The LMJC Wrongful Prosecution of Eric Echols: Beyond Stupid and Into Outright Criminal Behavior

I would not keep coming back to the Eric Echols case, except that the utter lawlessness of the LMJC accompanying these baseless charges is both disgusting AND fascinating. Earlier this year, a friend of mine was on trial in federal court in Brooklyn in a high-profile case, and the defense was chewing up the prosecution in big gulps.

My friend would call or text me every day to tell me the day's events, and it was clear that unless the jury was sleeping or the judge was the Second Coming of Brian Outhouse, he was going to be acquitted. After a particularly good day (when the prosecutors especially were running into brick walls), I remarked to him that if it were not for the fact that the prosecutors were trying to throw him in prison for 40 years, he might be able to sit back and enjoy the show.

Fortunately, the judge and jury did their jobs and Ralph was a free man. Likewise, Eric Echols is not going to jail; he is not going on trial (which would be a real train wreck for the prosecution), and sooner or later this charade will come to an end. However, in the meantime, the guy is having to pay for legal help that he never should have had to hire and his life is on hold.

Now, had Mr. Echols done something wrong or had acted recklessly, that would be one thing. However, we do know from the transcripts of his interview with Jerry McDonald and from his confrontation with Sandra Lamb that he was a real professional and a guy who knows his way around in this business.

This is a case that has produced some, shall we say, interesting moments in Georgia jurisprudence, the latest caper being the four LMJC judges announcing (for no official reasons) that they had recused themselves from the case altogether. Coupled with the fact that Chris Arnt no longer is interested in personally prosecuting this case and has dumped it off on a lower-level ADA, and it is clear that this thing is not looking good for Buzz Franklin and his henchmen.

However, there is more, much more, and the documents I have in my possession demonstrate that, indeed, a felony was committed, but it was committed by Sandra Lamb, not Eric Echols. (Having committed perjury during the Tonya Craft trial and having assaulted Mr. Echols -- while using a racial slur -- on video, it looks as though Lamb is a one-woman crime wave in Catoosa County. Of course, this desperado apparently has an insurance policy when it comes to breaking the law.)

First, on July 27, 2009, Lamb filled out a complaint form against Mr. Echols that clearly did not reflect the events of that his visit to her place to deliver legal documents. What makes it even more interesting is that the form clearly states the following:

Under Georgia Code 16-10-71 False Swearing is a Felony!!!!!!! A person convicted of False Swearing can receive 1-5 years imprisonment and a fine of $1000.00.

Yet, no one can deny that "false swearing" is exactly what Lamb did, and she managed to demonstrate on a video that she was lying. Yet, the LMJC manages to pretend that did not happen.

Second, the judge at the hearing, R.V. Wells III (after which Mr. Echols was arrested on false felony charges of "interfering with a witness"), said that since Lamb did not have an attorney present, he would not be ruling in that case. However, in a telephone call (I have the recording in my files), Mr. Echols is told by the magistrate clerk that Wells already ruled on the hearing and the ruling was no warrant issued on Sandra Lamb and had issued a no contact order, something that clearly is contradictory to the SIGNED documents by Wells (that I also have in my possession).

It gets better. In the official Incident Report (Case Number 090700613), Lamb claims that she when she refused to receive the legal documents, she was acting under the advice of "Chris Arnt, an attorney friend of hers." That would be the same Chris "Alberto-Facebook" Arnt who served as second chair in the Tonya Craft trial and lied throughout and suborned perjury.

However, if Lamb's contention is true, then Arnt stepped out of his role as a prosecutor and acted as a legal adviser in a private case, which means he loses prosecutorial immunity, and that also means that Eric Echols can sue him. In other words, if you want to know why the LMJC is holding onto this case, that is one reason. Arnt knows that if the charges are dismissed, he not only is likely to be facing a lawsuit, but almost surely will be turned into the Georgia State Bar for misconduct.

As you can see, this case is like the Energizer Bunny, in that it goes and goes and goes. However, because Tonya Craft and Eric Echols are determined people, and because they have the law on their side, they are proving to be formidable foes to the bad guys who run the LMJC. Stay tuned, as there promises to be MUCH more.

Stuck On Stupid: The LMJC Prosecutors Continue to Pursue Charges Against Eric Echols

One of the memorable quotes from the award-winning movie "Hoosiers" comes when coach Norman Dale kicks out one of the fathers from practice, telling him that his "coaching days are over." The father replies: "Look, mister, there's... two kinds of dumb, uh... guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter, the second one you're kinda forced to deal with."

Not surprisingly, the prosecutors of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit are the guys in the living room, and they clearly are stuck on stupid. Why? These people continue to pursue felony charges against Eric Echols, and the longer they persist in this stupidity, the worse it will be for them. Their cover is blown, and there is no way that (1) they can get a conviction, and (2) they can save their careers if they continue in their foolishness.

I know what happens when people get their backs up, and Buzz Franklin, Chris Arnt and Len Gregor are not used to having their heads handed to them. Moreover, their pathetic line that "We lost the Tonya Craft case because the big bad media and the blogs didn't kiss our posteriors" is getting old. Read the comments on the blogs, and read between the lines elsewhere: these guys are done, their game was exposed in that one "not guilty" moment, and now people are wanting answers that these men are not willing to give.

Now, I need to make something clear. I am going to pound home the Eric Echols case. I am going to pound home the absolute wrongful conviction against Brad Wade. I am going to pound home how these people have teamed up with the Children's Advocacy Centers to gain wrongful convictions against people who were and are innocent of the charges against them. I will not be silent until justice is done.

Eric Echols is a good man trying to make an honest living. He is ethical and he is someone I would want on my side if I had to go to war. Thus, I will defend him, and especially will defend him against people I consider to be dishonorable. From what I understand, Len Gregor's father went to West Point. It is quite a shame that the man's offspring is a liar and is dishonest to the core. A man who lives by West Point values would never try to keep exculpatory evidence out of a criminal trial, but the apple in this case apparently fell miles from the tree.

So, let us look again at the charges against Mr. Echols. Arnt and Gregor charged him with three felony charges of "interfering with a witness," despite the fact that he talked to only one prosecution witness, Jerry McDonald. (McDonald apparently denied under oath having talked to Mr. Echols despite the fact that Mr. Echols recorded him. This is something called perjury, but the LMJC is in such sorry, sorry shape that prosecution witnesses are not just permitted to lie, but also apparently are ENCOURAGED to lie on the stand. It seems to me that the large number of churches in that district have had no effect whatsoever upon the fundamental honor of the people who fill their pews.)

The charges stem from two separate things, first, the interview of McDonald, and, second, the delivery of the subpoena to Sandra Lamb. First, there is nothing wrong with someone representing the defense speaking to anyone who might testify against them. Indeed, at that time, McDonald had real reservations about the case, and don't forget that Arnt threatened to charge him with a felony if he veered from the narrative that Sandra Lamb had dictated.

