07/11 10:27
00:00:00 All right, I think we're ready to go.
00:00:02 All right, so we're back on record.
00:00:11 Mr. Martin has joined us.
00:00:13 Who's our next witness?
00:00:14 Madam Kirk is going to fetch the jury.
00:00:23 Seth kroenke v Treasure chest LLC
00:00:47 I like vests and suits because they keep your tie from getting everywhere.
00:00:51 And they're a little warmer in the winter.
00:00:54 Because I don't have to wear a shirt all the time.
00:00:57 Back in the 80s in Wall Street it was mandatory.
00:01:03 Three-piece suits.
00:01:06 Ever owned one?
00:01:21 When the jury comes in, we're all standing up.
00:01:29 Good call.
00:02:04 All right, welcome back everybody.
00:02:28 Please have a seat
00:02:36 All right, and ladies and gentlemen, you'll notice that we've got a witness already here on the stand this morning.
00:02:41 This is Mr. Brzezinski's next witness, Frank Martin, and let me explain to you, he's wearing a set of headphones, which we have provided for him because he's got a bit of hard of hearing, so that's why they're there, so that he can hear the questioning, and we can hear him when he testifies as well, so just so that you're aware.
00:03:00 Madam Clerk, if you'd give him an oath, if you'd stand up and raise your right hand, sir.
00:03:06 Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give in the matter now before this court will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
00:03:12 Yes, I do.
00:03:13 Okay.
00:03:13 Go ahead and take a seat, and please state and spell your first and last name for the record.
00:03:17 Frank, middle initial V, Martin.
00:03:20 And you can stay seated, sir.
00:03:22 Thank you.
00:03:22 Thank you.
00:03:23 All right.
00:03:26 Mr. Brzezinski, thank you.
00:03:28 Thank you, sir.
00:03:30 Frank, just as we talked about before, if you can't hear me, just raise your hand, cut me off, stop me.
00:03:38 Do not feel that you have to let me speak when you can't hear me.
00:03:43 Okay.
00:03:43 Okay?
00:03:45 And I'll check in with you periodically to make sure that this is working and you're not getting any feedback.
00:03:53 Frank, how are you employed?
00:03:54 I am a civil superintendent for RAS.
00:04:00 and Ross is remote Alaska solutions and that's a company owned by whom Seth Kroenke okay and what exactly is a civil superintendent sir I'm in charge of of the moving of the soils on projects building roads doing everything that putting in subdivisions putting in lots for houses whatever needs to be involved of moving soils and building roads
00:04:30 all this.
00:04:32 How long have you worked for Seth?
00:04:35 Just a little over 10 years.
00:04:38 Now I imagine you didn't start your career 10 years ago.
00:04:41 When did you start your career?
00:04:45 I started my career actually in construction in about 76.
00:04:50 I had to grow some truck before that then I got in doing some construction
00:04:56 with a company downstate actually with some people that I grew up grew up with he started his own business and I got working with them and they taught me a lot about that about construction so when did you get interested in heavy equipment operation at the same time because the gentleman I was working for he had heavy equipment and started his own construction business
00:05:24 And I got working for him, started all this labor and driving truck running equipment and continued on doing that and I was just always good at running equipment.
00:05:45 How many hours would you say you have running heavy equipment in the seat?
00:05:57 I wouldn't know how many millions of hours I have running equipment.
00:06:07 Most of the equipment you run, what kind of equipment do you mostly use?
00:06:12 Mostly I run, right now or for the last quite a few years, I've been running probably
00:06:19 So have you always worked in Alaska?
00:06:22 No.
00:06:22 When I was younger in the early 80s, construction had slowed down, and I decided to come to Alaska.
00:06:28 Some friends of mine had been up here, so I came to Alaska.
00:06:50 went to work for a guy up and doing some pipe work and drove truck a little bit ran a couple guys I've worked with they did gold mining on the side so they took me out and show me some different areas I went with them and I really enjoyed it it was very interesting and listen to a lot of older gentlemen's I've been miners for years and just listened and paid attention and
00:07:17 What they did and how they did it.
00:07:19 So have you always built subdivision roads or did you build other things in your past as well?
