Sharon Rondeau @ The Post & Email: PETITIONING GOVERNMENT NOW A CRIME PUNISHABLE WITH PRISON TIME

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Should Judge Blackwood Be Criminally Prosecuted?

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Monday, June 30, 2014 @ 1:57 PM In National | 

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PETITIONING GOVERNMENT NOW A CRIME PUNISHABLE WITH PRISON TIME

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jun. 30, 2014) — 12:40 p.m. EDT – The petition launched at change.org on Sunday calling upon the Tennessee judiciary to cease and desist its illegal arrest, charging and conviction of innocent citizens for attempting to expose government corruption has garnered 55 signatures as of this writing.

The petition specifically demands that Senior Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood vacate the verdict of a jury from last Tuesday which convicted CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) of “aggravated perjury” and “extortion” after attempting to petition the McMinn County grand jury with evidence of crimes committed by the judges, prosecutors and grand jury foremen of Tennessee’s Tenth Judicial District.

One of the signers, Col. Harry Riley (Ret.), is founder of Operation American Spring (OAS) and has called upon numerous federal officials to resign their posts for violations of their oaths to the U.S. Constitution.  In a comment left under his signature on Monday, Riley stated:

Judicial illegal activity has become tyranny in the U.S. What is the matter with “we the people” in Tennessee?? These judges, prosecutors, jury foreman are criminals that should be prosecuted.

Since late 2009, Fitzpatrick has exposed systemic corruption in the Tennessee courts which has been borne out by many other victims and members of the Tennessee House of Representatives and Senate.  In Tennessee, no private citizen can bring evidence or a criminal complaint to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) or the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, as The Post & Email has recently re-confirmed.

For decades, criminal court judges have been appointing grand jury foremen, who often exert undue influence on the grand jury, which affects whether or not they issue an indictment against an accused.  Last Tuesday, Fitzpatrick’s conviction was issued as a result of of a tainted grand jury which, in January, had been prejudiced by then-McMinn grand jury foreman Jeffrey Cunningham and then voted to indict Fitzpatrick in March.

Blackwood refused to consider that the grand jury’s indictment of Fitzpatrick was affected by Cunningham’s informing of them of Fitzpatrick’s “history” in January and the escorting of the grand jury members out of the courthouse after Fitzpatrick was asked to leave, giving them the impression that he was a dangerous person.

One grand jury said in sworn testimony in a pre-trial hearing in the Fitzpatrick case that she voted to indict because she herself felt “threatened” by Fitzpatrick based on what she had been told.

Blackwood upheld the indictments and the convictions.

Prosecutor A. Wayne Carter claimed that Fitzpatrick lied in petitions he attempted to submit to the grand jury over a period of months and which were blocked by Cunningham, but in sworn testimony last Monday, Cunningham stated that Fitzpatrick made no misstatements.

Fitzpatrick’s attorney, Van Irion, claimed that Fitzpatrick had exercised his constitutional right to petition his government for the redress of grievances under the First Amendment, “to do what the law plainly allows.”

During his closing argument at the trial, Carter objected to Fitzpatrick’s having worn his Navy uniform to the trial, although a congressional statute allows retirees to do so.

The Post & Email launched a second petition at whitehouse.gov here:

http://wh.gov/l6S38

urging that the FBI be tasked with launching a criminal investigation into public corruption in Tennessee, which has been ranked third in corruption in a recent research study.

Since at least 1980, Blackwood has participated in choosing grand jury foremen who have worked for years and sometimes decades in violation of Tennessee code.

The conviction of a citizen without a proper trial is called “attainder.”

Assaults on the First Amendment have increased under the Obama regime to include as targets veterans, homeschoolers, religious freedom groups, Second Amendment advocates, Tea Parties, traditional marriage and pro-life groups.

As a result of Tuesday’s verdict, in Tennessee and the nation as a whole, petitioning the government for redress is now a crime punishable by prison time.  How many are willing to live with that?

© 2014, The Post & Email. All rights reserved.

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J.B. WILLIAMS ~ THE POST & EMAIL: Pentagon to Answer for Death of Navy SEALS

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Pentagon to Answer for Death of Navy SEALS

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 @ 1:06 PM In Editorials |

CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON THURSDAY

by JB Williams, ©2014

(Feb. 26, 2014) — As news comes from the White House of another election year withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan, which promises to leave the region in the same kind of terrorist run chaos as Iraq, a House Sub-Committee on Government Oversight of National Security is set to grill Pentagon officials on the single largest loss of SEAL lives in history.

The Committee says the hearing is to “honor the heroes of Extortion 17.” But the families of those heroes have a very different interest in that hearing. They are not going to the hearing to listen to empty platitudes about the wrongful death of their loved ones…

The families of the fallen SEALs want answers… North American Law Center submitted official questions to members of the House Sub-Committee more than 24 hours before the hearing, on behalf of Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents of Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn.

The hearing has received almost NO press coverage to date.

Billy Vaughn, Aaron’s father, released an explosive book titled Betrayed about his son and the circumstances surrounding the death of his son on 6 August, 2011 in Afghanistan. The mission was code named “Lefty Grove” and the CH47 was call sign Extortion 17.

The tragic event marks the single largest loss of life in Navy SEAL and Special Forces history, and it was allowed to happen as a direct result of Administration policies, a lack of mission readiness, and suicidal ROE (Rules of Engagement) which adds considerable threat to our brave young men and women ordered into harm’s way.

A list of initial questions was delivered to committee members more than 24 hours ahead of the hearing. Despite a history of do-nothing dog and pony shows by the Issa controlled committee, on matters like Benghazi, the SEAL families intend to do whatever it takes to get answers.

Because this committee is on Oversight of National Security, members of the committee must accept calls from Americans all over the country and Billy and Karen Vaughn have asked for everyone to make those calls in an effort to assure that these families will get answers to their questions.

Representative	Phone	Fax
Representative Jason Chaffetz	202-225-7751	202-225-5629
Representative Cynthia Lummis	202-225-2311	202-225-3057
Representative John J. Duncan, Jr.	202-225-5435	202-225-6440
Representative John L. Mica	202-225-4035	202-226-0821
Representative Justin Amash	202-225-3831	202-225-5144
Representative Kerry Bentivolio	202-225-8171	202-225-2667
Representative Paul A. Gosar	202-225-2315	202-226-9739
Representative Rob Woodall	202-225-4272	202-225-4696
Representative Trey Gowdy	202-225-6030	202-226-1177

 

These Representatives need to hear from the American people or this hearing will become just another “Benghazi” effort to sweep Administration failings under the political carpet.

This is NOT a partisan issue. It is not just important to these SEAL families. The story of betrayal of our armed forces is critical to every military family, especially all who have loved ones in harm’s way. We still have soldiers dying under insane Administration policies and they will continue to needlessly die until this matter is fully addressed and people are held accountable.

At 10:00 am ET February 27, 2014… after two and a half years of waiting for answers, SEAL families will sit in a Congressional hearing asking questions. Please help make sure that those questions are asked and answered.

The future of freedom and liberty in America is no more secure than our nation’s defenders of freedom and liberty.

Don’t sit this one out! If you support our brave troops, now is the time to stand with them!

jb.uspu@gmail.com

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Fitzpatrick’s Response to Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Perjury and Monroe County, TN Public Corruption

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Fitzpatrick’s Response to Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Perjury and Monroe County, TN Public Corruption

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Friday, February 7, 2014 @ 11:36 AM In National |

GOVERNMENT-CREATED HOAX KEEPS INNOCENT VETERAN LOCKED UP AND DEFAMES RETIRED NAVY COMMANDER

by CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.)

(Feb. 7, 2014) — This came back to me this morning…thought it important to pass along.

Eight days ago, on Thursday, 30 January 2014, Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke A. McLaurin said out loud in open federal court that I’d met with Darren Huff on Tuesday, 7 April 2010 to “consult” in a concerted plan that (according the the government) was “intended” to carry out violent acts of domestic terrorism in Madisonville, TN on 20 April 2010.

McLaurin represents that I, Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III, was the leader of a collection of 8 or 9 militia groups targeting Madisonville in an armed assault that was to be carried out using guns and bombs.

There was no such plan. The government made it all up.

There was no such meeting between myself or Darren EVER!

There were no such meetings of any type or kind by anyone.

Not me.

Not Darren.

Government operatives made it all up as part of their MADISONVILLE HOAX.

Not any of the court-watchers who arrived in Madisonville on 20 April 2010 intended to do anything else but to watch the courtroom proceedings. Not one of the court-watchers (all turned away) carried a weapon of any description.

But there was one very focused and concerted meeting I did have in April 2010!

That meeting involved my “concerted” and continuing effort to expose government corruption in Tennessee State.

On Wednesday, 8 April 2010, THE DAY AFTER THE FBI SAYS I MET WITH DARREN IN THE DOMESTIC ASSAULT PLANNING MEETING, I voluntarily drove to Knoxville unannounced to present myself to the FBI DUTY AGENT.

“(*Note: The most recent report to the FBI in Knoxville was made in person to Duty Special Agent Whitehouse on Wednesday, 8 April 2010. The report was made face-to-face in the FBI Knoxville Division office. S/A Whitehouse said to send another package in, they’d take a look at it.)”

The quote above comes from a JAG HUNTER posting originally published on 1 May 2010 (the day after Darren’s 30 APRIL 2010 arrest) and updated on 2 and 3 May. CLICK HERE.

I recall the exchange vividly. I gave Whitehouse my card identifying myself as a Navy man. I wore a jacket with the words “UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY” embroidered on the front. Whitehouse told me he was a former Navy helicopter pilot. I asked him if he recalled the 30 July 1987 Persian Gulf SH-3 SEA KING “Desert Duck” crash. He did. I identified myself as one of the survivors from that at-sea explosion and auguring into the sea. CLICK HERE.

My report then moved on from that digression into the massive corruption in East Tennessee. Whitehouse knew of the problem. Whitehouse said that the FBI wouldn’t know where to begin in an investigation. S/A. Whitehouse continued to offer that the FBI could cry “distress” if ever tasked with such a Herculean investigative campaign, meaning that the FBI wouldn’t have the necessary resources for the FBI to answer the call to duty.

I arrived at the FBI office in downtown Knoxville on Wednesday, 8 April 2010 at 1015 hours local. I left at 1215 hours local.

Unbeknownst to me at the time (Whitehouse did not disclose any details regarding the concerted planning effort going on behind closed doors to the execution of The MADISONVILLE HOAX), was that the FBI and local Tennessee State law enforcement officials were working in frenetic “FUSION” with each other–IN THEIR FUSION CENTER, to carry out their massive military-style deployment that eventually came to pass in Madisonville, Tennessee on 20 April 2010.

So, there you have the real report regarding my “concerted” planning and focus beginning in the second week of April 2010.

It wasn’t me planning any violence but rather government functionaries such as those I’ve named going over the course of the past four years.

For additional background: CLICK HERE should your time and interest allow.

Here endth the lesson.

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TWO POST & EMAIL REPORTS: EDITOR SHARON RONDEAU! BATTLE OF ATHENS II

REPORT #1

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Fitzpatrick Meets with Police Detective on Local, State and Federal Government Corruption

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 @ 11:17 PM In National |

“NOW THE GLOVES COME OFF”

by Sharon Rondeau

How much “progress” has Athens, TN made since the 1940s in rooting out public corruption?

(Feb. 4, 2014) — On Monday morning, February 3, 2014, CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) went to the Athens, TN Police Department to report crimes committed against him by McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy and McMinn County grand jury foreman Jeff Cunningham.

For at least the last three years, Fitzpatrick has been characterized in a law enforcement training program as a “Sovereign Citizen,” people who the FBI and state “fusion centers” describe as potentially dangerous, “anti-government” “extremists” who may be mentally ill or become involved in bank fraud and other schemes.

The FBI currently includes those who make “references to the Bible, The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments” as possible “Sovereign Citizens.”

Located in McMinn County, Athens is the site of the “Battle of Athens” which took place in 1946 between a small group of World War II veterans and a corrupt sheriff and his deputies who routinely engaged in voter fraud and intimidation, bribery, and false ticketing for personal gain, among other vices.  Southeastern Tennessee is well-known for its systemic, top-to-bottom public corruption which has terrorized its citizens by means of rigged juries and false imprisonments; racketeering, money laundering, shake-downs, police brutality and intimidation; and even murder.

Local media tell half-truths and do not challenge longstanding government practices or specific individuals, including Joe Guy.

Fitzpatrick had previously exposed that grand juries in Tennessee’s Tenth Judicial District operate illegally because the foreman, and in some cases, jurors, serve for multiple terms at the pleasure of the presiding judge.  His discovery of grand jury corruption in adjacent Monroe County in late 20o9 was the subject of the PANDA radio show on Sunday, February 2, hosted by Chuck Smith and Lorri Anderson, on which grand jury experts Dr. Roger Roots and Kelly Mordecai appeared as guests and specifically discussed Fitzpatrick’s revelations.  While acknowledging widespread government control over modern grand juries, Roots commented that he had never observed the same level of judicial corruption as exists in the state of Tennessee.

On Sunday evening, Fitzpatrick had given Athens Police Chief Charles Ziegler advance notice by email that he would be arriving on Monday morning to file a complaint, to which Ziegler responded that he would make one of his detectives available when Fitzpatrick arrived.   Det. HeIth Willis met with Fitzpatrick for four hours, wherein Fitzpatrick showed Willis documentation of the Sovereign Citizen campaign naming him as a potential criminal and the current grand jury foreman, Jeff Cunningham, who is an attorney and active member of the Tennessee Bar Association.

Fitzpatrick has attempted to bring criminal evidence on the parts of Cunningham and Reedy to the McMinn County grand jury, but Cunningham, acting as gateguard, did not allow the grand jury to review Fitzpatrick’s documentation.

Willis is a former Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army who Fitzpatrick described as “a really good guy.”  Of the meeting, Fitzpatrick told The Post & Email:

We started at 10:30 and talked until 1:30 straight. He doesn’t know what to do.  He is as frustrated in what the next step looks like as I am.  He said, “We don’t have jurisdiction within the courthouse,” and I said, “I know that.”  He said that other agencies have jurisdictions that are senior to ours, and normally speaking, when cases like this come in, we have to turn them over to other agencies.

Fitzpatrick said he concentrated on a complaint naming Guy and Cunningham as criminals which he attempted to take to the McMinn County grand jury on January 21.  However, Cunningham himself, knowing that he had been named in at least one other of Fitzpatrick’s criminal complaints, obstructed the submission from reaching the grand jurors and demanded that McMinn County sheriff’s deputies escort Fitzpatrick out of the courthouse, despite his having committed no crime.

Guy is running for re-election in November.  Cunningham is serving his third consecutive year as grand jury foreman, appointed by Judge Amy Reedy, who Fitzpatrick observed hand-picking grand jury members on December 7, 2011.

Fitzpatrick’s complaint against Guy is based on Guy’s enlisting of his deputies in the “Sovereign Citizen” training program in which Fitzpatrick is pictured along with Darren Wesley Huff and George Raudenbush.  Huff is currently serving a four-year federal prison term for a crime that “never happened,” while Raudenbush was released last month on bond after his convictions were reversed by a Tennessee appeals court and have been remanded back to Monroe County for a new trial.

Fitzpatrick asked Willis for any assistance he might be able to provide in speaking with others “within his circle of influence” about the training program naming Fitzpatrick as a “sovereign.”  On Friday, Fitzpatrick had called the Internal Affairs Officer in the McMinn County Sheriff’s Department to request a meeting but received no response.  Last year, Fitzpatrick had visited the sheriff’s department on multiple occasions to file a complaint about the training program, but his objections were brushed aside.

Fitzpatrick was intimidated as a ringleader of “eight or nine militia groups” as described by FBI Special Agent Mark Van Balen, who has not yet been called to account for his false report which ultimately landed Huff in federal prison.

On Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke A. McLaurin falsely stated to three judges at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that Fitzpatrick and Huff had exchanged “text messages” prior to and on the morning of April 20, 2010 in order to “plan” a “takeover” of the Monroe County courthouse. Dubbed “the Madisonville Hoax” by Fitzpatrick, between 100 and 200 law enforcement officers were deployed into Monroe County’s central town of Madisonville to diffuse reported threats from alleged “extremists” and “militia” groups, all of which proved to be false reports called in to the mayor’s office by members of  The Fogbow, a group of Obama sycophants who may now be under observation by law enforcers themselves.

Although no one was seen carrying a firearm that day, false reports made by law enforcers were repeated in the media without proof.  No arrests were made that day.  However, ten days later, Huff was arrested and charged with two federal firearms violations and convicted on one in October 2011.

At Huff’s trial, there was no mention of “text messages,” and Fitzpatrick was never charged with participating in a conspiracy to commit violence. While McLaurin admitted that Huff was not charged with “conspiracy,” he then fabricated statements to the appeals panel by stating that Huff and Fitzpatrick had worked together to “plan” a violent convergence upon the Madisonville courthouse on April 20, 2010.

“It’s all lies,” Fitzpatrick said.  “I had no contact whatsoever with Darren Huff by phone, email or text messaging.  I do not text,” he said.

Fitzpatrick further detailed his conversation with Willis:

I told him, “This, for me, is a last resort.  I don’t know who else to go to.  I told him about my interactions with the TBI, the sheriff’s department and FBI…the guy was amazed.  He knows that I have my ducks in a row and why I’m concerned about the Sovereign Citizen program. I told him how I tried to get my name off of it again and again.

We talked about Jim Miller’s murder.

We have the report about what the U.S. attorney did last Thursday.  I can’t make the complaint to the DOJ because they’re the culprit.  I can’t get into a grand jury setting because the U.S. attorney’s office is the one obstructing me.

I showed him the picture that’s hanging someplace in the Tennessee Highway Patrol offices in the state, and I said, “I’m tired of this; I want this to stop.”  He understood and said, “I’ll do what I can, but my jurisdiction has lines around it.  I’m limited.”  He understood why I was there yesterday and that it was a last resort.  He knows all the other steps I have taken.

Joe Guy is running for re-election. His photo was at the top of The JAG HUNTER on Monday morning with a caption underneath it that he is still using the Sovereign Citizen training program with his deputies.

Joe Guy can be held accountable.  People can go into the grand jury; they can do a letter-writing campaign, or Tim Smith, who is running against Guy, can take it up as a campaign issue.  He knows that if he wants to talk with me, he can.  If he gets in touch with me, we’ll move forward from there.  Joe Guy will have to deal with it; he’s answerable to it.

The training program continues to put me in harm’s way, and the detective sergeant agreed.

I’ve talked to a lot of people in law enforcement.  I told Det. Willis that I know what happens if I get stopped by anybody at this point, and I’m not interested in having that happen for an officer and certainly not for me.  Everybody I’ve talked to about this is in complete agreement that I’ve got to stop being described in this way.  He asked me about a civil suit, and I said, “I don’t have that kind of money.”

Fitzpatrick explained that the Sovereign Citizen training program is not given by the McMinn County Sheriff’s Department, but rather, by the Tennessee Department of Safety under the state’s Department of Homeland Security in various locations.  However, “What Joe Guy could do is to stop sending his deputies to the training program,” Fitzpatrick said.  “It’s not his training program, so he doesn’t have control over what’s in it, but he has to understand that he’s accountable for using it.”

Fitzpatrick said that he first made Guy aware of the training program two years ago, to which Guy had responded, “It is what it is.  Deal with it.”

The Post & Email had previously requested documentation on the program through an Open Records request to the Tennessee Department of Homeland Security and was quoted a fee of approximately $750.

Fitzpatrick said that he took with him three boxes of information to his meeting with Willis.  “I needed a hand truck to take them into the conference room.  I told him I had three more boxes at home,” Fitzpatrick said.  Of the remainder of the meeting, he continued:

We talked about The Fogbow.

He was very interested in the VAN BALEN affidavit and how Darren got arrested at all, and why he wasn’t arrested that day.  He was very interested about the workings of April 20, 2010.  I showed him the matrices I have for the 30 people who were there.  These statements that were made last week in open court are lies, and I’m trying to get this information into a grand jury setting, and I can’t.

He kept telling me all through the course of the meeting, “I’m a detective, and I deal with facts.”  And I gave him facts.  If nothing else, this is another foray into the world of law enforcement.

At the beginning, he had a patrolman in the room, and the patrolman left. So it was him and me for the last three-quarters of the meeting.  I gave the patrolman and Willis a copy of the Advocate & Democrat article which published four years ago today.  I said, “This is what we thought back in the day about Pettway and term limits, and now we’ve been told differently.”  I showed him the paragraph from the HIXSON BRIEF and put it next to the felony indictment which named Mr. Pettway as a juror.

[Editor’s Note:  In September, Tennessee Deputy Attorney General Kyle Hixson wrote in an appellate court brief in a pending case of Fitzpatrick’s that the grand jury foreman has never been considered “a juror,” as he is selected by a judge using a different process than that which is used for grand jurors.  However, in June 2010, both Huff and Fitzpatrick were indicted by the Monroe County grand jury for “intimidating a juror” in a reference to the grand jury foreman.  The contradiction between the attorney general’s office and the legislative branch, which wrote the laws on grand juries, has not been reconciled, although members of the legislature have been informed of it.]

The detective told me that he has been called into the room when the grand jury deliberates.  He said that once he presents his case, he is asked to leave, and whatever happens next is a secret; we don’t know.  I can’t remember if he said that the prosecutor stays in the room or leaves, but it makes no difference.  Whether the prosecutor stays or leaves, Jeff Cunningham is the guy who’s left behind, and he is the leader of the band.  He has complete control, and the grand jury members don’t know any different.

I told Willis that this isn’t about me; “you have an innocent man in a federal prison right now as a Navy veteran being targeted as a sovereign citizen.  He’s not.”  I read the relevant part of Van Balen’s affidavit where it said that Darren was in a specific place with guns, and I said, “This is a lie.”  He said, “Well, this is interesting because I deal with facts,” and he understands it’s wrong.  I was able to back up everything that he had a question about.

It’s washing over a detective now just exactly how a big a deal this is.  He was absorbed with what I told him, as were the panelists on Sunday’s radio show.

I impressed upon the detective that the Madisonville Hoax is the first government-manufactured domestic terrorism event in the country.  And I said, going back to the facts:  “Fact:  Darren wasn’t there.  Fact:  Darren didn’t have a gun.”  I showed him the list of people who were there:  “None of these people had a gun.”  I went through fact after fact, and he gets it.

I think the word is spreading in the community, and Joe Guy isn’t going to be happy when he comes to the internet and sees his smiling face there, being named as a sheriff who’s attacking a Navy commander as he is.  Joe Guy can’tdeny it.  And the deputies aren’t happy with the fact that they’re going to this training…which is how the CD was released.  It came from the McMinn County Sheriff’s Department.

I’ve given Joe Guy plenty of room; I’ve approached him on a number of occasions.

It’s washing over a detective now just exactly how a big a deal this is.  He was absorbed with what I told him, as were the panelists on Sunday’s radio show.

I impressed upon the detective that the Madisonville Hoax is the first government-manufactured domestic terrorism event in the country.  And I said, going back to the facts:  “Fact:  Darren wasn’t there.  Fact:  Darren didn’t have a gun.”  I showed him the list of people who were there:  “None of these people had a gun.”  I went through fact after fact, and he gets it.

I think the word is spreading in the community, and Joe Guy isn’t going to be happy when he comes to the internet and sees his smiling face there, being named as a sheriff who’s attacking a Navy commander as he is.  Joe Guy can’t Now the gloves come off.  I’m spreading the word in the community, and he’s not going to like what’s being said.  But he cannot deny it.

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REPORT #2

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Makes False Statements at Huff Appeals Hearing

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Saturday, February 1, 2014 @ 4:29 PM In National |

“CREATIVE” U.S. ATTORNEY CLAIMS “TEXT MESSAGES” BETWEEN HUFF AND FITZPATRICK WHICH DO NOT EXIST

by Sharon Rondeau

Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee Luke A. McLaurin made false statements to a three-judge panel at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday in the case of USA v. Huff

(Feb. 1, 2014) — On Thursday, January 30th, 2014, an appeals hearing was held at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, OH on behalf of Darren Wesley Huff, who has been incarcerated at a minimum-security federal prison in Texarkana, TX for the last year and a half on a federal firearms conviction.

Audio of the proceeding is available for immediate listening or download under Case # 12-5581  on the Sixth Circuit’s website.  Knoxville Attorney Gerald R. Gulley, Jr. argued for the defense, while the government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke McLaurin, which was verified with the court via telephone.

Gulley is a partner at Gulley & Oldham and has experience in criminal law, traffic tickets, personal injury, workers’ compensation, and matters of probate.

McLaurin spent 14 months in Iraq “acting as a legal advisor for judges, police, attorneys, and law students as they worked to improve their criminal justice system” working for the U.S. Justice Department.  In 2008, McLaurin wrote a paper in which he decried the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to enforce a decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).  “In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court held that, although ICJ judgments create international law obligations for the United States, they do not constitute binding domestic law enforceable in United States courts,” McLaurin wrote.

A 2003 graduate of Notre Dame University with a Master’s Degree from the same institution the following year, McLaurin is a student of classical literature and humanities, which he said enable him to exercise “creativity” in his practice of law.

In October 2011, the trial jury acquitted Huff on a second charge and was originally “hung” on the first, but Judge Thomas A. Varlan instructed them to “try again” to reach a verdict.

On April 20, 2010, Huff had traveled to Madisonville, TN to attend a court hearing for CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.), who had been arrested on April 1 for attempting to conduct a citizen’s arrest on the longstanding grand jury foreman for violating the Tennessee statute limiting jurors to a one-year term.

In an indictment issued against both Huff and Fitzpatrick stemming from the citizen’s arrest, the foreman was identified as a “juror.” However, in a court brief filed in defense of the government’s conviction of Fitzpatrick in a case arising in December 2011, the state of Tennessee now claims that the foreman of any grand jury in Tennessee is not a juror, but rather, a court employee appointed by the judge by an unknown vetting process.

On April 20, 2010, Huff had intended to observe Fitzpatrick’s brief court appearance to show support for a fellow Navy veteran standing up against government corruption.  Eastern Tennessee is known for deep, systemic, and widespread corruption which former World War II GIs took into their own hands in August 1946 with “the Battle of Athens,” where they were successful in expelling a corrupt sheriff and his deputies who had assaulted a black man attempting to cast a vote in McMinn County as well as rig the elections.

Huff brought his legally-owned firearms with him that day, which he locked in his truck toolbox prior to reaching Madisonville during a traffic stop at which a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer said he ran a stop sign.  At least one of the judges questioned whether or not the traffic stop was legal and if Huff’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated, thereby raising the issue of “suppression.”

Gulley argued that Huff had not intended to use his firearms in “commerce,” as the statute under which he was convicted states.  Gulley stated that a local official had testified at Huff’s trial that Huff had carried a .45 in with him to the restaurant, which is refuted by eyewitnesses and a man who spent the entire day with Huff.

Fitzpatrick resides in McMinn County presently, although he was charged with “intimidating a juror,” “riot,” “interrupting a public meeting,” and other transgressions.

Fitzpatrick has exposed jury-rigging, tampering with court transcripts, and murder in Monroe County, TN, which, like McMinn County, is part of the Tenth Judicial District.  Fitzpatrick has made many attempts to testify to a federal grand jury, but the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, an Obama appointee, has blocked it, including in a letter written in June 2013 stating that any future correspondence from Fitzpatrick would be discarded without response.

In the audio of Thursday’s hearing, Gulley spoke first in defense of his client, who Gulley said traveled from his home in Georgia to Tennessee on the morning of April 20, 2010 in a matter involving Fitzpatrick, who Gulley described as “a friend or acquaintance” of Huff’s.  Gulley stated that on the evening of April 19, Huff had received a visit from an FBI agent who asked Huff what his intentions were in Madisonville the following day.  Huff has previously stated, and Gulley reaffirmed, that Huff had told the agent that if he thought Huff’s trip to attend the hearing “was a bad idea,” he would not go.  However, the agent did not attempt to convince Huff to stay at home.

On at least two occasions prior to April 20, members of The Fogbow, an Obama sycophant group, placed calls to then-Madisonville Mayor Alan Watson claiming that violent “militia” members planned to “take over the courthouse” on April 20, to which the government responded by dispatching members of the FBI, TBI, local police, sheriffs’ departments, a SWAT team and sniper team, and bomb-sniffing dogs.

William L. Bryan, known online as “PJ Foggy,” claimed responsibility for making the false reports, which members of The Fogbow have affirmed.  In September 2010, their group boasted a “White House attorney” and presently contains an attorney involved in defending the fraudulent long-form birth certificate image released by the White House on April 27, 2011 purported to belong to Barack Hussein Obama.  A law enforcement investigation plans on releasing “universe-shattering” information next month as a corollary to its investigation which concluded that the birth certificate image is a “computer-generated forgery” early in 2012.

Members of The Fogbow and their associates have watched the Huff and Fitzpatrick cases closely and disseminated propaganda about both.

Foggy and his wife are now reportedly working as Obamacare “navigators.”

On December 9, 2013, a source close to the birth certificate investigation released a video stating that “prosecutions are coming” in regard to the forgery and possibly other crimes.  It has been speculated that officials at the Hawaii Department of Health led by the late Loretta Fuddy are involved in creating, copying and releasing the fraudulent document to dupe the American public into believing that Barack Hussein Obama, who Fitzpatrick named as a traitor in March 2009, was born in Honolulu, HI on August 4, 1961.

On December 13, 2013, Fuddy died after the plane in which she was flying on official business made a water landing, with all other passengers and the pilot surviving.  Fuddy’s autopsy reportedly determined that she had died of cardiac arrhythmia, which her brother Lewis said she did not have.

Fitzpatrick has found through eyewitnesses of the events of April 20, 2010 that Huff was not located where the government said he was, as Huff and others were denied admittance to the Monroe County courthouse for Fitzpatrick’s hearing.

Beginning at 7:10 in the audio, one of the judges asked whether or not certain information given by Huff could be suppressed.  Gulley stated that Huff’s trial had included “testimony of a law enforcement officer in Madisonville that he saw Mr. Huff take a pistol…and go into the restaurant, where another law enforcement officer said that he was providing a motivational speech to sympathetic persons.”  When one of the judges said, “…they were going to take over the courthouse,” Gulley said that if that had been the case, a law enforcement officer, who was present in the restaurant, should have stepped in to prevent such an action, which did not occur.

At 10:20, Gulley stated that the statute which Huff allegedly violated necessitates the coordination of “three or more persons gathering in acts of violence.”

Gulley then repeated his argument against Huff’s having engaged in “commerce,” as stated in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.  He stated that Huff’s having brought a legally-owned handgun into another state did not constitute commercial activity.

At 32:00 in the recording, McLaurin was asked whether or not a “conspiracy” had existed among Huff, Fitzpatrick and others to commit violence. McLaurin claimed that Huff “had been planning this takeover of the courthouse for weeks, that he had gone up to Madisonville and consulted with Fitzpatrick; he had sent text messages back saying, ‘We’re going to do citizens’ arrests today…’ he’s coordinating a bunch of other individuals…I think given all of that evidence that’s in the record of this concerted activity over several weeks, trying to put this plan together, I think…the evidence showed that…[inaudible]…planning.”

Both Huff and Fitzpatrick have stated that there was no “plan.”

