An open letter to Alan Norton

This week, the child molestation trial of James Combs is set to begin in Catoosa County, and if what I have seen of the interviews that Tim "Dirty" Deal did with the accusing children, we have another farce on the dishonesty magnitude of Tonya Craft. If there is anything we CAN know before the trial begins, it is that Combs is innocent of the charges and that if you, Mr. Alan Norton, prosecute this case, you will have to suborn perjury to do it.

So, I ask you, sir, the following question: Is it worth it to sell your soul in order to follow Buzz Franklin's orders? Before I go into the Combs case, let me remind you that Buzz already demanded that you suborn perjury in the failed Higgenbottom case in which you were supposed to depend upon a "jailhouse snitch" that you knew from the start was lying.

Do you remember Eric Echols? Yes, you were supposed to lead that trial, too, and you had video evidence of his being assaulted by "Mommie Dearest" Sandra Lamb, who called him a "black bastard" on camera. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you were going to try him for felonies you knew he had not committed.

Mr. Norton, what is it about the LMJC that leads someone to sell his soul? What is it about the influence of Buzz Franklin and Chris Arnt and Len Gregor and Tim Deal and Phil Summers and Brian House that would lead a man to knowingly suborn perjured testimony?

I have no idea of you believe in God, Mr. Norton, but prosecutors who lie to juries and coach witnesses to lie are not going to be entering the Pearly Gates, sir. I hate to tell you, but the Georgia State Bar does not control the entry roster for Heaven, and while they have your back in Atlanta when it comes to committing felonies while acting as an officer of the court, God is not particularly impressed with the state of "justice" in Georgia and is likely to mete out some justice of His own.

Is it really worth it to work for these people, sir? I can tell you that they would sell you down the river with smiles on their faces if they thought they could get away with it. I also know enough about one of your LMJC colleagues to know that you don't want to leave him alone with either your wife or your daughter (should you have either or both). True, those who are employed by the LMJC are permitted to commit sexual assault and worse and not face any prosecution or even arrest, but nonetheless I doubt you would be much pleased if one of those LMJC employees were to do such a number on one of your family members.

You really do have a choice; you can get out, resign, leave the LMJC altogether. I have no idea if you have a conscience or even one shred of decency in you, but if the answer to either is "yes," then you cannot afford to stay a minute longer in that employ unless you want your final dwelling place to be Hell itself.

Even if you have a conscience, the people who are your LMJC colleagues do not. When Len Gregor managed to bamboozle a jury to convict Brad Wade -- whom all of you know was and is innocent of the charges against him -- do you think the man lost a minute of sleep? When Chris Arnt, Gregor, and House were having secret (and illegal) meetings to plan how they would try to railroad Tonya Craft into prison, do you think any of them were concerned that they were breaking the law and engaging in the worst kind of unethical conduct?

When Arnt lied to jurors in the Tonya Craft closing arguments in which he made an open and obvious dishonest statement about the testimony of Dr. Nancy Fajman, do you think it bothered him even a whit that he was lying? When Brian House desperately was trying to keep Craft's lawyers at bay by granting 90 percent of the prosecution's objections during the trial, do you think he worried that maybe the appellate courts would criticize him?

Let me be honest (since no one else in the LMJC seems to want to tell the truth). You can work in this job for a long as you want, and you can lie, coach others to lie under oath, help convict innocent people, and generally live a life of crime, and nothing will happen to you. That's right, nothing. No one from the State of Georgia will intervene, and the U.S. Department of Justice will whistle right past you, no matter how egregious your conduct.

But if you stay in that office as a prosecutor, you will be selling your soul and destroying whatever conscience you might have, and a man without a conscience is nothing more than a psychopath. I hate to say it, but you already work with sociopaths and their influence upon you only can make things worse.

Let me ask you this question: If you had a relative or loved one on trial, would you want to see Chris Arnt and the prosecutor, Brian House in the judge's seat, and Tim Deal testifying on the stand? Could you trust any of them? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," then you also have to understand that every day you work among these people brings you one step closer to Hell.

Yes, leaving a job and one's home is difficult, especially in this time of an uncertain economy. Having to earn a living as a private attorney can be unsettling and there is no guarantee of a regular paycheck as there is when you are in Buzz's employ.

However, if you continue to stay, you will be destroyed from within. You will have to sell your soul and one day the Devil himself will come to collect.

It is too late for Arnt, Gregor, Buzz, Deal, and House. They are beyond hope and beyond redemption. Pharaoh after the Ninth Plague had a softer heart than do these men. I hope it is not too later for you, but you need to ask yourself if you spent all of those tough years in law school so that you could take orders from some of the most unethical and dishonest people on this planet.

Gregor once wrote on a blog that he went to law school so that he could be a prosecutor and be (in his words) "the man." I have no idea if the guy is a "man" at all; I do know he is a bully, a coward, and a liar, and while he apparently thought his bombast and bullying during the Craft trial was impressing the jurors, it turned out that they thought he was a bully and a creep.

Why would you work with someone like that? You don't have to do it, and you do not have to hang around so that you can share a condo in Hell with "the man."

Indeed, if you resign and leave the employ of the LMJC, you really will be a man because you will have done something that people like Buzz, Gregor, Deal, House, and Arnt are not capable of doing: engage in an act of real integrity.

New evidence for murder? Why do I have my doubts?

It seems as though the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit is gearing up for yet another trial in which prosecutors try to "prove" what they cannot prove honestly. They did it with Tonya Craft in 2010, they want to do it with James Combs, and now Dale Higgenbottom is in the dock.

The December 11 story in the Times-Free Press lays out the actual case in which Catoosa County authorities now are claiming that Higgenbottom murdered an infant named Christopher Breazeale in 1992. While I cannot claim to know if the charges are true, nonetheless the fact that Buzz Franklin's office is bringing them without revealing any new evidence is beyond troubling.

The first question I have, however, is this: Why does Vickie Scoggins have any say in this at all? This is the same Vickie Scoggins who swore up and down that the charges against Tonya Craft absolutely were true, the same Vickie Scoggins who worked closely with prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor and helped them to suborn perjury and went along with their lies.

Given the reprehensible and utterly dishonest conduct of Franklin's office all during the Craft case -- from before and during the trial -- one should question ANYTHING that these people do. Arnt could not even keep himself from lying to jurors in closing arguments, telling the Craft jury that Dr. Nancy Fajman had diagnosed injuries to one of the girls that had been caused by sexual abuse.

That Dr. Fajman had said exactly the opposite -- something that Arnt knew -- should tell us what we need to know about Buzz Franklin and people who work for him. Arnt and Gregor should have been disbarred for what they did during that trial and criminal charges filed against both of them. However, given that the "justice" system in the State of Georgia is run by, well, criminals, I guess that the Criminals In Charge decided to let criminal activity of their own get a free pass out of professional courtesy.

Now, neither Arnt nor Gregor will be prosecuting the Higgenbottom case. No, that has fallen to Alan Norton, who also is prosecuting the bogus case against James Combs. Because Norton works for Franklin and because he was the prosecutor against Eric Echols in which Norton was prepared to lie to jurors about what actually had occurred when Mr. Echols delivered some court papers to Sandra "Mommie Dearest" Lamb, I am not prepared to give him any benefit of the doubt. Which leads to my second question: Just what is this "new evidence" that Norton claims to have?

Let us keep some things in perspective here. First, "new evidence" with Franklin's people generally consists of those things the ancients once called lies. Remember the "new evidence" that Joal and Sarah Henke brought to the Craft trial? Yeah, both of them "just remembered" stuff that was 180 degrees from testimony they had given under oath a year before.

Gregor and Arnt were quick to use this "I just remembered" and "judge" brian outhouse was quick to give it his stamp of approval, even though all of them knew that the Henkes were lying. Observers in the courtroom were able to witness Arnt, Gregor, and outhouse commit a number of felonies by their bringing in the Henkes and their transparently dishonest testimony. Yes, suborning perjury in Georgia is a crime, although the authorities don't pursue it because if they did, there would be no prosecutors left to bring cases to trial in Georgia. Furthermore, because Gregor, Arnt, and outhouse had a number of illegal secret meetings before and during the trial to plan strategy, they participated in criminal conspiracy.

From what I can tell, Norton is going to have to fabricate something in the Higgenbottom case or suborn perjury. However, given that he works with Arnt and Gregor, I am sure that they have given him plenty of pointers on how to lie and break the law -- and not indict himself. According to the article in the TFP:

Alan Norton, a prosecutor from the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, said prosecutors are going to have to build their case by explaining what new evidence justifies bringing charges 19 years after the fact.

But he wouldn't say what new evidence they have.

Court documents filed by Higgenbottom's attorney say the state didn't preserve vital evidence -- X-ray photographs, original autopsy photographs and physical specimens -- and that the case is too cold to prosecute.

They also want to know why, if a caseworker had such strong suspicions about Christopher's death, the state waited 192 months to do anything about it.

Indeed, I also am suspicious. First, there are no "Perry Mason moments" in criminal court, even though outhouse tried to pull off something by letting in Joal Henke's "I just remembered" testimony and also allowing an obviously-fabricated document to be entered into evidence. If the prosecution has something, by law it MUST be shared with the defense, and that includes "new evidence."

Second, we are dealing with prosecutors and judges in North Georgia that long ago decided that they could make up the law as they go along, and that they had absolute power. Grand juries in that circuit will indict anything, as I doubt that anyone serving on those bodies actually has a clue about the law.