00:07:27 Whenever I did end up moving back to Michigan I did got work on doing some environmental work and then actually a company out of Richland Washington Bechtel's end up hiring me
00:07:45 to be their equipment operator specialist.
00:07:49 We did works around the U.S.
00:07:52 and they sent me to Australia for four years to oversee a project down there, some specialty stuff with equipment.
00:08:02 Government was very good to me.
00:08:04 They took me up to the east coast to Queensland, did a little gold mining up there.
00:08:09 Very interesting.
00:08:12 Went to Coober Pedy, found a lot of opals.
00:08:15 just a lot of other things and then after four years I came back to the US went to Los Alamos labs in New Mexico did a project there for them meantime I was trying to do a buyout because I didn't want to travel as much anymore because when I was in Australia friends of mine from Anchorage came to Australia to see me and anyway I always wanted to come back to Alaska so after I took a buyout
00:08:45 I stayed in Michigan until I got my daughter the rest of the way through school, got her into college, and then I moved back to Alaska in January of 2009.
00:08:56 And I love Alaska, and that's why I came back.
00:09:00 Now, you said you've had a chance to gold mine Australia and a few other places.
00:09:05 How much gold mining experience do you have, sir?
00:09:10 When I was here in the 80s, I'd done a lot of different mines around the state.
00:09:16 The guys took me to listen to these guys and now are being working construction.
00:09:22 I have learned how to read the soils where the soils are original or they've been excavated and backfilled again.
00:09:31 So I learned how to find different things.
00:09:35 And then when I was in Australia, I listened to these guys down there that show me things down there, their techniques, their soils.
00:09:43 And then coming back up here, I got some, I went and got me some claims and did some stuff on there, but I listened what other people had to say, do some reading, research on gold mining in Alaska, different
00:10:05 Other things that you see where you find gold around bought back memories of when I was a young kid my dad was a coal miner I seen gold around coal in the coal mines and this is something they show me same thing as here in Alaska you find coal usually you can find a little bit of gold with it Do you have your own gold mine?
00:10:28 I had some claims with another gentleman I got rid of a few claims because I
00:10:34 A few years after I've been up there doing all the sampling, my wife's a geologist, so we rented equipment, did a lot of sampling, logbook, figured whenever I had something to go do as recreational to, you know, find some gold.
00:10:49 And I had a few guys got into my trommel and was getting out gold and it made them a little upset because they'd been there mining, didn't find a whole lot.
00:10:58 Seth Kroenke v Treasure chest LLC
00:11:21 Now you said you were doing some sampling on your own property.
00:11:27 Why is sampling important?
00:11:29 Sampling is to find out not least a lot of time digging up and moving a lot of dirt that you don't need to do.
00:11:36 I can go through and do some sampling.
00:11:39 I can see the soils.
00:11:41 I read the soils very good.
00:11:42 I have my locator to tell me if there's, I can usually find if there's some gold in these areas.
00:11:49 And those are the places I go to.
00:11:51 I guess I just don't want to waste a lot of time and money going to a lot of other places doing stuff I didn't need to.
00:11:57 Okay.
00:11:59 So when you went out to the Dan Creek mine, what were you going to be doing out there?
00:12:06 Sampling.
00:12:08 Sampling what?
00:12:09 Sampling, looking for gold.
00:12:15 Can you tell us about how exactly, I know this is second nature to you, but tell us how it is that you go about sampling and what do you do?
00:12:24 What we do is we look through and find an area.
00:12:28 Then I had my machine that I could run some soils through.
00:12:32 I'd run five, 10 yards of soil through it.
00:12:37 I use very good miner's carpet in there to catch the gold because
00:12:43 Do you remember when you first arrived at Dan Creek?
00:13:14 Yes, we walked the site, we looked around and you can see the river does come up and down and in my mind it tells me Mother Nature has a way of always replenishing the soils, the riverbanks and everything.
00:13:32 You get all the rain and the water washes down, usually you get a lot of finer gold, you might not get real big stuff but you always find stuff.
00:13:39 Yes, it was very intriguing walking around through in that river bank.
00:13:45 So how did you feel when Seth asked you if you wanted to go out there and spend the summer testing?
00:13:51 Actually, I was excited about it.
00:13:53 It was just a good challenge.
00:13:55 I like a good challenge.