On Friday, January 31, The Post & Email spoke with Fitzpatrick about McLaurin’s allegations.  Fitzpatrick responded that he had met Darren Huff for the second time on April 7, 2010, when he and a former Marine, William Looman, had asked to meet with him to discuss his court-martial of 1990.  Fitzpatrick had just spent five days in jail during which he refused food and water to protest what he saw an his unlawful arrest after attempting to carry out the citizen’s arrest of the grand jury foreman.  Although on April 7, he had gone to a local hospital for treatment following his ordeal and was not feeling well, he agreed to meet with Looman and Huff in Madisonville later in the day for with only about 45-minutes notice. The three men for a brief time later in the day over coffee. There was no discussion or conversation regarding anything to do with Tuesday, 20 April 2010.

Fitzpatrick stated that he had no communication with Huff, Looman, or anyone else about the events in Madisonville or the date of his assignment hearing scheduled for the 20th.  He neither received nor sent any “text messages” with Huff, as claimed by McLaurin.

At Huff’s trial in October 2011, no evidence appearing on the record showed text or phone communication between Huff and Fitzpatrick.  “This is them continuing in the perpetration of The Madisonville Hoax,” Fitzpatrick said.  The United States Attorney’s office is blocking me from going to a federal grand jury to tell them what the U.S. attorney’s office has been doing.  It’s got to be recorded that there’s a violent reaction from me about my name coming up again on Thursday and being named once more contemporaneously as a ‘domestic terrorist’ in the days leading up to the Super Bowl, when you have this alert going on throughout the country.  Buses are being stopped, trains are being stopped and and checked, snipers are being set up in the stadium; you have F-16s on the tarmac on an Alert 5 status ready to launch…Obama is creating an environment which is going to be used to take over this country by armed force.  That’s what he’s doing here.  He’s getting people used to the idea.  Look at what happened in Boston – at the Tsarnaev kid; they’re going after the death penalty for him.  What did he do?  He let off a bomb in Boston, MA. That’s what I’m accused of having attempted.”

He continued:

I’m waiting right now for federal agents to come knocking at my door at any minute.  This man named me again on Thursday in participating in a plot to blow up buildings, to harm people, to destroy property and people.  He’s named me again as a ‘domestic terrorist’ in this environment in which we are right now as I have described it.  There are U.S. attorneys licking their chops looking to find for a way to come and pick me up any second.  I’m still named as a ‘sovereign citizen…’ this training campaign is still using my name and my picture in this outrageous campaign which is as much of an invention as was the declaration that came out of the U.S. attorney’s office yesterday.

In the meantime, they are blocking people who know what happened that day from coming out and reporting the truth.  That’s significant. While they know that there is a truth to be reported about what happened that day, they are telling lies which are continuing to grow because they are blocking me from getting in to a grand jury.  Jeff Cunningham is as guilty of that as any other person.  I told Jeff Cunningham months ago, probably a year ago, that I’m named as a domestic terrorist.  He said, “Oh, pshaw.  You’re kidding.”  That was in November 2012, so when I came back in November 2013, I had a copy of the TIME Magazine article to show him.  I still didn’t get in.

I’ll go back for time #6 in February if I’m not locked up by then.

In the meantime, it’s going to be really interesting to see what the appellate court here in Tennessee comes up with by way of their ruling because they cannot say at this point that the jury system acted properly in how they handled my case when the attorney general for the state of Tennessee has publicly declared, “Walt’s right.  These foremen are not jurors.”  And I don’t think the U.S. Attorney’s office got that memo.  Instead, they’re continuing the hoax.  They’re continuing in a manufactured fiction.

I’m living in the twilight zone.  I can’t get people in my own community to pay any attention to this.  No one.  I’ve tried.

This has to stop.  My name has not come up as it did on Thursday ever before.  Now, four years later, here we are.

Am I able to get into a grand jury and say that this U.S. attorney lied on Thursday?  No?  Why?  Because the U.S. attorney’s office has expressly denied, in writing, permission for me to appear in front of a grand jury and tell the grand jury that these u.s. attorneys are engaged themselves in a plot against veterans.  Operation Vigilant Eagle, Sovereign Citizens.  This is part of an ongoing plot, and it does trace back to the Obama treason complaint for sure.  There has to be a reaction to what happened on Thursday.  There are people who can give yup the Madisonville Hoax for what it was.

The Post & Email asked, “The NSA has been collecting all phone records.  Where are the phone records and email exchanges in which you were allegedly planning something?”

There’s nothing.  I do not know what Darren Huff’s court transcript says, but there’s nothing that leads me to believe that there is anything in Darren Huff’s transcript which says that I was an active planning participant in planning this event that was supposed to happen and got thwarted by the overwhelming presence of law enforcement.  It’s all rubbish.

I’m reaching out to so many people.  I get so many emails, and it’s like chickens running around, people herding cats.  OK, people:  focus.  FOCUS.  And by the way, the government is trying to cement this precedent in place, and they’re using my name to do it.  This has got to stop.  It’s going to take a lot of people to stand up against this and say, “Stop!!”

What they said on Thursday is a lie. If I don’t stand up against this, then it becomes something that people believe, including law enforcement in my own community.

Let me re-emphasize and restate this.  When Darren and Bill left in the late morning or early afternoon of the 7th of April 2010, I had no contact with anybody else at all.  I didn’t call Bill Looman.  There was a period of time when my internet service was turned off.  I don’t remember if that was the case when I got out of jail on April 6, 2010 or not.  But I didn’t send any emails to anybody:  I didn’t send any to you, to Tim, to Bill…I was dark and quiet.  I had no communication with Darren Huff and had no idea he was coming on the 20th.

On April 20, I was searched going into the courtroom.  I was unarmed.  The first question before the search was conducted, is “Do you have business in this courtroom today?”  If the answer was no, the people who were there at the door were sent outside into the rain. They didn’t get searched; they weren’t let in.  Another observer was searched, and there are witnesses to that.  The hoax continues.

The U.S. Attorney claimed that I was actively planning with Darren.  He connected me directly to Darren.  The same thing happened in the Tennessee court:  Darren was connected to me:  We were “planning this together.”  But there was no evidence.

There was no communication between me and anybody between 1 April 2010, the day I was locked up, and the 20th, the day of the hearing.  Bill Looman and Darren showed up on the 7th, as I’ve explained, to talk about the court-martial.  They came; they left, and I didn’t have any contact with anybody else before that, when I was in jail, or after that, when I was home.

I do not text…anybody.  I do not do text messages.

I just showed up on the 20th for the hearing, and there was a massive police presence.  I was as surprised as anyone else was.  When I was in jail in 2011, I found out that prisoners had set up pole cameras the day before the hearing, but I hadn’t known that at the time.  In fact, the day that these pole cameras was set up, the 19th of April 2010, I wasn’t in jail, so I would not have known that the Monroe County sheriff had been put upon by the federal government to use inmates to go out and set up pole cameras.  I wasn’t in jail myself; I didn’t know this was going on.

There is no testimonial evidence that Darren was at the R. Beecher Witt government building because Darren was never there.  Darren was not there; Daren was notarmed.  Who cares what he was thinking?  He didn’t do anything that was illegal.

I can guarantee you that had Darren been carrying a weapon with him on his person in Madisonville, TN, he would have been stopped, he probably would have been thrown to the ground if he hadn’t gone to the ground on his own volition; he would have been disarmed by either state or federal agents or both; he would have been arrested in Madisonville that day, as anybody else carrying a gun would have been approached and disarmed.  Law enforcement officials knew Darren’s weapons had been secured.

Every time I’ve been arrested, it’s been in support of The Madisonville Hoax.  These threats are meant to deflect attention away from what we’ve discovered by way of government corruption in eastern Tennessee and the rest of the state.  It was brought up in a habeas corpus petition which, to this day has not been answered, “Let Fitzpatrick go; he’s committed no crime.”  We have completely quashed any notion that any of these crimes of which I have been accused were passed through a proper jury system that begin with a proper grand jury.  So all of these false imprisonments are to support the Madisonville Hoax, which is continuing as recently as Thursday.  With what this U.S. attorney said, they’re trying to get me arrested again on a federal charge.  You know, as a U.S. attorney, when you make a comment like that in public, then you’ve just let the cat out of the bag that “We’re still working on a case against Fitzpatrick.”

I’ve gone to them to report crime; no one has ever come to me.  In that exchange of 10 March 2010 I told FBI Agent Mike Harrell, the head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, that nothing happened.  It was all a hoax.  They have planted in the minds of the three judges on Thursday – illegally – that a U.S. Navy retired was actively planning with another navy veteran to come into Madisonville, to commit acts of domestic terrorism, to commit acts of violence to injure people if not kill them.  In the meantime, it’s the same U.S. attorney’s office that’s preventing me from walking in to a grand jury and explaining what really happened.

Until we get a large number of people, this is going to continue.  This has got to stop.

———————-

Editor’s Note:  Many in the media have noted that the Obama regime appears hostile to veterans.  The Rutherford Institute has reported that over the last several years, veterans have been falsely accused arrested, intimidated, and harassed by government agents.  Obama’s de facto government has sought to block veterans seeking treatment for PTSD from owning firearms.

© 2014, The Post & Email. All rights reserved.

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Article printed from The Post & Email: http://www.thepostemail.com

URL to article: http://www.thepostemail.com/2014/02/01/assistant-u-s-attorney-makes-false-statements-at-huff-appeals-hearing/

JAG HUNTER here regarding Navy Vet Darren Wesley Huff: EMERGENCY CITIZEN WRIT OF MANDAMUS!

FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF PRECRIME!

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE!

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL .pdf RECORD FILING (word.doc version available on request)

Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III

United States Navy Retired

Post Office Box 293

Athens, Tennessee 37371-0293

Cell phone by appointment: 423.381.5311

 Email: jaghunter1@gmail.com

 

Monday, 30 December 2013

 

EMERGENCY CITIZEN WRIT OF MANDAMUS

In re: United States v. Darren Wesley Huff

CASE #: 125581

  

Unites States Court of Appeals for the federal Sixth Circuit

540 Potter Stewart United States Courthouse

100 East Fifth Street

Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

 And many others in a wider distribution

To: Chief Judge Alice M. Batchelder

Copies to: Various and numerous government agencies and law enforcement offices previously contacted

With waning deference and respect I write to you this day to report the scope and operation of a government I’ve been trained to fight against and destroy.

I sound the alert that a fraud is being perpetrated on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Federal and state judges, federal and state prosecutors, federal and state law enforcement officers, lower ranking state and federal court officers and Mr. Huff’s court appointed defense attorneys are criminally complicit in the fraud being visited upon this federal appellate Court.

I am commanding you to recognize this fraud and release Navy Veteran Darren Wesley Huff as an innocent man. I demand and command that Mr. Huff’s innocence be publicly and loudly declared and that Mr. Huff’s name be cleared causing to expunge all government records naming Mr. Huff a criminal in matters related to his case that have come into existence since April 2010.

I am commanding that the Court become the forcing function behind causing criminal investigations against those people who have acted to wrongfully harm or injure Mr. Huff resulting in his illegal incarceration presently. I furthermore call upon this Court to lash out and act against the fraud presently being visited upon this bench.

I am commanding that the Court order a federal grand jury assembled for these express purposes. The grand jury is to be impaneled to hear my testimony and inspect my voluminous investigative work product representing proofs and evidences going to Mr. Huff’s innocence and egregious maltreatment at the hands of various government officials; then to broaden their investigation from that starting point. For the sake of efficiency this federal grand jury is to be formed near the community of Athens, Tennessee.

Federal agents, assisted by Tennessee Start law enforcement officials arrested Mr. Huff in Tennessee State on Friday, 30 April 2010 on charges arising from activities that occurred in Madisonville, Tennessee on Tuesday, 20 April 2010 that have become commonly referred to as “The Madisonville Hoax.”

Federal Bureau of Investigation Mark A. Van Balen criminally accused Mr. Huff of being physically present armed with gun(s) at the R. Beecher Witt government building in Madisonville, TN on Tuesday, 20 April 2010. Van Balen further asserted under oath that Mr. Huff, while standing outside the R. Beecher Witt government building armed with gun(s), was thinking about using gun(s) to commit acts of violence against persons and property at that location.

Van Balen stated under oath that Mr. Huff was joined with other armed individuals at R. Beecher Witt government building and outside the building with Mr. Huff who were thinking about joining Mr. Huff at that location in carrying out acts of violence against persons and property using gun(s).

The truth is Mr. Huff was never physically present at the R. Beecher Witt government building at any moment in time on Tuesday, 20 April 2010. Enclosed, see former Sergeant of Marines William Looman’s sworn statement. Other fact witnesses, eye witnesses, ear witnesses have always been available to attest to Mr. Huff’s whereabouts in Madisonville, Tennessee on 20 April 2010.

The truth is that Mr. Huff was unarmed at every moment he was physically present in Madisonville, Tennessee on Tuesday, 20 April 2010. Again I invite focused attention to Marine Sergeant Looman’s sworn affidavit.

State and federal prosecutors, law enforcement officials, judges and court officers and public defenders all blocked unassailable testimonial and physical evidences proving Mr. Huff’s innocence from ever coming forth. They have instead created, enhanced and embellished upon The Madisonville Hoax!

Mr. Huff’s presence in Madisonville, Tennessee on Tuesday, 20 April 2010 was due to the discovery that Mr. Gary Pettway had stood in the Monroe County Tennessee grand jury as its foreman for twenty-eight (28) consecutive years.

The hearing Mr. Huff wanted to attend was part of a process seeking to expose Mr. Pettway’s criminal conduct and eventually effect Pettway’s peaceful removal from Pettway’s illegal yet officially declared job as “grand jury foreman.”

Federal and state government functionaries took action in bad faith against Mr. Huff and myself based on the false claim that Mr. Gary Pettway was, in fact, a legally summoned and impaneled “juror.”

Mr. Gary Pettway testified at Mr. Huff’s October 2011 federal trial passing himself off as a lawful and legal “juror” who was the object of Mr. Huff’s “thoughts” on Tuesday, 20 April 2010.

Mr. Pettway committed perjury by so testifying.

Other state and federal functionaries, mendacious muckrakers, embellished Mr. Pettway’s perjury, adding their own.They reported that Mr. Pettway, with other people and property, were somehow, in someway at risk of being harmed, injured or damaged on Tuesday, 20 April 2010 by Mr. Huff or other innocent men and women who came to Madisonville to attend a public court hearing as court watchers. 

This was all accomplished through the guise of The Madisonville Hoax.

State and federal officials used Mr. Huff in The Madisonville Hoax as a pawn to extend the durable myth that criminal court appointed foreman in Tennessee State were (1) jurors, and (2) legally acting as foremen.

One hundred and two (102) days ago, on Friday, 20 September 2013, Assistant Tennessee Attorney General Kyle Hixson, in a brief filed with the Tennessee’s Criminal Appellate Court in Knoxville gave up the game.

Hixson declared in an affirmative admission against state’s-interest that Mr. Pettway had never, in fact, been a “juror.”

The Hixson Brief affirmatively declares that no Tennessee grand jury foreman has ever been a “juror” going back scores of years.

This admission is ominous. Tennessee State law declares that the foreman of the grand jury, like any other member of a Tennessee State trial jury or grand jury must be in fact a juror.

The Madisonville Hoax was a brazen law enforcement operation the design of which was to cloak the decades old practice of criminal court judges illicitly anointing their own non-juror advocates and sycophants into what might have otherwise been a lawful grand jury.

Mr. Huff became a government tool, a pawn in breathing life into their hoax from that day to this day.

I’ve been conducting an investigation into the Madisonville Hoax ever since Tuesday, 20 April 2010. State and federal judges and prosecutors have ruthlessly blocked every effort I’ve made to report the results of my investigation and offer up for examination my investigative work product. I hold extensive proofs and evidences intended for presentation to a seated federal or state grand jury.

