AA Members Joanne and Patrick Fry Deny Sponsorship of Murder Victim Karla Brada

Couple named in wrongful-death lawsuit deny AA sponsorship

Eric Earle, left, and Karla Brada met at Alcoholics Anonymous. Brada’s parents claim AA and the couple their lawsuit names as sponsors are responsible for their daughter’s murder at the hand of Earle.

Couple named in wrongful-death lawsuit deny AA sponsorship

Lawsuit alleges responsibility in death of murdered daughter

November 17th 2014 Jim Holt

A woman identified as an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor and named in a lawsuit filed by the parents of murder victim Karla Brada denies she was ever the murdered woman’s sponsor.

Joanne Fry is among the defendants named in a wrongful death civil suit filed last month by Sylmar residents Hector and Jaroslava Mendez, whose daughter Brada was murdered in August 2011.

More than three years after the murder, a San Fernando Superior Court jury found Brada’s boyfriend, Eric Allen Earle, guilty of murdering her in the Saugus home they shared. Earle wilfully and deliberately smothered Brada to death, the jury determined in September. Earle was sentenced in October to 26 years in prison.

The same month the Mendezes served their wrongful-death lawsuit. It named Joanne Fry as an AA sponsor and her husband, Patrick, as an AA sponsor. The suit was also served on the local AA office in Santa Clarita and on Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc. based in New York City, said attorney John Noland, who represents Brada’s parents.

In the lawsuit filed against them, the Frys are described as “sponsors” who “provided counseling to members attending meetings and specifically became sponsors for Karla H. Brada and Eric Allen Earle.”Daytona  AA and NA meetings in Holly Hill Florida.

The lawsuit alleges the Frys were aware of Earle’s “violent criminal history and specifically his violent history as to violent crimes against women.”

Joanne Fry disagrees.

In a prepared four-page written statement delivered to The Signal in response to the lawsuit, Fry states:

“Many reports have referenced us as ‘sponsors’ for the couple through the AA program but this needs to be made very clear. We were not, ever have been, nor intended to be or become sponsors for Earle or Brada; we simply knew them.

“In addition, the time frame that we knew them was relatively six months. There has been an allegation that ‘jail time’ was spent between Patrick Fry and Eric Earle and this is not true.

“Patrick Fry and Eric Earle were roommates at (the live-in 12-step program) Eden Ministries. This is not a program where you pick your roommates; you are placed into a residence by the reverend of the program.

“Approximately March 2011 was when I, Patrick Fry, became roommates with Eric Earle. Within about two months, Earle was removed from the program for reasons unknown to me. I still resided at Eden Ministries.

“Sometime in the early summer months of the year 2011, I, Patrick Fry, saw Eric Earle again in the mandatory AA program. This is how we knew of each other. I was not a sponsor for Eric Earle or for Karla Brada.

“A sponsor for the program usually goes through and completes the 12-step program of which we did not do. We obtained our sobriety through other resources.

“A sponsor also is implied to be a person the addict can call upon in any situation for help or assistance with their addiction; this was not and never was a method for us knowing Earle and Brada, we simply just knew them through the program.

“The context of us as ‘sponsors’ have only been made in light of the lawsuit and this was never a view point from the AA program or how we viewed ourselves in reference to Earle and Brada or how Eric Earle and Karla Brada looked at us.”

As Joanne Fry left the newsroom, she said in parting: “We were just four people trying to stay sober.”

jholt@signalscv.com
661-287-5527
on Twitter @jamesarthurholt

http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/130008/

7 thoughts on “AA Members Joanne and Patrick Fry Deny Sponsorship of Murder Victim Karla Brada

  1. Well…well…well…

    I guess the accused and accursed has to say “something” doesn’t she? And as an AA member what better to do than out and out DENY EVERYTHING???

    A young woman AA newcomer & member of their group has been murdered and their member has been convicted and sent to PRISON for 26 years to life.

    Yes, the shyt has hit the fan and they do not feel so protected by the faux “anonymity” that old Billshyt Wilson conned them into believing in. It’s not real phuckers! It’s not REAL and now you will see what you should have known all along; you have absolutely no right or business working with vulnerable people, advising them, controlling them or “sponsoring” them. And whether you call it “sponsoring” or not, playing with words is not going to save your flank here.

    It is so empowering to JUSTICE begin to come to AA and any of its members who have harmed people in any way. I bet they are all second-thinking their so called iron-clad religious doctrine a.k.a. The BIG BOOK!

    But it can’t save them and AA won’t.

    I tried to send some friends on FB to the link to the article on the suit filed and some of them said they could not see any comments at all. I think something “fishy” is going on with servers and internet access. I’m not sure.

    I actually wasn’t going to bother really reading their ridiculous comments until I saw that Jaroslava Mendez actually emailed it to me a few days ago. So, I looked and it was as vile as I thought it would be…but our people took ’em on comment for comment. AntiDenial stayed on their asses BIG TIME! I’m so glad! Thank YOU!!!!

    I hate reading their comments though. They still disgust me. It’s coming up on 2 years out of that viper’s nest, and they still disgust me. Will I ever fully “recover” from recovery? I just don’t know.

    How can they rip poor Karla and her family apart and have so little criticism for the phucking convicted MURDERER?

    Why do I even ask? We already know.

    Anyway, for anyone who wants to keep record or show record of how evil the typical stepper poster is online, I have created a PDF file of the entire article with all of the comments. I have also enriched the document with a few choice links and one comment of my own.

    Feel free to access it at the following link and save it in case my blog gets taken down. A friend just informed me that my blog is being blocked at his public library…so none of us really knows what manner of censorship is going on?

    Here is the PDF: https://illbefreeordie.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/parents-of-murdered-saugus-woman-sue-aa-comments-as-of-november-20-2014.pdf

    • Thanks Illbefree for the link! I bet the sponsors think their anonymity will protect them along with their AA predator protectors peers.

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