By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator
Earlier today HA reported that Bill Gothard and the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP) filed motions with the Circuit Court of DuPage County, Illinois. Those motions aim to disqualify David C. Gibbs III and the Gibbs Law Firm from representing the eighteen plaintiffs in Gretchen Wilkinson vs. Institute in Basic Life Principles, the court case in which eighteen former employees and students are suing Gothard and IBLP for sexual harassment and assault and mishandling those crimes.
Gibbs issued a statement today to HA in response to these motions. Concerning Gothard’s allegations that Gibbs misled him regarding his role in the lawsuit, Gibbs claims that, “Gothard was fully aware that I was the attorney for Lourdes Torres against Gothard’s protégé, Douglas Phillips, and Gothard was mentioned by name in that Texas lawsuit in April 2014.” Gibbs cites directly from the Torres v. Phillips lawsuit, in which he wrote, “Others who espoused this teaching [patriarchy], such as Bill Gothard or Jack Schaap, have stepped down or are incarcerated for crimes against children.”
Gibbs states that that Gothard and IBLP’s motions “will be fully opposed in court and are full of misstatements and lies.” While Gibbs says he is “guilty of aggressively representing my clients,” he denounces these latest actions as “a desperate attempt to attack the law firm that is publicly and legally holding [Gothard] accountable for years of child abuse.”
Relevant materials can be viewed below:
• Full text of David C. Gibbs III’s statement against the motions
• Bill Gothard’s Motion to Disqualify and Sanction
• IBLP’s Motion to Disqualify and Sanction
• Exhibit A: Bill Gothard’s Affidavit
• Exhibit B: Roger Blair’s Affidavit
• IBLP’s press release on February 18, 2016: “Motion to Disqualify Attorney David Gibbs III”
• Second Amended Complaint in Gretchen Wilkinson vs. Institute in Basic Life Principles
Homeschoolers Anonymous 
OK, so the obvious question is how did he (or someone else) get Gothard to fill out that first affidavit which shows Gothard criticizing the board and admitting he’s been trying to contact all the complainants? Gothard’s own lawyer didn’t have him fill that out, right?
It seems like Gibbs III’s aggressive representation of his clients might have included tricking Gothard into believing he was secretly helping Gothard and getting him to write that affidavit. It would take a giant-sized ego like Gothards to believe that Gibbs would be helping him, but I would believe it. If Gibbs got Gothard to write it by tricking him, then like I said in a comment on a related thread, Gothard was unethical for taking what he thought was secret help. It is no less ironic that it bit him in the butt and now he’s crying foul. By calling out Gibbs, he’s exposing his own sneakiness. Gibbs was working for his clients, what is Gothard’s excuse?
LikeLike
“It would take a giant-sized ego like Gothards to believe that Gibbs would be helping him, but I would believe it.”
Just to clarify, I mean that I would believe that Gothard’s own giant-sized ego would allow him to think Gibbs III was helping him. He should have known better because it would have been unethical for Gibbs III to offer and for Gothard to take him up on it.
LikeLike
Ask others whose ego was so giant-sized that they believed their own PR spin, from Nebuchadnezzar (as portrayed in the Book of Daniel) to Gaius Caligula to L Ron Hubbard to Baba Saddam.
LikeLike
Gothard is guilty, whether he signed that affidavit under false pretenses or not. All Gothards’ attorneys are trying to do now is to have the affidavit NOT be used as evidence against Gothard. No matter how you look at it, Gothard is guilty. The plaintiffs will win their cases, with or without that affidavit. The testimony of the Plaintiffs will prevail.
LikeLike
There are rules of conduct that must be followed to assure a fair trial. If Gibbs violated those rules he might have thrown the entire case. Gothard is guilty, I have no doubt but Gibbs has a questionable history when it comes to ethics that might have endangered these plaintiffs chance to find justice.
LikeLike
I still have hope for the plaintiffs but I don’t trust Gibbs at all.
LikeLike
I don’t trust David Gibbs III’s personal ethics one bit, so when he’s accused of trickery, I find myself unable to completely disbelieve the accusation. Then again, he’s never tripped himself up procedurally. He was a bully towards rape victim Tina Anderson, even when she wasn’t on the stand, but he stayed just on the side of not doing anything to invalidate himself as a lawyer. He’s a horrible human being but a good lawyer. My guess is that Gothard’s team is grasping at straws. I hope that’s all that is happening.
LikeLike
“he’s never tripped himself up procedurally.”
This is not accurate. Check out http://www.witnessesuntome.com/
David C. Gibbs III represented Ergun Caner against some bloggers critical of Mr. Caner. It was a disaster substantively and procedurally. Caner wound up paying $59,183.39 for the opposing side’s legal fees.
This made a lot of headlines.
LikeLike