My investigation proves no prospective court-watcher who came to Madisonville, Tennessee on 20 April 2010 attempting to attend a court hearing that day carried a gun in the city of Madisonville.

No court watcher intended or planned any violence of any description. I have all their names. I’ve been in contact with them all. I have statements from several.

Creators, facilitators and agitators of the Madisonville Hoax steadfastly maintain to this day, some under their perjured oaths, that Mr. Huff carried a gun in Madisonville on that troubled day.

They continue to maintain and falsely report that other frustrated court watchers, wrongly accused as was Mr. Huff, were carrying guns with intent to carry out violence.

NONSENSE I SAY! NONSENSE! 

It’s all a lie. It’s all part of the Madisonville Hoax! None of the court-watchers carried a gun. Mr. Huff did not carry a gun.

Mr. Huff was never physically present at any time at the R. Beecher Witt government building on Tuesday, 20 April 2010.

Mr. Huff’s variously assigned defense attorneys were all on notice that this information was available to them then as now. An exhaustive record has always been available to them as the volume of amassed information, proof and evidences of Mr. Huff’s innocence continued to grow. Mr. Huff’s appointed defense counsels turned their heads away from all of it, laughing up their sleeves as they walked away.

In April 2011 Federal Judge H. Bruce Guyton personally intercepted my direct submissions to the two federal grand juries sitting in Knoxville seeking to appear before one of both of those two assemblies. I was prepared to prove Mr. Huff’s innocence to the grand jury. I was prepared to tell the grand jury, under oath, about my discoveries regarding The Madisonville Hoax and the part played in the hoax by state and federal officials so far as I knew in the spring of 2011.

Guyton personally blocked my submissions.

Guyton then personally refused to grant me permission to appear, deflecting my attempts to the U.S. Attorney for Tennessee’s Eastern District, William C. Killian.

H. Bruce Guyton was the presiding judge in Mr. Huff’s federal prosecution at the very moment H. Bruce Guyton obstructed my efforts to report to the federal grand jury on The Madisonville Hoax.

ONE OF THE LEAD PERPETRATORS IN THE CREATION AND CONDUCT OF “THE MADISONVILLE HOAX!” ~ William C. Killian – U.S. Attorney for Tennessee’s Eastern District ~ CLICK ON IMAGE FOR KILLIAN’S “SELFIE”

U.S. Attorney Killian, named as one of the perpetrators in The Madisonville Hoax, continues to block my efforts to appear before a federal grand jury to this day. See Killian’s enclosed letter dated Friday, 14 June 2013 that reintroduces Guyton’s letter dated Wednesday, 6 April 2011.

I was defeated again just fourteen (14) days ago, attempting to report to a local Tennessee State grand jury regarding the criminal court judges’ take down, take away and the take over of our local grand juries by way of judicial appointments of non-juror foreman.

I call attention once more to the Hixson Brief dated Friday 20 September 2013.

It was the criminal court judge, judicially anointed, county employee non-juror foreman, actually named in my submission as a fraud using the Hixson Brief as evidence, who personally blocked my submission and presentation from being reviewed or heard by the grand jury on Tuesday 17 December 2013, and then ordered a deputy sheriff to escort me from the courthouse.

I’ve aggressively attempted to report these matters to the Federal Bureau of Investigation at various locations in the country.

One of my more significant and memorable contacts occurred on 28 June 2011 (3½ months before Darren Huff’s October 2011 trial). I met with Special Agent Roxanne West for approximately three hours in Knoxville.

I’ve lost count of my reports to the FBI. They are numerous. And all of them ignored and trashed.

One reason why is that The Madisonville Hoax, as an extra added bonus, allowed for federal judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officials and court functionaries to exploit false accusations against Mr. Huff so as to achieve the first ever successful “thought crime” prosecution in United States history.

Van Balen’s sworn affidavit is based upon what Van Balen personally thought, and other FBI agents and law enforcement agents said they personally thought Mr. Huff was thinking about.

Maintaining Mr. Huff’s wrongful conviction in place, as FBI Special Agent Scott Johnson gleefully reported on 5 May 2012 is supremely important:

“This case is monumental to the FBI because it will set precedent for case law in future domestic terrorism cases throughout the United States.” (LINK)

I am not going into my efforts to report these matters to Tennessee State law enforcement officers that are as unceasing and unrelenting as they are numerous.

One other man who has been regularly defeated in attempting to bring to the attention of a sitting grand jury those actions of a corrupt government, and particularly those actions taken against Mr. Huff wrote this yesterday:

In Devvy Kidd’s piece today she refers to the movie “Open Range” where Kevin Costner tells the complainer who asks what he can do” You’re men ain’t you?” The complainer says he didn’t raise his sons to get killed, to which Costner replies: “You may not know this, but there’s things that gnaw on a man worse than dying.”

Darren’s hearing is one of those incremental crossroads things where we take an extra large step further into servitude it the state prevails.

I am sure no one will die if they make a stand. To put their name to paper and send it to a judge or stand with Darren in the courtroom will not get anyone killed. But to not make a stand and continue the incessant pecking on a computer keyboard will accomplish nothing.

Walt [I’m Walt] has nailed the dire circumstances involved in this hearing. If the state succeeds it will hamper the future efforts of all activists, but most specifically veterans.

The state motto in New Hampshire is: “Live Free or Die.” That’s what Costner was referring to. Are we there yet?

Getting close…

Repeating for emphasis, I SAY AGAIN to this U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, that I’m reporting in this EMERGENCY CITIZEN’S WRIT the scope and operation of the government I was trained to fight against and destroy.

The immediate reaction I expect to cause is that this Court take actions to guard itself against the fraud being committed against it, and after that see to Mr. Huff’s release from federal prison.

Accept my EMERGENCY CITIZEN’S WRIT as but another sworn criminal complaint. I’m calling for the immediate arrests of persons I’m able to name in the conduct of those criminal acts I’m able to credibly report.

Accept this as but one more demand to appear before sitting federal and state grand juries. Accept it as well as an emergency court filing in Mr. Huff’s pending judicial review.

Distribution of this writing is online and wide. Common law grand juries emerging around the country are free to use this actionable information as they wish.

Beware the fury of patient men. 

Dauntless and Unafraid in Defiance, Born fighting,

/s/ 

Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III

United States Navy Retired

 

Sworn and issued before me,

 /s/ S. Renee Bentley 

Monday, the 30^th day of December 2013

 at 1545 hours local ( 3:43 p.m. EST)

 My commission expires: 09-23-2015

Filed: 31 December 2013 at 1006 hours (local) 10:06:53 AM EST

             Certified mail #: 7011 0470 0001 6411 0447

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JAG HUNTER note: 

Darren’s only stop in Madisonville on Tuesday, 20 April 2010 was at Donna’s Old Town Cafe.

CLICK ON PICTURE FOR MORE!

Photos below show Darren standing in front of Donna’s eatery with other folks who’d traveled to Madisonville to attend a public court hearing. Darren never made it to the R. Beecher Witt government building courthouse. Donna’s was as close as he got (two-tenths of a mile distant ~ 4 blocks away on a different street). 

Darren (facing directly north) standing with two folks behind him (one out of the shot standing to the right as you look at the photograph). Eye witnesses #1 and #2. Identities withheld from this posting. CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE!

Darren (facing directly south) with witnesses (left to right) #3 (blonde in white sweater), witness #4 (woman wearing sunglasses), witness #4 (man wearing grey baseball cap), witness #6 (man wearing red baseball cap), and witness #7 (blonde woman wearing the black leather coat). Identities withheld from this posting. CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE!

There were many others not photographed who were with Darren at Donna’s who are not shown in the photos above.

I count myself as one of those eye witnesses.

There exists a great deal more evidence proving the state and federal “MADISONVILLE HOAX.” which extends as well to prove Darren Huff’s innocence. 

“The MADISONVILLE HOAX” WAS PART OF THE FBI’S OPERATION VIGILANT EAGLE (LINK).

THERE ARE BELIEFS AND THERE IS A THEORY THAT THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON ~ EVENING GANG STYLE MOB HIT MURDER OF MR. JIM MILLER WAS CONNECTED TO “The MADISONVILLE HOAX.” (LINK)

Mr. JIM MILLER

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CURRENT OR FORMER TENNESSEE STATE EMPLOYEES CONNECTED TO “The MADISONVILLE HOAX!”

MORE HERE!

Here endth the lesson!

Corrupt Federal Judges and Tennessee Officials Commit Obstruction of Justice, Go Unpunished

– The Post & Email – http://www.thepostemail.com –

Corrupt Federal Judges and Tennessee Officials Commit Obstruction of Justice, Go Unpunished

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Sunday, December 29, 2013 @ 12:05 PM In National |

“THEY NEED THIS CONVICTION TO STAND”

by CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) and Post & Email Editor Sharon Rondeau 

(Dec. 29, 2013) — [Editor’s Note:  On Thursday, federal prisoner Darren Wesley Huff informed The Post & Email and others that an appeal in his case has been filed and will be heard on January 30, 2014, at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, OH.

The attorney who will be representing Huff is Gerald Gulley of Knoxville.

Huff was convicted in October 2011 of “transporting firearms across state lines with the intent to cause a civil disorder” after false reports were made to local authorities in Monroe County, TN that he planned to “take over the courthouse” on April 20, 2010.

Initially, the trial jury produced a verdict of “not guilty” on one count and was hung on the second count, but Judge Thomas Varlan instructed them to “try again,” after which the jury pronounced Huff guilty on the one count.

An eyewitness, Bill Looman, who spent all of April 20, 2010 with Huff, provided a sworn affidavit affirming that Huff was not armed after he parked and exited his truck in Madisonville, TN.  Looman stated that because would-be observers arriving for the hearing for Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III that day were barred from entering the courthouse, he and Huff went to a restaurant across the street to have breakfast. Looman maintained that Huff was not where the government claimed he was in order to effect the alleged “courthouse takeover.”

Looman and other eyewitnesses were not called to Huff’s trial, where Tennessee Tenth Judicial District officials perjured themselves, including Gary Pettway, who had served as grand jury foreman for 28 straight years under Judge Carroll Lee Ross.  Huff’s public defender, H. Scott Green, did not call Fitzpatrick, Looman or any other eyewitness in Huff’s defense even though Fitzpatrick was physically at the courthouse waiting to be called to testify.

Ross had orchestrated Fitzpatrick’s arrest after Fitzpatrick attempted a citizen’s arrest on Pettway on April 1, 2010 for over-serving his term as a juror according to Tennessee state code.  The April 20 hearing was an assignment hearing which Fitzpatrick understood would take only a few minutes.

Following the April 1 incident, Fitzpatrick was indicted by the Monroe County grand jury for having intimidated Gary Pettway, who was identified as “a juror.”  Fitzpatrick was also charged with riot, intimidating a juror, and disrupting a meeting.  In September of this year, the state of Tennessee clarified that the foreman of a Tennessee grand jury is not a juror, but rather, a court-appointed public employee.  However, the foreman routinely votes with the grand jurors as the 13th person, thereby infusing state influence into a process which is expected to be driven by citizens acting as a buffer between government and the people in accordance with the Fifth Amendment.

Tennessee state code requires that 13 randomly-selected individuals comprise a grand jury, not 12 plus a representative of the state’s interests.

Huff was also charged by the Monroe County with intimidating “a juror” for having video-taped the citizen’s arrest carried out by Fitzpatrick.  Now, the state of Tennessee maintains that Pettway was not a juror.

In Monroe County, Huff took a plea of “no contest” to the charges, but a federal case was brought against him based on a faulty FBI affidavit signed by Special Agent Mark Van Balen which stated that Huff and Fitzpatrick were armed and had planned to “take over” the Monroe County courthouse on April 20.  Van Balen cited unnamed “officials” upon whose statements he relied to produce the affidavit, which served as probable cause for Huff’s arrest and jailing by federal authorities.

Over the last two years, Fitzpatrick has gathered sworn and unsworn statements from eyewitnesses which say that no one in Madisonville was armed on April 20, 2010 and that no clashes with law enforcement were observed, despite the heavy presence of local police, FBI and TBI agents, a SWAT team, bomb-sniffing dogs and Tennessee Highway Patrolmen throughout the area.

Some who attended the hearing but were not allowed in to the courtroom reported being audited by the IRS afterward.  This past spring, the IRS admitted to having targeted groups perceived as politically opposed to the regime’s policies.  Within the last several weeks, two men who have voiced their objections to Obamacare and the fallout of insurance policies’ cancellation have reported that they are being audited by the IRS.

The Post & Email attempted to obtain documentation on the massive deployment of law enforcement on April 20, 2010 but was denied on several levels in which the government cited “privacy” concerns.  The Obama regime had promised “the toughest ethics rules and toughest transparency rules of any administration in history.”

Obama has not explained why the long-form birth certificate posted on the White House website on April 27, 2011 is a forgery.  On March 17, 2009, Fitzpatrick had filed a criminal complaint of treason against Obama, naming him as a foreign-born domestic enemy.  A criminal investigation has revealed that the image is a forgery, that Obama may be foreign-born and that it is likely that he was not born in Hawaii, as he claims.  According to lead investigator Mike Zullo, the fraudulent image was posted “with the intent to deceive.”

Mainstream media have consistently reported that Huff was pursuing a treason complaint or removal of office against Obama, which was false.  In a taped interview with The Post & Email in 2011, Huff stated, “That is not my issue.”

After Huff’s trial and just before sentencing in May 2012, Varlan was presented with evidence that several government officials’ testimony had been tainted, but that evidence was ignored.  In accordance with the Obama regime’s declaration that Second Amendment supporters are “militia extremists,” U.S. Attorney William C. Killian, an Obama appointee, “commended the verdict and said he hoped it would send a strong message to those who attempt to take the law into their own hands.”

William C. Killian – U.S. Attorney for Tennessee’s Eastern District

Killian continued, “Under our federal Constitution and statutes Mr. Huff and others like him can talk or write about their anti-government views. They cannot arm themselves and make threats to arrest public officials and takeover government buildings. The core of our democratic system is to allow peaceful protest, but prohibit armed threats to those who serve our government. His conviction is a great achievement by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Theodore and Mackie and several local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Their cooperative efforts resulted in this conviction.”

Since Huff’s conviction, the corruption of public officials in the Tenth Judicial District of Tennessee has become public:

• One of the officials named as a criminal by both Huff and Fitzpatrick is District Attorney General R. Steven Bebb, who is reported to under consideration to be removed from his post by the Tennessee General Assembly for professional misconduct and possible criminal behavior after the attorney general failed to find Bebb guilty of crimes.

• Contrary to the indictments issued against Fitzpatrick and Huff, Pettway has been officially declared by Tennessee Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Justice Division, Kyle Hixson, not to have ever been “a juror.”

• Judge Carroll Ross is retiring after numerous incidents of misconduct have been exposed by Fitzpatrick, Huff, The Post & Email, and Appellate Judge Thomas M. Tipton, who reversed Ross’s convictions against George Raudenbush on the grounds that Ross denied him his constitutional right to counsel in 2011.

• The grand juries which have issued indictments against the above defendants and all others over an unknown number of years have been illegally composed of 12 citizens, some of whom were not chosen randomly and served consecutive terms in violation of Tennessee state law.

• Assistant District Attorney General Paul D. Rush, who prosecuted Fitzpatrick in the case now on appeal, has been cited for ethics violations by the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility after Rush specifically identified The Post & Email as lacking in “ethics” and “integrity.”

• Fitzpatrick’s defense attorney, Van Irion of Knoxville, has just announced that he is running next year for Criminal Court Judge against Amy Armstrong Reedy, who Fitzpatrick named as a criminal for hand-picking jurors for the 2012 term in open court, a fact Irion presented during the appeals hearing for Fitzpatrick on November 20.

Since discovering massive corruption within the Monroe County grand jury in December 2009, Fitzpatrick has attempted to enlist the assistance of the Knoxville FBI, the TBI, local police, sheriff’s department, and district attorney general’s office, but all have proven either corrupt themselves or unwilling to open an investigation.