I have no idea what happened in the death of Christopher Breazeale -- and neither do Vickie Scoggins nor Alan Norton. That is why I have no doubt that unless there really is "new evidence" and a real-live smoking gun, Norton and his people will make it up as they go along and hope that jurors in the case are not as wise to their tactics as were the Tonya Craft jurors.

Joe Collins is acquitted, one "hung" charge

The attempts by Isanti County authorities to throw Joe Collins into prison on fake charges seems to have run into a bit of a roadblock: a judge who actually knew the law, a good defense attorney, and 11 jurors who understood what was happening. As one juror later said, the charges never should have been brought in the first place.

The charges consisted of two gross misdemeanor charges of "witness tampering" and one felony bribery count. One of the misdemeanor charges was dismissed before the state presented its case. After the state rested, the judge ordered a directed verdict of "not guilty" on the felony charge, leaving only the misdemeanor "tampering with a witness to provide false information to police" accusation.

Jurors deadlocked 11-1 to acquit, and the judge declared a mistrial. As I see it, because the Isanti County prosecutors would not present the case themselves (claiming "conflict of interest"), they dumped the charges on prosecutors of a neighboring county, and I don't think that prosecutors are going to want to go through this nonsense again.

The question is this: Why were Isanti County prosecutors so anxious to go after Joe Collins? The answer is simple: He is a much better investigator than they are, and time after time, he uncovers lies and misconduct, and given that police in America today are little more than assortments of criminal or near-criminal gangs, an honest investigation is the last thing cops want.

As they did with Eric Echols and Ron DeLaby, prosecutors have brought criminal charges against Joe Collins not because these men created crimes, but rather because the police and prosecutors no longer want the truth as part of their investigations. That is a sad commentary on "law enforcement," but it also is the truth.

People in Minnesota may think of themselves as being more "civilized" and "honest" than folks in Georgia, but police "testilying" and prosecutorial misconduct are found all over this country. Even in Minnesota, ya betcha.

The Joe Collins case: yet another prosecutor breaking the law (and getting away with it)

The Tonya Craft case was full of illegal and immoral actions by prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor, along with the predations of "judge" brian outhouse, and it is hard to pinpoint any one low point, given the whole thing was in the gutter from the start. However, besides illegally (and knowingly) bringing false charges against Craft, Arnt also had private investigator Eric Echols indicted on false charges of "intimidating a witness."

While the charges against Echols ultimately were dismissed, it was yet another attempt by a lawless prosecutor to demonstrate to others that he indicted Echols -- because he could do it. Unfortunately, lawbreaking is not limited to Arnt; in fact, prosecutors all over the country are finding that they can indict any private investigator who manages to shoot holes in their flimsy cases.

Joe Collins, a successful private investigator in Minnesota goes on trial in Isanti County next week in what clearly is a contrived charge of felony bribery. The scenario is all-too-familiar.

In this case, a woman claimed that a man kidnapped her and raped her. (They left a party together and she spent the night and most of the next day with him. After that, she realized that her boyfriend might not like her sleeping around, so she then claimed rape.) The details of the story (like so many others) don't match the prosecution's line, especially given that the woman was not exactly anxious to flee from the home of her "rapist."

Collins was hired by the defendant's law firm and it did not take him long to start blowing holes in the woman's story, and he also found that the Isanti County Sheriff's Office had conducted a slapstick investigation, led by Det. Lisa Lovering, who moonlights as a real estate agent.

Furthermore, he found out that "the victim" had stolen something from an antique store in another county. He spoke to her about it, and she admitted stealing the item. She asked him if he could make the charges (no one had charged her with anything at that point) go away, and he agreed that he would, provided that she would tell the truth about the alleged rape.

You see, whether in Minnesota or Georgia or Washington, D.C., getting someone to tell the truth is a crime, while prosecutors are permitted -- indeed, encouraged -- to suborn perjury. The one thing that seems not to be tolerated by judges and prosecutors these days is the truth.

So, Isanti County County Attorney Jeffrey Edblad filed felony charges against Collins and that is where we stand. (Edblad, however, has recused himself from the case, citing a "conflict of interest.")

I'll be reporting on the trial next week.

Eric Echols -- Free at Last!

Well, a milestone of sorts was reached in Catoosa County the other day as LMJC ADA Alan Norton told the court, in essence, that the truth could not convict Eric Echols of a crime, so charges against Eric would be dropped. Norton did not add that the charge was a lie in the first place and that while his office was willing to lie and suborn perjury in court, apparently Buzz does not want to have someone make him look bad again.

Someone asked the following in the comment section of a previous post:

Charges against Eric Echols were dropped by the DA's office yesterday. Question. If a young child's coerced statement is sufficient evidence to railroad a woman to trial (keep in mind a child's statement is all they have sometimes), why isnt a video of an undeniable assault on a black man not sufficient evidence to at least charge her?

THAT is a very, very good question. Obviously, the LMJC and Buzz Franklin are not interested in pursuing those involved in committing real felonies (it is a felony to bring a false criminal report, not to mention commit perjury and suborn perjury), and now they find that it also might be difficult to bring false charges against an innocent person.

At this writing, Sandra Lamb, Joal and Sarah Henke, Dewayne and Sherri Wilson, Jerry McDonald, Suzi Thorne, Tim Deal, Chris Arnt and Len Gregor, all of whom committed felonies (and did so openly) during the case, are still at large. Deal is armed and dangerous. Approach all of them with caution, as they are people who know they have a free pass to break any law of their own choosing.

On the other hand, Eric is now free to pursue his life again, and for that I am grateful. As for the people who tried to take away that life, don't forget that the Georgia State Bar, the Georgia Attorney General, and the various judges that sit in the LMJC are not God.

From what I understand, all of the perps I listed claim to believe in God. Perhaps they should heed these words from Galatians 6:7: "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap." (ESV)

Future Posts: I will have more on Joe Mohwish's case, and I am about ready to start blogging on the charges against Michael Rasmussen in Charles County, Maryland. Both involve prosecutorial misconduct in a big way, and both clearly are based upon false charges.

Buzz Franklin: Gambling with the Law

When I last left Buzz Franklin last May, he was crying in his beer about having lost his opportunity to have Tonya Craft wrongly convicted of child molestation, and by blaming the news media (read that Melydia Clewell and Callie Starnes of WRCB-TV, and Kevin West of WGOW) and the "blogosphere" (read that me) for creating "an environment hostile to the State's ability to receive a fair trial and portrayed the victims and their families in a false and negative light."

I'd like to say that was b.s., but at least the bull can produce useful fertilizer, so I should not dignify Buzz's words in such a way. However, Buzz is not resting and now has decided to back off pursuing some ill-advised child molestations cases and, instead, pursue an ill-advised gambling/RICO case. Unfortunately, like in Tonya's case and the illegal arrest of Eric Echols, Buzz not only has decided the law does not apply in the LMJC, but his actions raise much larger questions.

The case in point is the January 4 indictment of Joseph A. Mohwish of Norcross, Georgia, on "the offense of Violation of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act" of Georgia (yeah, there is state RICO, too) for maintaining "an interest in a commercial gambling enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity" by having a couple places in Walker County that had video poker machines. Keep in mind that running a gambling operation in Georgia is a misdemeanor, but by appealing to the stupidity of Walker County grand jurors and a really evil state law, Buzz is able to take two alleged misdemeanors and roll them into a felony.

(This is like taking two speeding tickets and making them a "pattern of racketeering," which not only is morally reprehensible, but demonstrates the depraved nature of prosecutors who will misuse the law in this way.)

What Buzz has done might even be legal except for the fact that Mr. Mohwish had a permit to give the proceeds to a charity (Michigan Barber College, an African-American charity) and he stuck to the law. Furthermore, Mr. Mohwish has a Georgia Supreme Court decision that says that the non-cash redemption procedures and the other things tied to Georgia statutes in another case made the operation legal. If Mr. Mohwish went according to the law as the Georgia Supreme Court saw it (and the records indicate that he did, from what I can tell), then case law even precludes Franklin from seeking an indictment in the first place.

None of this surprises me. During the Tonya Craft trial, we saw Buzz's people involved with suborning perjury, lying to jurors, manufacturing false evidence, and generally engaging in all-around evil to try to get a conviction. Since the Georgia State Bar has declared that such actions fall into the "they're just doing their jobs" and the fact that prosecutors don't indict themselves, I am sure that Franklin, Chris "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt and Len "The Man-Racist" Gregor believe that they, along with Sheriff Phil Summers, "judge" brian outhouse, and Det. Tim "Dirty" Deal are invulnerable. Indeed, in that jurisdiction, they ARE invulnerable because in North Georgia, those who are supposed to enforce the law have become major lawbreakers. There is nothing we can do but to point out this fact, given that no one in a position of authority in Georgia or the U.S. Department of Justice will do anything about it.

But, there is something else about this heavy-handed indictment against Mr. Mohwish that leaves me puzzled, and that is the simply question of "Why"? Why would Franklin go to such great lengths to shut down a couple of legal and very small Walker County operations?

As a trained economist who took a graduate field in regulation and industrial organization, I have written a lot about what economists call "Capture Theory." This is a theory of regulation that says that regulators over time tend to be "captured" by the entities that they regulate.

Now, places like Catoosa County do not have a vast army of regulators, and much of the local regulation is done by law enforcement personnel. Furthermore, we know that illegal operations from meth labs to prostitution and drug rings exist in Catoosa County, as they do in all rural areas, and we know that at least in some places in this country, law enforcement officers (including prosecutors) have been in cahoots with the criminal rings that they supposedly are trying to shut down.

