Man Vows to Fight Verdict

A San Diego County businessman is vowing to fight a jury’s verdict awarding $1.15 million to two of his daughters who alleged that for 18 years they had repressed memories of his sexual abuse.

John R. Phillips, 60, of Rancho Santa Fe, said Wednesday he believes his daughters have suffered psychological trauma, but contends they have been twisted by a therapist and greed into blaming him.

“I’m not a child molester. I never have been,” Phillips said, making some of his first public comments since the eight-week Orange County trial ended last month. “I have 11 children. I have wonderful, wonderful kids. It’s just so sad this has devastated our family.”

Phillips’ attorney, Gerald Blank, has said he will file a motion for a new trial, based largely on the judge’s denial of a request for a special hearing to consider the admissibility of expert testimony on recovered memory therapy, a controversial method that has resulted in conflicting outcomes in civil and criminal cases.

An attorney for LaDonna Wilson and her younger sister, who did not wish to be identified, disputed that Phillips had been unable to call an expert witness critical of recovered-memory techniques.

“I think it was a very, very clean case with no chance to be overturned,” said attorney R. Richard Farnell, a former prosecutor who represented the two daughters and in recent years has specialized in repressed memory cases.

Farnell said the case was built on memories both women experienced outside of therapy, disputing that the sisters were manipulated by any therapist or motivated by greed.

Wilson has said she and her sister, both of Lake Forest, sued Phillips for money to help them deal with the psychological trauma and to warn child molesters.

Last week, an Orange County Superior Court jury awarded $750,000 to Wilson and $400,000 to her sister, one of the largest jury verdicts of its kind in Southern California and the latest chapter in the widely watched dispute over the reliability of testimony from people who say they have recovered repressed memories.

The same jury on Monday awarded a token $1 in punitive damages to each sister. With interest and court costs, the verdict could end up totaling about $1.8 million, Farnell said.

Phillips, owner of a company that manages mobile home parks throughout California, is the stepfather of Wilson, 36, and the biological father of her sister, 31.

Jurors grappled for about three days before reaching the verdict, voting 10-2 in favor of Wilson and 9-3 in favor of her sister. The votes of at least nine jurors are needed to reach a verdict in civil cases.

Juror Bob Blough said he found conflicting testimony from both sides in the case, but that jurors felt bound to rule for the sisters if there was at least a 51% chance they had been abused. “There was a chance he did it, but it is not clear,” he said. “Based on the chance that he did, the [sisters] were given the ability to recover. That’s all the verdict means.”

Blough said he voted in favor of awarding damages to Wilson, but not to her sister. He said the defense could have helped its case by presenting its own expert on recovered-memory therapies.

The sisters alleged the sexual abuse began when they were about 5 years old and continued until one was 12 and the other was 18.

Wilson said her long-repressed memories started returning in the late 1980s when she began having anxiety attacks, one of which led to a hospital stay, her attorney said.

An expert for the sisters testified that young victims of abuse protect themselves by disassociating the incidents so they can continue with their lives.

Phillips, long divorced from the sisters’ mother and remarried with children, said he passed a lie detector test when the lawsuit was filed in 1990. He tried unsuccessfully to sue his ex-wife, and contended Wilson could have been abused before his marriage to her mother.

“This is worse than being accused of murder,” said Phillips, who was never charged with a crime in connection with the allegations.

A court date has not yet been set on the expected motion for new trial, although the case will return next month for other proceedings.