The McMinn County grand jury is similarly compromised, with a judge-appointed foreman who exerts influence over the 12 grand jurors but denies that he has engaged in obstruction of justice even when he himself is the subject of a criminal complaint.

Fitzpatrick has attempted to bring the exculpatory evidence relating to Huff’s case as well as the corruption of Tenth Judicial District officials to the federal grand juries sitting in Knoxville but has been blocked by Killian, Magistrate H. Bruce Guyton, and Varlan.  Here, Fitzpatrick explains how Guyton was compromised in his actions on Huff’s case and that grand juries at both the state and federal levels have become tools of the government, not of the people.]

Three years ago, I could have walked into a grand jury either at the state level or federal level and talked to some degree about the suspicions we had about the scope and operation of grand juries then, pointing directly at Mr. Pettway and saying “He’s been there for 28 years; there’s something wrong here.  I’m willing to work with you folks in the grand jury to get to the bottom of this.”  And you know what happened.

Almost three years ago, I tried to get in front of the federal grand jury directly.  We knew that that Darren had falsely set up, falsely accused, and falsely arrested.  There were two federal grand juries sitting at that time in Knoxville.  I contacted the jury coordinator, Helen Spears, who sent me a handbook on the federal grand juries.   I sent in a submission on March 16, and I sent a second on April 7.

Jury 1 16 Mar 2011

Jury 2 16 Mar 2011

Jury 1 7 Apr 2011

Jury 2 7 Apr 2011

Jury 1 8 Apr 2011

Jury 2 8 April 2011

These were mailed before I got Guyton’s letter.  These three mailings were blocked.  The 16 March mailing, which was a challenge to the grand juries, was returned unopened three weeks later.  In the meantime, I sent in two more:  the ones from the 7th of April and 8th of April.  Those were not returned; he kept those.

I sent copies of the other mailings to the U.S. attorney and to Richard Lambert, who was the special agent then in charge of the Knoxville FBI.

And the other submission crossed in them mail with his letter back to me saying, “You can’t petition the grand jury directly.  You have to go through me, the judge, the court; or you have to go through the U.S. attorney.  He wrote that in the letter citing the case of New Haven Grand Jury from 1985.

6 April 2011 H.Bruce Guyton ltr

What’s significant is that H. Bruce Guyton – and I didn’t know it at the time; I found out later – was the sitting judge in Darren’s case.  He was making rulings on Darren’s case from the bench.  Later on, I thought Guyton was going to be the trial judge, but it turned out to be Thomas Varlan.  Darren had issues with the court; he was filing submission to the court, and they were all going to H. Bruce Guyton.

Guyton was preventing me from getting information into the grand juries about Darren and which eventually was about Guyton and other people in the federal government to include U.S. Attorney William C. Killian and Richard L. Lambert from the FBI. As time passes, we have learned more about what happened on April 20, 2010, and I’m still collecting information from people who were in Madisonville that day.  It took me a couple of years, frankly.  So we’re still putting together a picture from witnesses as to what happened, but I had enough to start a process for the grand juries to take a look at what was going on in the Tenth Judicial District.  Guyton blocked me from doing that for no reason.  He said, “I’m not going to give you permission; I’m deferring to the U.S. Attorney.”

All these mailings went to Guyton, Lambert and William C. Killian, the U.S. attorney in Knoxville, and they probably just threw all of this information away. Other mailings I sent after that went directly to Killian, and I got nothing back from him.  In fact, the only letter I got from his office said, “Don’t send us anything else; it will be thrown away.”

14 JUNE 2013 WILLIAM C. KILLIAN letter

This has been the attitude of the federal government from day one.  As time has passed, you know how much information we have come into possession of regarding the Madisonville Hoax, who did what, the perjury at Darren’s trial, the revelation here that is just days old that the grand jury foreman is not a juror.  If we had known then what we know now, Darren would not be in a federal prison. One of the ways that we could have known back in the spring of 2011 is if a federal grand jury had picked this up and started asking questions of the people in the local community about “How is it that the law says that a juror can’t be in the jury for more than one term, but the foreman serves multiple terms?”  The grand jury could have started asking questions which the appellate court now has asked in my case since.  And the state has now come in and they’ve been forced into a position where they have to admit that the grand jury foreman is not a juror.

I believe that if Guyton had allowed me to go forward with what we knew then, the grand jury could have discovered this on their own before Darren’s case ever came to trial.  It wouldn’t have taken them long to start calling people into the federal jury room in Knoxville and start putting these people under oath and having people such as Gary Pettway explain under oath how he had been in that job for 28 years in a row.  But that didn’t happen, and the reason it didn’t happen was because of Bruce Guyton’s obstruction and that of the FBI and William C. Killian.

The reason we’re talking about this now is that I just learned that Darren Huff has a hearing on 30 January 2014, and we can’t seem to get any of this information into the court that is hearing the case.  We’re being obstructed in the same way that Bruce Guyton obstructed me almost three years ago.  One of the reasons they want Darren in prison is that they successfully prosecuted him for a “thought crime.”

An article written by Jamie Satterfield three years ago on Friday and updated three years yesterday discusses the rulings that H. Bruce Guyton handed down in the case of Darren Wesley Huff, and they went to whether or not he should be locked up or wear an ankle bracelet. Bruce Guyton is the guy who blocked me from getting in front of a grand jury and talking about the case over which he was presiding.

He didn’t know what I was going to bring to the grand jury, but after follow-on submissions to the U.S attorney, which I made and were not answered, I went to the FBI and met with Special Agent Roxane West for three hours.  I met with her, and nothing happened.

If nothing else, it’s important that we get this information out publicly.

Bruce Guyton could have been responsible for Darren’s being released.  There was a federal judge obstructing justice.

We had a lot back in the day, and the juries should have called me in, but they did not.

The Post & Email asked Fitzpatrick if he believes there is anyone else who could be approached with the information he tried to present to the federal grand juries, to which he responded:

Darren Huff has an eyewitness to his whereabouts all day long on April 20, 2010 who was not called to the stand in Darren’s defense.  Darren was set up by his own defense attorney.   I was there to testify on Darren’s behalf.  Nobody who could have squared away this jury would have been able to convict Darren, because he was not physically ever at the place where the FBI said he committed a crime that day.  If all we have is Bill Looman’s sworn statement, then we have all that we need to get Darren released.  We have so much more.

How do we get this in front of a judge for January 30?  That is a question I can’t answer.

In going back over this information, I’ve come up with this other fact that a federal judge, H. Bruce Guyton, obstructed Darren’s getting a fair hearing.  He could have prevented all of this from happening to Darren then.  That’s another dynamic here that the appeals judges need to know about:  that a federal judge has committed a crime.

Darren has been locked up as a political prisoner as we’ve said before.

We have this battery of information; it’s a lot, and it’s powerful.  We can prove that we knew enough back in the day to exonerate Darren and that we were physically obstructed by the FBI, the U.S. attorney’s office, and by a federal judge who was hearing Darren’s case at the time.  That’s pretty big.

We have it in writing that anything I might send to Killian is going to be thrown away.  So I tried to go to a state grand jury here about ten days ago to raise up the issue that way, and I was turned away again.  You remember my telling you about waiting hours to get in and then having McMinn County grand jury foreman Jeff Cunningham be the one who blocked me from getting in when he’s named in the complaint.

It reminds me of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany…it’s the government that I was trained to fight against.  It is the government that all military personnel are trained to fight against.  When they taken an oath to the Constitution, this is the domestic enemy from within.  We’re seeing it firsthand.  I can’t make it any more plain to people that grand juries have been taken over by the government than to demonstrate to them what happened at the federal level which is the letter that says, “You can’t get in here by any means.”  The fact that Bruce Guyton obstructed this and it has never come to the fore to correct the mistake; we’ve tried to get in front of Thomas Varlan to get me in front of a grand jury; Varlan hasn’t cooperated.  And now you see where at the state level, the people are not able to critically think through what it is they’re supposed to be doing.  Frankly, I don’t know that they know what they’re supposed to be doing.  They see a guy like Cunningham and say, “Hey, Jeff, now what?”

That’s the problem we face.  We need juries that we can depend upon to stand up and to take back our government. Look at all of the efforts that have been made to get this information in front of a grand jury, and to have done that would have completely cleared Darren a long time.  It would have blocked Darren from ever being prosecuted in the first place.  This is all being done with purposeful intent.

This information was provided to Scott Green, who did not defend Darren.

The judge who was hearing Darren’s case blocked me from coming in to talk to the grand jury about the case.  Darren could have been exonerated.  It was as if Guyton was preventing Darren from defending himself.

If all we had was Bill Looman’s eyewitness testimony about Darren’s physical presence that day and the fact that Darren was not armed in Madisvonville, TN, that should have been enough.  Nobody who testified that Darren was there that day had to prove that he was there that day.  It was all cops who said that, and they committed perjury.  They also had Gary Pettway come in and commit perjury by representing himself as a “real grand jury foreman juror.”

Darren’s release is just the first of thousands of dominoes which start to fall when you take a look at the larger picture, and the federal government is doing everything it can do to block Darren from proving his innocence.  The people who are involved in the obstruction involves the federal judge who was hearing Darren’s case at the time, who had a conflict of interest in Darren’s case and was ruling on the case after the submissions were sent by me to Guyton, who was involved in this all the way up until Darren’s trial.

Guyton could have let me in.  Why didn’t he?  Killian could have let me in, and he didn’t.  It’s because they need this conviction to stand.

© 2013, The Post & Email. All rights reserved.

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Article printed from The Post & Email: http://www.thepostemail.com

URL to article: http://www.thepostemail.com/2013/12/29/corrupt-federal-judges-and-tennessee-officials-commit-obstruction-of-justice-go-unpunished/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF PRECRIME!

Darren’s case is presently and singularly the most important case in United States history (CLICK HERE)!

Read more here…

and 

Here.

Tennessee Tenth Judicial District Public Defender Speaks with The Post & Email

– The Post & Email – http://www.thepostemail.com –

Exclusive: Tennessee Tenth Judicial District Public Defender Speaks with The Post & Email

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Tuesday, December 24, 2013 @ 10:08 AM In States | 

“A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO MAKE BOND”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Dec. 24, 2013) — On Monday, Tenth Judicial District Senior Public Defender Richard Hughes contacted The Post & Email regarding George Raudenbush, whose convictions and subsequent incarceration have been reported in detail previously.

Raudenbush was denied his constitutional right to defense counsel by Judge Carroll Lee Ross, who announced this past August that he would retire in August 2014 just before Raudenbush advised The Post & Email in a letter that the convictions were in the process of being reversed.

An opinion by an appeals court judge, Thomas M. Tipton, affirms Raudenbush’s statements.

Hughes explained that Tipton set the bond for Raudenbush at $25,000 but that Hughes was able to argue successfully that it be reduced to $10,000, 10% of which would be required to effect Raudenbush’s release pending the new trial.  Hughes added that at times, a bondsman will accept something less than 10%.

On Friday evening, Hughes asked that “family and friends” of Raudenbush consider raising the bond amount if they are able so that Raudenbush could be released from prison before Christmas.  During our interview, The Post & Email told Hughes that a reader had offered to donate $100 toward the $1,000 needed, after which Hughes explained that on Monday, he spoke with the Tennessee Department of Corrections, which informed him that a “mandate” authorizing Raudenbush’s release had not yet been received.

“He has the constitutional right to make bond,” Hughes said.

When The Post & Email asked Atty. Hughes to explain how the convictions were reversed, he told us:

The trial court had appointed the public defender to represent George.  He had filed for post-conviction relief from his conviction and sentence, and Judge Ross had appointed my office to represent him on appeal, which is called a late appeal because George didn’t know to file a timely appeal because he’s not an attorney.  I got personally involved and did the appellate brief myself.  The basis for the appeal was the violation of George’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.  He did have a right to appointed counsel, and Judge Ross violated that by not appointing an attorney at trial or even during the sentencing phase of his case.

There is case law where a person can forfeit his right to counsel, and it requires pretty extreme conduct on the part of the defendant.  There are a whole lot of cases where the court has ruled that a person has forfeited his right to a lawyer by his actions, but the conduct has to be pretty egregious.  There are cases where the defendant will not work with his attorney, sometimes even make threats to the attorney, won’t listen to their advice, refuse to meet with them, and then there are cases where that attorney will be relieved and another lawyer appointed, and then the same thing happens and the court ruled that the defendant is trying to delay justice in his case to avoid being tried by not cooperating with counsel.  In those cases, the court can rule that you’ve forfeited your right to a lawyer by your words and actions.

Tipton, in the majority opinion, said that nothing that George did rose to the level where he had forfeited his right to an attorney, so Judge Ross violated his right to counsel.  Basically, the judge should have made a decision as to whether or not George was indigent.  There was never a hearing- I’ve been a public defender a long time, and my understanding is that when a person requests it, the judge has to have a hearing to determine indigence.  Because of George’s religious views, he refused to swear an oath as to the information contained in the affidavit of indigence when he applied for the public defender.  Judge Ross said that because he wouldn’t swear to it, he wouldn’t consider it.

The Post & Email said, “But you can affirm, can’t you?” to which Hughes answered, “You can affirm.”

The court of appeals said that that was not sufficient – that because he didn’t want to swear to the information enclosed in no way forfeited his right to counsel.  The way I understand the posture of George’s case, he has to come back to Monroe County once the mandate is in; he’ll return to the county jail; he’ll appear back before the trial court, and my office would have to be appointed.  There would still have to be again the determination that George is indigent for an appointment of counsel.  So right now, this minute, I don’t represent George Raudenbush for the new trial on those charges.  I represented him on the appeal; we won; so right now, he’s back where he was before he was ever tried.  He doesn’t have a public defender; he obviously can apply for a public defender, and I would imagine that things will be a little different.  If he qualifies, my office will be appointed and George can have a trial.

I know he doesn’t want to be tried again; he doesn’t think he should be tried again.  But the state can try him.  They did not vacate, although there are situations where they vacate and the judge may order that the case is over.  Here, the judge reversed the convictions and remanded the case back to the trial court.

I would think George would be back before Judge Ross, and I would think that with what he has gone through, either the public defender or the counsel of his choice will be making a motion to remove Judge Ross from hearing the case a second time.  I haven’t really thought through all of that, but I’m sure, based on the letters I have received from George, that would be one of his first requests.

“Would Judge Ross have any reason to refuse to recuse himself?”

 Judge Ross can say, “I’m not going to recuse myself.  The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction; I respect the Court of Appeals; whether I agree or do not agree with them, they’ve acted, and I have to honor the decision they’ve made, but there’s no basis for me to step aside.”  Or Judge Ross may decide, in the interest of justice based on what happened, from the perspective of George Raudenbush, that he should recuse himself.  There are situations where the judge is supposed to look at the case from the perspective of the defendant and whether or not the defendant thinks he can get a fair trial.  The judge in his own mind might say, “Well, of course I can be fair; there’s not the appearance of impropriety and I’ve done nothing inappropriate.” but he will recuse himself just as a precaution and say, “From the standpoint of the defendant, I understand that he may feel that the court can’t be fair, and I’m going to step aside.”

“It would certainly remove any doubts about Judge Ross’s intentions or feelings about the case.  He recused himself from one of CDR Fitzpatrick’s cases.”

The Post & Email then asked, “Are you able to speak at all to any corruption going on in the Monroe County criminal court or any of the Tenth Judicial District courts?

I know what you know, which is there has been a TBI investigation of the district attorney’s office, and the TBI released a report which I have not seen.  I’m not authorized to review that, but my understanding is that they’ve reached a determination that there was no crime committed.  There was a five-part series in The Chattanooga Times Free Press in which Judy Walton on the district attorney’s office and Drug Task Force.  TBI decided that there was no crime committed, but there’s still the open question as to whether or not there was any unethical conduct.