One of the aspects of "Capture Theory" is that the "regulators" will try to impose costs upon competitors of "favored" firms, which is what we often saw in formerly regulated industries such as trucking, airlines, and telecommunications. For that matter, when Rudy Giuliani (who was the U.S. attorney for Manhattan and Southern New York) went after Michael Milken and Drexel Lambert in the late 1980s, we know that he was backed by established Wall Street firms that did not like competing with upstarts like Milken and Drexel.

I cannot help but wonder if Mr. Mohwish's operations were seen as competitors of other entities that have video poker (and perhaps illegal video poker outfits). The world of video poker is well beyond me; while I am addicted to playing Hearts on my computer, nonetheless I cannot imagine standing in a store and playing video poker for hours on end.

Thus, I cannot say that any illegal video poker outfits exist in the LMJC, including Catoosa County, and I would not know one if I walked into it. Furthermore, I tend not to frequent truck stops and convenience stores in that area, even when I am visiting my family on Lookout Mountain. So, anything I say is just theorizing and nothing else.

However, given what we do know about the state of law enforcement in the LMJC, and given the fact that outhouse, Arnt, Gregor, Summers, and Deal were willing to flout or break the law and/or judicial and Georgia Bar ethics, I would not be surprised at anything these people do. Is the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Mohwish a warning to any potential competitors of potential illegal gambling operations in Catoosa County or elsewhere in the LMJC that competition won't be tolerated?

I don't know, and am not qualified to answer this question. However, given the facts that Mr. Mohwish seems to have been operating within the bounds of the law and that Franklin has used the felony RICO statutes to go after him, I cannot help but be suspicious.

As I have written before, the LMJC is an utterly lawless operation. It is a judicial district of dishonest and law-breaking prosecutors, cops who spit on the law, and judges who flout their duties and the laws that supposedly guide them. If there is more to the Mohwish indictment than meets the eye, I would not be surprised. Not in the least.

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I have written extensively (with Candice E. Jackson) on the federal RICO statutes here and here. The RICO "crimes" are fictitious entities, derived from other supposed illegal acts. The statutes are yet another abominable legacy of the Richard Nixon administration.

And the Winner Is...Christopher Arnt!

When Radley Balko opened voting for the Worst Prosecutor of 2010, it seems that he assembled an all-star cast. There was the Great Andrew Thomas of Maricopa County, the man who almost became Arizona's attorney general, save the wisdom of about 850 Republican voters who kept him from receiving the party's nomination and an almost sure-fire win in November.

However, Thomas is out of work right now and he and two of his former underlings, Lisa Aubuchon and Rachel Alexander, are now candidates for disbarment. That means that these cretins and liars are likely to get at least a little bit of what is coming to them.

There is Tanya Treadway, recently featured on this blog for her vicious attack on the free speech rights of Siobhan Reynolds, and the Wicked Witch of Kansas happens to lead in Radley's voting right now. Treadway has discovered some usefulness of keeping federal grand jury proceedings secret, which is amazing in itself, since federal prosecutors are notorious for leaking such information -- when it suits their purposes of keeping defendants from being able to receive a fair trial. Yes, for federal prosecutors, it is, "Heads I win, tails you lose."

The list has other villains such as Jim Hood of Mississippi and Carol Chambers of Colorado. (Don't get Kerwyn started on the misdeeds of Chambers, as the phone lines are likely to melt between your ear and her phone's mouthpiece, given the fire that is coming your way!)

A favorite of mine is Delores Carr, the district attorney of Santa Clara County, California. Carr ran on a platform condemning the "win at all costs" mentality of prosecutors -- and then proceeded to engage in "win at all costs" conduct while in office. Radley definitely has her number, given her bio.

However, even with these Towering Giants of Evil, I believe that Christopher Arnt, the ADA of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit who headlined the efforts of the State of Georgia to wrongfully convict and imprison Tonya Craft on bogus child molestation charges, is most deserving of the Worst Prosecutor of 2010 Award.

(I have suggested to Radley that he rename it the Michael Nifong Award, or just The Nifong after the disgraced former DA of Durham County, North Carolina, who engaged in lies and perverted misconduct in his effort to convict three Duke University lacrosse player of rape nearly five years ago. As I see it, if anyone is worthy of The Nifong, it is Arnt, or should I say, "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt.)

It is impossible to list all of Arnt's prosecutorial sins in this brief space, but I do wish to remind readers that Arnt was a one-man crime wave as he teamed with Len "The Man, The Racist, The Misogynist" Gregor and "judge" brian outhouse to try to railroad Ms. Craft into prison. In order to pull off this Herculean effort, Arnt engaged in numerous acts of misconduct, including:

• Knowingly seeking false charges against Ms. Craft and Eric Echols.
• Lying to jurors during closing arguments.
• Breaking a number of rules of conduct for prosecutors as set by the Georgia State Bar. (Not that anyone at the state bar gives a damn, given that one of the so-called investigators told me that she had no problem with Arnt's lies, and that he was just "doing his job." Doing the job on innocent people is more like it.)
• Openly and knowingly suborning perjured testimony, including perjury from both Joal and Sarah Henke, Sandra Lamb, Suzi Thorne, Jerry McDonald, and Sherri Wilson.
• Fighting admission of exculpatory evidence and calling respected expert witnesses for the defense "liars" and "whores of the court."
• Participating in a scheme to fabricate a document during the trial in order to cover a huge hole in the prosecution witnesses' testimony.
• Arranged for prosecution witnesses and their friends to have their own special room in which they were permitted to bring laptops, cellphones, food, water, and reading materials into the courthouse, as well as avoid any security checks. Everyone else was forced to go through security and leave everything in their cars.
• Continually disrupted the court proceedings (with permission from his "boy," "judge" brian outhouse) by engaging in "Animal House" behavior.

These only are a few of the reasons as to why I believe Christopher "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt deserves The Nifong. Now, readers have to remember that Arnt hoped to ride Tonya's "conviction" all the way to high state office in Georgia. (His first step was to win the District Attorney's election in 2012 after the coming retirement of Buzz Franklin. Something tells me that the guy is going to have a hard time winning an election for dogcatcher.)

Given that Arnt's political dreams are gone -- and if the guy ever runs for any office, you can bet some people are going to give him some unwanted publicity -- perhaps he can strive to win The Nifong. As I see it, this is the best this guy can do.

Maricopa County "Justice" and the Wrongful Conviction of Courtney Bisbee

Maricopa County, Arizona, has proven to be a cesspool of justice and the situation only looks to get worse. From the predations of Sheriff Joe "Pink Underwear" Arpaio to the contrived and false charges against the son of Carola Jacobson, the "justice" apparatus of that place proves to be something that makes the courtroom of Roland Friesler look to be paragon of goodness.

There are many issues I want to cover in the future about Maricopa County, including the continuing investigations into the clearly-criminal activity of former Maricopa County DA Andrew Thomas and his partner-in-crime Lisa Aubuchon. These two miscreants, who were politically allied with Arpaio, attempted to frame innocent people of crimes for political purposes, but the law might (I emphasize might) be catching up with them.

Yet, for all of the turmoil, an innocent woman named Courtney Bisbee quietly serves her prison time in Arizona, convicted by one of Thomas' henchmen in a case that every legal expert who has examined it calls a farce. She stands convicted of molesting a young teenager, although the teenager's brother has since said in a sworn affidavit that his family concocted the whole scheme for lawsuit purposes. (That also has been the motivation behind the accusations against the Jacobson boy.)

The Bisbee story is kept alive by her mother, Camille Tilley, who has proven to be quite formidable as a force against the injustice perpetrated by Thomas' people. I would urge readers to read this lengthy story in the Phoenix New Times that goes into detail about the case, and how the false accusations came about.

The other day, our pastor preached about the lies that abound in our present society, and while he mentioned the lies told by government agents, I doubt most people in the congregation that day really understood how pervasive the official culture of lying really is in government at all levels in the USA. This blog deals with only a smidgen of the lies, and I see things only getting worse.

Yet, there are some small victories. Tonya Craft was acquitted, Eric Echols is a free man, and Carola Jacobson so far has been successful in chewing up the prosecutorial apparatus in Phoenix. There is much more, and I hope that in the near future, we can say that Courtney also is a free woman.

I will be doing more on this case and on what is happening in Phoenix. For now, read about Courtney Bisbee, and then realize this is the hell where our "leaders" want to take us. And don't forget that Arizona voters almost made Thomas the state's attorney general. There is much work to be done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are celebrating our Thanksgiving at my parents' place on Lookout Mountain, and I am glad that the LMJC (where my parents live) is a bit safer than it was last year.

I'm also thankful that Tonya Craft is free, that Eric Echols no longer faces false charges, and that Tonya has some normalcy with her family.

I also am thankful that the monster, Chris Arnt, has seen his political ambitions damaged to the point where I doubt he could be elected dogcatcher.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

In Praise of Judge Barry Steelman

[Update, Tuesday, November 23, 2:40 P<]: A Georgia judge has found Ron De Laby not guilty of felony witness intimidation. Ron is the person whose successful appeal of a wrongful indictment ultimately provided the legal basis for the quashing of the indictment against Eric Echols.

In the De Laby case, a private investigator was uncovering prosecutorial misconduct in a child molestation case in Forsythe County, and the prosecutors did what they did to Eric Echols: trump up false charges against him before he destroyed their case completely. The prosecutor was James Dunn, Chief ADA and primary instigator is Sandra Partridge, and the D.A. Is Penny Penn. These are dishonest, vindictive people and Partridge is especially bad, someone who is in the Chris Arnt and Len Gregor class.

