Christner Foundation

The Trial - Hoosier Style Christner Foundation

Sean O'Brien, author of THE TRIAL, is the pseudonym of an Irish Lawyer whose international clientele is predominately from the United States. "Since a wee lad, I've been mesmerized by the Americans - their ingenuity, drive, achievements. THE TRIAL has been written as a clarion wake-up call to these people who I've admired, respected, for so long. Somewhere, somehow, they've lost their way." THE TRIAL, although fictional, is based upon a true case from the author's files. As he sees it, it is a microcosm of today's American society and its troubled legal brotherhood. THE TRIAL opens in Elkhart County's regional Courthouse in Goshen, Indiana. Its eight-day proceedings are carried forward by Elsie Sherman, a local country woman, intimately associated with its participants. Ann Michael de Moretti, the defendant, was her tomboy friend who became a European aristocrat; Walter Wagner, the feisty defense lawyer was the third member of their childhood trio, the little Amish boy who grew up to be a legal legend. With a backdrop of greed and corruption THE TRIAL commences. The area was agricultural and greatly peopled by "plain folk" sects until the 1950's. Then with cataclysmic consequences Elkhart County became the world's industrial center for mobile homes-vehicles and one of the wealthiest regions in the United States. Ann Michael, the only surviving heir of a well-known, affluent local family has been defrauded of her heritage by her three nephews, the Askin Brothers (one, a lawyer). Battling through a morass of incredible evilness, Machiavellian manipulation and malfeasance the defense lawyer abruptly changes his course. He calls for an adjournment seeking a series of surprise requests from the Judge. Shocking as are the revelations found within THE TRIAL should the reader be aroused to question, then the author will have achieved his aim.