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CBS NEWS
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A South Florida court reporter who disappeared and left boxes of depositions at her abandoned apartment went back to court Monday... but she wasn't on the job, she was on the stand explaining to a judge why she left such critical information behind.
For years, Roseann McMahon ran a court reporting business out her Pompano Beach apartment, but when she disappeared, a judge ordered police to arrest her, because she disappeared with depositions for more than a dozen cases.
On Monday, she was back in court -- on the stand this time -- telling the judge that she never intended to ignore the court's directives.
The judge wanted to know why she ignored her orders to appear in court three times in the past month.
McMahon said she did not have the means to produce all the depositions for the court, because she was not being paid. She said her properties were in foreclosure and she was having serious financial difficulties. She almost broke down when she explained how she was forced to pull her daughter out of private school.
The Pompano Beach apartment is in foreclosure and boxes of documents are stacked up in a nearby storage unit.
McMahon was not a member of the Florida Court Reporters Association, because she was a digital recorder. Her company had been employed from 2008 to 2011 to digitally record depositions for a law firm.
If lost, the costly depositions may have to be redone.