Even though the original charges against Mr. De Laby were thrown out by an appeals court (which was the decision to which the judge in Mr. Echols' case referred), Dunn and Partridge re-indicted him on the SAME charges with the same information. In other words, they gave the courts the middle finger and did what they pleased.

Not surprisingly, the Georgia State Bar refuses to deal with these people who, according to the "watchdogs," are just "doing their jobs." [End Update]

As I watched the horror show that is the LMJC unfold last spring in "judge" Brian Outhouse's alleged courtroom, I realized that the LMJC is hopeless, absolutely hopeless. Outhouse and his handler, Chris "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt, were trying to rig a conviction against Tonya Craft, only to have a jury which I'm sure that prosecutors and Outhouse thought was "safe" to return a "not guilty" verdict against Ms. Craft.

This was corruption at its worst, although I fear that what we saw in that Georgia courtroom is going to become the norm in this country in the near future. However, there are people who do stand against the tide, people who refuse to go along with the "new order" that prosecutors wish to impose on all of us. Apparently, Judge Barry Steelman is one of those people.

In a speech given this past Monday, he told the Chattanooga Pachyderm Club that he wants to "get it right," not simply get it done as quickly as possible, and for that I applaud him. The Chattanoogan reported:

Judge Steelman said, "We try to expedite our dockets, but we want to get it done right rather than doing it quick."

He added, "It is very, very important when a person's liberty is at stake that we get it right."

It is hard to underestimate how important Judge Steelman's statement really is. Outhouse knew that Tonya Craft's liberty was at stake, and he did everything to keep exculpatory evidence from the jury, and also to let in "evidence" he knew either was false or, at best, terribly tainted.

Let me put it another way. Outhouse KNEW (or at least should have known) that Ms. Craft was innocent, yet he tried to rig a conviction -- and that is exactly what he did. Furthermore, the prosecutors and their gaggle of perjuring witnesses knew Ms. Craft was innocent, yet they went along with the whole show. The gulf between Outhouse and his LMJC pals and Judge Steelman is so wide and deep that the people might as well be on different planets.

Imagine Judge Steelman having heard the Craft case. Does anyone think he would have put up with the "Animal House" antics of Facebook-Cruisemaster and "The Man"? Would he have endorsed the "I just remembered" perjury from Joal and Sarah Henke? Would he have supported the document that was fabricated to bolster the "hand rape" allegations that appeared from nowhere?

Somehow, I doubt that a man who wants to "get it right" would have kowtowed to prosecutors and let them run his courtroom in a high-profile trial. Furthermore, I would not be surprised if Judge Steelman actually permits exculpatory evidence to be shown to a jury, unlike Outhouse, who did everything he could to keep the truth out of that room and away from jurors.

I have no idea about the veracity of the other criminal court judges in Hamilton County, Tennessee. While I hope they have the same integrity as Judge Steelman has demonstrated, I simply cannot make that assessment without knowledge. My guess is that even on a bad day, the justice apparatus of Hamilton County would be infinitely better than the best day of a court in the LMJC.

There is something else to point out. Judge Steelman spoke to a Republican gathering, and Republicans always pride themselves on being "tough on crime," and all too often, "tough on crime" has translated into an outright assault on justice itself. I have no idea if Judge Steelman is a Republican or Democrat, and I really don't care; I do care about people in positions of power and authority doing what is right, even if what is right is unpopular.

I have received comments from people in the LMJC that they don't like my casting aspersions upon their conduct and how they do things in Northwest Georgia. All I can say is that if they are willing to put a man like "judge" Brian Outhouse into a black robe with their votes, and if the entire LMJC apparatus, from judges to bailiffs to people who clean courthouse bathrooms, was willing to participate in the outright corruption that was the Tonya Craft trial, then I really have nothing to say to those people who accept paychecks from that organization.

Yes, I know, there were and are people in that organization who have a moral compass, but they need to ask themselves why it is that the very, very worst got on top. And it is not just Tonya Craft. This judicial circuit has a horrible reputation and it is well-deserved.

So, let me ask the people of Northwest Georgia this question: Could Barry Steelman even be elected as a judge in the LMJC?

The Strange Case of Eric Echols, or the Anatomy of an Illegal Prosecution

I received a message this morning that a Georgia judge has quashed the criminal indictment against Eric Echols, which ends yet another sorry chapter in the discredited criminal case against Tonya Craft. While LMJC prosecutors have four years in which to re-indict Mr. Echols, they have a real problem and they know it: there is and was no basis for indictment, period.

Just because LMJC D.A. Buzz Franklin's pathetic minions have taken another shot does not mean I am dropping my scrutiny of his office and others in Northwest Georgia for this travesty. While Franklin and his "boss," ADA Chris Arnt (who really calls the shots in that office, and Franklin just does his bidding) most likely will respond with their usual "no comment" when handed their heads, in reality this is a huge blow to Arnt's political aspirations.

(I will deal with Arnt's ambitions in future posts, but suffice it to say that this guy had high hopes until he bent over to kiss the posteriors of Sandra Lamb, her father, Dewayne Wilson, and their friends. Sorry, fellow, bad choice. Call it a "bad touch.")

Let me now look at the case against Mr. Echols, or, more specifically, the non-case against him. His problems supposedly began with the "Mommie Dearest" incident when he served (legally) Sandra Lamb with some papers. In truth, Mr. Echols, a first-rate private investigator and an African-American, was quietly ripping up the guts of Arnt's case against Tonya Craft, and Arnt knew it.

If you have not seen the video of Sandra Lamb's 2009 racially-motivated assault on Mr. Echols, it is worth watching and can be seen here. In the video, Lamb then assaults Mr. Echols and calls him a "black bastard."

Legally, this is assault, and when accompanied by racial epithets is a hate crime under Georgia and federal law. However, given that Buzz Franklin and the LMJC are corrupt, prosecutors charged Mr. Echols with a crime. To compound matters, Sandra Lamb filed an assault charge against Mr. Echols, clearly lying on the police report, and then claiming that Arnt directed her actions.

Despite the fact that the sheet on which she made her accusation said that filing a false charge is a felony under Georgia law, Lamb filed charges against Mr. Echols that were contradicted by the video evidence. The way that Arnt and his friends reacted was to ignore the crimes that Lamb committed and charge Mr. Echols with felony witness tampering.

However, the "felony" apparently was recorded and when the recording and transcript of Mr. Echols' conversations with Jerry McDonald were made public, they also contradicted the substance of the charges. Furthermore, had this conversation been made available at the trial, it would have cast serious doubt on McDonald's crocodile tearful testimony that was replayed ad nauseum on television. So, what to do in the LMJC? Continue to run off the cliff, of course!

Once again, Chris Arnt's grand strategy crashed and burned just like everything else in the Tonya Craft case. Moreover, there is more work to do, as others in the LMJC are falsely charged, and compounding the problem is that there is not an honest person in a position of authority in the LMJC. Since we cannot appeal to the better side of people who don't have a better side, then the only other option is to expose the lies and the liars.

Congratulations to Mr. Echols, I guess. He finally can relax, but he also knows that the system of "justice" in Northwest Georgia is not in good hands. Not a good thing.

The Times-Free Press' Disgraceful Portrayal

I guess Joan Garrett of the Times-Free Press must be burning up the line with John Madewell of Channel 9, as her account of the Tuesday hearing paints a picture of a delusional and vengeful Tonya Craft throwing mud at her ex-husband and his wife in an attempt to take her children out of a loving, nurturing home. I guess this truly misleading article is what Todd Foster meant when he said in taking the top position at the paper that the TFP would be going after "sacred cows."

So, the TFP apparently thinks that Ms. Craft is a "sacred cow" that needs to be attacked. Conversely, Garrett and Foster try to portray a couple of perjurers -- Joal and Sarah Henke -- as wonderful, loving parents who just want what is best for their children. Thus, it is time to deconstruct this piece, which is every bit as disgusting as what Channel 9 did all through the Tonya Craft criminal trial last spring.

As I read through this piece, it strikes me that Garrett has managed to turn it into a "food fight" of "he said, she said" that makes up much of the sordid world of custody battles. Her article basically says that it is Joal's and Sarah's word against Tonya's -- as though there were no other documents in the case, and the current circuit court testimony is the only evidence available.

The story's bias is evident in its headline: "Craft's children doing fine, testimony in custody dispute shows." Granted, Garrett did not write the headline, but I believe it reflects the story. Keep in mind that the testimony did not "show" anything; some people testified who said they believed that the children were "doing fine," but there was no proof.

(From what I can see, Garrett does not need proof that the kids are OK, as she takes the word of a serial liar and adulterer and that of his friends. On the other hand, I doubt Tonya ever could "prove" her innocence to Garrett.)

The first paragraph demonstrates right away where this story is headed:

Tonya Craft's five-week trial on child molestation charges dredged up sordid, intimate details about her and her ex-husband's private lives, but some witnesses testifying in the couple's custody case say all the nastiness has not affected their children.

First, the spring trial produced real-live evidence against Joal for his serial adultery, but there was no proof actually given against Tonya except for Len Gregor's accusations of her wearing a thong and Joal's patently dishonest "I just remembered" testimony in which he claimed she had a lesbian affair with Jennifer Sullivan.

But the most telling paragraph is farther down in the story, when Garrett writes:

In a $25 million federal lawsuit filed against her accusers, Craft claims her ex-husband, the entire Catoosa County government and child therapists conspired to bring a false case against her by manipulating the children who accused her.

Most important, the lawsuit uses "conspiracy," but in the legal sense under federal law. Catoosa County is a defendant because Det. Tim Deal, who is being sued, is a Catoosa County employee. Nowhere in the suit does Ms. Craft claim that "the entire Catoosa County government and child therapists" were conspiring together, as though they had a huge meeting in a big auditorium and hatched out a dastardly plot.