Furthermore, Mr. Echols did not even speak to Kelli McDonald or her daughter, so the notion that he could have "interfered" with their testimony is a mystery, at least to those people who might think that logic should have something to do with the law. However, given that the original charges were based on lies and fantasies, why shouldn't the felony charges against Mr. Echols be based upon the same? At least the Dishonest Duo has been consistent in lying.

Second, there is the Sandra Lamb affair, one that will be even more clear after Channel 3 plays the video recording of Ms. Lamb's alleged racially-motivated assault on Mr. Echols. If a white person is to call an African-American a "black bastard" while assaulting him, it probably is not wise to do it while being recorded, but Lamb figured that because she and Arnt were "good friends," she could break the law and not have to pay a price.

Bad choice. Chris Arnt is not the law, no matter what he might think, and he no longer has any credibility, and his career as a prosecutor is going to end more quickly than he had planned, and if some of us have anything to do with it, his career as a lawyer will be over soon enough as well.

Furthermore, next week I plan to notify a number of people in the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as the Georgia Attorney General that Chris Arnt and Len Gregor encouraged a racially-motivated assault against a law-abiding African-American. Moreover, I also plan tell the authorities that Gregor, during his so-called cross-examination of Tonya Craft, made a racist appeal to an all-white jury by alleging that Ms. Craft had sexual relations with Mr. Echols because they met in a hotel room which (as Gregor breathlessly pointed out) has a bed.

There is no getting around the overt racism in this case. Lamb's racial epithet against Mr. Echols and Gregor's attempt to flame up racial hatred in the jury by falsely alleging a sexual encounter between a black man and a white woman are reason enough for the feds to investigate this "justice" apparatus of the LMJC. We are speaking of a district that when I was in high school supported Ku Klux Klansman J.B. Stoner for governor and was well-known for its overt violent racism not that long ago.

While it is true that the majority of the people of that district have moved well past the racism of their fathers, nonetheless the political and legal leadership of that area still wants to appeal to raw bigotry. Don't forget that while the Today Show was more than happy to claim that the state had a decent case against Tonya Craft, its correspondents will not be so kind to the authorities when it comes to racist behavior by its prosecutors.

Gregor, Arnt, and Franklin erred greatly in bringing its disastrous case against Tonya Craft. I can assure you that whatever errors in judgment they made then are nothing to the error that they are making in trying to wrongfully convict Eric Echols. The longer the charges remain, the longer these men remain stuck on stupid, and the longer they will have to deal with citizens who want them to stop their lying and lawbreaking NOW.

The Eric Echols Case: You Cannot Make Up This Stuff

If I were to have written a movie script about the Tonya Craft case, and added the contrived charges against Eric Echols, add in the "Mommie, Dearest" assault on Mr. Echols by Sandra Lamb, and throw in Buzz Franklin's attack on the jury after it rightfully acquitted Ms. Craft, I would have been laughed out of every producer's office. "No one," they would have told me, can engage in conduct THIS ridiculous.

No judge, the producers would claim, would use, "He's on cross" as a reason to shoot down defense objections, nor would anyone believe me if I had in the script something about a prosecutor screaming about "boobs" while cross-examining a defense witness. Throw in a judge who is reprimanded (and then we find she has failed to pay her dues to the Georgia State Bar for several years) along with witnesses who cannot even commit perjury with a straight face, and you have the makings of something from Alice-in-Wonderland.

Yet, what I have described -- and more -- seems to be the norm for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, and just when it could not get any more bizarre, well, it gets more bizarre. If the fact that prosecutor Chris Arnt actually believed he could manufacture a criminal case against Ms. Craft's private investigator, Eric Echols, is not strange in itself (demonstrating that Arnt believed he could make up the law as he went along), the fact that all four judges of the LMJC recused themselves from the Echols case ups the ante.

What makes this latest judicial caper so strange is that none of the judges gave a reason as to why they would refuse to hear this case. They just said they won't do it, throwing the whole thing into turmoil. Actually, there does not need to be turmoil, as what Franklin's office needs to do is to drop the charges ASAP.

(If the prosecutors of the LMJC were humiliated by the jury's acquittal of Ms. Craft, imagine what would be the case when the word gets out that the LMJC is bringing false charges against an African-American who clearly committed no crimes. Should they think Tonya's case put them under a microscope, continuing to pursue the charges against Mr. Echols would leave them with no cover at all, a prospect, frankly, that warms my heart.)

With Channel 3 (bless Melydia Clewell and Callie Starns) having dropped its latest bomb, a transcript of Mr. Echols' conversation with Jerry McDonald, the father of Child Accuser #2, more and more people are going to realize that Arnt had Mr. Echols arrested ONLY to keep him from doing any more investigations. Call it what you want, folks, but it smells like obstruction of justice to me.

No, even Lewis Carroll could not have come up with characters like Len "The Man" Gregor, "Facebook" Arnt, and "judge" Brian House, and he could not have imagined a script as weird as what has been the LMJC Show for the past few years. Furthermore, we are not even at the end of this farce, as I believe this while this cheap suit of a judicial district is going to unravel in real time.

Sit back and enjoy the show. Arnt, House, Gregor, "judge" Kristina Cook Graham, and "Buzzare" Franklin have enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame, but now that fame is going to turn into unwanted notoriety, and there is no place for any of them to hide. Eric Echols is not going to be put on trial, is not going to be convicted, and is not going to jail.

I only wish that the real criminals that populate the offices of the LMJC could find themselves taking permanent residence in the Crowbar Motel. However, even as weird and unpredictable as this bad show has been these past few months, I doubt that such a happy ending can be written into the script, even if justice demands it.

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.

Eric Echols: Another Victim of the LMJC Prosecutorial Machine

[Update, Monday May 17, 3:55 PM]: Kevin West of WGOW has a very good blog post on Buzz Franklin's recent pronouncement that the media and the bloggers deprived his poor prosecutors of a "fair trial."

I also like Kevin's May 14 post following the verdict. He makes an excellent point here:

A source whose family member was a juror tells me it was clear to the panel from Day 1 that the judge and prosecution were working together on this case. It shocked that juror since, in that juror’s non-legal common sense mind, that juror believed the judge’s job was to ensure that both sides got to present their cases in as much detail as they were able and let the jury sort through the facts.

Both are excellent reads and come highly-recommended.

[End Update]

While a Catoosa County jury recently acquitted Tonya Craft of transparently false charges, there are other people in the LMJC who either await trial on false charges or have been convicted of such. One of those victims is Eric Echols, and his story demonstrates just how lawless the prosecutors in Buzz Franklin's office have become. (I have been informed that it is the LMJC, C for circuit.)

Mr. Echols, an African-American and former U.S. Marine, is a private investigator who is based in Atlanta. Ms. Craft's lawyers hired him to help investigate the charges against their client, as well as to deliver subpoenas in the civil child custody case involving Ms. Craft and her ex-husband, Joal Henke.

