Prosecutor Describes Oxx’s Alleged Jury Tampering to Judge

Isobel Oxx, who stirred controversy when she turned her Westlake Village home into a facility for the terminally ill, passed leaflets advocating jury nullification to panelists hearing the M. Elizabeth Broderick bogus check trial last year, a prosecutor said Monday.

At a pretrial hearing Monday on jury tampering charges against Oxx, Assistant U.S. Atty. Brent Whittlesey produced two fliers that the Westlake Village woman allegedly tried to hand jurors in an elevator during Broderick’s trial.

The jurors declined to take the pamphlets and ultimately went on to find Broderick guilty of passing millions of dollars worth of phony checks.

Oxx, who in 1995 turned her lakeside home into a congregate care facility for the terminally ill, has made no secret of her support of Broderick, an avowed sympathizer of anti-government groups.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge William D. Keller set Oxx’s trial for July 1.

In examining the leaflets, Keller described one of the fliers as “a document that basically seeks to inform the jury that they have the right to nullify.”

Nullification is a term used to describe juries who render not-guilty verdicts in spite of overwhelming evidence, often to make a political statement.

The other leaflet features a headline that says, “Freemen Acquitted!! What! Are you kidding!,” he said. Keller called the single, yellow page an “infomercial” for the Montana “freemen,” a militia that eschews modern-day currency and the nation’s banking system.

Whittlesey said the jurors who turned down the fliers will testify against Oxx, as will an FBI agent who happened to be in the elevator at the time of the incident.

As in previous hearings, Oxx represented herself. Several times, Keller urged her to hire an attorney, saying that most defendants who represent themselves are convicted.

Oxx declined. She also refused to be fingerprinted.

“I believe my fingerprints are my personal property and I’m not going to give them,” she told the judge.

She gave in only after Keller explained that she could be arrested if she did not comply.

The jury tampering allegations are the latest of Oxx’s legal problems. In addition to the federal charge that could result in a six-month sentence, Oxx’s lender foreclosed on her Leeward Circle house last September and has been trying to evict her ever since.

Although the mortgage holder, Texas Commerce Bank, has won a suit to gain possession of the house, the eviction was put on hold when Oxx filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 13 last month.

In addition, Oxx has sued the bank for making a fraudulent loan, based on the fact that no actual money exchanged hands.