00:13:57 And that was a good challenge to go out there and see if there was anything.
00:14:02 So when you got out there, were you able to go testing?
00:14:07 I had to
00:14:09 Repair the excavator that was applied to us to use at the time and then we had to build some roads and move some dirt and I Ended up helping to refurbish.
00:14:19 You know another ditch line and stuff and No, it was was doing a lot of other repair work before and getting an area to get to it even do any testing Now you make the sound easy build a road fill a ditch build a dike Can you tell us what does it take to build a road up at a place like Dan Creek?
00:14:39 Well, it had to do with an excavator because I didn't have a dozer and stuff.
00:14:43 It takes a little bit longer with a bucket, but I was able to smooth out, make a road to where we could drive down through it, smooth some piles of souls, as I was directed to do.
00:14:54 And it just takes a little bit more time, but not, you know, but I did it.
00:15:00 When you said you were directed, whom directed you, sir?
00:15:03 Mr. Elliott did.
00:15:05 What did Seth ask you to do out there?
00:15:10 What did Seth ask you to do for him at the mine?
00:15:14 We was out there to do some sampling, and that's what we're supposed to be doing.
00:15:21 What did Mr. Elliott ask you to do at the mine?
00:15:26 Well, it was clean up, make the roads clean up, move some piles of dirt, put some rocks in some ditches, then backfill it and refurbish along the ditch on the stream.
00:15:38 Now, you are working, how many hours a week would you say you're working at the mine?
00:15:43 90 plus.
00:15:44 Okay.
00:15:45 And out of those 90 hours per week, how many weeks were you out there for?
00:15:49 I mean, what?
00:15:53 And during that time you were working 90-plus hours a week, is that right?
00:16:23 Yes.
00:16:24 Okay.
00:16:25 Since we're being recorded, I'll have to get you to say yes or no.
00:16:29 I understand what you mean, but we'll have to have a record.
00:16:33 So out of those weeks of long hours, what's the percentage of hours you devoted to testing versus doing things that Mr. Elliott asked you to do?
00:16:49 Your best estimate.
00:16:50 Probably 75% to 80%.
00:16:53 was in other things, not in our testing and mining.
00:16:58 Did, in order for you to do the testing that Seth asked you to do, did you have to build those roads?
00:17:07 Yes, I had to build the roads to get to some of the places.
00:17:10 Okay.
00:17:11 So, could you have, let me rephrase that.
00:17:15 So the roads and ditches that you filled, were they to Seth's benefit or to Mr. Elliott's benefit?
00:17:20 They were Mr. Elliott's.
00:17:21 They were all right from the river.
00:17:23 Could you have done the testing Seth needed without filling ditches, building dikes, building roads?
00:17:30 There were some other areas where we could have gotten some stuff untested.
00:17:33 Okay.
00:17:35 And why do you think Mr. Elliott had you build roads?
00:17:40 I'll rephrase that.
00:17:42 No problem.
00:17:48 Now, you did find a piece of land that you stripped and cleared, right?
00:17:53 Yes.
00:17:54 Okay.
00:17:54 And that's where you wanted to mine, is that correct?
00:17:58 Yes.
00:17:58 Okay.
00:17:59 And so tell me about this piece of land and what happened.
00:18:03 It was down at the end by the stream because I had to build a road down to it.
00:18:08 It was right by where he had all these rocks brought down.
00:18:12 We filled the ditch in.
00:18:13 I'd moved some other soils and cleaned an area and we did do some testing.
00:18:19 And then the deeper I got,
00:18:22 The bigger pieces of gold got.
00:18:25 So, we've heard testimony about the processing plant, Big Blue.
00:18:31 Did you get Big Blue out there?
00:18:34 We started testing with my tremolo first, and then we started digging deeper, and then we started taking stuff up to Big Blue once that was up and running.
00:18:43 And when you started taking things to Big Blue, what kind of results were you getting, sir?
00:18:52 Seth Kroenke v Treasure chest LLC
00:19:23 Some of it hadn't been washed in a little bit on the top, but I think the river had bought in finer gold on the top, because the deeper I got, the more, you know, the bigger the gold was, and there's more gold.
00:19:32 Okay.
00:19:34 And I don't know how big the area was, but other than could have kept moving soil and kept digging.
