AUTHOR  LETTER

Dear Reader,

In April of 2003, an old buddy, Nick Cassavetes, asked if I’d be interested in working on a new film project inspired by Jesse James Hollywood, one of the youngest men ever on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. When I began to research the case that would ultimately inspire me to write the novel, Stolen Boy, I had no idea of the intense emotional and legal morass I had gotten myself into.

The movie and book projects, and my surreal legal involvement in the underlying criminal prosecution, consumed nearly four years of my life. It took me to Santa Barbara, California, where I met with Senior Deputy District Attorney, Ron Zonen, head of the agency’s sex crimes unit who had previously convicted four of Hollywood’s co-defendants. A year later, he would prosecute Michael Jackson for child molestation. Mr. Zonen agreed to assist in any way he could, and said he hoped the two projects would one day help lead to Hollywood’s capture.

The research also led me to Hollywood’s high-profile defense attorney, James Blatt, who found out about all the information I had accrued for the story and asked me to testify in Hollywood’s death penalty case. “Frankly, I’m not aware of any case in the country where a prosecutor has given his entire file to a motion picture company,” Blatt would later tell the press. “I’m not aware of any journalist doing what Mehas has done in the matter…and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way.”

I reluctantly testified on November 22, 2005, the day before Thanksgiving, and listened in horror as Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Brian Hill ordered me to turn over all my notes and tapes from every witness I interviewed for the story. Facing the very real prospect of going to jail, I drove up to Santa Barbara County Courthouse with all the tapes and notes from my interviews.

Soon my photograph and name began appearing on newspaper and magazine covers. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, The Associated Press, Fox News, and many others wrote about my bizarre legal situation and impending book.

I hired an attorney for my second day of testifying in early 2006. From the defense table, James Blatt questioned me about every piece of potential evidence I might ever have known about. He wanted my story chronology, my book notes, my character profiles, and much more. He then asked the court to order me to turn them all over to him. This time, however, Judge Hill denied Mr. Blatt’s request, and I was finally free to finish writing and publish Stolen Boy.