“Members of the both the Tennessee General Assembly’s House and Senate Judicial Committees are trying to remove Bebb from office.”

Yes, the first of the year, there’s a committee formed to determine whether or not to proceed with an ouster of the district attorney general.  When the General Assembly of Tennessee goes back into session in January, that committee is formed to make a determination. Obviously, I don’t know when that decision will be made or what the outcome will be, but I would imagine it will be made pretty quickly as to whether or not they are going to proceed.  My understanding is that that committee has had the chance to review the entire TBI investigative file.  All I know is what I’ve read, although I’m aware of certain things that have occurred.  Most of what I know is based on what was reported in The Chattanooga Times.

I know Mr. Fitzpatrick feels passionately that the grand jury system in east Tennessee is unethical.  I don’t know.  Some states don’t have a grand jury system to charge people.

“There are no grand juries here in Connecticut, where they were legislated away in 1983.”

I don’t know…they say that the grand jury is a buffer between the powers of the state, the district attorney and law enforcement; and other people say, “It’s just a rubber stamp for the district attorney’s office.”  I know there are differences of opinion on the necessity of a grand jury system.  I know Walt feels as if there’s wrongdoing in the grand jury, unethical conduct…To be honest with you, I haven’t really followed that issue.  I know what happened to Walter; I remember the charges, and I know he went through a trial.  I know it’s on appeal.  I talked to him and had a good conversation last week.  I know he feels strongly that the system that’s in effect in east Tennessee and in Monroe County is illegal, a violation of the law.  I know he feels strongly about that.  Obviously, there’s no case law at the present time to support that.  I don’t know how often that issue has been litigated.

The Post & Email then shared some of the experiences and research carried out by both Fitzpatrick and The Post & Email on Tennessee codes governing jury selection, including the District Attorneys General Conference website which says that a grand jury consists of 13 members of the community chosen randomly, from which the foreman is then chosen.  In Tennessee, judges have been choosing their own foreman and hiring him or her as a court employee by an unknown vetting process.

The Post & Email then extended an offer to set up a complimentary account for Atty. Hughes and invited him to read and refute any of our contentions either on or off the record, which Hughes accepted.

Regarding the bond for Raudenbush, Hughes said that he could not handle the money himself.  “A concerned friend or family member would have to be the one to collect and handle that,” he said.  He affirmed that until the written mandate is received by the Department of Corrections, Raudenbush could not be released even to a county jail.  “That mandate must be received before he can post bond,” Hughes said.

The Post & Email asked Hughes what his motivation was to put out the word about Raudenbush’s bond beginning on Friday evening given that he is technically not yet retained to handle the case, to which he responded:

I’ve been a public defender ever since I’ve been an attorney.  Since 1989, I’ve been in this office.  I feel strongly in the right to counsel.  I feel that I have a good office.  I certainly support my office and public defenders throughout the country.  It’s a tough job, it’s an important job, and it’s important to the administration of justice.  The Court of Appeals said that George’s right to counsel was violated, that he should have had an attorney through all proceedings that occurred in his case.  I don’t know George. We’ve corresponded by letter; I know he’d like to see me in person.  But I feel that based on what’s heard and the fact that the determination has been reversed, I would like to see him make bond.  He’s been in custody for two years; the Court of Appeals says it was an erroneous conviction, and I would hate to see him in jail for many more months when his case has been set aside.

It’s not every day you get a conviction reversed.  It’s very difficult, in my estimation.  I’ve appealed quite a few cases, and the large majority of convictions are affirmed on appeal, so when you have a reversal, it catches your attention, and certainly, anybody in George’s situation in which his convictions are reversed, I’d like for him to have the opportunity to be able to make bond.  He has a constitutional right to make bond, and that’s why I filed the motion.

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Tennessee Grand Juries Co-Opted by Government, Operating Illegally

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Tennessee Grand Juries Co-Opted by Government, Operating Illegally

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Wednesday, December 18, 2013 @ 8:39 AM In National |

“THIS GOVERNMENT IS COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Dec. 18, 2013) — On Tuesday, CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) went to the McMinn County, TN courthouse to submit a criminal complaint naming the grand jury foreman, court clerk, three Tenth Judicial District prosecutors and two criminal court judges as “illegally, individually and judicially selecting installing [sic] people into the grand juries,” thereby wielding undue influence in order to obtain specific outcomes.

Rhonda Cooley is the elected Circuit Court Clerk for McMinn County, and Atty. Jeffrey Cunningham, who is also a local bank official, is the appointed grand jury foreman.

Fitzpatrick had wished to explain to the grand jury that while the state attorney general’s office claims that the foreman is not a juror, but rather, a county employee, state law requires that the foreman must be a juror.  Criminal court rules posted on the website of the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts state that “the foreperson shall possess all the qualifications of a juror.”

TCA 40-12-206 mandates that juries comprise 13 jurors and as many as five alternates.  There is no mention in state code of a “foreman” who is injected into the grand jury or trial jury by the action of a judge, although the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts maintains that that process is legal.  Local media have reported that “the foreperson is appointed by the judge and doesn’t necessarily have to come from the jury pool.”

the foreperson is appointed by the judge and doesn’t necessarily have to come from the jury pool. – See more at: http://advocateanddemocrat.com/story/21576#sthash.XqNwo0ZV.dpuf

Although the criminal courts in Tennessee have contorted the laws and court rules to allow the judges to choose the grand jury foreman, who often serves for years or decades at the judge’s behest, the District Attorneys General Conference has officially stated that the foreman is to be chosen from among 13 eligible citizens of the county who are selected by automated means.

Earlier this year, the Tennessee Attorney General declined to criminally prosecute District Attorney General R. Steven Bebb, who is named in Fitzpatrick’s current and previous complaints, after allegedly performing an investigation following extensive reportage at The Post & Email and The Chattanooga Times Free Press of Bebb’s alleged misconduct and criminal activity.  The legislature, however, has taken action in an apparent attempt to remove Bebb from his post.

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued an opinion contending that a district attorney general “is answerable to no superior and has virtually unbridled discretion in determining whether to prosecute and for what offense.”  Historically, the Tennessee General Assembly and the judiciary have acted at odds with and in contradiction to one another.  The original 1796 Tennessee constitution contained no judicial branch, although the legislature later created one.  Current General Assembly members are aware of the corruption within the grand juries and criminal courts.

Fitzpatrick’s four-page criminal complaint, dated December 16, 2013, can be read in its entirety here:  17DEC2013 GJCRIMCOM

Monroe County, TN has misrepresented the grand jury foreman as a juror and based criminal charges against Fitzpatrick and Darren Wesley Huff upon that false statement.  On June 3, 2010, then-grand jury foreman Gary Pettway was described as “a juror” in indictments issued against both men signed by Angela Davis, who acted as foreperson for that day.  Davis was herself serving illegally in a second consecutive term as a juror in violation of TCA 22-2-314.

On Tuesday and three previous occasions on which Fitzpatrick attempted to present criminal evidence to the McMinn County grand jury, the foreman, Jeffrey Cunningham, refused to recuse himself despite his having been named in the respective complaints.  Instead, Cunningham brought the complaint in to the members of the grand jury and presided over them, then conveyed their “conclusion” to Fitzpatrick, as he did on Tuesday.

“This government is completely out of control,” Fitzpatrick said.  “The grand jury is being controlled by the judges who appoint the foreman.  Cunningham should not have been in the room today.  He should have said, ‘I’m named in this complaint; I’m going to step outside and give it to Jack or Sally or whoever…You guys decide for yourselves…’ It’s astounding how serious this is; it’s breathtaking.

“Today was a special day because the report that I was bringing to them wasn’t my report; it was the report of the Attorney General‘s office for the State of Tennessee.  They had a decision to make.  I have very clearly demonstrated to them that Mr. Cunningham is not a juror, and they refused to look into this.  The government is controlling the grand juries, and you cannot bring a complaint against the government because of people like Jeff Cunningham.  It’s not just the foreman; it’s all of them.  This grand jury is not protecting the people of the county,” Fitzpatrick said.

After Cunningham re-emerged from the grand jury room, which is also the office of U.S. Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, he informed Fitzpatrick that the grand jurors would not take action on his complaint and had asked that a deputy escort Fitzpatrick out of the building.

On December 7, 2011, Fitzpatrick observed Judge Amy Armstrong Reedy, who is named in the complaint submitted on Tuesday, peruse slips of paper containing the names of prospective jurors and choosing those she wanted, a fact which was presented to the appeals court on November 20 by Fitzpatrick’s attorney, Van Irion, who is defending him against the charge of “tampering with government records.”

One of the three appeals court judges appeared incredulous when Irion stated that Fitzpatrick had witnessed Reedy hand-picking jurors in open court.  Fitzpatrick describes what Reedy did as “one example of how the system is vulnerable to human agency; picking your grand jury by pre-selecting them and knowing exactly what you’re going to get.”

The Tennessee constitution requires that evidence of a criminal nature be presented to a grand jury before a presentment against the person initiating a charge can be issued.

“This was historic.  This grand jury in east Tennessee was shown unarguable, unassailable, unquestionable evidence that their foreman is not a juror, and they walked away from it, refusing to give their names.  This is the kind of thing that would go into the history books when they used to be reliable.”

Tennessee state law requires that 13 people comprise a grand jury, but only 12 members routinely serve on a grand jury.  Since the foreman is not a juror, but rather, represents the interests of the state, no grand jury in Tennessee can be operating impartially as is required by the Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights.

“This is the control that the government exercises over our jury system now.  The jury system is completely unreliable and taken over.  We don’t have any better example of that than what happened today.  This is extraordinary.  The person who was criminally accused, their buddy, the guy they’ve worked with all year, was standing in the room with them.  The conflict here is just overwhelming,” Fitzpatrick told us.

Fitzpatrick has presented evidence to the local FBI in Knoxville as well as the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), both of which have chosen not to act.

When The Post & Email asked Fitzpatrick if he believed that the grand jurors did not want to know the facts about their proper function and that of the foreman, he responded, “It’s not that they don’t want to know; it’s that they have been told not to act.  ‘Do not do anything at all. You’ve been picked for a special purpose; you are not to act against the government.  Cunningham is your foreman; that’s that; live with it.  If you don’t like it, leave, and we’ll get somebody else.’”

At 6:35 in the following recording, Cunningham states that he was serving as the foreman on Tuesday, despite having been named in the criminal complaint:  17 DEC 2013 FIRST CONTACT WITH CUNNINGHAM

Fitzpatrick said that the inaction of the grand jury on Tuesday “washes over every grand jury that’s had a court-appointed foreman for the last unknown number of decades.  There was no more clear a case than the one that walked in the door today, and they said, ‘We’re not interested.’”

Cunningham did not make copies of the complaint for the grand jurors, but rather, “read it to them” while he stood in the room, where Fitzpatrick was not allowed to enter.  Cunningham also told Fitzpatrick that he “did not appreciate” that Fitzpatrick had accused him of “blocking” criminal complaints from reaching the grand jury.  “His physical presence is an influence; it cannot be argued,” Fitzpatrick said.  “He’s the one who broke the seal on the package, even though it said, ‘Do not open unless you are a grand juror.’  He knew that he was named in the complaint, and he should have said at that point in time, ‘I’m sorry, but I know I can’t be in the room.’”

“This is exactly the function that these foremen have been serving for decades throughout the entire state of Tennessee. This is the reason that the judicial system is so highly successful in bringing in the amounts of money that they have been generating and sending people to jails and prisons for untold years.”

Cunningham did not return Fitzpatrick’s complaint or provide him with a signed statement from the grand jurors.   17 Dec 2013 PET 0838

Cunningham told Fitzpatrick that he “had made that mistake once and wasn’t going to make it again” when he provided Fitzpatrick a copy of the grand jury’s decision not to review his complaint containing their signatures.  Tuesday’s “decision” was said to be “unanimous.”

At slightly past halfway in the following recording, Cunningham refused to return Fitzpatrick’s paperwork and contended that Fitzpatrick’s claims against him were “absolutely false.”  Cunningham then said that “the grand jury would like for him to leave” and asked a deputy sheriff and chaplain to escort Fitzpatrick out of the building.

Cunningham encounter 17 December 2013

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Blockbuster Exclusive: State of Tennessee: Grand Jury Foremen Are Not Jurors! by Post & Email’s Sharon Rondeau!

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Blockbuster Exclusive: State of Tennessee: Grand Jury Foremen Are Not Jurors!

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 @ 10:04 AM

IN CONTRADICTION OF STATE LAW

by Sharon Rondeau

The office of the Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter claims that the grand jury foreman is a state employee, not a juror empaneled by state statutes

(Nov. 26, 2013) — The Post & Email can exclusively report that the Tennessee state attorney general’s office has stated on the record that the “foreperson” of all grand juries in Tennessee is IS NOT A JUROR as Tennessee state statutes require.

In December of last year, CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III was convicted in the Monroe County, TN Criminal Court of “tampering with government records,” with Judge Walter C. Kurtz presiding.

Defense Attorney Van Irion submitted an appeal in the case of State of Tennessee v. Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, IIIprotesting CDR Fitzpatrick’s innocence. One of Irion’s points was that the grand jury foreman had over-served her legal term of one year.  Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) states that following their service on any jury in the state, jurors cannot be resummoned for a minimum of 24 months.

This past September, in his official capacity as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Justice Division, Kyle Hixson responded to the Fitzpatrick appeal, writing a brief on the state’s behalf of which The Post & Email first came into possession last Thursday afternoon.

At the bottom of page 13 of his brief, Assistant Attorney General Hixson wrote:

“…the foreman of the grand jury is not ‘impaneled’ from the ‘summoned’ members of the ‘jury pool.’ See Tenn Code Ann. §§ 22-2-306, -307, and -310. The foreperson is ‘appoint[ed]’ by the trial court. Tenn. R. Crim. P. 6(g)(1). As such, section 314, by its terms, does not apply to the appointment process of the grand jury foreperson.”

The state’s entire argument can be read here: HIXSON BRIEF

Section 314 reads as follows:

“22-2-314.  Limitation on jury service.

“A juror who has completed a jury service term shall not be summoned to serve another jury service term in any court of this state for a period of twenty-four (24) months following the last day of such service; however, the county legislative body of any county, may, by majority vote, extend the twenty-four-month period.”

Hixson clearly reports that grand jury forepersons do not come from the “jury pool,” are never “summoned” to jury duty, are never “impaneled” as a jurors, and never subject to state laws which deal with jurors and jury duty.  Simply stated, Hixson affirms on behalf of the State of Tennessee that grand jury forepersons are never jurors.

However, Tennessee state law commands exactly the opposite: Tennessee statutes say that grand jury forepersons must always be jurors.

Tennessee state law, as tailored and refined by the Rules for Criminal Procedure, require that thirteen (13) jurors (or members) populate all state grand juries.

Hixson has now said, in clear terms in a statement against the state’s self-interest, that criminal court judges add a non-juror to the grand jury by their selection of the foreman. The 12 jurors plus one non-juror combination consequently leaves Tennessee grand juries one short of the lawfully-mandated requirement of thirteen (13) jurors. This has been and remains the case for decades.

Tennessee state law requires that all state residents, in the process of becoming jurors, must initially be randomly selected into the jury pool. From that pool, a smaller number of individuals are randomly selected to be issued summonses to report to the courtroom on a particular day, at which time jurors for the grand jury and trial juries are selected in but a third process of random selection.

In each of these three random selection rounds, the process used must be one that does not allow for the possibility of “human intervention.”

The Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference describes the grand jury as:

…a group of thirteen citizens chosen from the jury panel. One of these thirteen is the fore person and will preside over the grand jury.