A capable man, Mr. Echols managed to record Jerry McDonald when McDonald said that he had serious doubts about the child molestation charges against Ms. Craft, and Mr. Echols had found out other things as well. While the laws regarding prosecutors say that they should be striving to find out the truth, the prosecutors of the LMJD believe otherwise, and anyone who finds the truth -- and, thus, stands in the way of the prosecutors -- must be destroyed.

Last year, Mr. Echols delivered a subpoena to Sandra Lamb as part of the Craft-Henke civil case. According to witnesses, Lamb threw the subpoena into the yard and then started calling Mr. Echols a "black bastard." (I incorrectly had claimed earlier that Lamb called Mr. Echols the N-word, but he corrected me on that point in a conversation I recently had with him.)

That was not all. As he got into his car to drive away, she stood in front of the vehicle so he could not leave, and then she went to his car. His window was open, and according to Mr. Echols, Lamb began to punch him. He drove to the Catoosa County sheriff's office to report the assault -- and was arrested later for "interfering with a witness" because he had interviewed McDonald. (The entire Lamb encounter, by the way, is recorded and Lamb cannot deny using a racial slur.)

Now, one must understand that it is legal to serve subpoenas, but in the LMJD, Franklin's prosecutors make up the law as they go along. Furthermore, the arrest of Mr. Echols took him out of the investigative loop, as it was obvious he was finding material that would weaken the prosecutors' case.

At present time, Mr. Echols is slated to be tried in September, and if convicted, he would face up to five years in prison. Anyone who knows the law knows these charges are contrived, and they smack of what Michael Nifong tried to do four years ago after it became known that Moez Elmostafa, a cabbie in Durham, North Carolina, had picked up Reade Seligmann at the very time that Nifong claimed Reade was raping Crystal Mangum. Nifong contrived charges against Elmostafa, but the African immigrant stood his ground and ultimately was acquitted of criminal charges.

Prosecutors who would do such a thing are people who will stop at nothing to get a conviction. This goes against every law and every ethical code in the State of Georgia, but so far Franklin, Chris Arnt, and Len Gregor have been allowed to run wild, smashing the law as they go.

One might remember that Gregor, in his cross-examination of Ms. Craft, accused her of having a sexual affair with Mr. Echols. His proof? She had met him in a hotel room and the room, Gregor astutely observed, has A BED. Thus, according to Gregor's twisted logic, if one is in the room with someone else and the room has a bed in it, then the people automatically have a sexual encounter. (The possibilities are endless, but I prefer not to go there.)

Furthermore, because Mr. Echols is African-American, Gregor was trying to play a racial angle to inflame jurors by claiming Ms. Craft was SLEEPING WITH A BLACK MAN. This is something one might expect from a Scottsboro Boys Trial prosecutor, not someone in the year 2010, but there it is.

(Gregor's theory had one huge whole in it. Mr. Echols' wife also is a PI, and given her skills, she would have found out about such a tryst and then the prosecution by Facebook and The Man would have been the least of Mr. Echols' problems. Mr. Echols might be aggressive as a PI, but he is not stupid.)

So, while Ms. Craft is free, nonetheless the work goes on because Buzz Franklin's office cares only about convictions and his ADAs will tell any lie necessary to "win." Thus, while Franklin might brag about his "98-percent conviction rate," it is obvious to a lot of us that such a rate is obtained only because the "win at all costs" mentality that governs the LMJD has been permitted to go on unabated. No more.

If Prosecutors Wish To Try Eric Echols, they Will Have to Suborn Perjury

[Update, Tuesday June 1, 8:05 AM]: The incomparable Dalton Roberts has weighed in on the aftermath of the Tonya Craft trial and, not surprisingly, has the best line that anyone has given on the behavior of the prosecutors:

To return them (Arnt and Gregor) to the holy arms of sanity, let them go back and read the day-to-day blogs of their own neighbors in north Georgia that they "serve," using the word loosely in regard to this case. As a former elected official, I will flatly state that if a comparable number of people blogged their disgust with me for weeks and weeks, and were horrified at my actions, I would move to Montana and graze with the buffalo.

[End Update]

Here we are on June 1, with the Tonya Craft acquittal three weeks behind us, yet Buzz Franklin's office continues to insist that it is going to try private investigator Eric Echols on three felony counts of "interfering with a witness." As I noted a while back, the prosecutors have to be "stuck on stupid" to continue this charade.

There are two questions one must answer regarding this continued prosecutorial action. The first is this: Why in the world is Buzz Franklin continuing to insist that this trial take place? Second, we ask: What would be the prosecution strategy in order to try to convince a jury to vote a conviction?

I'm not sure about the answer to the first question, as rational people would think that a prosecutor should be going after real criminals, and there are a few of those running about the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. (Unfortunately, as I shall point out, some of those criminals are in the prosecutor's office, but it is doubtful that these dangerous and desperate outlaws will find themselves in the dock.)

My sense is that prosecutors Len Gregor and Chris Arnt, after suffering a major league smackdown against Tonya Craft, are wanting to "prove" to people that they had a legitimate case after all and that trying and convicting Mr. Echols would enable for them to salvage some wounded pride. To drop the charges now, in their minds, would be tantamount to admitting they were wrong, and if there is one thing that anyone in Franklin's office is incapable of doing, it is admission of wrongdoing.

I also believe that Franklin believes that his minions can appeal to the racial prejudices of what most likely would be an all-white jury, although Gregor's false assertion during the trial that TONYA CRAFT WAS SLEEPING WITH A BLACK MAN (Mr. Echols) did not exactly resonate with jurors. Nonetheless, Franklin and company seem to believe that two times is the charm.

Whatever the reason for pursuing this abusive and wrongful prosecution, the LMJC prosecution team must depend upon a strategy, and the facts of the case offer slim pickings. Nonetheless, it might be interesting to see what rabbit Gregor and his friends might try to pull out of their hats.

With Tonya Craft, prosecutors were able to get "judge" Brian House to leave out reams of exculpatory evidence in order to protect their witnesses, who were committing perjury left and right. One person giving perjured testimony was Jerry McDonald, who told jurors that he had not spoken to Mr. Echols prior to the trial.

Why was this perjury? Indeed, Mr. Echols had spoken to McDonald the previous year and, in fact, had recorded the two-hour session. To make matters worse, prosecutors Arnt and Gregor had a recording of that conversation in their files. In other words, they knew about the conversation and also knew its contents, yet I would guarantee readers that McDonald's testimony was given at the prosecution's directive.

In other words, I am saying that prosecutors knowingly suborned untrue testimony, which is illegal. Lest readers doubt what I am saying, read Rule 3.3 of the Georgia State Bar, entitled "Candor Toward the Tribunal":

(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:

(1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal;

(2) fail to disclose a material fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by the client;

(3) fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or

(4) offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer has offered material evidence and comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures.

(b) The duties stated in paragraph (a) continue to the conclusion of the proceeding, and apply even if compliance requires disclosure of information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6.

(c) A lawyer may refuse to offer evidence that the lawyer reasonably believes is false.

(d) In an ex parte proceeding, other than grand jury proceedings, a lawyer shall inform the tribunal of all material facts known to the lawyer that the lawyer reasonably believes are necessary to enable the tribunal to make an informed decision, whether or not the facts are adverse.