00:19:39 How long were you at that site for?
00:19:41 I think just about a week was always at that site.
00:19:46 And why did you leave that site, sir?
00:19:48 Because we wanted to take, we had, meantime, we had gotten our other
00:19:53 I think I might have had a
00:20:21 problem hearing you because you're very self-spoken who asked you to go build that road right Mr Elliott did okay so let me see if I understand this correctly you and Mr Turnbull were mining this piece of land yes and you did that before you said about a week about a week okay and then Mr Elliott asked you to do exactly what
00:20:44 to go up the canyon because he wanted to go up through the canyon, make a road up through there, and then maybe do some sampling up there.
00:20:54 Did you want to build a road up the canyon?
00:20:57 Not really.
00:20:58 I was doing good where we was at.
00:21:01 Let me turn your attention to an exhibit.
00:21:05 If I get you to look over your left shoulder, right on that screen, sir.
00:21:12 That looks like a rock slide.
00:21:14 Yep, and can you identify that area?
00:21:21 Yeah, that's Kevin walking up through there because it's where they can't get up through, drive up through their area because apparently there was, my understanding, Mr. Elliott, no one had been able to drive up that road for like 31 years.
00:21:33 And is that where you were building the road?
00:21:36 No.
00:21:37 I didn't hear you.
00:21:38 I'm sorry, we didn't hear you, Mr. Elliott.
00:21:39 Yes.
00:21:40 Okay.
00:21:44 How hard is it to build a road on a 45-degree slope?
00:21:49 Well, it's a lot of work.
00:21:50 You've just got to be very careful.
00:21:51 It can be a little bit dangerous, and everything you take off up here from nothing up there comes and falls on you, so you just have to take your time and move it and then go through it.
00:22:02 Well, you make it sound easy.
00:22:03 Is that something that a regular heavy equipment operator can do?
00:22:08 Not a lot of guys can do that.
00:22:10 I've seen a lot of operators in a lot of different states, and
00:22:14 To go do something like that is a challenge.
00:22:19 You have to be very careful.
00:22:21 And if something goes wrong, what happens?
00:22:24 You can get crushed.
00:22:28 How long did it take you to build the road up there?
00:22:33 I think because we ended up building the road all the way through because we moved several slides.
00:22:39 And then once we got it done, we did a couple areas and testing.
00:22:44 I think we were several weeks getting up through that part in there.
00:22:52 So aside from building this road, what other things did Mr. Elliott ask you to do for him?
00:22:59 We did some sampling on the way up through.
00:23:07 And then we made it all the way up through.
00:23:12 We did sampling because we talked about, I think we did end up sending one, maybe two loads of materials back to Blue and run through there.
00:23:25 Because we had the truck up there because the trucks could come up there.
00:23:28 So you said you built roads and what else did you build?
00:23:33 Pardon?
00:23:33 I'm sorry.
00:23:34 So you built this road, what other structures or projects did you build at the mine?
00:23:41 Well, we built the roads up through there.
00:23:44 We got up to what they call the hole in the wall.
00:23:47 And then that's where he wanted me to build a road over the top of it.
00:23:52 And I said, no, that's too dangerous.
00:23:53 That would be up to my boss because that would be very dangerous to do.
00:23:57 And I did not want to do that.
00:24:01 And there were some areas where I had taken a break to go see my wife.
00:24:06 And Randy had used the excavator, pulled some materials back around some bins.
00:24:11 And then when I came back, he had some other people down there up doing some mining on them.
00:24:17 Did you also build any dikes or anything to do with water flooding issues?
00:24:26 That was mainly with the rocks.
00:24:28 That was downstream where I filled all the ditches in that he had dug.
00:24:32 And we put all the rocks in to keep, divert the water so that it would stay off some of this area down there.
00:24:39 And so I did that and put some dikes up to help keep the water from coming in on the site.
00:24:45 How often did Mr. Elliott ask you to do something for him?
00:24:49 It was either about every night or every morning.
00:24:51 We just discussed what we was going to do, where we was going to go.
00:24:57 And you said that 70% or 80% of your hours were directed towards Mr. Elliott's projects, is that right?
00:25:05 Yes.
00:25:06 Okay.
