State to call first witness in sweat lodge case
Published 9:13 am Wednesday, March 2, 2011
CAMP VERDE, Ariz. — An attorney for a motivational speaker charged with manslaughter will be wrapping up his opening statement Wednesday.
Luis Li says no one was forced to participate in events that James Arthur Ray held over a week in October 2009. Those include a corporate game in which Li says participants challenged each other to a staring contest and an exercise in which participants breathed heavily to become dizzy.
A cousin of one of the victims, Tom McFeeley, says Li’s characterization of the week is insulting. He says the events made the victims physically and mentally weak and unable to freely leave a sweat lodge ceremony that Ray led.
Prosecutors say they’ll call about 50 witnesses during the four-month trial.
Ray has pleaded not guilty to three counts of manslaughter.