Assistant Attorney General Hixson now reports that criminal court judges have always been permitted to install a handpicked non-juror foreman, that is, to “appoint” the foreman from, as Monroe County Court Clerk Martha M. “Marty” Cook has said, “from wherever they choose“ because the state laws that apply to jurors do not apply to non-jurors.

As readers of The Post & Email are already aware, Fitzpatrick’s challenges to the scope and operation of Tennessee grand juries arose upon his discovery in 2010 that the Monroe County Tennessee de facto grand jury foreman, Gary Pettway, had held that position since 1982, a period of twenty-eight (28) consecutive years.  Moreover, there was no appointing order or evidence that Pettway had ever been duly sworn in.

Fitzpatrick placed Pettway under citizen’s arrest in April 2010. State law enforcement officials ignored Fitzpatrick’s complaint and arrested Fitzpatrick instead. The Monroe County grand jury then indicted Fitzpatrick for attempting to intimidate a juror, Gary Pettway.

Fitzpatrick has demonstrated that the grand juries and trial juries in Tennessee are unduly influenced by prosecutors, grand jury foremen, and court personnel and contaminated by jurors serving consecutive terms in violation of state law (TCA 22-2-314).  In one case in Davidson County, a grand jury foreman chosen by a judge was discovered to be a convicted felon, which violates Tennessee statute and required the review of approximately 800 cases over which the illegally-serving foreman had presided.

Grand jury foremen in Monroe County are reportedly “picked from wherever” the judge “chooses” by means of an unknown vetting process.  Throughout Tennessee, grand jury foremen have served for decades or multiple times with occasional breaks in service.

Tennessee Code Annotated provides no special selection process for the grand jury foreman.

Grand jury tampering and judicial misconduct have been reported to The Post & Email in Campbell County, Roane County, Sevier County, and Madison County.  Crimes against District Attorney General R. Steven Bebb of the Tenth Judicial District have been alleged but dismissed by Tennessee Attorney General Robert E. Cooper, Jr., although members of the Tennessee General Assembly are working to remove Bebb from his post.

Now, for the first time ever, Kyle Hixson explains that (1) Gary Pettway was never a juror, resulting in (2) the law limiting jury service does not apply to grand jury forepersons such as Pettway, and (3) judicially “appointed” Tennessee residents are allowed to serve in a career position as a county employee called the  “grand jury foreman.”

Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 40-12-206 is the only state statute which details the composition of every Tennessee state grand jury. The law commands that all grand juries be populated with thirteen (13) jurors (members) and up to five (5) alternates. The law does not provide for the judicial appointment of a “foreman” into a Tennessee grand jury.

The same law makes no distinction among the jurors (members). There is no distinction or separate-identity, non-juror “foreman.”

The process by which all jurors are to be selected is described as (1) Randomly populate the “jury pool,” (2) Randomly select potential jurors from the “jury pool,” (3) “Summon” the potential jurors to court for random selection into the grand and trial (petit) jurors for identified term dates, and (4) “Impanel” the grand juries and trial jurors.

Hixson, representing the state of Tennessee, publicly declared in his September 2013 appeals brief that, in Tennessee, grand jury foremen are not jurors.

Restating the state’s now first-time ever publicly pronounced policy position more clearly:

• The grand jury foreman is not a juror.

• A criminal court trial judge individually and personally selects, then specifically delegates (appoints, employs) grand jury foremen in Tennessee state.

• The grand jury foreman does not come from a randomly-selected jury pool.

• The grand jury foreman is not summoned to a courtroom to participate in the process of jury impaneling.

• Tennessee state statutes that apply to jurors and jury duty do not apply to the grand jury foreman who is, rather, a paid Tennessee state employee.

• Judicial appointment of a grand jury foreman who is a “non-juror, as Hixson described the office and process, is illegal under the Tennessee statutes.

The Post & Email asks if the State of Tennessee is committing the same crime as that which the U.S. Navy continues to perpetrate after more than 23 years in which an honest person is sacrificed and condemned for the sake of preserving a criminal enterprise in which a judge’s personal appointee masquerades as a member of the grand jury, unduly influencing that body and often casting the decisive vote to indict.

———————

Editor’s Note:  More articles on Tennessee grand jury foremen and the law will be forthcoming in the near future.

© 2013, The Post & Email. All rights reserved.

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FABRICATION, FALSEHOODS AND FORGERY by Sharon Rondeau – Post & Email

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Fitzpatrick: “Court-Martialed for Nothing”

Posted By Sharon Rondeau On Tuesday, November 19, 2013 @ 4:45 PM In National | No Comments

FABRICATION, FALSEHOODS AND FORGERY

by Sharon Rondeau

CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III has illustrated through his own experience at court-martial that commanding officers have virtually unlimited discretion in formulating charges against a subordinate, at times using the system to retaliate against whistleblowers and others for personal and political reasons.

(Nov. 19, 2013) — CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) and The Post & Email are preparing the manuscript for a book which will detail the numerous crimes involved in his Special Court-Martial of April 1990 which produced the largest criminal cover-up in U.S. military history.  Dozens and perhaps hundreds of officers are aware of the injustice meted out to Fitzpatrick wherein a forged document continues to be maintained as authentic after more than 23 years.

From beginning to end, the process was fraught with procedural violations, dishonesty, fabrication, and finally, the forgery of Fitzpatrick’s name to a “confession” document dated 17 July 1990 which he never saw.

Fitzpatrick has described the complicity of Naval officers and the Judge Advocate General’s office as their having been “willing to destroy subordinates to protect the institution.”  Having sought redress since the court-martial concluded, Fitzpatrick has named specific individuals as criminals, including his former defense attorney.  None will speak on the record or have filed a lawsuit against Fitzpatrick for defamation.  Had they done so, Fitzpatrick would be entitled to discovery in his own defense.

After having been missing for almost a year, Judge Advocate General Inspector General Capt. Rand Pixa reported that he discovered the original court-martial record.  Capt. Pixa alerted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the next day, NCIS Special Agent Richard Allen discovered the original of the criminal forgery.  At that time, Allen discovered other documents in the original record of court-martial that matched the forgery.  Because of the matching documents, defense counsel Kevin Martis “Andy” Anderson was named as the primary suspect in the forgery.

Three months prior, on September 5, 1997, Fitzpatrick had gone to the Pentagon to speak with TJAG John Hutson about the forgery in his file.  Although blocked from speaking with Hutson directly, according to Fitzpatrick, Hutson called the NCIS director, who told NCIS Deputy Director Ernie Simon, “This forgery is real; we have a problem on our hands.”  Simon then generated a memo to various parties reflecting that conversation which said that if the forgery could be proved, “it makes the Navy look really, really bad” (see memo below).

The American taxpayer continues to pay for corruption and abuse within the U.S. military as well as a system of “justice” which is not constitutionally-based, but rather, emerged from the British Articles of War.

Many segments of the Fitzpatrick saga which will be incorporated into the book have appeared at The Post & Email with supporting documents released by the Navy in response to dozens of FOIA requests submitted over more than a decade following the sham proceeding.

The forgery remains in both Fitzpatrick’s service record and Record of Court-Martial.

Fitzpatrick describes the military system of “justice” as a “function of command” and describes the proceedings against him as “a vendetta” conducted by a political admiral and his personal staff.  Because there is no review by a grand jury before charges are leveled against a defendant, a subordinate can be convicted and his career ruined without the presentation of any evidence.

Emails and letters from The Post & Email to Navy personnel about the crimes committed have gone unanswered over the last 19 months.  All of the principals involved or those who vouched for the authenticity of the forgery have been contacted over the last three months, with none responding.

The following segment describes how all of the “charges” except one against Fitzpatrick resulted in a “not guilty” verdict and that the only charge for which a “conviction” was pronounced was not a proper one.

—————————–

Bitoff took action and decided what he was going to do with me on the 11th of April 1990, a week after my court-martial was over.  At that time, John Bitoff did not have the court-martial record.  His big initial “B” is at the top of a memo dated 18 April 1990, when he took action on my case.  He didn’t formalize it in a letter that day, but that’s when he decided what he was going to do.  He did not have the clemency request or the court-martial record at that time.  All he had was Tim Zeller’s investigation report.

The thrust of the accusations that Zeller made against me, to include larceny, was for the funeral trip.  There were three charges:

• Article 92, willful dereliction of duty;
• Violation of Article 108, wrongful disposition of MWR fund, and in the specification under charge 2, Zeller articulated misuse of MWR funds for the funeral trip;
• Violation of Article 121, was for larceny, in which Zeller accused me of stealing the money that was used for sending the females to accompany the female members of the Nordeen family.  I was accused of stealing that money and using it for myself.

Those are the three charges.

Under Charge 1, they said that I was commuting with the MWR van, but that was all.

For Charge 2, the specification was for the money used for the funeral trip.

The government did not charge me; there was no specific information.  Charge 1, Specification 1 was all that the panel found me guilty of.  When you read specification 1, it does not lay out what it was that I did specifically to abuse MWR funds.  Under that charge, Zeller did not lay out any specifics at all.  He didn’t accuse me, for example, of using money to send people to Hawaii.  He didn’t accuse me under Charge 1, specification 1 of misspending or stealing money for the electronic purchases; he didn’t charge me under Charge 1, specification 1 with any money that was spent for the funeral trip.

When you read the Letter of Reprimand, you see that the panel found me guilty of taking money for the electronics equipment and spending money for the trip to Hawaii.  I’ve explained to you why those two findings are impossible to arrive at.

The government didn’t charge me with either of those events that are criminal in nature, so I’ve been found guilty of nothing.  The government did not charge me with misusing, spending or stealing money for the electronics equipment or for misspending money for the trip to Hawaii, but these two things appear in the Letter of Reprimand, which is an impossibility because none of these things were discussed.  So where there was specific information for every event, I was found “not guilty.”  The government didn’t specify anything in Charge 1, Specification 1.  They didn’t talk about any particular event.  There was nothing there.  They might as well have charged me in Charge 1, Specification 1 with dereliction of duty for the sun not rising in the East this morning.  That’s not a crime.  They didn’t even do that.  “Fitzpatrick is being charged with dereliction of duty.”  OK.  In charging me with Dereliction of Duty, the government has to name the duty, and I had no assigned duties under the MWR program, so they didn’t do that.  Then they have to name the actual event that represents the dereliction.  They have to tell me what it was they say I did wrong; they didn’t do that, either.  So what was I defending myself against?

Detail of Charge 1, Specification 1 of Special Court-Martial of Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III in April 1990

Page 1 of court-martial charge and specification report

Page 2

Page 3

The military hearing officer, George Wells, during the court-martial on the 4th of April, said, “The government hasn’t charged Fitzpatrick with a crime under Charge 1, Specification 1.  I have some ideas about how we can fix it” – that’s what he said on page 98 and 99 of the court-martial record, but the government never fixed the charge.  Also, on block 17 of the Article 32 report, Quigley raised up a red flag and said that the charges were not in proper order.  Block 17, which is right above Block 18, said that there is no reasonable grounds to believe that Fitzpatrick committed the events of which he was accused.

The government charged me with criminal acts, and they gave out specifics.  In all of the places where specific information was given, I was found “not guilty.”  That’s consistent with what Matt Bogoshian said when he said, “There’s little, if any, evidence to believe that Fitzpatrick committed these crimes of which he is accused.”  Where a specific event was written down and said, “He did this…he used money for the funeral trip” I was found “not guilty.”  I was found “not guilty” of stealing the money for the trip.

Charge 1, specification 1 doesn’t name the duty, and it doesn’t name the act which violates the duty.  They found me guilty of nothing.  And in doing so, nobody’s ever had to explain how they were able to achieve that result.  Fitzpatrick had to know that he was doing something wrong to be accused of willful dereliction of duty.  That means he had to know.  But they didn’t name the duty that I was assigned.  If you look at my fitness report under “Duties Assigned,” you won’t find “Morale, Welfare and Recreation.”  I had other duties; the MWR program was assigned to other people to operate.   So if Zeller wanted to include me in that, by necessity, he would have had to charge other people, and they never did that.

The government didn’t charge me, and that charge for which I was found guilty, according to the Specification, doesn’t name an act.  They didn’t name a crime.  Zeller also had his dates wrong; he said that between July 1988 through January 1989, Fitzpatrick was involved in all this bad stuff.  Well, the electronics equipment was purchased in August; the funeral trip was in July; what was it that they said I did wrong in September?

So Zeller accused me of breaking regulations from July 1988 to January 1989.  Our ship deployed on September 12, 1988.  We were overseas; the first week in October, we were just making our approach into the Philippine Islands.  We did a pit stop, then from there, we moved into the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean through the Straits of Malacca into the Northern Arabian Sea.  So the ship was deployed.  So they accused me of nothing and they convicted me of committing a crime of nothing.  Under Charge 1, Specification 1, I’m not accused of a crime.  And that’s what I’ve been found guilty of.  They didn’t accuse a criminal act, and the military hearing officer said, “You haven’t accused him of anything here; you need to go back and fix this, and they didn’t, and that’s the only thing they found me guilty of.

Then you see the post-trial documents which Zeller and Anderson were exchanging which say, “Nobody knows what this guy did.”  And Anderson put it right out there; he had it correct in what he was writing in the Response to the Letter of Reprimand which he forged; the information that he put in there is correct.  He said what I’ve been telling you:  that “there were no warnings issued to Fitzpatrick.”  The word “warning” does not appear in the court-martial record.  Doug Dolan did not testify.  Anderson, maybe to protect himself in future days if they got caught, I don’t know – he told the admiral about the MWR trip to Hawaii, “Yes, there was a trip; it was scheduled; there’s evidence in the court-martial record in the Article 32 that says that there was a message that the ship received, and that it was seen by other people, and that people were sent to this meeting and they attended the meeting.”  Chief Wagner said, “Yes, I met with MWR personnel when I was in Hawaii.”  So the Letter of Reprimand bears no connection at all to the Record of Court-Martial or to the Article 32 report.  The only thing it refers back to is Zeller’s investigation reports, which were from September/October 1989.

Bitoff never looked at the court-martial record, and he never looked at the clemency request.  It was all a charade; it was a kibuki dance, to make it look as though what they were doing was legitimate.  All the time, it was nothing but a house of cards, a smokescreen, lining up dominoes.

The bottom line is that I’ve been found guilty of nothing.

Every place you look at this court-martial, you find a crime committed by Zeller or Bitoff.  Because of what they did, there never was a real Article 32.  What was going on was going on behind the scenes, and the Article 32 that was done in public was nothing but showcasing.  The same thing can be said for the court-martial.  The public court-martial in April 1990 was showcasing.  My real court-martial took place on the 12th of October, the day before the Navy birthday, in 1989, and Zeller pronounced me guilty of all these things.  Isn’t it interesting that at the end of the day, I was found guilty?  What was I found guilty of?  Nothing. 

If anybody stands behind the court-martial of Walt Fitzpatrick and says he was properly tried and convicted, and we can prove it, then the question becomes, “OK, what was it that Fitzpatrick did?  What did he do?”  If they point to the Letter of Reprimand and say, “This is what Bitoff’s (hand-picked) panel found:  they found that Fitzpatrick misused the money that was spent for the trip to Hawaii, and he misused the money that was spent for the electronics equipment.”  Then the next statement to whoever would be, “Where do you find that accusation made against CDR Fitzpatrick in the first place? Cite the page, the witness…” It wasn’t made.  They talked about it at the court-martial, but again, nothing came of it.

Then you go back to Zeller’s reports and you find out exactly where this information comes from in the beginning. Who said that it was against regulations to buy the electronic equipment?  Well, according to Zeller, it was Doug Dolan.  Who is Doug Dolan?  I never talked to Doug Dolan about this in the first place; Zeller never talked to Doug Dolan; Zeller made this up.

By the way, the assistant supply officer, Doug Dolan, was not part of the MWR organization.  He wasn’t assigned any duties with the MWR.