00:25:06 I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
00:25:13 And during the whole time you were out there, who was paying you?
00:25:20 Remote elective solutions paying me.
00:25:22 Okay.
00:25:23 And who was paying for your flights back and forth?
00:25:27 Remote elective solutions.
00:25:29 And your food and expenses?
00:25:31 Pardon?
00:25:32 And your food and expenses?
00:25:34 Remote elective solutions.
00:25:42 If you were able to stay at that location where you and Travis were mining, how much gold do you think you would have recovered by end of the season?
00:25:55 If the machine, because after I changed and put the miner's carpets in it so it was capturing all the fine gold with it, I'd say we could have probably pulled six to nine ounces, maybe a little bit more a day.
00:26:13 And so completely, you know, that's what we bought could have pulled out there a day.
00:26:18 So till the end of the season, what total do you think you would have recovered?
00:26:21 I would say, you know, between five to 800.
00:26:25 I mean, just for what I was doing.
00:26:28 I really think it could have because with the carpets that I use for mining catches the gold.
00:26:37 And when you left that area,
00:26:43 Were you able to go back and keep mining that same spot?
00:26:46 No Who was mining that spot?
00:26:49 That got taken over I don't know if Mr. Elliott was doing the digging or someone was doing the digging and then it was going up to the other crew that was mining on site And you said that the deeper you went the bigger the nuggets were?
00:27:09 Yes
00:27:13 But we only got down so far.
00:27:15 We were unable to, we got stopped before we got way down into some of the nuggets that they were getting like in the other part that they had been digging in.
00:27:24 So the level that you were at was producing six, eight ounces plus a day, right?
00:27:31 We only did it for a few days and then we got stopped.
00:27:34 So if you went all the way down to where you wanted to be, what do you think that would have produced?
00:27:39 I feel that we could have probably pulled 10 to 14 ounces a day because using different carpets than what the other crew was using.
00:27:48 Okay.
00:27:48 So if you had full unrestricted access and you could do whatever it is that you wanted, by the end of that season, what do you think you would have pulled out of there?
00:27:57 I would have pulled out probably a thousand plus.
00:28:04 That's everything.
00:28:04 Thank you very much.
00:28:05 Thank you, Mr. Martin.
00:28:06 Thank you, Mr. Brzezinski.
00:28:07 Mr. Campion?
00:28:08 Thank you.
00:28:10 Good morning, Mr. Martin.
00:28:11 Good morning.
00:28:13 I talk too fast, and if I do, please let me know.
00:28:15 You're okay.
00:28:16 All right.
00:28:16 I'll get going, so just remind me.
00:28:24 Can you tell the jury what you think about Mr. Elliott's knowledge of gold mining at Dan Creek?
00:28:29 What?
00:28:29 I'm sorry.
00:28:31 Does Mr. Elliott, does Randy Elliott
00:28:33 know about gold mining at Dan Creek he knows about mining there was things with the the equipment that I didn't feel I thought he could have done much better with his gold using the big course for rugs or carpets to try to catch the gold a lot of it went right on by it they catch in big big pieces of gold but all the small stuff
00:29:04 was not being called.
00:29:06 Was there a time in the 2020 mining season that you tried to use the centrifuge?
00:29:14 Yes.
00:29:15 He wanted to set it up and use it to try it.
00:29:18 Did you think that was a good idea?
00:29:20 I'm sorry.
00:29:20 Please.
00:29:22 It was something that another gentleman or guy worked for us was working on, trying to get it up and working.
00:29:31 It had a lot of
00:29:33 bearing issues, a lot of stuff in it with the drum spinning.
00:29:37 Then it'd be set up because those have to be spinning at just the right setup to do it.
00:29:44 So it was very time consuming to try to get that machine up and working.
00:29:49 If that machine had worked right, what would that have accomplished?
00:29:53 It would have helped capture some of the small gold.
00:29:59 But that was only set up for
00:30:02 the plant that was running because the other plant that was being used, it would have been a lot of extra work to try to set that up on.
00:30:09 I want to make sure the jury understands what you're talking about.
00:30:13 So the centrifuge, was that going to be used in the big blue plant?
00:30:18 Yes.
00:30:20 Could the centrifuge have been used in your plant?