The maximum penalty for a violation of this Rule is disbarment.

When Arnt and Gregor "allegedly" (though I doubt McDonald came up with his testimony on his own) told McDonald to claim he had not spoken to Mr. Echols, they allegedly violated Rule 3.3. Furthermore, if they wish to put Mr. Echols on trial, they have painted themselves into such a corner that the only way they can conduct a prosecution is for them to violate Rule 3.3 continuously.

In his defense, Mr. Echols would have the conversation with McDonald played in its entirety, and it would be clear to jurors that Mr. Echols made no threats against McDonald. This would leave prosecutors with one of three options.

The first would be to hope that the judge (especially if House presides) would keep the taped conversations out of evidence altogether. After all, that is what they did in the Tonya Craft trial, and House was all-too-happy to oblige the guys running the show. Now, LMJC judges are capable of just about anything, so while everyone knows that the conversations exist, a judge might just decide to pretend they don't, although I cannot imagine a legal precedent that would fit.

If prosecutors were successful there, they would be doing so only at violating Rule 3.3, as they would knowingly be pushing untrue testimony, and one can bet that some of us will be quite happy to notify the Georgia State Bar of the circumstances. Furthermore, that would be tantamount to suborning perjury in order to pursue a false case against an African-American, which no doubt would interest certain people in the U.S. Department of Justice and maybe the national media. (This time, there would be no little children making accusations, just prosecutors making bald-faced lies, and this time the people giving untrue assertions would not be seen as "sympathetic" to the press.)

Thus, if they could keep out the recordings, then McDonald could claim again on the stand that he had not spoken with Mr. Echols. Of course, if that were to happen, then the prosecutors just might be hard-pressed to claim why they were telling McDonald to lie when by the time the trial began, media people likely would have the recordings, and would be inclined to make the contents available to the public. With prosecutors openly suborning perjury to bring charges against an African-American, they would be receiving a lot of attention that would be less-than-pleasant.

My sense is that Mr. Echols will be permitted to enter the recordings into evidence, so now prosecutors would have another problem. During the Tonya Craft trial, McDonald testified that he had not spoken to Mr. Echols. In the trial of Mr. Echols, however, McDonald would then have to testify that he had spoken to the investigator, which would be an admission that he lied on the stand the first time.

What to do? Perhaps the prosecutors could get the original testimony kept out of the evidence file, pretending that McDonald never appeared on the witness stand against Tonya Craft. However, if the judge were to grant prosecutors such a request, the media would have access to the video recording of that testimony, and once again people around the country would see a judge and prosecutors teaming up to bring false evidence in order to try to convict an African-American, not a good scene.

Thus, the last option would be for prosecutors to get McDonald to claim that, yes, he had spoken to Mr. Echols and, yes, he had not been candid about the conversation during his original testimony. Most likely he would say that he lied on his own, without any help from prosecutors, and that it was just an error in judgment.

However, then prosecutors would have him add that Mr. Echols threatened him during an unrecorded conversation. Even though Mr. Echols is very, very cautious in his work and even though the man records everything and takes meticulous notes, nonetheless the prosecution would want jurors to believe that in a moment of arrogant carelessness, he made threats to McDonald, McDonald's wife, and his daughter.

The real question, then, is whether or not prosecutors could convince McDonald to lie twice. If they were to do that, then I believe they also would be violating Rule 3.4, entitled "Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel." This rule states:

A lawyer shall not:

(a) unlawfully obstruct another party's access to evidence or unlawfully alter, destroy or conceal a document or other material having potential evidentiary value. A lawyer shall not counsel or assist another person to do any such act;

(b) (1) falsify evidence;

(2) counsel or assist a witness to testify falsely;

The maximum penalty for a violation of this Rule is disbarment.

What am I saying? I am saying that if Buzz Franklin's office continues to push this case against Mr. Echols, they can expect some of us to bring charges to the Georgia State Bar that prosecutors are violating Rules 3.3 and 3.4, and we will be able to bring the documented evidence with us.

In some ways, the Eric Echols case is much more dangerous to Franklin and his minions than was the case against Tonya Craft, and I believe that Arnt and Gregor should be disbarred over their conduct in that one. However, with Mr. Echols being African-American and being tried in what essentially is an all-white Georgia county, the prosecution will face scrutiny that will make what they faced during the Craft trial seem to have been a picnic. That is not a threat on my part; I am just stating the facts as I see them.

Note that I have not dealt with the "Mommie, Dearest" incident with Sandra Lamb physically attacking Mr. Echols and calling him a "black bastard," with the whole sorry thing recorded on camera. The failure of LMJC prosecutors to deal with this lawbreaking provides one more reason why someone in authority needs to investigate Buzz Franklin, Chris Arnt, Len Gregor, and the rest of the prosecutors in that office.

Eric Echols and the LMJC: How Deep Do the Prosecutors Want the Hole to Be for Themselves?

At last report, the bogus criminal charges against private investigator Eric Echols already were in a death spiral, given that none of the judges of the LMJC want to hear the case, yet Buzz Franklin apparently is determined to run his whole operation over a cliff. Now, I would have no problem watching a vehicle occupied by Buzz and his henchmen "Alberto-Facebook" and "The Man" driving to doom over, say, Insurance Bluff (a feature along the old Lula Lake Road on Lookout Mountain), but for Eric's sake, this farce needs to end: Now.

However, besides the fact that LMJC prosecutors openly would have to suborn perjury in order to put Mr. Echols on trial (not that perjury bothers Buzz and the Gang) and despite the little problem of having no cooperating witnesses, our Legal Eagles of the LMJC have run into yet another sticky little problem: the law. Yes, it seems that the Georgia Court of Appeals already has ruled on a similar case, and the outcome clearly presents an insurmountable barrier to the prosecutors.

First, it seems that "Alberto-Facebook" was not the first Georgia prosecutor to come up with the rather stupid idea of charging a private investigator in a child molestation case with "influencing a witness." No, someone in Forsyth County beat him to it, and had "Superlawyer" Arnt been paying attention (given the decision came down July 6, 2009, which was before he got the indictment against Mr. Echols), he might have realized that his cherished conviction was DOA.

Second, the appeals court in THE STATE v. DELABY, declared that the private investigator, Ronald Charles Delaby, was entitled "to an indictment perfect in form and substance." What that means is that the indictment needed to specify how the defendant had illegally "influenced" a witness.

Now, if the Delaby case seems to mirror that of Mr. Echols, that is because it does mirror it, and that is good news for Eric and, bad news for the LMJC. To further illuminate the situation, I quote from the decision itself:

Under Georgia law, an indictment that "states the offense in the terms and language of [the applicable Code section] or so plainly that the nature of the offense charged may easily be understood by the jury shall be deemed sufficiently technical and correct." OCGA § 17-7-54. The real test, therefore, [*3] is not whether the indictment could have been clearer, but whether it states the elements of the offense and "sufficiently apprises the defendant of what he must be prepared to meet, and, in case any other proceedings are taken against him for a similar offense, whether the record shows with accuracy to what extent he may plead a former acquittal or conviction." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) State v. English, 276 Ga. 343, 346 (2) (a) (578 SE2d 413) (2003). Thus, "[i]t is useful to remember that the purpose of the indictment is to allow defendant to prepare his defense intelligently and to protect him from double jeopardy."