Instead, under federal "conspiracy" laws, when people involved in lawbreaking have any kind of meeting at all, it is considered part of a "conspiracy." Yes, it is a very loose definition, but that's federal law for you.

Garrett goes on:

But during nearly three hours of questioning Tuesday, Henke said he never instigated nor drove the criminal case to court.

While making the children available for interviews and court appearances and also responding to subpoenas himself, he never spoke with his children about the allegation against their mother, he testified in court.

"It wasn't mine to stop," he said. "This wasn't about me. I was concerned with anything that would be of danger to my children. I reacted with the best I knew to do at that time, which was cooperation."

As much as he hated it, when his children had questions or were upset about the case, he said he told them they had to talk with a professional therapist.

"We sheltered them from the news. We sheltered them from the media. We avoided that. They didn't see computers, television," he said.

Now, he said he wants Craft to be involved in the children's lives but doesn't want her to be more involved than he is.

Apparently, Garrett has read nothing of the depositions and trial testimony. She says nothing of the numerous hours that Henke spent talking to people like Sandra Lamb and the Wilsons, who were driving the whole case. She says nothing about all of the times that Henke denied Tonya and her parents visitation rights -- and that, too, is part of the record, even if the Garrett wants to ignore it.

The "professional therapist" of whom he speaks is Laurie Evans, who was so notorious in this case that not even the prosecution -- which openly suborned perjury -- was willing to put her on the stand as a prosecution witness. (The defense subpoenaed her as a hostile witness, and she proved to put on quite a spectacle on the stand.) It was Evans who managed to get Tonya's daughter to claim that not only had Tonya molested her, but that Tonya's mother also got in on the act, something that not even the prosecution was willing to swallow.

Garrett's biased account continued with this gem:

At times during Henke's cross-examination Tuesday, one of Craft's attorney's, Scott King, became so animated and aggressive, Circuit Court Judge Marie Williams told him he had to calm down.

"We are going to switch examiners if you can't keep it together," Williams told King.

It would have been instructive to the readers to understand just why Scott King was zeroing in on Joal Henke, but Garrett ignored something that was very, very important.

Henke, as I noted in my earlier post, claimed under oath that Tonya had failed to take the children to the doctor (even for "baby care" visits) for three years, which he wanted the court to believe was "proof" of neglect.

Scott King, however, was ready and had the medical records of the children in front of him and he had Joal read the dates of the visits. You see, the official record demonstrated beyond a doubt that Henke was lying, and when Henke pretended that he was having a hard time reading those records, Scott King became aggressive in his questioning, and who could blame him? That was when Judge Marie Williams cautioned Mr. King.

Unfortunately, Garrett tried to portray Mr. King as an out-of-control lawyer attacking a loving and caring father who simply was standing up against an alleged child molester. In other words, Garrett deliberately presented a false picture of what was happening.

At this point, I admit that I have passionate feelings about this case, but those feelings are rooted in the facts of what happened. I'm angry about it because prosecutors knowingly brought false charges, prosecution witnesses committed perjury with full knowledge and encouragement of prosecutors and the judge, and the judge tried to rig a conviction.

Don't trust my word on this point. Read the material yourself. Read the depositions, the interviews with the children, the police reports, trial transcripts, news stories, and the literature on false accusations. Read Sandra Lamb's statement regarding Eric Echols, and then watch the video of her encounter with Mr. Echols and then try to reconcile the two; It cannot be done.

My point is that I don't believe in Tonya's innocence because she is attractive or because of personal relationships. I believed in her innocence long before I ever met her or talked to her. All it took was a look at the record, and I understood.

Unfortunately, Joan Garrett is not one of those people who apparently has looked at anything. In reading the article today, I get the sense that she believes that maybe, just maybe, it was a situation of Tonya Craft "beating the rap." In her view, Ms. Craft definitely is not a sympathetic character, but rather just another lowlife trying to manipulate the system to get her kids.

Yes, I know that reporters are busy (and so am I and so is everyone else), but for Garrett to give the account she did is unconscionable. If she claims that she is not familiar with the depositions and trial testimony, then perhaps she should give the trial coverage to someone who is familiar with the material. But whatever the reason, be it ignorance or malice, Garrett and the TFP have proven that they are trying their best to rival Channel 9 for the Slimy Coverage Award in this case.

News Flash! Joal and Sarah Henke Lie Under Oath! (Not That Channel 9 Would Report It)

Tuesday's hearing in Judge Marie Williams' courtroom was about what I expected it to be. Joal Henke and his pregnant wife Sarah lied a lot. They lied under oath, and their friends (including a former minister at Eastwood Church) covered for them. In other words, it was business as usual with the Henkes and the Eastwood crowd. Don't forget that the Eastwood bunch tried to convince everyone Tonya Craft was a child molester, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise.

Now, if you watched only Channel 9's coverage, you would think that Joal and Sarah are honest, God-fearing people who care only about the welfare of their children. You would have no idea that Tonya's attorneys caught Joal in lie after lie, and that the guy who "suddenly remembered" all sorts of scandalous things about Tonya at her criminal trial had severe memory lapse all through today's session. (Channel 3 has more accurate coverage, not surprisingly, given that Channel 9 worked hand-in-glove with the prosecution in the criminal trial, even giving sympathetic on-camera interviews with prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor after the acquittal.)

It is hard to know where to begin, but I will begin at one of the lies told by Joal, that being his falsification of his address in order to pull Tonya's children from the school where they were attending and enroll them in Westview School. Once again, as she had in her conversation with Eric Echols, principal Margo Williams denied telling Joal to do it -- which he continues to claim.

Mortgage Fraud, Henke Style

In Tuesday's testimony, we found that Joal's father purchased the house where he and Sarah live, as Joal apparently could not qualify for a loan. (Smart people, those mortgage lenders.)

The problem is that Joal's father got a VA loan, which requires the borrower to live in the residence, and the borrower is required to state that on the application. That Henke's father did NOT live in the house or even intend to live in the house is mortgage fraud, which is a felony punishable by several years in prison.

So, if federal prosecutors in Southeast Tennessee would like a slam-dunk case, they have one right in front of them. Joal Henke's father committed mortgage fraud, and Joal and Sarah Henke were partners-in-crime, and conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud also is a federal felony. Ah! Joal doesn't care where he breaks the law, just as long as he can be a lawbreaker!

Now, as I see it, not only should federal prosecutors be interested in this open fraud, but also the state board of realtors, as licensed real estate agents are not supposed to be committing mortgage fraud. Perhaps someone needs to notify the board of this transgression and let the board take another look at Joal's license.

Here is the Channel 3 tweet on that situation, including the editorial comment:

11:43am Joal's house purchased by his dad, dad lied to get VHA loan, said he would live there, not Joal. (That's a federal offense.)

The Showering Sarah

Before dealing with Sarah Henke's frequent showers with Tonya's daughter, let us deal with another lie that Sarah told under oath Tuesday. Henke told the court that she never tried to "replace" Tonya as the actual mother of Tonya's children.

Yet, all during the trial, Sarah Bass Henke had a Facebook page in which her signature photo showed her holding Tonya's daughter and it was clear on that page (which conveniently was taken down after Tonya's acquittal) that Henke was claiming those children as her own, and she even thanked God for "giving" her those children. The only reason I did not mention it on my blog -- and I did save what I could from it -- was that what Sarah Henke was doing was so vicious and so evil that I did not want Tonya even to look at a picture of another woman stealing her daughter -- and that is exactly what Sarah Henke was doing.

[Update]: It turns out I was wrong. Sarah Bass Henke has a current Facebook page, and she is pictured cuddling to Tonya's daughter. She also writes a number of things pertaining to Tonya's children (claiming them to be her own), saying things like trying to "be a yes mom today" and saying what a blessing it is to tuck in her children at night.

In other words, even now, even after claiming under oath that she and Joal are not engaged in parental alienation, she continues to claim that the children of Tonya Craft are her own. Folks, it doesn't get any more evil than what Sarah Bass Henke is doing -- and continues to do. [End Update]

So, for Sarah Bass Henke to tell the court under oath that she was not trying to cleverly push Tonya out of the picture is a lie, yet another lie on top of other lies. (For those who still might think Sarah was being naive, remember that after Tonya's acquittal, Sarah stood in the courtroom crying, and somehow I don't think these were tears of joy.)

When asked why she showered with Tonya's daughter, Henke once again went with the same perjury she used in Catoosa County: Tonya's children were dirty; they were unkempt; they had matted hair; they stank. Dear, caring Sarah was just showering with the child because Tonya Craft was such an uncaring, unfit mother that she let her own children be walking pigpens.

However, as I posted a few days ago, when Sarah was questioned by attorneys in a deposition in 2009, she did not use the "stinking children" defense. Instead, she said she was just helping the young girl clean shampoo from her hair and the like. It was only at the criminal trial -- and now at the custody hearing -- that Bass Henke tried to employ that rhetorical device known as the Big Lie.

Here is the Channel 3 tweet for the "shower" nonsense:

2:55pm Scott King asking Sarah Henke about showering with Tonya Craft's daughter. She says girl wasn't clean when they picked her up.

Joal Continues the "Neglect" Theme

Sarah was not the only person to push a false "Tonya neglected her children" theme, as Joal insisted that Tonya was refusing to give them even basic medical care by failing to take the children to the doctor even for checkups for three years. Tonya's attorney, Scott King, made short work of Henke's lies. This is from Channel 3's postings:

11:24am King is challenging Joal's statement that Tonya Craft didn't take kids for well child visits for three years.