00:30:24 Not in my small plant, no.
00:30:26 Okay.
00:30:27 The jury has heard that- My small plant.
00:30:31 to do small sampling running small scale stuff.
00:30:34 It was not designed to run 100 yards an hour through.
00:30:40 The small plant that you just described, was that referred to as York Trommel?
00:30:45 Yes.
00:30:46 Was that something that you own?
00:30:48 Yes.
00:30:49 Did you sell it to Mr. Elliott during that season?
00:30:51 Yes.
00:30:52 Do you recall approximately when you sold it to him?
00:30:59 I think it was probably sometime in July, I think.
00:31:02 Why did you sell the trommel to Mr. Elliott?
00:31:05 Because actually I had used it and whenever it was stocked they wanted to bring it out and he would buy it from me if it did what he wanted to do because he wanted to, I think once he started seeing some of the small gold then he wanted it because it was good to sample with and find the small gold.
00:31:26 How much did Mr. Elliott pay you for your trommel?
00:31:29 After Mr. Elliott bought the trommel from you, did you continue to use it?
00:31:54 I did a couple small things with it and that was it.
00:31:57 Then after that he took over using it.
00:32:03 You told the jury that your purpose in being out at Dan Creek was to do sampling, is that right?
00:32:08 Sampling, yes.
00:32:12 You described how you found a good location and you're finding gold, right?
00:32:23 Was it your understanding that you were supposed to stay in that location and mine or continue to sample at other locations?
00:32:29 Well, somewhere in there, I don't remember the dates, but that's when another contract come up about doing mining, okay?
00:32:36 We was going to be able to mine.
00:32:38 Okay, so this would have been a perfect area to stay in and mine.
00:32:44 Do you recall when that was, Mr. Martin?
00:32:46 Do I know when it was?
00:32:48 In your mind, when the project changed in your mind from sampling to mining.
00:32:53 We did the sampling up and then went up the valley or, you know, built the other roads.
00:33:01 And then somewhere in between there is when the contract got changed about doing the mining.
00:33:07 And I don't remember the dates, sir, I don't.
00:33:11 How many days do you think you did sampling up the canyon or up the valley?
00:33:18 How many days do you think you did sampling?
00:33:24 I think only probably maybe four days about a sampling up the valley.
00:33:31 Did you find gold in those four days?
00:33:34 Yes.
00:33:41 Was it your understanding that Mr. Kroenke wanted to potentially purchase Dan Creek?
00:33:46 That's my understanding whenever they first went out there was if
00:33:51 Once doing the sampling and then we'd go on from there and they would go on from there potentially to buy the place.
00:34:02 Was it your understanding that the sampling that you were going to do and that you did would help support a potential purchase for Mr. Kroenke?
00:34:11 Yes, I mean that would be the question.
00:34:15 Yes, with some of the sampling and the mining would
00:34:20 would help go towards the purchase, or would not go towards the purchase, but that's where they can, Mr. Kroenke could decide if he wanted to buy it or not.
00:34:31 The areas where you sampled, could you have accessed those areas if you hadn't put in a road or repaired a road, as you described?
00:34:40 Without removing those slides, you could not get to them.
00:34:44 So in other words, you couldn't have done the sampling you did unless you moved the slides or built the road?
00:34:49 I said that too fast.
00:34:52 You couldn't sample those areas unless you built the road or fixed the slide?
00:34:56 Correct.
00:35:00 But those are areas from Mr. Elliott said that those are areas that he had mined whenever he was younger and worked for the crews that was there and he would like to get back in those areas again and check them out.
00:35:14 You described the whole project as sort of exciting and intriguing.
00:35:17 Is that right?
00:35:20 Yes, were you interested or intrigued by going up the canyon to see what kind of gold might be up there?
00:35:24 Yes, it was interesting.
00:35:26 Yes But that wasn't what I was there for and but yet I was trying to Beams is Mr. Elliott's property and I had to kind of abide by his rules.
00:35:41 This is what he wanted So I tried to work with him and keep the peace on the job site.
00:35:46 I
00:35:48 You mentioned building roads and the work that you did.
00:35:52 Whose excavator were you using to do that work?
00:35:55 When I was building the roads, it was our CAD excavator, a 336 excavator that was bought and delivered to site.