If you think this spells doom for the prosecution's case, you are correct. If the indictment itself is fatally flawed, then there can be no charges.

Now, readers might ask, is Buzz Franklin so bone-headed that he might try to re-indict Mr. Echols? Anything is possible, I suppose, but Buzz and his Dishonest Duo would have a heck of a time putting together a nonexistent case under the glare of publicity. Furthermore, if their pants are down to their knees now, another foolish caper would put those pants around their ankles.

One would hope that there will be a "color of law" investigation by the FBI in this whole sorry affair. Furthermore, Mr. Echols will not be going away, and neither will this blog and a whole host of people.

I would urge readers who wish to do their duty as citizens to contact the FBI to help encourage officials to see through this sorry mess. The contact information for the Atlanta office of the FBI is:

Federal Bureau of Investigation
2635 Century Parkway N.E.,
Suite 400
Atlanta, GA 30345
Phone: (404) 679-9000
E-mail: atlanta@ic.fbi.gov

Special Agent in Charge
Brian D. Lamkin

"I'm With Stupid"

"Stupid is as stupid does."
-- Forrest Gump

Today, I am taking a break from going over the transcripts of the interviews with the children to take a longer look at what we have witnessed these past two years, and especially in the last two months. I'm tempted to say that the principals of the LMJC, from the judges to the prosecutors, are stuck on stupid, and stupidity does seem to reign.

However, I don't think the stupidity we are seeing is from a lack of intelligence, as even Forrest Gump would have understood that Tonya Craft did not molest any children and that Eric Echols did not commit any crimes. No, I think that we are seeing a group of people who are dealing with the consequences of their own long-time arrogance to a point where now they are scared stupid.

Even now, the prosecutors and police are trying to claim that the jury gave an "O.J. Verdict," ignoring the fact that jurors were not stupid (even though the prosecutors thought they were) and could recognize lies from Chris Arnt, Len Gregor, and the witnesses. Did Arnt and Gregor really think that when they deliberately misrepresented testimony from the defense witnesses in speaking to the jury that jurors would not remember what actually was said? When Arnt and Gregor told jurors that they had "caught Tonya Craft telling lies" in her testimony, that the jurors would not be asking themselves the simply question: What lies?

No, it is obvious that Buzz Franklin, Arnt, Gregor, and "judge" Brian House believed that they had handpicked a jury of near-moronic people who would be enraged that the defense attorneys were not from Catoosa County, and that the expert witnesses for the defense were from Atlanta and Nashville. The prosecutors and "judge" tried to appeal to the worst instincts of jurors, thinking they were as malevolent as themselves.

As for the Echols case, the longer the LMJC principals try to hold onto the charges (thinking that Eric will plead to "something"), the worse off they will be. Does Franklin understand that if he continues to go down this road, that he will be dealing with organizations such as the NAACP and other groups that will take a special interest in the fact that Buzz is trying to railroad an African-American into prison, despite the fact that the only testimony Buzz can get will be that which is perjured?

Arnt and Gregor already are going to be turned into the Georgia State Bar, and now that they have dumped off the Echols case to a lower-level ADA, does Franklin not realize that if this guy tries to prosecute Eric via perjury, that he also is going to find himself a target by people who want him disbarred? Does Franklin not understand that he himself could face disbarment if he continues to press this Big Lie?

Arrogance and stupidity are a lethal combination, and it seems that the LMJC is full of that stuff. House's recent power play regarding the magistrates in Catoosa County is one more example of the LMJC being stuck on stupid.

There is nothing they can do about the past. However, I would tell Buzz and company that if they really want disbarment to be their future, then go ahead and continue with the prosecution of Eric Echols. True, Mr. Echols is likely to bring some lawsuits and there will be some political fallout should they drop the charges. However, at least Buzz might be able to salvage his law license if he bites the bullet and does the right thing.

But, it is hard to know what to think when Stupid and Stupid and Stupid join hands with Stupid and Stupid to claim they are Masters of the Universe. Indeed, Forrest Gump was right: Stupid is what stupid does.

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.

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.

Mommie, Dearest

The blogger Kerwyn generally does not miss very much, and when she contacted me late Monday night, her mind was working in overdrive again. We were discussing the "Sandra Lamb Show" as seen on Channel 3, WRCB-TV, in which she not only seems to commit a racially-motivated assault, but also is not exactly decked out in highest fashion.

(While Lamb's wardrobe definitely seems to be a point of discussion, nonetheless, I will only mention her outfit this one time, as while she might not have the best tastes in fashion, nonetheless, she has even worse tastes when it comes to violating the law.)

Kerwyn notes that Eric Echols is not parked in Lamb's driveway, but on a public road. However, he cannot leave because his way is blocked -- illegally, I might add -- by a car driven by Lamb's minor son. The problem here is that he is acting on orders from Mommie Dearest, who has instructed the minor to break the law in order to detain Mr. Echols against his will.

Don't forget that Lamb originally tried to restrain Mr. Echols in the lawful delivery of a lawful subpoena, and then claims that here "lawyer friend" Chris Arnt had instructed her not to accept the document. Bad choice for both people. First, Arnt as a prosecutor could not be acting as her private attorney, and, second, a prosecutor can get in a bit of trouble for instructing someone to break the law.

So, let us step back for a second and see what we have. Sandra Lamb breaks the law by engaging in a racially-motivated criminal assault, instructs her minor son to break the law, and then claims Arnt was behind it. Given that she already is being sued by Tonya Craft -- and I wholeheartedly endorse her being sued -- it would seem to me that Lamb's legal problems have just begun. Moreover, one can hope that the Georgia State Bar will want to take a look at Arnt's alleged legal transgressions here, not to mention his overall performance in the Tonya Craft trial.

Then there is the arrest of Mr. Echols, who had the good sense to record his conversations with Jerry McDonald. The problem is that the prosecutors now know what was said in that conversation, and that Mr. Echols DID NOT threaten or intimidate anyone, let alone a prosecution witness, yet Arnt, Len Gregor, and Buzz Franklin still are pushing ahead with the felony charges against Mr. Echols.

Obviously, we are headed for a legal train wreck, and in the end, it won't be Mr. Echols who is in legal trouble. Why has this happened? It has happened because the judges and prosecutors of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit have treated the courts as their own little sandbox, and now that some adults are insisting that people in the LMJC play by those rules called The Law, the LMJC players are throwing a temper tantrum.

If you wish to see pathetic rage in action, look again at the video starring Sandra Lamb. However, she is not the only one down there in a childish rage; no, we have seen Franklin, Arnt, Gregor, and Sheriff Phil Summers all make their appearance post-trial, and all of them have acted like pathetic, spoiled children, with Lamb herself in the "Mommy" role.

