Abusing Michael Rasmussen: His Treatment in Charles County

As was already noted, Michael Rasmussen's trial in the alleged (and I mean alleged) sexual molestation of his adult daughter Apryl was postponed until May 16. However, that was not the real story in court on Monday. No, the real story was the unmistakable fact that the Charles County prosecution is pulling out all stops and committing what clearly are human rights violations against Mr. Rasmussen.

Folks, it is getting ugly, really ugly, and it is time that someone publicly exposed this evil on behalf of prosecutor Tiffany L. Rodenberger, for it now is absolutely clear that she intends to win at all costs and stop at nothing. She may not have any evidence, but she is going to try to win by other crooked means.

Charles County held Mr. Rasmussen in solitary confinement for the past week. During that time, he was not permitted to shower, he was forced to wear ALL of the same clothing, including his orange jumpsuit and underwear, he was not permitted to shave or have his haircut. Nor was he permitted to have any visitors. That was bad enough, but what Rodenberger did next is even worse.

Monday was supposed to be the day when they chose the jury, so Rodenberger had the guards drag Mr. Rasmussen INTO THE COURTROOM in the condition I described above, jumpsuit and all. During that week, his wife, Becky, was not permitted to bring him clean clothes during his incarceration in the Charles County lockup, and think about how anyone would look after spending a week in solitary without even a chance to wash up.

As one might expect, Mr. Rasmussen looked just awful, and that was Rodenberger's intention. (Becky brought clean clothes to the courtroom, but the prosecution would not permit Mr. Rasmussen to put them on.) She wanted the jury to see a smelly, dirty, unkempt man who was in near-shock after a week of this maltreatment so the jurors immediately would picture him as a filthy and guilty man.

This was and is an outrage. Fortunately, because the trial was postponed, Mr. Rasmussen did not have to face a jury in that awful condition, but at least we know now beyond a doubt that Tiffany Rodenberger has no conscience at all.

There is much more that this case holds in store, and as I noted earlier, the more I find out, the angrier I become. Like the Tonya Craft case that fell apart as the prosecution paraded one liar after another in front of the jury, apparently clueless as to what was happening, this one clearly is contrived on behalf of police and prosecutors who long ago abandoned the truth.

Well, in this trial, we have another prosecutor who apparently channels both Chris Arnt and Len Gregor, and the one saving grace is that the trial judge is not the Second Coming of "judge" brian outhouse. It is my fervent hope that she will not permit the shenanigans that Rodenberger is going to try to pull.

Here is the problem. In order to present her case in front of a judge and jury, Rodenberger is going to have to depend upon testimony that almost surely will contain perjury. As Kerywn has noted in an earlier comment, there a huge holes in the prosecution's case, and Rodenberger knows it.

Thus, as I see it, the only way she can present this case will be to suborn perjury, and that still is a crime in Maryland. (Not that anyone in authority really cares, and prosecutors in Maryland run wild as they do in every other state.) The testimony from Apryl is not going to match what she had claimed in earlier forensic interviews, and one only can imagine what Kim Selkirk and Det. Young Austin are going to say under oath.

Rodenberger is not exactly the Second Coming of Leon Jaworski, but I guarantee you she can recognize the difference between truthful and dishonest testimony. She also is aware of the weakness of her case.

Therefore, she resorts to one of the slimiest things I ever have seen a prosecutor do in a courtroom: physically abuse a prisoner and then have him dragged into court all disheveled and dirty just to prejudice the jurors. There could have been no other reason to mistreat another human being in this way.

Note: Mr. Rasmussen is back at the Prince Georges County lockup, has his own cell, is now permitted to shower, and has clean clothes, and can have visitors.

By the way, the PG County charges are even more ludicrous and dishonest than what we see in Charles County. I intend to do my best to expose this human rights abuse that is taking place in Maryland, and that means debunking this one accuser at a time.

