By Linda Loyd, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
In the largest-ever jury verdict in Philadelphia, a civil jury yesterday ordered fugitive Ira Einhorn to pay $907 million to the family of Helen "Holly" Maddux, the girlfriend he murdered 22 years ago.
The $155 million in compensatory damages and $752 million in punitive damages means that Einhorn will be assessed if he or his wife capitalize on their notoriety through books, television or films about their lives or Maddux's murder.
As the verdict was read, the Maddux siblings gasped.
"It's an incredulous amount," said one sister, Meg Wakeman, 43, a nurse from Seattle. "The purpose is to show Ira he can't get away with this, and to shut off his avenues of profiting."
Buffy Maddux Hall, 49, a horse breeder from Everman, Texas, hugged jurors and shook their hands. "This verdict will be a shot heard around the world," she said. "This sends a resounding and very loud message to Ira from decent people who heard about the case. It's a psychological blow to Ira. I hope it hurts."
"I doubt we'll see any of it, but that's not the point," said Holly Maddux's brother, John, 51, a hay farmer from Tyler, Texas. "The major advantage of this verdict is that he won't be able to publish his own book of lies to make money from a murder he committed 22 years ago."
A flamboyant guru of Philadelphia's 1970s counterculture, Einhorn jumped bail in 1981 - eventually ending up in France - rather than face trial in connection with Maddux's murder. He was convicted in absentia in 1993 of murdering his girlfriend and stuffing her body into a steamer trunk that he kept in his Powelton Village apartment.
The eight jurors, including two alternates, who heard the wrongful-death civil suit against Einhorn were in tears as they left the City Hall courtroom.
The jury reached a unanimous verdict after deliberating less than two hours.
Several jurors later said they felt very emotional about the evidence presented.
"We just wanted to send a message to deter this kind of thing from happening to any other family," said jury foreman Donald Wilent. "I can't judge Mr. Einhorn because I don't know him personally. But a real man answers for what he does wrong."
Einhorn was absent from the trial, and he was not represented by a lawyerCriminal-defense lawyer Norris E. Gelman, who defended Einhorn during his 1993 murder trial, said the $907 million verdict was excessive - "more than the gross national product of many countries."
"This was another 'in absentia' trial, and such trials rarely result in just verdicts," Gelman said. "Even if he were to get a job and make $50,000 a year, he would pay this off in 18,000 years. You figure the math out."
Lawyer James E. Beasley, who filed the civil suit on behalf of the Maddux family, had exhorted the jury to return a verdict "so substantial that it has meaning and gets attention around the world. You are going to announce to the world what you think of Ira Einhorn."
"He has mocked American justice. He took my requests for admissions and this complaint and he laughed, and he and his wife enjoyed a glass of wine," Beasley said. "You can feel Holly Maddux in this courtroom. She is no longer silent. She has had an opportunity to let you look at her life and the horror of her death."
Juror Jim Kolokithias said that the panel "figured this was an appropriate amount. The family has suffered quite a lot. This was a way to show Mr. Einhorn that he could not profit from selling his story."
Under Pennsylvania law, Common Pleas Court Judge Sandra Mazer Moss could reduce the award if she found it to be excessive.
Einhorn, 59, who yesterday was at his home in Champagne-Mouton, France, told a syndicated radio show in Washington: "I'm not really interested in making money out of somebody else's misery.
"I have four novels which will eventually be published. They will be enough to keep me going," Einhorn told Radio America. "My wife is going to do a book. She has an absolute right to do a book. But they'll probably try to prevent that."
Einhorn told the interviewer that he would continue to fight extradition to the United States.
He vowed to remain in France and not to return to a "witch-hunt that's been going on for 20 years against me."
"I would like to write a book. That would be very difficult to do because of the civil suit," he told the interviewer. "I have no desire to profit from the situation. I'm prepared to fight this the rest of my life. I'm innocent of the crime as charged. I will declare that until my dying breath."
Einhorn said that if he published outside of France, he would do so in the United States, but accept no payment.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Court President Judge Alex Bonavitacola confirmed that the verdict was the largest-ever in the city.
"I recall $10 [million] and $12 million verdicts, but nothing that would come even close to this," Bonavitacola said. "It's some measure of redemption for Holly Maddux. The jury recognized his culpability and were upset. That's why the punitive damages were so high."
Beasley said the jury judgment would be transferred into "garnishment" papers if he learned that Einhorn or his wife, Annika Flodin, had a publishing, film or television contract.
Under international finance law, Beasley said, civil judgments, such as the verdict yesterday, go to the country in which the source of the money - such as a book publisher, movie company or bank - is located.
A court in that country orders the source to "attach" any monies due Einhorn or his wife and send the money instead to the Maddux family.
International finance lawyer Peter J. Tucci, when asked the likelihood of recovering millions if Einhorn remained abroad, said that Pennsylvania law governing foreign-money judgments made it easier to get a foreign court "to recognize and enforce a U.S. civil judgment."
Tucci, cochairman of the Philadelphia Bar Association's International Law Committee, said a French court decision on extraditing Einhorn would be "totally separate" from whether a court would attach his assets. "They could decide not to extradite him but that he does owe $907 million to Holly Maddux's family."
"The reality is, if he writes a book, the major sales will be in the United States," Tucci said. "It's easier to get the assets when they are on U.S. shores."
Buffy Maddux Hall, asked yesterday whether she expected to see any of the money, answered: "No. That really has never been the point.
"If we ever did [receive any of the judgment], that would be icing on the cake," she said, "to be able to turn around and benefit domestic-violence agencies and charitable organizations that Holly loved. That would be wonderful to be able to do in her name. I don't expect it."