It's Not Over, Phil

[Update II, Monday May 24, 9:00 PM]: The long-awaited video of Sandra Lamb committing what legally is called a "hate crime" was aired on Channel 3 tonight, along with an interview with the wrongfully-arrested Eric Echols, who was the target of Lamb's assault and accompanying racial slur. I will be sending that link along with a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, this week, along with a copy to the Georgia Attorney General's Office.

And, if things cannot get any more bizarre in the LMJC, it turns out that "judge" Kristina Cook Connelly Graham let her State Bar membership status go "inactive," and it was officially inactive during the trial and wrongful conviction of Brad Wade in 2007. Whether or not this has any effect on his appeal, I don't know, but it does tell us something about the commitment of the LMJC "judges" to their jobs.

[End Update]

[Update I, Monday May 24, 4:15 PM]: Tonya Craft has filed a $25 million lawsuit against a number of people involved in accusing and trying her. The lawsuit is in federal court. Details are reported by WRCB-TV. The Chattanoogan also has a great story that is well-detailed.

[End Update]

So, Sheriff Phil Summers continues to claim that because he and his friends could not convince a jury to wrongfully convict Tonya Craft, that there is going to be a wave of child molestation all over Catoosa County and maybe the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. Like his friend Buzz Franklin and ADAs Chris "Facebook" Arnt and Len "The Man" Gregor, he actually seems to believe that people have not caught onto their rigged games.

The article in Sunday's Times-Free Press declares:

A highly publicized child molestation trial and weeks of acrimonious court proceedings could deter parents from bringing suspected abuse cases forward in the future, local officials said.

"I do have a concern about children that are victimized and the families coming forward in the future," Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers said. "Will they be willing to take a chance that their child will be put through the same scrutiny and the same process that we've just seen?"

First, had there been the proper scrutiny when Sandra Lamb and Joal Henke were making claims at the beginning, there would have been no trial. Second, the defense did what the defense should have been doing all along in the child molestation trials held in the LMJC: defend their clients instead of offering them up to the prosecution as so many sacrifices.

Third, if Summers and his friends cannot tell the difference between authentic child molestation and something that has been trumped up by people looking to settle personal scores, with their accomplices at the Children's Advocacy Centers of Northwest Georgia helping to grease the skids by employing rigged "interviews," then I'd hate to see what would happen if someone actually committed a real crime in that district. Fourth, this pity party by Summers and company needs to end, because it is not over for them.

This evening, Channel 3 news is going to broadcast video footage of Sandra Lamb in which she will be shown committing a hate crime, complete with racial slurs against Eric Echols when he legally served a subpoena on her that she refused to take. (She claims that her "attorney friend" Chris Arnt told her not to accept it, and if that is true, then he told her not to obey the law.) Furthermore, people will see that she filed a police report against Mr. Echols that did not square with the events of the day.

Despite the fact that Summers is demanding that no one ever scrutinize any accusations of child molestation in Catoosa County, no matter what the facts of the case might be, it is important to do just that. What Summers really is saying is that he does not care if people are wrongly convicted and sent to prison, just as long as his office and his buddies can look as though they are "protecting" the LMJC from "child molesters," and as long as the district can get Mondale Act money.

I remember right after North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced he was dropping the rape charges against the Duke lacrosse players, the Usual Suspects claimed that women no longer would report they had been raped out of fear of not being believed. Right. In reality, the case had NO effect on the reporting of rape charges, false and true. Business went on as usual.

Likewise, what Summers is claiming is that no matter how flimsy the evidence and how dishonest the prosecution's case might be, a jury MUST ALWAYS convict if someone is charged with child molestation for fear that someone, somewhere, might get away with it. I hate to tell Summer and his partners-in-crime, Arnt, Gregor, and Franklin, that U.S. criminal law still allegedly is based upon protecting the rights of the accused.

Furthermore, the man who influenced U.S. law more than any other person, William Blackstone, once wrote that it was better that "20 guilty men go free than once innocent man convicted." Unfortunately, Summers and the gaggle of prosecutors and judges in the LMJC believe that wrongful convictions are just fine with them, and the more wrongful convictions, the better.

When I first started blogging on the Tonya Craft case, I thought it was an example of overzealous prosecution. Now that I have been intensely writing about this situation for more than six weeks, I realize that I have stumbled onto something that is much more sinister. Wrongful convictions in the LMJC are not the result of overzealousness; they are the result of prosecutors and police who actively target people, frame them, and then go into a self-pitying rage when a jury sees through their dishonesty.

Later today, viewers will see Sandra Lamb committing a criminal act, a crime that is so blatant that even though Summers and the Usual Suspects at Franklin's office will choose to ignore it, federal authorities may not. Furthermore, because Arnt, Gregor, and Franklin insist on pursuing non-existed criminal charges in a racially-motivated case against Mr. Echols, and because Gregor tried to appeal to a racist "Tonya-Craft-is-sleeping-with-a-black-man" line during Ms. Craft's trial, they practically have invited the U.S. Department of Justice to take a hard look at what is happening.

As I said in the title, this case is not over. It is not over for Mr. Echols, for Brad Wade, for a number of other falsely-accused people in the LMJC, and certainly not over for people who have had their fill of this dishonesty. This should be a most interesting week.

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.

Taking Thursday Off: I'm Grading Papers; Future Posts

[Update, Thursday 11:05 AM]: Eric Echols was a guest today on WGOW-FM, and I will say the guy gave a tour de force interview. As I have said before, if Chris Arnt and Len Gregor continue to push these false charges -- and they ARE false charges -- they only will dig their hole deeper.

Here is the link to the interview. As you will note, it is quite interesting. On an editorial note, I will say that Mr. Echols has conducted himself quite honorably throughout this ordeal, and I along with a lot of other people will not let this issue go until the authorities in Catoosa County drop the charges.

[End Update]

This is finals week here at Frostburg, and I am grading term papers and final exams for my MBA economics class. (Yes, I do have a day job and my superiors expect me to turn in my work on time!)

Future posts will deal with Eric Echols and the bogus case against him, as well as serious questions about the validity of the conviction that Len Gregor gained against Brad Wade three years ago. I have received a number of documents on that case which raise real doubts as to the veracity of the interviews by (You guessed it) the CAC staff, and Gregor's steamrolling of the defendant. There also are other child molestation cases from the LMJC that are questionable, and I will look into those.

I'll also be posting on the case for disbarment of Chris Arnt and Gregor, explaining the rules of the State Bar of Georgia and how I believe these men have violated them. I'm sure there will be other developments, too.

In other words, even though Tonya Craft's acquittal is more than a week back in our rear-view mirrors, nonetheless the whole case opened a window into the sorry and execrable practices of those in the LMJC that supposedly enforce and follow the law. So, stay tuned. There's plenty more to cover.

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?