00:36:05 Approximately how many excavators do you think Mr. Elliott had on site in 2020?
00:36:09 I think there was probably three or four on site.
00:36:17 They had a mechanic on site or some other crew that did some work on the engines and certain things but most all the undercarriages on those machines was in very poor condition so you could not move around very much without tracks falling off or having some major issues so you had to be very very careful moving them and most of the time anything got moved very forward was done by Mr. Elliott himself.
00:36:45 The time period that you were down in that trench and you were finding gold, do you remember what time of the summer it was, approximately?
00:36:56 Probably sometime about mid-June.
00:36:59 Who was mining in that area during that time period?
00:37:04 They were mining in an area, I don't know, get my directions.
00:37:09 They were on the other side of it because they had all the dirt piled up.
00:37:12 and we was at the very end by the stream or by Dan Creek and Randy had been digging out on that end for the other crew to transport up and run who was with you during that time period mining uh was Travis and then his boy young his son was with him so it was the three of you that were working at that time period yes during that time period was the big blue plant operating
00:37:44 Whenever we started finding the whenever I went down did the sampling we had made an area for them to move the blue plant to so yes I sent some stuff up to try it so we're trying to run it to try to get it working to see if it was going to work and everything did it work during that time period did it work yes I was trying to I mean there was a few things we had to finish doing on the water spray just few adjustments but yes we was trying to use it
00:38:12 Could you tell the jury, if you believe it's important, how important that big blue plant would have been to being successful that season for you?
00:38:20 How, what?
00:38:21 Was it important for your success?
00:38:24 Or would it have been important?
00:38:27 Once we had changed the contract to go mining, to do mining, yes, that big blue plant would have been, would work for us.
00:38:36 Why?
00:38:37 Why?
00:38:38 Yes, sir.
00:38:38 Because of all the stuff that got changed, that Travis worked on it and fixed it.
00:38:45 There was a few things that could have been probably done a little bit faster, a little bit better, but there were certain things that Randy wanted done on it.
00:38:53 Being his machine, we had to try to fix the machine the way that he wanted it.
00:38:59 But yes, it could have been productive.
00:39:01 During the two or two and a half months that you were out at Dan Creek, can you estimate how many days that big blue plant actually worked?
00:39:13 Well, I don't know.
00:39:15 We only probably had a week or two of us being able to try to use it and then the other crew started using it.
00:39:23 But there was more issues with trying to get that trauma working or the centrifuge working.
00:39:30 So that was delayed our being able to really to run much production is trying to get that centrifuge working that he had.
00:39:39 Do you remember being pulled away from Dan Creek to go to Valdez that summer?
00:39:45 Yes, I had a project.
00:39:46 I had to go for a couple days.
00:39:48 How long do you think you were away from Dan Creek for that project?
00:39:51 I think I was gone three days.
00:39:53 Three days.
00:39:56 When you got back, do you recall a time when Travis Turnbull got sick?
00:40:02 Yes, I was there when Travis got sick.
00:40:05 What happened?
00:40:08 I didn't know it at the time but Travis apparently has always had issues with severe migraines and he went three days not being able to eat drink nothing and very getting very dehydrated uh couldn't get up couldn't do nothing and Michelle this airplane was down and I went down and talked to the other guy Ron down there and he said he would fly us into McCarthy
00:40:37 Travis's truck was there so I called and left a message at the office got a hold of them that I need to bring Travis out because this is not good so that's what I did I got Mr. Whittem to fly us to there then I drove Travis back to Anchorage to the doctor or you know back into a doctor when you left with Mr. Turnbull that time who was left from the RAS crew at that moment
00:41:06 When I took him out Travis's young son was there and Then he stayed with he did some stuff with the other mining crew that was there Travis's son is not an employee of RAS at that wasn't at the time was he I Don't know how they worked that out.
00:41:24 I really don't okay.
00:41:26 How much of the summer was mr. Turnbull's son out at all with you at the site How much how much of the summer was it just a couple days or was it longer I?
00:41:35 His son?
00:41:36 Yes, sir.
00:41:36 His son.
00:41:37 He was there most of the time.
00:41:38 Travis was there.
