Chapter 20:Kathy Kohm:Adding Insult to Injury


 Chapter 20 

    The civil trial was over and the amount of damages owed had been rendered but Stanton Gash didn’t want to pay five thousand dollars. He didn’t want to pay at all. He went to court trying to convince the judge that he was not financially able to pay. He claimed that he had had significant financial setbacks. 

    Back in 1981, after his suicide attempt on June 9th, he was given several months of sick leave from the fire department.  Later that year he applied for a disability pension from the fire department. The department made him see at least three different psychiatrists and undergo a battery of tests. 

   He was placed at a desk job in the administration offices while awaiting the pension decision. 

   Gash eventually got his fireman’s disability pension in December of 1981; it amounted to 55 percent of his regular salary. He would be making around $8600 per year. That would be around $30,000 in 2024. 

    But the court dates weren’t over for Stanton Gash and the Kohm family. There was also the matter of the appeal.  

    Gash and his lawyer filed an appeal of the civil trial judgement. The appeals process was to be expected, especially in a rather notorious case like this. To the general newspaper reading public it seemed like insult heaped on top of injury. 

    


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