11:27am Scott King making Joal Henke read kids' med charts. There was no three year gap in their health care.

11:29am Joal seems confused, trouble reading charts. KING: It's not that complicated. JUDGE: Easy, counselor.

So, picture the scene. Joal Henke tells the court that Tonya Craft did not take her children to the doctor for three years, and when Scott King produces the medical charts of the children that demonstrate conclusively that Henke is lying, Henke pretends he is having trouble reading the charts. It was yet another Gotcha! moment in the life of serial liar and adulterer, Joal Henke.

Joal Can't Recall Anything

During Tonya's criminal trial, Joal was a fount of "I just remembered," including recalling what clearly was a nonexistent lesbian affair Tonya allegedly had with her good friend, Jennifer Sullivan. (Notice that "judge" Brian Outhouse refused to allow Jennifer to testify on her behalf.)

However, in testimony Tuesday, Joal seemed stricken with memory loss. (I thought that a "world-class" athlete -- as Joal describes himself -- was disciplined.) Here are some Channel 3 tweets that demonstrate Joal's Alzheimer's act:

11:15am Scott King asking Joal Henke about his conversation with court-appointed therapist. He can't remember what he told her.

11:59am A lot of Joal Henke's answers include "I don't recall" or "I can't remember".

12:28pm Joal continues being "unable to recall" most of King's questions regarding Craft's parents' access to kids.

Why would Joal suddenly be forgetful? It seems that he openly had been violating the court order that Judge Marie Williams herself had set. Here are some more Channel 3 tweets:

11:34am Joal admits he lied on application to get kids in school they weren't zoned for; left mother's information blank on form. (Emphasis mine)

11:36am Tonya Craft had to get court order to access her kids school records.

11:38am Joal called Catoosa court to see if Tonya Craft violated bond by asking for their kids' school records.

11:52am Joal says he denied Craft visitation with their son on Mothers Day 2009. He can't remember why.

11:53am Joal also denied Craft visitation on Mothers Day 2010.

11:57am Joal also denied Tonya Craft's parents' request for time with kids on Mothers Day this year.

There was nothing in the court order signed by Judge Williams that allowed him to do the things he did, yet he did it with impunity. Furthermore, he lied about what he did and why he did it, and when confronted in a court of law, he suddenly got a bout of Alzheimer's Disease. I only can hope that Judge Williams understands that Henke has given her the middle finger, too, because he believes she will do nothing about it.

Joal's Lack-of-Character Witness

In Dennis Norwood's report in The Chattanoogan, he goes into detail about one of the "character" witnesses for the Henkes, Joshua McGiness, who was a former minister at Eastwood Church. According to The Chattanoogan:

A former minister at Eastwood Baptist Church where the Henkes attend, Joshua McGiness, also testified in support of his friend and former tae kwan do instructor, Joal. When attorney Clancy Covert asked him why he had attended the Craft criminal trial, he answered, “To support Joal and Sarah.”

Mr. McGuiness told the judge that while he respected Mr. Henke now, he had not always. Asked by Ms. Craft’s attorneys what changed his mind, McGuiness said, “It was the way he handled his divorce from Ms. Craft.” He stated he did not attend any of the divorce proceedings, but came to his feelings from hearing what Mr. Henke had to say in their church small group meetings. “We asked Joal some pretty tough questions,” he said.

Addressing both Sarah and Joal as to the issue of Sarah showering with the daughter, both said they found nothing wrong with the practice. Ms. Craft had earlier complained to authorities about this practice. It was only after a psychologist associated with the case told her to stop the practice that it ended, according to trial testimony.

As a former minister, Mr. McGuiness said he didn’t find anything wrong with the practice either, saying there were just too many variables and facets to look at.

I think that readers should know that Tonya was pretty much run out of Eastwood Church because she was divorcing Henke. Now, Tonya did not leave him for someone else; no, she left because Joal was sleeping around, abusing her, and then claiming he was a "changed man."

I'm sure that McGuiness would claim that Joal just wanted to "restore his marriage" or nonsense like that. I would put it much differently, and I think that what I am going to say pretty much describes Joal Henke.

Henke is both tenacious and competitive, but he also is a sociopath, a person who will look a person in the eye and then lie with the most sincere voice one can imagine. If he is caught in a lie, he simply tells another, and then another.

It was not that Joal wanted to keep Tonya as his wife because he loved her; he wanted to keep her around because for her to leave -- and leave with the children -- would be for him to lose, and one thing that Joal Henke cannot accept is losing. He was tenacious throughout the divorce proceedings, but when it was clear that Tonya had a stack of videotapes of him having sex with other women, even Henke realized that he was finished.

The faux child molestation case was just another example of him trying to beat Tonya -- because in his twisted mind, she "beat" him at something she she successfully divorced him and won the child custody rights. True, he could manipulate the people at Eastwood Church, and if McGuiness is typical of the kind of person who attends that "emergent church," then it is not hard to figure what is happening there, and why so many people there still insist beyond all reason that Tonya Craft was and is a child molester.

The Wednesday hearing is closed to the press and public because it will involve psychological reports of the children. I only hope that there is one more psychological report: about a certain sociopath named Joal Henke who is unfit to be anywhere but in a jail cell.

Joal and Sarah Henke: Perjury in Their Own Words, Part III: "The Principal Told Me to Lie"

[Note]: The depositions are not directly related to the criminal charges against Tonya Craft, but, instead, we part of the custody battle that began after Ms. Craft was arrested in 2008. Joal and Sarah were demanding permanent custody of the Henke children, and the depositions are related to that case.

Keep in mind that Joal helped to orchestrate the false charges against Ms. Craft in part as a way to get her out of the picture permanently by having her go to prison for the rest of her life. (He was not the conductor, but played an important role.) [End Note]

After Tonya Craft's arrest in 2008, Joal and Sarah Henke were granted temporary custody of Tonya's (and Joal's) children. One of the first things Joal did was to take the children from the school where they were going and transfer them to Westview School.

There was one problem, however: Joal and Sarah did not live in the district where Westview was located, but for someone like Joal Henke, telling a lie was not a problem. Instead, he simply put a false address and enrolled the children.

As readers will see below, Joal claims that the principal of Westview, Margot Williams, told him to lie. As readers will see below, Joal's version of events differs from that of others. This is taken from the February 18, 2009, deposition. The "Q" is Cary King and "A" is Joal:

Q Have you ever lied on any application relating to the children's school?
A When we spoke with Margo Williams and asked her
Q Would you answer my question, please
A I am answering.
Q yes or no?
A: I am answering the question. I put yes to if we lived in the school district, and we put woody Hollow as the address. And the reason being is we asked the principal: If we cannot get a variance from the school board, we will move in with
her parents, if necessary, to be in that school system. So
Q But you never
A she said go ahead and put Woody Hollow, and if before school starts we have not done that, then then we would we would go from there.
Q All right. Are you done?
A So, yes, I did.
Q You done?
A Yes.
Q Okay. So you lied on your application?
A Yes. I
Q Okay. So you lied to the school

After an objection by Henke's attorney, Charles Dupree, the session continues:

Q See where it says signature of parent or guardian?
A oh, yes. That's my signature.
Q That is your signature. And you filled out this form here, correct?
A Yes, I did.
Q And about four rows down from the top, it says, student address, 9416 Woody Hollow?
A Correct.
Q So that was a lie, wasn't it?
A That was at the time is correct.
Q okay.
A That was not where we lived.
Q And it's still a lie, isn't it?
A Yes. We do not live there.
Q Okay. Have you ever lived at woody
Hollow at any time since these children were enrolled in that school?
A No. We have not.
Q Okay. And who lives at woody Hollow?
A My in-laws

In the July 24, 2009, deposition at Dupree's office, Cary King picks up on this subject. Because the transcript I have is scanned, in the interest of time, I cannot give a full Q and A. However, what transpired is the following:

1. Henke continues to claim that the Westview principal, Margot Williams, told him it was OK to put down a fraudulent address;
2. Cary King asks: "And if Margot Williams said that was not true, would she be lying? (Dupree objects);
3. Henke replies, after Cary asks him again following the objection: "I suppose."
4. Cary King then plays a recording of an interview between Eric Echols and Ms. Williams in which she emphatically answers "No" when Mr. Echols asks her if she told Joal that it was okay to put down "false information."
5. Ms. Williams asks, "Why did he (Henke) tell you that?"

The subject is not covered further, although the CD of the recording made by Mr. Echols is listed as "Exhibit 9." I also will make one other point: Eric Echols was doing a very, very good job of not only uncovering the lies being told by prosecution witnesses and the police and prosecutors themselves, but also finding out past incidents of alleged "bad conduct" by Joal Henke.

Thus, I believe readers can understand why Chris "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt and Tim "Dirty" Deal were anxious to get Mr. Echols out of the picture. That is why they trumped up charges against him, and that is why Buzz Franklin and his little minions have insisted on taking Mr. Echols to trial (which is scheduled to take place in March 2011).

So, if Ms. Williams is correct -- and I believe she is -- then we have yet another instance of Joal Henke lying under oath. This is what is called perjury. Of course, Joal and his attorney, Dupree, will claim that "it is just her word against his." That is true, but let me ask the readers this question: If you had to believe either Margot Williams or Joal Henke, which person would you believe?

I do hope that Judge Marie Williams and the other officials involved with this case will take a hard look at what Joal has said. Furthermore, I believe that every word Joal and Sarah Henke say in court needs to be scrutinized (for obvious reasons).

Further posts will deal with more of Henke's deceit.