00:41:39 The last thing I want to ask you about is you're telling the jury about the dykes down where you were mining down the river.
00:41:54 Do you remember that?
00:42:00 What happened if you didn't move those rocks and if the water had actually flowed into the area where you're mining?
00:42:06 What would have been the impact?
00:42:09 We wouldn't be able to mine it because we didn't have a pump to pump the water out big enough because Mr. Elliott had a hard enough time with his own pumps pumping their water.
00:42:18 If the creek had to come over into it, yes, it would have flooded into it.
00:42:23 So the location where you built the dike, what I think you just said was
00:42:28 We couldn't mine unless we fixed that.
00:42:32 Once the dike did go in, it would have helped diverted the water to a certain point.
00:42:37 How long that would have been, I don't know.
00:42:39 It depends on how much rain comes upstream and comes in.
00:42:46 Do you remember the last day or the date of the last day you were out at Dan Creek?
00:42:51 I think the last day was whenever I bought Travis out.
00:42:55 Then he got better.
00:42:59 I had a couple day project to do environmental for MTA when the fire come through Willow and then Travis in the meantime had went back and then I think that's when they talked about you know coming out so I never went back after that and you said you did another project for MTA yes where was that project during the fire in Willow they had lost one of their transformer stations
00:43:29 I do environmental cleanups and I'm a contractor that is okay with them to do cleanups and it was a big building that had burnt down and I went and cleaned all the debris up so it could be hauled out of state.
00:43:45 Those are my questions for you Mr. Merton, thank you.
00:43:47 Mr. Campion, Mr. Brzezinski?
00:43:57 Frank, it was agreed that you would get a part of the gold you recovered, right?
00:44:03 Yes.
00:44:04 Do you remember what percentage you were going to get?
00:44:06 I think it was like 3%.
00:44:11 Did you want to voluntarily leave that area that you were mining?
00:44:14 The what?
00:44:16 The area that you were mining.
00:44:18 Did you voluntarily want to leave that area?
00:44:20 Voluntarily leave it?
00:44:21 Yeah.
00:44:24 Well, it was Mr. Elliott's land, so...
00:44:26 I had to do what he requested.
00:44:28 Did you want to go or did you want to stay?
00:44:30 Not really, but I did what I, you know, I think we would have done fine staying right there.
00:44:36 How did you feel about being moved off that area?
00:44:40 I wasn't pleased.
00:44:42 I mean, Travis and I talked about it and it was like, why not stay here?
00:44:47 And if you stayed there, you would have gotten some gold, right?
00:44:52 Yes.
00:44:55 There are some questions about a centrifuge.
00:44:56 Did you want to use the centrifuge?
00:45:00 No, not really.
00:45:01 Why?
00:45:02 Because I use miner's carpets, and they catch the fine gold.
00:45:07 The centrifuge is a lot of work.
00:45:10 You've got to have a lot of experience running those things, especially during your clean-out.
00:45:14 It has to be done at the right speed.
00:45:17 Everything has to be turned and done to keep the gold out.
00:45:19 Then when you clean it out so you don't accidentally wash the gold away.
00:45:23 And that's what happens a lot of times with the centrifuge.
00:45:26 And that one there had a lot of issues.
00:45:28 It was trying to work through to get it better, but it was a lot of issues with it.
00:45:34 Thank you.
00:45:35 Nothing further.
00:45:36 Thank you, Mr. Brzezinski.
00:45:38 Mr. Martin, thank you for your testimony.
00:45:40 We appreciate your time.
00:45:41 We'll let you go.
00:45:41 Okay.
00:45:44 Thanks, Frank.
00:45:50 Council, would you approach for just a minute?
00:46:01 Just checking on timing, and we haven't been going that long, but I can either give him a break or if you're next witness.
00:46:07 Yeah, let's see right now.
00:46:09 Travis, he should be a little same amount of questions, but he should be fast to respond to, so it should be at the most of both of us.
00:46:17 And then we have one expert witness, and we're done.
00:46:20 Okay, let's go ahead and give them a short break.
00:46:22 Okay.
00:46:22 All right, so folks, we're going to go ahead and give you another short break at least before we pick up with our next witness, give everybody a chance to stretch, get some coffee, use the restroom.
00:46:32 So we'll take about ten minutes here.