That may change soon. In August, U.S. Magistrate William Turnoff ordered McGreal to produce everything Block has requested. And last month a new court order further damaged her defense. McGreal's attorneys have filed motions asking for a reconsideration, and specifically mentioned Block's suspected efforts to gather wide-ranging information that might pertain to the U.S. Attorney's criminal investigation.
McGreal is indignant. "What's happening here is our little hero sues me but he doesn't have to turn over anything that I need to defend myself in court," she complains. "Then I'm supposed to open all my files so he can just have a good time with them? There's something wrong with that, especially when this is just part of the effort to silence the people who are trying to protect these animals. You know, document production goes with the turf, so if you don't want your documents to be public, you don't file a lawsuit. It's as simple as that."
McGreal may see the simplicity in theory, and she may eventually prevail in her courtroom efforts to force Block's cooperation in producing material. But because of the burglary, she may be frustrated yet again. No one knows what documents were stolen from Worldwide Primates' files. Block himself says he probably won't know until an employee needs a record for some reason and finds it missing.
Det. Jorge Carreno gets a headache just thinking about that sort of inconclusive limbo. As a cop with a specialty in burglary, he needs solid answers to do his job. "I don't know much about it, but maybe the animal-rights people needed something from inside there to help out their case in court," he ventures. That might explain the video cassette wrapper and the film canisters, he says, left there after photographs and video of the inside of the facility were taken. But then he rejects the theory as too obvious. "It points too much to the animal-rights people," Carreno says. "It makes them look too much like the bad guy. Maybe during the trial they'll show up with film or something and it will prove they were in there. But somehow I doubt it, because then I could prove they were in there illegally."
Part Four
McGreal vehemently denies that any of her allies were involved in a break-in of Block's headquarters, and notes that there was nothing in her letters to the Louisiana lab (source of the lawsuit against her) that needed proof from inside Block's office. Documentation for her statements was provided along with the letter.
"The whole thing just doesn't make sense," Carreno says in exasperation. "It does seem `convenient' during this lawsuit that this would happen. This burglary is extremely, extremely weird.
