Waterloo - A St. Clair County judge ruled today that more than 400 pages of documents from the Joyce Meyer Ministries compiled in response to a wrongful death lawsuit against former Meyer bodyguard Christopher Coleman must be released without any promise of confidentiality.
Enrico Mirabelli and Jack Carey, lawyers for Sheri Coleman's mother and brother, agreed to allow attorney Michael J. King, of Tulsa, who represents the ministries, 72 hours before the documents are turned over to Carey and Mirabelli. During that time, the documents, which pertain to Christopher Coleman's employment as chief body guard for Meyer, will remain under seal in the Monroe County clerk's office.
The documents should be released to Carey at 2 p.m. Thursday.
King, Dennis Field, another ministry lawyer and Mike Bauer, risk manager for the ministries, met Mirabelli and Carey at Field's office Monday morning to go through the documents. Mirabelli and Carey were not allowed to photocopy or take any notes from the ministries' documents. Both men declined to discuss the details of the papers, but both men said, "we were perked," about the contents.
Gleeson's order forced Joyce Meyer Ministries to provide documents including Christopher Coleman's work timetable, salary, benefits, life insurance information, ministry's employee handbook and airline tickets and schedules on commercial flights and private airline passenger lists from Joyce Meyer Ministries for travel in connection to Christopher Coleman's former job there as a security guard.
"There is evidence Chris Coleman was meeting his girlfriend, Tara Lintz, while flying on a Meyer Ministries jet," Carey said.
He also mentioned negligent retention where "if an employer knows that an employee is violating your policies, and you keep them employed, there is culpability."
When asked whether Joyce Meyer knew of Christopher Coleman's affair or of Lintz, King responded, "absolutely not."
Christopher Coleman, 32, faces three counts of first-degree murder in the ligature strangulations of his 31-year-old wife, Sheri, and sons, Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9. The three were found strangled May 5 in their beds in their Columbia home. Coleman is in the Monroe County Jail in Waterloo without bail.
When the hearing began, King asked Associate Judge Andrew Gleeson to clear the courtroom of the public and the press.
Gleeson refused and said, "court hearings are presumptively open to the public."
King then asked Gleeson to issue a protective order, barring release of some documents because they are "confidential."
"We ask for a protective order to protect the confidentiality of my client," King said.
Gleeson asked King why the documents should not be turned over.
"Why should I give you a protective order to you that I wouldn't give any other defendant before me?" Gleeson asked King.
King responded that civil law did not afford plaintiff's lawyer the right to go on fishing expeditions through a third-party's records willy-nilly.
Carey and Mirabelli argued that the records are not priviledged and should be turned over to the plaintiffs' lawyers without restriction.
Mirabelli and Carey said they will not have a "wholesale distribution" of the documents to the press.
After Gleeson issued his ruling, Field asked for leave to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. Gleeson denied the request.