Doug and I were good friends.  I used to have something called the “XO Beat-Me-Up.”  We used to go to a bar at the end of the pier called “Olive Oyl’s.”  It was named after Popeye‘s girlfriend, Olive Oyl.  It was very close to the China Basin.  Before we moved across from Oakland to San Francisco for the overhaul, we did it somewhere else; I can’t remember where it was.

The XO Beat-Me-Up was off the ship.  I would walk in, and it was all the chief petty officers and me.  The first thing I did when I walked in was take off my collar devices and put them into a glass of beer.  It meant, “Chiefs, beat me up.  Take me to task.  Take me downtown.  If there’s a problem with the ship, if there’s a problem with me, please tell me.  There’s no attribution here.  You’re speaking to me as if I’m a nobody.”  I was taking the authority that I held as an executive officer and throwing it into a glass of beer.  “Anything that is said here stays here, and I will take action on any problems that you’ve found.”

The chief petty officers ran the ship.  One of the highest honors I ever received when I was in the Navy was to be picked as an honorary chief petty officer by the chiefs.  I told these guys, “I was an E-1 before I ever became an Ensign, and I’m here now, listening to you as chief petty officers, and you can consider me lower than an E-1.  Talk to me.”  That’s the way we ran the ship, and we did that regularly. If there was a complaint anywhere on the ship, it would have come to me through the chief petty officer grapevine.  And they had free access to me; they could have come in to me at any time and said, “Can you take off your collar devices?” and I would have said, “Sure, chief, whaddya got?”  That never happened.

Nobody came to me when we sent people on the funeral trip, and the feedback that I got from everybody – and I’m writing this in the book – was that this was something that they needed to do.

I never talked to Doug Dolan about this.  If Doug had come to me, he would have been one of many who would have come to me and said, “Hey, XO, we have a problem here.”  But it never happened.

The purchase of electronics equipment that was distributed throughout the entire ship was common fleet practice; it was not a criminal act.  So Zeller accused me in this Letter of Reprimand of doing something that was done by every ship I was had ever been on on throughout my career.  Every ship did it.  There was nothing wrong with it.  It was perfectly acceptable and accepted; we put it into our report, we sent our report off to the chain of command…so this nonsense about Doug Dolan is just that:  nonsense.  No one would have come to me and said, “We’re not supposed to do this” because everybody was doing it!

We had what we called Sight TV on board the ship.  In the old days, you would go out on one of the weather decks – and you see this in some of the old World War II movies where the sailors are out on the weather deck watching a movie under the stars.  When we were able to have video equipment on board the ship where we could pipe the movies into the compartments for the sailors and they had TVs to watch, they didn’t have to go out on the weather deck; they could watch a movie in their compartment or at their work center.  You could do it 24 hours a day and didn’t have to wait for a film to come on.  We did training on the TV system; it was an internal television network, if you will.

So purchasing TVs to support this internal television stations was common fleet practice.  To this day, I’m sure it’s common fleet practice.

Zeller made up the conversation before and after about my talking to Dolan. I never had those conversations with Dolan, and Zeller accused me of something that was not a criminal act.   You see this in Zeller’s investigation report.  Zeller attributes the “warning” to Doug Dolan in his investigation report, but there is no sworn statement from Doug Dolan.  That never happened.  Not even Zeller itemized his interview of Doug Dolan in his investigation report; he doesn’t put it there. Doug Dolan didn’t testify at the Article 32; he didn’t testify at the court-martial.  So how does this make it into the Letter of Reprimand?  Because Zeller made it up.

The same thing with the trip to Hawaii.  Where does that information come from?  It says in the Letter of Reprimand that the meeting was never scheduled and it was never held.  When you read Zeller’s investigation report, he attributes that position to himself.  He made it up himself.  When this meeting was discussed during the Article 32, it was 1) Yes, there was a message that it was scheduled, and 2) Yes, one of our chief petty officers attended.

I was never accused of misspending, mishandling or abusing the MWR funds for the trip to Hawaii; that was not an accusation I ever faced.  The government never accused me of a crime of any type or kind with regard to monies that were expended for the electronics equipment.  And that bears itself out when you take a look at the court-martial record and the Article 32. Then the hearing officer, Wells, said, “You haven’t accused Fitzpatrick of a crime here; fix this.  You need to state that he had actual knowledge; you need to state exactly what it is that he did; you need to state the duty, and you haven’t done that.  So get it fixed.”  So today I stand convicted of…NOTHING.

This is why Zeller and Bitoff and the others said, “We’re not calling in the NIS because they’re not available; we’re going to do this ourselves.”  That is nonsense and goes to their criminal intent.  They were going to set me up, and the only way they could ensure that they could frame me was  to handle the “investigation” by themselves.

Every time you see Bitoff’s signature, he’s involved in making a false official statement.  He was told a couple times that there’s nothing in the court-martial where these things that I was reprimanded for were even discussed.  Tim Zeller’s investigation reports were never considered at the Article 32 at all.  They were kept secret, and everything else that happened in between was all for show.  Then when the Letter of Reprimand came out, John Bitoff cited me for things that were never proven and were never brought up during the course of the court-martial.

Letter of Reprimand, page 1

Nobody came in to testify that the MWR meeting in Hawaii was never scheduled and that it never took place.  Quite the contrary, people came in and said, “Yes, I saw a message on the meeting,” or “Yes, I attended the meeting.”  In other words, Zeller’s accusation was disproved, but Bitoff ignored it.

After the court-martial was over and I started digging into the records to produce evidence of what I told them was going on when it was going on, people started to look at this and the response was “Oh, my gosh.  We have a real problem here.”  And the NCIS was told to back off by the Judge Advocate General of the Navy so the NCIS didn’t really take a hard look at it until 1997, and when they did, they said, “Oh, my gosh.” And this makes the Navy and the Marine Crops look really bad, and it “proves everything that Fitzpatrick has been talking about for a decade.”

Memo written to various parties from NCIS Deputy Director Ernie Simon stating that if the forgery were proved, it would make the Navy “look really bad.”

In those specific things I was charged with doing, I was found “not guilty.”

I do not know how the vote went.  I don’t know why they voted as they did, but my speculation is if they had found me guilty of anything specific, they would have had to explain themselves, and upon appeal it would have all unraveled.  If they said, for example, that they found me guilty of stealing the money that was used for the female escorts for the females in the Nordeen family, they would have had to answer for that.  Did Fitzpatrick put any money into his pocket?  No.   What was this money used for?  It was spent to send a contingent of females to escort the four females in the Nordeen family at a time of extraordinary crisis.  If they had found me guilty of that, they would have had to explain…if the entire crew knew that this was going on and nobody said anything, why 14 months later did this start?  What money did he steal?  Was this for personal use? No.  Did anything go into his pocket? No.  And Bitoff even said that.  So they would have had to explain themselves:  How do you find larceny there?

I was there.  This was our “9-11.”  The ship was knocked to its knees.  We had just taken a sucker-punch in the gut at a very critical time in our operational protocol.  The ship had been laid low.  The commanding officer’s brother had just been decapitated and dismembered in a car bomb attack by terrorists in Athens, Greece.  We came together as a crew, and this is something that the entire crew could participate in.  This was the beauty of using the MWR fund.  I’m writing this in the book.  Everybody could say, “I was part of honoring this man who has been taken down in this terrorist attack.”  Everybody contributed to the MWR fund.  Every time you bought a soda, a baseball cap, a bar of soap, a belt buckle, you contributed something to the MWR fund.  So by using that fund, which was the crew’s money, everybody could say, “I was part of this.”  I can’t tell you how uplifting it was for the crew, and the crew was appropriately applauded and recognized for this coming together in this crisis.  None of this was addressed in MWR regulations.  This wasn’t something that was prohibited.  It was not foreseeable, a tragic event, and the crew did what they thought was the right thing to do.  There was nothing untoward, nothing done under the table.  The entire crew knew, and we took a vote.

The MWR committee is made up of one person from each of the divisions.  They called an MWR meeting right after we began considering sending a contingent of people.  Only six or eight people showed up, and that wasn’t enough, so I said, “OK.  We don’t have time; we have to know from the crew now:  thumbs up or thumbs down.  So we called a meeting on the flight deck and the entire crew was there.  The entire crew was told, and the only people who weren’t at that meeting were, for example, the engineering department.   We were at anchor; the engineering plant was still working.  We were operating the boilers and all the machinery to keep the ship running at sea.  We had a team of watch standards up on the bridge, but not many.  So it was everybody on the ship except those people who had to be on watch, and of course, they learned about it from their division mates.  I explained the relationship I had with the chief petty officers:  I told the crew, “If you have a problem with this, tell your chief petty officer, or slip a note under my door, or tell your division officer.”  The chief petty officers were always accessible.  There wasn’t any dissent.  And of course, in the Article 32, J.J. Quigley wrote that his impression was that “99% of the crew was behind this.”  I would have said it was 100%.

So Zeller made up the misuse of the MWR funds.  Everything was invented.  There was no problem with the MWR fund.  There was no stealing of money; there was no misuse of money; there was nothing that was done under the table.  Zeller made all of it up.  None of the things that Zeller laid out specifically held any water, which means that Zeller and Adm. Bitoff were told at the 32 there were no grounds to bring these charges against me.  “You don’t have any grounds.”

Why did they say that they offered me Article 15, non-judicial punishment…which they never did, by the way.

The offering and the declination of the acceptance of the non-judicial punishment is a written event.  Bitoff and Zeller handled the Article 15 issue the same way that they handled the Letter of Reprimand.  They made believe that I was placed on notice; they made believe that I came in and said “no;” they made believe that Article 15 was offered and declined, but they have nothing in writing from me to support that.  When you take a look at the documents that are associated with the Mast package – I used to do this all the time; I did Executive Officer’s investigations and I dealt with Mast issues all the time.  There are boxes to check on the preprinted form:  “Does the accused accept Article 15 or not?”  If you’re at shore, you can decline it; if you’re at sea, you can’t.  So I was assigned to an ashore command, under John Bitoff, Combat Logistics Group 1.  If Bitoff was going to offer this, he had to do it in writing.  And then it had to be delivered to me, and then there’s a block and a signature line for “accept” or “decline.”  If it had been offered, I wouldn’t have signed it.  At that point in time, the Article 32 hearing officer said, “There is nothing to support these accusations.”  If it had been offered, I would have said “no.”  They would have pushed the piece of paper across the desk to me and said, “OK, we want you to sign here ‘decline.’” And I would have said “no.”  Then somebody would have written in the words “Refused to sign,” and then there would have been a witness to that.  So Zeller would have been there, and he would have written in, “Fitzpatrick refused to sign,” and he would have put his initials or his signature after that, and it would have been countersigned by somebody else on the staff, “In my witness, CDR Fitzpatrick refused Article 15.”

This is the point:  for this to go to court-martial, Bitoff had to make sure that Article 15 was not an option.  In other words, if it had been put in front of me, he knew I would have turned it down, and that would have been written and just more problematic.  Later, he said it was offered and that I turned it down.  In other words, Bitoff forced the court-martial.  He didn’t want me to accept Article 15 if he put that piece of paper in front of me and I put “yes” in the box…  By handling the Article 15 package in the same way that they handled the Letter of Reprimand, by pretending that I was a participant in the process and never being a participant in the process, they guaranteed a court-martial.  And what was I court-martialed for?  Well, nothing.  There were no charges to bring against me.  There was no substantiation.  That was borne out at the court-martial, because everything that they accused me of specifically I was found “not guilty.”  In Charge 1, Violation of Article 92, willful dereliction of duty, and the Spec said that I used MWR funds…well, what duty was assigned to you?  How did you misuse the funds?  That needs to appear in the charge, and it didn’t.

There are two episodes in the Letter of Reprimand:  one with the electronics equipment and the other with the MWR meeting in Hawaii.  These comparisons show that Bitoff took excerpts from Zeller’s investigation reports and included them in his Letter of Reprimand, but they were never part of the Article 32 or court-martial.  In each of the two episodes described in the Letter of Reprimand, we have comments that Zeller made in his investigation reports that track from those reports to the Letter of Reprimand but have no connection to the court-martial record or Article 32.  They are directly taken from Zeller’s reports and put into the Letter of Reprimand.

Citations from Zeller’s investigation reports which appeared in Bitoff’s 7 June 1990 Letter of Reprimand but did not come from the Article 32 or the court-martial

Zeller states emphatically that there was no MWR scheduled in Pearl Harbor, HI and no meeting held.  Then, parenthetically, Zeller wrote that “evidence used is investigating officer’s only.”  This is where we find Zeller identifying himself as the source of this claim, which he made up. 

The only testimony and evidence that John Bitoff relied upon was that which was taken from Zeller’s investigation reports.  He didn’t have anything from the court-martial or Article 32.  Zeller created a fiction which was not repeated at the Article 32 and the court-martial.  But it was repeated in Bitoff’s Letter of Reprimand.  That’s the only other place where you find these comments.

The references in Bitoff’s Letter of Reprimand which he says came from the court-martial record actually came from Zeller’s investigation reports

Zeller wrote these things in his reports, and then he kept the reports secret.  There were three versions of them dated 5 October 1989, 10 October 1989 and 23 October 1989.  We have the latter two. I’m sure that if we had the 5 October report, we would have another sentence that we could compare to Bitoff’s Letter of Reprimand.

The second set of comparisons is another example of Zeller having made up the accusation.  In the case of the electronics equipment, he made it up by creating a phantom witness with whom he never spoke.  In the second episode that deals with the Pearl Harbor trip, Zeller didn’t talk to anybody.  He made it up himself!  

For each of the two episodes that appear in the Letter of Reprimand – the electronics equipment and the Hawaii trip – the only other place where we find that language is in Zeller’s reports.  It did not come from any transcript of the Article 32 or the court-martial.  Zeller’s reports are the only other place where this language appears.

Zeller did not present himself or his investigation reports for examination at the Article 32 or at the court-martial. Nobody else came to the Article 32 or to the court-martial and repeated the information that came from Tim Zeller’s reports which was repeated in the Letter of Reprimand.  Zeller made it up, so he made sure it didn’t get talked about at the Article 32 or at the court-martial.  When push came to shove, he had nothing else; they didn’t find me guilty of anything specific, so Bitoff took it from Zeller’s investigation reports.  Very few people knew about those investigation reports.  I certainly wasn’t one who knew about them.

Remove the Article 32 transcript and the court-martial transcript.  Those transcripts are not used in the Letter of Reprimand.  It was as if they never existed.  This was never examined; it was never brought up; it was kept secret.  Bitoff’s Letter of Reprimand is a false official statement, as are Tim Zeller’s investigation reports.  Bitoff didn’t need the Article 32, and he didn’t need the court-martial.  He already knew he was going to find me guilty, and he had already determined what he was going to find me guilty of.  None of it was ever proven in any of the intervening exercises, one of which was the Article 32 and the other was the court-martial.  These things never came out in the transcripts.  Instead, Bitoff went back to Tim Zeller’s reports.

Because they rigged everything between the 32 investigation and the court-martial, it was all for show.  On the civilian side of the fence, what I’ve just described to you could never have happened.  In the circumstance where I was falsely accused in the military system, where it would never have made it through civilian protocols, John Bitoff got it through the Article 32, and then he got it through his own court-martial because he controlled it all.  The Article 32 came out and said that there was no reasonable grounds to believe that I had committed the offenses.  Well, John Bitoff didn’t care about that; he took it to the court-martial anyway.  Then who did he pick?  He picked his own people, and he told them, “You’re to find Fitzpatrick guilty, no matter what; end of story.”  And so they did.  In the civilian world, this is simply impossible. 

Tim Zeller put together reports that could not be substantiated in any way at all.  He made them up, and we know this because they weren’t substantiated at the 32 or at the court-martial.  So all the in-between part was nothing but a demonstration to the public, an illusion, that these accusation were actually considered.  They never were.

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This post was updated on November 20, 2013.

Second update on November 21, 2013.

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