Cussler/Anschutz Trial Draws to Close

By Carmen 

And the LA Times’ Glenn Bunting has been there almost every step of the way, cataloging the accusations, arguments and vitriol – much of it out of the official public eye. During his closing arguments, Clive Cussler‘s lawyer Betram Fields drew sharply contrasting portraits of two entertainment titans who have spent millions waging a fierce legal battle over the film “Sahara.” Cussler, said Fields, took his lumps. “You really got to know him,” Fields told the jury of nine women and three men. “He sat here and he took it. Yes, he has a bad memory. Yes, sometimes he struggles for words. I think you will conclude he is not an evil man.” Unlike Philip Anschutz, who never attended the trial and failed to “take the heat of cross-examination.” “Mr. Anschutz has never been here. He never took the stand. [Yet] it is Mr. Anschutz that wants you to enrich him at Mr. Cussler’s expense.”

Anschutz’s lead attorney, Marvin Putnam, is scheduled to deliver his summation today in Los Angeles County Superior Court. “In Mr. Fields’ opening, he claimed Mr. Cussler is a man who means what he says and says what he means,” Putnam said. “Now, at the end of the trial, Mr. Fields had to admit that remotely wasn’t the case. He was left to beg the jury to not do any further damage to his client’s already tattered reputation.”