More on Echols and the Interviews

On Monday afternoon, a couple of Chattanooga television reporters watched video recordings starring none other than Sandra Lamb. In the videos, she assaults Tonya Craft's private investigator, Eric Echols, as he tries to serve a subpoena to her.

During her assault, Lamb called Mr. Echols a "black bastard," which obviously has some racial connotations, and because she was physically assaulting him while using racial slurs, that constitutes what is known as a "hate crime," which has severe penalties. To make matters worse, it is against federal law to attack someone who is in the process of delivering a lawful subpoena.

To put it another way, Sandra Lamb and others might have some legal problems, especially if organizations like the Georgia NAACP find that prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor tolerated a racially-motivated attack on Mr. Echols, but then arrested him because he was finding information that would undermine their case against Ms. Craft. At the present time, Arnt and Gregor insist that the trumped-up criminal case of "interfering with a witness" felony case against Mr. Echols will go to trial, but I cannot help but wonder if they are whistling past the graveyard.

If these videos are broadcast on the air, the response should be most interesting.

Speaking of videos, the appearance of Sandra Lamb on WRCB-TV to further accuse Ms. Craft of molesting her daughter caught the interest of someone who examines things like body language and eye movement in order to ascertain if that person is telling the truth. The person examined the video and reached a most interesting conclusion (which I won't share here, but will say that I doubt Lamb would like what she said) based upon the fact that Lamb's eyes moved in certain directions when she said certain things.

The same person also viewed the videotapes of Arnt and Gregor as they were given a very friendly interview on (Where else?) Channel 9 (whose reporters apparently are hoping that the jury will announce a guilty verdict a week after the acquittal). The analyst noted the lack of eye contact and eye movement as the two men answered the friendly questions, and also drew some conclusions that perhaps these prosecutors might not want to hear.

As I wrote during the trial, the people who brought this case, the people who tried it, and the judge who oversaw it all are going to be undergoing continuing scrutiny. Just because they were successful in running away from tiny Callie Starnes of Channel 3 as though she were Goliath carrying a spear does not mean they can hide forever.

I will go one step further: professionally speaking, Brian House, Chris Arnt, Buzz Franklin, and Len Gregor are dead men walking. If they continue to pursue the bogus charges against Mr. Echols, and especially if they continue to use the racially-charged rhetoric that Gregor and Lamb brought into this mix, they only will make things worse for themselves.

They will continue to lose what little credibility they had, as local people come to realize that they have been pushing fraudulent charges and teaming with local judges to bully innocent people into prison. The Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit has a 98 percent conviction rate, which is well above what is seen in most districts. I can assure readers that this rate is not due to the great skills of the prosecutors or the ability of judges to see through the criminality of those who are charged.

I will leave it to the readers to determine just why the conviction rate is so high.

The Misogynist Plays the Racist Card

Leave it to Len "The Man, The Misogynist" Gregor, as when the man is putting on a show, he goes whole hog. He was not satisfied with trying to find out the kind of underwear Tonya Craft wears, nor was The Man Who Is Defined By His Own Narcissism satisfied with telling the world he hates women.

No, Gregor must have been reading the website I posted on the Scottsboro Boys Trials, as not only has he tried to denigrate expert witnesses like Dr. Nancy Aldridge and Dr. Ann Hazzard because they (horrors) are from Atlanta (and not from within the boundaries of the LMJD), but he then played the racist card.

During his rambling and truly evil inquisition of Ms. Craft, he made the ultimate accusation that one supposedly can make to a southern-state jury: TONYA CRAFT SLEPT WITH A BLACK MAN.

Yes, Ms. Craft admitted that she met her private investigator, Eric Echols and spoke to him in a hotel room. Aha! The LMJD's own Inspector Clouseau deduced that THEY HAVE BEDS IN HOTEL ROOMS! And they go to law school to learn that!

Now, The Racist-Misogynist Gregor did not tell the jury that after Mr. Echols served a subpoena on Sandra Lamb at her residence, she threw the legal document into her yard, and started hitting Mr. Echols, allegedly calling him a "N*gg*r." When Mr. Echols did his duty and took out a warrant against the woman, he was arrested on a felony charge of "influencing a witness."

Now, this was not because he actually was "influencing a witness," but rather because Mr. Echols had a recording of Jerry McDonald (the same Jerry McDonald who tearfully told the jury that Tonya Craft molested his daughter) saying that he believed that "nothing happened." It seemed that Mr. Echols was doing his job -- and doing it well -- which angered the Dishonest Duo of Gregor and Chris Arnt no end. However, it was not enough for Len "The Man, The Racist-Misogynist" Gregor to arrest a black man.

No, he had to claim -- without one shred of evidence -- that Tonya Craft had sex with this man in his hotel room. It was the ultimate race card, and Gregor played it. That Brian "House of Horrors" would approve this line of questioning in what is supposed to be a courtroom further disgraces the proceedings.

So far, Gregor has not given the famous line uttered by Alabama prosecutor Wade Wright in one of the Scottsboro Boys in his closing arguments: "Now the question in this case is this: "Is justice going to be bought and sold in Alabama with Jew money from New York?" However, given time, I am sure that Gregor is up to it. Maybe he will reveal an anti-Semitic side in his closing arguments.

After all, he has demonstrated beyond a doubt that he is a racist and a misogynist. Hey, Len, why not go all the way and go after Jews, too?!?

Coming This Week

While the Tonya Craft verdict is almost two weeks old, the outrages that prosecutors and judges in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit have been performing as long as anyone can remember are continuing. This week, I will be addressing some of them.

Channel 3 will be running footage of the Sandra Lamb Show on Monday in its 6 p.m. broadcast, and it should be quite interesting. In this video, which is almost 40 seconds long, you will see Lamb assaulting Eric Echols, calling him a "black bastard," and generally continuing in the hallowed legal tradition of Brian House, Christina Cook Graham, Buzz Franklin, Len Gregor, and Chris Arnt. When the video is released, I will link it to this blog.

Certainly, the Eric Echols case will be front-and-center this week, along with the wrongful conviction of Brad Wade that occurred three years ago in Dade County and featured some of the Usual Suspects that so graced "judge" House's "courtroom" when Tonya Craft was on trial. This was a "child molestation" case in which Stacy Long of the (What else?) Chidren's Advocacy Center "interviewed" a child for a long, long time until the child "got it right" and "disclosed."

Furthermore, as the appeals documents I am reading clearly show, prosecutor Len "The Man" Gregor hid exculpatory evidence and he and Graham teamed up to roll Mr. Wade into a conviction and prison. If any reader thinks that the blatant and up-front injustices of the Tonya Craft trial were aberrations, think again.

In other words, the misconduct that defined the Tonya Craft proceedings was not an exception; this is how these people do business, and they have been able to get away with it for years because no one has been able to publicly challenge them. It is my hope that some of us finally can let the rest of the world know what people in the LMJC who have suffered in silence have experienced.

Have a great week!

Is There a Case for Disbarring Chris Arnt and Len Gregor?

[Update II, Thursday, June 3, 2:20 PM]: Kevin West of WGOW finds this most interesting story. It seems that the Georgia legislature is cutting the funds for the Judicial Qualifications Commission, which oversees the behavior of judges in Georgia.

