Beyda Mixes Up Dates in Holden Case

The former receptionist suing Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden for sexual harassment has confused the dates and details of events connected with her most serious allegations in various instances of sworn testimony, a defense lawyer showed during cross-examination Monday.

In her September deposition and her statements on the witness stand last week, plaintiff Marlee M. Beyda gave virtually identical narratives describing how her former boss lured her into the bedroom of his Marina del Rey apartment and tried to force her to perform sex acts.

But in September, Beyda said the incident occurred during a visit at the end of June, 1991, in which Holden cooked her a fish dinner. While on the stand, she said it happened in late May, on the same night that Holden allegedly gave her $150 to buy a nice dress.

Holden’s attorney, Skip Miller, also caught the 31-year-old former waitress and art student in several discrepancies concerning the eight after-hours visits she says she made to the 66-year-old lawmaker’s apartment during the course of about a year.

“Are you sure? Or did it occur at some other time?” Miller demanded, after he quizzed her about each of several incidents. “Or did it not occur at all?”

Beyda said the events of several visits to Holden’s apartment are muddled in her mind, in part because she has tried to block them out.

“It absolutely happened,” she insisted several times. “I never want to remember what happened sexually. I have no choice today but to recall them as best I can. I don’t want to remember those days. I wish they never happened.”

Outside court, one of Beyda’s lawyers, Jack O’Donnell, denounced Miller’s tactic as a “shell game” of trying to confuse the witness with numbers and dates.

The discrepancies came as Beyda spent her third consecutive day on the stand in the non-jury trial. During a cross-examination that Miller described as “grinding,” Beyda often hesitated for several moments before responding to seemingly benign questions.

As Miller peppered her with a series of specific queries concerning the dates and times of conversations and events, Beyda repeatedly testified in a more general way about feeling pressured by the councilman to visit his apartment and about returning there in an effort to reform him from a sexual predator to a friendly mentor.

But even as Miller tried to poke holes in her story, Beyda appeared to grow stronger, speaking in a louder voice and once telling the lawyer to back away from the witness stand.