Michael Rasmussen's Trial is Postponed Until May

The latest news is that Michael Rasmussen's trial will be postponed until May 16. This is due to a private family matter with his attorney.

The bad news is that Mr. Rasmussen remains in jail for the next 2-1/2 months. However, the good news is that the defense gets to strengthen its case.

One thing I have learned in my experience in blogging on these kinds of cases is that bad cases tend to grow worse over time, and that if the police and prosecutors have built charges on sandy ground, the ground turns into quicksand. That is the situation with this one, as the prosecution has had two years to "get its story straight," and so far every new bit of information helps, not hurts, Mr. Rasmussen.

Anyway, stay tuned. In the meantime, there is the Jacobson case in Arizona, as well as the wrongful imprisonment of Courtney Bisbee, and both of them will be receiving some attention. Furthermore, there is the upcoming trial of James Combs in Catoosa County, which will feature some of the same faces that polluted the courthouse during Tonya Craft's trial.

So, there is much work to be done.

The Ordeal of Michael Rasmussen, Part V: Some Questions for Det. Kim Selkirk

Michael Rasmussen will go on trial this week in Charles County, accused of molesting and sexually assaulting his daughter Apryl, who now is an adult. The person who has most pushed the charges has been Charles County Det. Kim Selkirk, the former bank teller who now wants to help convince a jury to throw Mr. Rasmussen into prison for the rest of his life.

Given the seriousness of the charges, and given the seriousness of the potential outcome, I believe that some questions are in order for Selkirk, who most certainly will be testifying under oath during the trial. (Testifying "under oath" means that if Selkirk does not tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," then she is committing perjury, which is a felony in the State of Maryland. However, don't hold your breath, as police regularly lie under oath and they are charged with perjury only when it is politically-expedient for prosecutors to do so.)

Here are some questions that I would like to ask Selkirk:

1. You claim that Mr. Rasmussen "confessed" to you and Det. Austin when he was arrested in March, 2010, yet you failed to record the so-called confession. Can you explain why you would not record such a thing, given that before then, Mr. Rasmussen was not willing to talk to you or Det. Austin because he had clearly said that he did not trust you?
2.  What made Mr. Rasmussen suddenly trust you on this occasion, and if you proved so trustworthy to him, why did he refuse to sign the "confession" that you so graciously wrote up for him?
3. How was it that you managed to misquote Mr. Rasmussen regarding Apryl's question, "Do you want me to lie to the police?" As per the recorded conversation -- a conversation to which you were privy when it was being recorded -- Mr. Rasmussen clearly tells his daughter, "Tell them what you feel." Can you explain to me, then, how it was that you claimed in those notes you took during the supposed "confession" that Mr. Rasmussen told his daughter to lie when, in fact, nowhere in that conversation he said such a thing?
4. Did you take Mr. Rasmussen's five-year-old stepdaughter to the police headquarters, where you interrogated her for a long time, trying to get her to claim Mr. Rasmussen had molested her?
5. If you took that little girl to be interrogated and spent time questioning her, can you explain why you did not take notes or record the conversation?
6. If that conversation took place, did you attempt to follow the standard protocol when authorities interview children who they believe might have been abused? Did you have a forensic interviewer there, or have an official who was experienced in interviewing young children?
7. Is it true that the child insisted that her stepfather had NOT molested her?
8. Is it true that you got angry at her because she would not say what you wanted her to say?
9. Have you had any conversations with that child's father or have you taken part in any scheme to try to have the children taken away not only from Mr. Rasmussen -- who has not been accused of molesting them -- as well as their mother, despite the fact that the courts clearly had given her custody?
10. Have you made any other misrepresentations of what you claim Mr. Rasmussen said in the recorded phone conversation with Apryl versus what Mr. Rasmussen actually said? If that is true, and you cannot even truthfully report on something for which there is a recording (I'm asking hypothetically, of course), then why should anyone believe your recollection of this supposed "confession" when all there is to show for the conversation are your notes, notes that we know already have serious inaccuracies?