While the "fig leaf" of an excuse is that the director is paid $82,000, but does not work five days a week, in reality, the commission has been investigating a friend of Speaker of the House David Ralston, something Ralston denies has anything to do with his actions:

The budget dispute, Ralston said, has nothing to do with the commission’s pursuit of charges against former Superior Court Judge Harry Doss of Blue Ridge — a longtime friend of his.

Prosecution of Doss’s case is one of several delayed, perhaps indefinitely, by the JQC’s funding problems. He is charged with abusive behavior toward litigants and lawyers; intervening in matters outside his jurisdiction; taking months and sometimes years to make rulings; and buying laptops for his wife and son with public funds.

Doss resigned in December but refused the JQC’s request that he never seek judicial office again.

Ralston contacted Troutman Sanders last year looking for a lawyer to represent Doss. The speaker said he sought a referral because he didn’t have the expertise to handle a JQC matter.

So, in the name of "good government," the speaker is trying to gut a commission that actually engages in "good government" actions, but cannot do its job if the legislature further guts its funding. No doubt, Brian House is a happy camper.

[End Update]

[Update I, Thursday, June 3, 10:30 AM]: ABC's Nightline show last night had a segment on the Tonya Craft case, including an interview with her. As TV news stories go, it was pretty good, and it showed the segment during the trial in which Suzi Thorne allegedly committed perjury. (Not that she will be charged with the crime, given that the LMJC allows its own to commit felonies with impunity.)

I am glad they used that segment, as I still find it unbelievable that a person who is sworn to tell the truth can claim that she failed to memorialize what would have been the most important "disclosure" in the entire investigation: that the child of Sandra Lamb "just remembered" that Tonya Craft had penetrated her vagina with four fingers (and did not leave a mark -- an amazing feat of dexterity, should it have happened).

(I hope that future jurors reading this will take an extremely skeptical view when hearing testimony that is given by Ms. Thorne, Tim Deal, or anyone associated with the CAC or the Greenhouse, or testimony suborned by anyone from Buzz Franklin's office.)

[End Update]

As my researchers and I look over the huge amount of material from the Tonya Craft case, some things have become obvious:

1. There was no sexual abuse of any kind involving Tonya Craft and the children-accusers;
2. The "investigators" of the abuse from both the Catoosa County Sheriff's Department, the DA's office, and the Children's Advocacy Center and the Greenhouse understood early on that there was no abuse, and it was their job to manufacture false charges;
3. This was not the first time they had pulled off such a caper, but it was the first time that a defendant was able to put together a strong defense team to fight the charges.

I will be posting in the coming days on the actual children interviews, and why it is obvious that not only were the children "coached" by the "Team Perjury," but also other aspects of the case, such as some of the exculpatory evidence that "judge" Brian House ordered to be kept from the jury. Today, however, I want to briefly look at the case for disbarment for Chris Arnt and Len Gregor.

In examining the reasons I believe these men should be disbarred, I have gone through the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, and especially rules that pertain to prosecutors. Some of the rules, if broken, are punishable only by reprimand, but others specify that disbarment is a possibility. With that in mind, I want to look at just the rules for which violation can result in disbarment.

I wish to begin with Rule 8.4: Misconduct. The rule states:

(a) It shall be a violation of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct for a lawyer to:

(1) violate or attempt to violate the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another;

(2) be convicted of a felony;

(3) be convicted of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude where the underlying conduct relates to the lawyer's fitness to practice law;

(4) engage in professional conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation;

If a prosecutor violates Rule 8.4(a)(4), the maximum penalty is disbarment. Let me go on to look at Rule 3.3: Candor Toward the Tribunal. It states:

(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:

(1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal;

(2) fail to disclose a material fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by the client;

(3) fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel; or

(4) offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer has offered material evidence and comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial measures.

The next is Rule 3.4: Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel:

A lawyer shall not:

(a) unlawfully obstruct another party's access to evidence or unlawfully alter, destroy or conceal a document or other material having potential evidentiary value. A lawyer shall not counsel or assist another person to do any such act;

(b) (1) falsify evidence;

(2) counsel or assist a witness to testify falsely;

The next is Rule 3.5: Impartiality and Decorum of the Tribunal:

A lawyer shall not, without regard to whether the lawyer represents a client in the matter:

(a) seek to influence a judge, juror, prospective juror or other official by means prohibited by law;

(b) communicate ex parte with such a person except as permitted by law; or

(c) engage in conduct intended to disrupt a tribunal.

The maximum penalty for a violation of part (a) of this Rule is disbarment. The maximum penalty for a violation of part (b) or part (c) of this Rule is a public reprimand.

In the May 17 complaint that Ms. Craft's attorneys sent to U.S. Attorney Sally Yates, the attorneys alleged a number of actions that would fit into the categories specified by the rules that would have disbarment as a remedy. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that Arnt and Gregor regularly suborned perjury, encouraged Sandra Lamb to break the law in refusing to accept a lawful subpoena delivered by Eric Echols, and sought to influence jurors and potential jurors by their public statements.

Furthermore, when Buzz Franklin issued his public statement attacking the jury three days after the verdict, he clearly was involved in an act of intimidation not only of those who served on the Craft jury, but also future jurors in child sexual abuse cases. There can be no other reason for his statement, which should be grounds for disbarment.

I do not believe that Arnt and Gregor actually believed Ms. Craft was guilty of the things for which she was charged. It is interesting that during the defense portion of the trial, neither Arnt nor Gregor ever asked one substantive question in their cross-examination of defense witnesses. Instead, they bullied them, screamed, called one of the most respected prosecution witnesses in Georgia, Dr. Nancy Aldridge, a "whore of the court" and a "liar," yet did not give one scintilla of evidence to demonstrate why all of the other prosecutors in Georgia who have used Dr. Aldridge as an expert witnesses have knowingly suborned false testimony. After all, if Dr. Aldridge lied during the Craft trial, then she would lie whenever she was on the witness stand.

Over the next several weeks, my researchers and I will be going over trial documents to verify the ways that Arnt and Gregor violated Bar rules. Furthermore, I believe that their conduct in the Eric Echols case has been so egregious that these prosecutors might even be more vulnerable there than they are as a result of their attempt to bring false charges against Ms. Craft.

While another prosecutor is scheduled to bring the case against Mr. Echols, my researchers and I will put together a set of documents to send to the State Bar which will implicate whomever attempts to gain a wrongful conviction of Mr. Echols. If is it someone other than Arnt or Gregor, then he also is going to have to defend himself before the State Bar.

There is no doubt that we will be sending the State Bar a number of documents in which we will allege the LMJC prosecutors have committed acts that so dishonor their office that disbarment is the only just remedy. If there really were any justice in Georgia, these men would be facing criminal charges, but the blanket immunity that prosecutors enjoy (no matter how egregious and criminal their actual conduct might be) makes their having to meet the bar of justice to be impossible.

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.