sanitation Industry
Ass'n, 899 F.Supp. 974, 982 (E.D.N.Y.1994), aff'd 47 F.3d 1158 (2d
Cir.), cert. denied sub. nom., Ferrante v. United States, 516 U.S. 806,
116 S.Ct. 50, 133 L.Ed.2d 15 (1995).
Accordingly, even had the proceedings below not been to vindicate the Court’s
authority with “$50,000.00” being the pre-declared punishment necessary to ‘get the
attention’ of the alleged offenders and to prevent the violation of future orders, negative
inference does not support the Bankruptcy Court’s findings because there is no independent
corroborative evidence of the underlying findings. For example, there is no
corroborative
evidence that the undersigned had knowledge of the content of the orders alleged to have
been contemptuously violated. Rather, the testimony uniformly established that the
undersigned was not provided a copy of the orders before taking allegedly contemptuous
action. The Bankruptcy Court erred in failing to use the clear and convincing standard in
reaching its findings, and there is no clear and convincing evidence of record to support even
civil contempt. See Petroleos Mexicanos v. Crawford Enterprises, Inc., 826 F.2d 392, 401
(5th Cir.1987).
Notably, the Appellee has routinely offered completely fictitious claims directed
personally against opposing counsel as the basis for the Appellee’s arguments, as discussed
below. The Appellee has used this technique in the Fifth Circuit, and for example, argued
the undersigned fabricated a forged bill of sale to substantiate the transfer of domains from
Ondova to Novo Point, LLC. It was then shown that the Appellee previously acknowledged
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