Troll Time

One of the standard characteristics of those who make false accusations is their adherence to a "Heads I win, tails you lose" set of rules. Whenever a troll visits this blog, we generally see that person demanding that such rules be applied to the Tonya Craft case.

The logical (I used that word carefully) construct they give usually goes something like this: O.J. Simpson was acquitted and we think he was guilty. Therefore, Tonya Craft was guilty.

Yes, this is what logicians call a non sequitur ("that does not follow"), but given that our friends in the LMJC are fond of using the non sequitur as "evidence" during trials, we should not be surprised when the trolls do it as well. Don't forget that Chris "Alberto-Facebook and Cruisemaster" Arnt and Len "The Man-Misogynist-Racist" Gregor were fond of using this rhetorical device all through Tonya's trial, and some of their examples included:

• Tonya Craft was a fitness instructor;
• That makes her a "narcissist";
• Therefore, she molested children.

• Tonya Craft was photographed wearing an evening dress;
• Therefore, Tonya Craft is a child molester.

Now, I will say that coming from a prosecutor who wrote on a public website that being a prosecutor lets him be "the man," accusing someone else of being a narcissist is pretty rich. Likewise, Arnt's showing off before refereeing -- get this -- a KIDS' soccer game is prima facae evidence this guy is narcissistic to the core.

Furthermore, prosecutors are supposed to be able to discern what is real evidence and what is not, and they are not supposed to lie nor fabricate false "evidence" to try to win. Unfortunately, those who run the LMJC and who sit in seats of authority approve of lies, fabrications, and outrageous behavior on behalf of the "public servants" employed in that sorry excuse for a "justice" system.

Well, enough about the dishonest prosecutors. Let us now turn to our faithful troll who has been willing to share his/her wisdom with the rest of us. So, I will include some of the latest comments below:

just because Tonya Craft was found innocent does NOT mean that she didnt molest these little girls. young kids dont make that kind of stuff up. maybe all of the people on here, her "cronies" need a reality check yourself. what if it were your child who had been molested? you wouldnt be posting these ruthless comment on here then would you? i hardly believe so. its sad that all you people have to do with your lives is look at this web site to see what the latest gossip is. find something better to do with your lives than sit and stare at the computer all day. o.j. was found innocent at first as well wasnt he, but where is he now? once a child molester always a child molester.

Then there is this:

the fact of the matter is, you people have nothing better to do than sit on the internet and talk about/read about all the gossip going on in certain communities on this website. anon @ 5:39, i agree with you to an extent. yes, kids do lie, i agree with that however it is rare, if ever, that they could come up with something such as this at the age they are at. i do not believe parental influence had anything to do with this. as to the mcmartin case, i am sick of hearing about that. yes, maybe people do get accused of things they didnt do and get punished for it but at the same time people who are actually guilty are found innocent. i do not know TC or SL but this sounds to me like TC got lucky this time.

It is hard to know where to begin, but I must start somewhere. First, the person tells us that the McMartin case is irrelevant, although there were similarities in the interviewing techniques by people like Stacy Long and Suzi Thorne. That is interesting; the O.J. Simpson is relevant because he was acquitted when people believed his was guilty so, therefore, Tonya also is guilty.

However, when we point out the similarities between Tonya's case and what happened in California and elsewhere with false accusations, that does not matter. Those cases had nothing to do with this one.

I'd be willing to dismiss all of this as the ranting of a troll, but I suspect that we are hearing the same stuff with prosecutors, police, and judges in the LMJC. To a person, all of them lined up behind Buzz Franklin when he declared that the jurors were guilty of misconduct because they acquitted Tonya Craft. Not one judge, not Ralph Van Pelt, Bo Wood, nor Christina Graham, has said one thing about the blatant misconduct that went on in Brian Outhouse's courtroom. Their silence is a sign of their support.

Not one person has said anything about the (alleged) unreported ex parte meetings between House and prosecution witnesses and House and the prosecutors even though these actions violate the Georgia rules of judicial ethics (not that any judges care about ethics these days). No one tied to the LMJC has pointed out that prosecutors in Tonya's case openly suborned perjury, and no one in a position of authority seems to care that Sandra Lamb, Joal and Sarah Henke, along with Sherry Wilson, Suzi Thorne, and Tim Deal outright lied on the stand -- under oath (as though that means anything to judges and the Georgia State Bar these days).

No, instead, we get the same old message from everyone in the LMJC: O.J. Simpson was acquitted; therefore, Tonya Craft is guilty. And, then there is this most interesting LMJC syllogism:

• There were abuses that occurred in the investigation of the McMartin and other day care cases that clearly demonstrated that children were being coached to testify to things that had not happened;
• Investigators in the Tonya Craft case (who openly claimed they knew nothing about the McMartin case) engaged in many of the same abusive interviewing techniques that got innocent people sent to prison in other cases;
• Therefore, Tonya Craft is guilty of child molestation.

Does this syllogism make sense? No, but then why should we be surprised. When Sandra Lamb knowingly files a false police report that I have in my files that absolutely is contradicted by the video that first was run by Channel 3, nothing happens, but the person who was assaulted, Eric Echols, is the one who is arrested. Brad Wade still sits in prison, wrongly convicted, thanks to lies told by Len "The Man" Gregor and Stacy Long. That is not due to over-zealousness; it is due to the absolute lawlessness that is firmly entrenched in the culture of the LMJC. The slogan of the LMJC is "Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation," but maybe we need to have a contest to see if there is a better slogan that can fit what goes on in there.

Maybe, it could be something like, "We lie, you cry," or "Abandon all truth, ye who enter here." I'm sure readers might have some other ideas in mind.

Government "Expert" Witnesses: Fraud Abounds

One of the reasons that I am so down on the Children's Advocacy Center of the LMJC is that I see the real damage that so-called government expert witnesses can do. Perhaps we should not be surprised when Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt and Len "The Man-Racist-Misogynist-Homophobe" Gregor claim that the CAC witnesses were brilliant, while people like Dr. Nancy Aldridge and Dr. William Bernet, both highly respected in their fields, were "liars" and "whores."

Yes, it seems that along with foisting lies and bad services, governments also like to provide us with fraudulent "expert" witnesses, and perhaps the worst offenders are the prosecutors of Mississippi. Now, Mississippi has been a study in injustice for a long time, given its awful civil rights history which, like that of Georgia, includes numerous murders for which there were no prosecutions, much less no convictions. Georgia and Mississippi both made it de facto legal for whites to kill blacks and people of both states seemed to take pride in the fact that murder was legal there.

Today, the politicians and the "justice" system players like to claim that things have changed, but I don't think so. In Catoosa County, the authorities still are trying to wrongly convict Eric Echols who the last time I checked still was African-American. Mississippi does Catoosa County one better: the state has a number of blacks on death row, put there due to the fraudulent testimony of Steven Hayne and Michael West.

This latest dispatch from Radley Balko is the kind of thing that should make one's blood boil, as Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is trying to railroad a man to the execution chamber despite the fraudulence of the "expert" testimony that put him there. Mr. Balko writes about the upcoming execution of Eddie Lee Howard:

In 1994 Eddie Lee Howard was convicted of raping and murdering 84-year-old Georgia Kemp. Kemp was found dead in her Columbus, Mississippi, home by firefighters after a neighbor noticed smoke coming from the house. Investigators determined the fire was set intentionally.

Kemp's body was taken to controversial Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne, who would later lose his lucrative niche as the state's go-to guy for autopsies after years of criticism for sloppy work that rarely failed to confirm prosecutors' suspicions. Hayne concluded that Kemp died of knife wounds and said he found signs of rape, although the rape kit taken from Kemp turned up no biological evidence that the technology available at the time could test for DNA.

Three days after Kemp was buried, District Attorney Forrest Allgood, the chief prosecutor for the four counties of Mississippi's 16th District, zeroed in on Howard, who at the time was unemployed and living with a relative down the street from Kemp's house, as the culprit. Once Howard was identified as a suspect, Hayne suddenly recalled seeing marks on Kemp's body that could have been made by human teeth (Hayne's original autopsy report makes no mention of the bite marks). So Kemp's body was exhumed and given to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, dentist Michael West, a self-proclaimed expert in bite mark analysis and frequent beneficiary of Hayne's referrals. West confirmed that the marks were indeed bite impressions and that some of them could only have been made by Howard's upper teeth—a puzzling claim, since Howard's upper teeth were a mass-manufactured denture. Howard was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994. The Mississippi Supreme Court later gave Howard a new trial, ruling he was unfit to represent himself at trial. He was again convicted and again sentenced to death in 2000.

West's bite mark testimony is the only physical evidence linking Howard to the crime scene. (The other evidence against Howard includes incriminating statements he allegedly made to a police officer that were not recorded or written down and testimony from an ex-girlfriend that Howard smelled of smoke the day after Kemp's murder.) At the time of Howard's conviction, West was a star forensic witness, claiming to have perfected a method of bite mark analysis no other forensic specialist could duplicate. But since Howard's conviction, West has become the poster boy for forensic fakery.

West, who once claimed he could trace the tooth marks in a half-eaten bologna sandwich at a crime scene to a defendant while excluding everyone else on the planet, has had to resign from two professional forensics organizations due to his habit of giving testimony unsupported by science. In 2001 (as I reported last year) a defense lawyer caught West in a sting aimed at revealing him as a charlatan: West matched the dental mold of a private investigator to unrelated photos of bite marks from a crime committed eight years earlier. West even sent back a video in which he methodically went through his technique. Despite all this, the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Howard's conviction and death sentence in 2006. With respect to West, the majority concluded, "Just because Dr. West has been wrong a lot, does not mean, without something more, that he was wrong here."

