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Schiavo threats taught sympathy

The death threats first made Michael Schiavo's attorney angry and scared. Then they got him to open his heart.

By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published June 27, 2005

	[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
	Toni Fraser, right, thanks George Felos after he spoke to members of Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater on Sunday. Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, seeks enlightenment by meditating and practicing yoga.

CLEARWATER - In his first public appearance since Terri Schiavo's death, George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, gave a speech at Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater Sunday morning.

His subject might surprise some of his enemies.

It was compassion.

As the Schiavo case wound its way through the courts, Felos said he began feeling deep sympathy for his fellow man. The emotion emerged from an unusual source: hate calls.

In 2003 when Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed the second time, Felos spent those first early hours making the rounds of the usual morning talk shows.

Later, when he returned to his office, he said there were 60 e-mails of a "very disturbing and threatening nature" waiting.

But the worst came at 3 a.m. when he was awakened at home by a ringing phone.

Picking it up, he heard the caller say, "A bunch of us got together and pronounced you guilty and decided a bullet should go through your head."

Another caller said, "If Terri Schiavo dies, you, Judge Greer and Michael Schiavo will die too."

"I was angry," Felos said. "I have a young son. I was asking, who are these anonymous cowards?

"I had a lot of conflicting emotions. I don't want to be shot doing my job."

He said he found himself gripped by fear, and asked himself what is in this for him? Why is the universe putting him through this frightening experience anyway? Why now?

Sometime after the phone threat, an FBI agent contacted Felos and told him the person who had made one of the calls was from southern Ohio. The agent told Felos he had nothing to fear from the man, that he was just a down-and-out person.

It was then when he began to understand why he believes the universe gave him this assignment:

To learn to open his heart.

"I felt such compassion for the person who called me at 3 a.m. and sentenced me to death," said Felos, 53. "I said, "What darkness is in his life to make him do that?"'

Felos, the author of Litigation as Spiritual Practice , seeks enlightenment by meditating and practicing yoga.

He told the congregation that he is a former board member and volunteer for Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.

He said when Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed this year, the death threats started again.

"But I didn't react the same as in 2003," Felos said. "The fear wasn't there. My message is that all of us have that unbounded compassion. There is joyfulness when you experience that deep feeling. I felt blessed for what I went through."

--Eileen Schulte can be reached at 727 445-4153 or schulte@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 07:11:23]