Since then a wave of new revelations (described in more detail below) has confirmed that Steven Hayne and Michael West are not credible expert witnesses. Last month Howard and his attorneys at the Mississippi Innocence Project cited some of that evidence in asking the Mississippi Supreme Court for a new trial. In response, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood does not argue that Michael West is a credible expert or that his testimony in Howard's case had any scientific foundation. Instead Hood argues that because the Mississippi Supreme Court already has upheld West's testimony in the face of criticism, Howard is procedurally barred from again citing West's quackery in a bid for a new trial.

The argument may arguably be legally correct, but Hood is not obligated to make it. Hood, whose duty is not just to win cases but to pursue justice, should have the decency to review every case in which West has ever testified. Instead, in the face of growing evidence that the criminal justice system he presides over has been corrupted by unreliable expert witnesses, Hood is essentially arguing that Eddie Lee Howard should be sent to the death chamber on a technicality.

Now, if you think Jim Hood is a liar and a charlatan, you are right. But, replace his name with Thurbert Baker or Len Gregor, Buzz Franklin, or Chris Arnt, and you have the same kind of person.

More and more, we are seeing dishonest and venal people self-selecting into the office of prosecutor. For the most part, Americans are quite satisfied with this sorry state of affairs -- or they are satisfied until something happens to them and then they begin to understand what is happening.

Prosecutors are more likely to try to get fraudulent "expert" witnesses because they are more likely to lie, as we saw Suzi Thorne do during Tonya Craft's trial. When I asked Ione Sells about Nancy Aldridge having testified for the prosecution, she laughed and said, "She has not testified for the prosecution since 2007." My sense is that she is right, but if I understand the present mentality in the typical prosecutor's office, the last thing prosecutors want is an expert witness who is both competent AND truthful.

No, prosecutors are quite happy with people like Steven Hayne and Michael West. The LMJC is not alone in being Perjury Central.

Jury and Witness Intimidation in the LMJC

[Update, September 7, 4 p.m.]: Tonya is doing a great job! One wonders if she has been doing all of this all her working life![End Update]

[Note]: Tonya Craft makes her radio debut on WGOW (102.3 FM) today at 3 p.m. on "The Truth of the Matter." If you can listen, please do. My sense is that whatever doubts people might have had about her guilt will be erased by how she handles herself and her audience.

True, there are some prosecutors and judges in the LMJC, along with witnesses who perjured themselves during Tonya's trial that are not going to like the show or how they are portrayed, but perhaps they should have thought about it before decided to press on with obvious lies. If there is one thing I can say about Tonya, it is that she is about the truth. [End Note]

Sometime in the next year, Eric Echols is supposed to be put on trial for alleged "witness intimidation" while he was questioning prosecution witnesses in the Tonya Craft case. Since we have the transcript and the audiotape of Mr. Echols' interview with Jerry McDonald, in which Mr. Echols was supposed to have threatened him, and since there are no threats in the document or the tape, there is no intimidation, and the arrest and charges are prima facae illegal. (Not that anyone employed by the LMJC feels bound by the law. Law is just for mundanes.)

To make matters more interesting, McDonald even said under oath during the Tonya Craft trial that he never had spoken with Mr. Echols, yet another example of an LMJC prosecution witness committing perjury. (That is why I call the LMJC, Perjury Central.)

Interestingly, we do have videotape of an attempt by a witness to intimidate and assault another witness, and that incident is on videotape. Sandra Lamb not only physically assaulted Mr. Echols but also used a racial slur in the process. Granted, we are talking about the State of Georgia, which never could get its "justice" apparatus to look into the dozens of brutal murders in which whites killed blacks and it was all perfectly legal, since judges and prosecutors in the Peach State don't believe they are bound by law, even God's Law.

(In fact, Georgia sheriffs and local "law enforcement" personnel either took part in or helped to cover up a number of these racial murders. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the LMJC judges, police, and prosecutors continue the proud tradition of lawlessness by officials in that state. Don't forget that Sand Mountain, which is in the LMJC, for years had a sign declaring, "N****r, don't let the sun set on you," so we should not be surprised that prosecutor "The Man" tried to appeal to racial prejudice during Tonya's trial.)

However, since witness intimidation supposedly is a crime in the LMJC (although in Eric's case, there was no intimidation, hence, no crime), I would think that Tim "Dirty" Deal, Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt, and Len "The Man" Gregor would want to protect witnesses, given that they have a sworn duty to do so. Think again.

As I was going over some trial details, I came upon this gem from the Chattanoogan's very able Dennis Norwood in his account of Kim Walker's April 26 testimony:

Ms. Walker testified that she received a phone message on her cell phone while she was at the ball field from the same person saying, “You can call back or not call back. If you don’t call back, I have information on you and I will go forward with it.” “How did that make you feel,” asked Mr. Covert. “I felt threatened,” she answered. (Sandra Lamb was the person who made the threat.)

It also was clear from Ms. Walker's testimony that the prosecution and police were engaged in acts of intimidation to try to force her to get her own daughter to claim Tonya sexually molested her. The child was adamant that it did not happen, and so was Ms. Walker, but, as we have found out time and again, the people who run the LMJC are not interested in the truth when they believe lies will serve them much better.

Will anything be done about this? Probably not. We have to understand that the people who run the LMJC and who call the shots in Northwest Georgia are drunk with power and sincerely believe they are above the law. This is a sad fact of life in that part of the country, but it is a fact.

Well, Buzz, What Is It? In Secret or in Public?

[Note]: What I am writing in the James Combs case is not part of a "defense strategy," no matter what Buzz Franklin, Tim Deal, and others might be saying. I am a former resident of the LMJC who is sick of watching outright criminal behavior by those who are supposed to enforce the law and watching these people act like animals, destroying the lives of innocent people and their families. Thus, ANY claim by LMJC officials that I am acting in concert with the Combs defense is a lie, a very wicked and open lie. (Not that anyone in the LMJC is worried about being caught lying.) [End Note]

When Buzz Franklin issued his infamous May 14 press release excoriating the jury in the Tonya Craft trial for not following the instructions of his henchmen "Alberto-Facebook" and "The Man" to convict Ms. Craft with no credible evidence, he made the following statement:

Child molesters rarely commit their crime in public. Child molesters rarely confess. Child molesters are rarely caught on tape. Child molesters rarely leave behind physical evidence. A jury must often make a choice between the testimony of an abused child and the alleged perpetrator. If a jury refuses to convict without videotapes, confession or physical evidence, it will be impossible to convict most child molesters.

You see, in the James Combs case, Buzz and his lackey, Alan "Wannabe" Norton, along with Holly "Thumbs Up" Kittle and Tim "Dirty" Deal, are going to try to convince a jury that Mr. Combs committed his "crime" in a very public place: a classroom full of children. So, in this situation, we have Franklin in a quandary: Is this done in secret or in full view of lots of people? Buzz wants to have it both ways.

You see, in Tonya's case, he was claiming that the jury was wrong because Ms. Craft supposedly did it in "secret." Since the jurors did not think that the terribly contradictory testimony from ALL of the prosecution witnesses, plus the utter childish behavior from "adults" like Sandra Lamb, Sherry Wilson, Kelly McDonald, and the CAC crowd (not to mention the obvious perjury committed by many of the same) was "a compelling case for conviction," then the jurors were stupid and bad.

Now, the supposed ethical standards of the Georgia State Bar that apply to prosecutors (which are never enforced) say that prosecutors should not attack jurors after a verdict they don't like, but Buzz, like all of the others in the LMJC, is above being disciplined. The law does not apply to him or the ADAs or the judges or police, period.

In the Combs case, however, Buzz is changing his approach. Now we are supposed to believe that a man who has gone through a large number of legal background checks and never before has been accused of sexual misconduct suddenly is so overcome with lust that while he is sending two misbehaving boys to the principal's office, he first sexually molests them IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, but no one but the boys seem to notice. As I have said before, this does not pass anything close to a smell test.

Now, if I know how things work in the LMJC, "Dirty" Deal will try to work on the other children who were in the classroom, trying to get them to lie in order to give prosecutors what they want. (After the Tonya Craft debacle, the LMJC is DESPERATE for a child molestation conviction and will tell any lie and twist the law in order to try to achieve it.)

If you see how the police and prosecutors worked over Jerry McDonald, threatening him with prosecution if he did not say what prosecutors wanted, you can get an idea of how they are likely to proceed with the other children in the classroom and their families. (They threatened to charge him with "obstruction of justice," and I also guess that they threatened to charge him with perjury for not being willing to commit perjury. So goes the "law" in Northwest Georgia.)

Furthermore, Franklin's minions tried to pressure Kim Walker to claim that her daughter was a Tonya "molestation victim." In fact, the Walker child had an interview in which it was established that "nothing happened." Chris Arnt then demanded that the child be subjected to a SECOND interview, but Ms. Walker refused. Thus, when she testified for the Craft defense, she told of being threatened by some of the other parents and receiving pressure from prosecutors.

Interestingly, the prosecutors, who arrested private investigator Eric Echols for simply doing his job (and doing it legally), never seemed interested in looking into incidents of witness intimidation done by themselves and their own witnesses. But, then, the LMJC is a place where those entrusted with enforcing the law believe the law does not apply to them.

So, once again, Buzz Franklin and his gang of criminals will seek to take a good and decent person and try to railroad him into prison despite the fact that everyone in a position of authority in the LMJC knows that Mr. Combs is innocent of the charges. Unfortunately, innocence is the last thing that matters in the LMJC, where winning at all costs seems to be the motto.