Now, I have just asked a few hypothetical questions, although I am sure that Mr. Rasmussen's attorney will have even more questions for Selkirk when he cross-examines her next week. However, I would like to end this post with just one more question for the detective: When you raise your right hand as you are being sworn in as a witness, will you have the fingers of your left hand crossed as you put them behind your back? Just wondering.

The Ordeal of Michael Rasmussen, Part IV: "The Lady or the Tiger?"

The charges against Michael Rasmussen exist for one reason, and one reason only: His oldest daughter, Apryl, was furious that he married a woman who had children, and he was giving attention to them instead of her. That is correct; this is a case that has its roots in pure jealousy and revenge.

Apryl came from a previous marriage, and over the years, as friends have told us, she and her mother pretty much got what they wanted from Michael. After the divorce, Apryl lived with her father, who adored her. As Michael's wife, Becky, has told me, he had pictures of her all over the house.

Michael and Becky lived with each other for several years before they agreed to marry, and that is when the trouble started. As is going to be revealed in court, Apryl told a number of people that she would not stand for her father paying attention to other children, and that he needed to understand that point.

So, she made accusations of child molestation against him. Unfortunately for her, when she was 10 years old, she had been questioned by a forensic psychologist about allegations of child molestation and she vehemently denied any sort of thing. Yet, in the phone conversation with her father (which will be covered in a future post), she tells him that she always has remembered his alleged molestation.

There are other things as well that are going to come out in the trial, and they are not going to bode well for the prosecution or the police. As I have written before, I believe that the police really don't believe that Mr. Rasmussen is guilty of anything, but that they have committed to this case and really don't care if their lies destroy another man's life. It has come to that.

Frank R. Stockton in 1882 published a story in The Century called "The Lady or the Tiger?" in which a commoner has a love affair with the king's daughter. He is arrested, and his "trial" takes place in an arena where there are two doors.

Behind one door is a beautiful lady who immediately would be given to the man as his wife. However, what is waiting behind the other door is a ferocious tiger. Before he chooses, he looks at the princess, who signals what door he is to open, and he opens it.

Stockton ends the story with the question of which door he chooses. In the case of Michael Rasmussen, it is clear that Apryl has chosen the tiger. In her view, if she cannot have him fully to herself, then neither Becky nor her children can have him at all. It is that simple, and it is that awful. If it means destroying her own father in order to get at Becky, then so be it.

I am not making up the attitudes. As the prosecution is going to be finding out in the trial scheduled for next week, Apryl has talked to a lot of people and she has spoken her mind on this subject. Furthermore, I have serious doubts that she will be a good prosecution witness. Moreover, she also asked for a restraining order against her father, claiming that she had "just remembered" that he tried to kill her by running over her in a car and that he had savagely beaten her mother. The judge seemed skeptical, and I suspect that her "recovered memory" here is not going to help her in court.

Once upon a time in America, pre-Mondale Act and all of the horror that has accompanied it, police and prosecutors would not have taken long to be onto Apryl's scheme and told her to take a hike. Unfortunately, police departments today are full of people like Kim Selkirk, who claim to see child molesters behind every bush and tree, and the lure of federal money for these cases has proven to be enough to break down the truth.

There is much more to this case that makes it abominable. And I will cover what I can in future posts.

The Ordeal of Michael Rasmussen, Part III: Is It Torture, or Just Prudence?

When Americans think of prison, they think of it as a place where people are punished AFTER having been convicted either at a trial or after a guilty plea. The notion of someone being imprisoned and facing real prison conditions before a trial, and especially when there is serious question about someone's guilt seems, well, "un-American."

I hate to say it, but today, "un-American" means applying the standards of justice that are provided by the U.S. Constitution and our legal inheritance from the Rights of Englishmen that our colonial forebears gave us. Today, prosecutors and police have no obligation to follow the law, as the courts pretty much have told them that the law is whatever they want it to be.

My previous post -- including Kerwyn's comments -- lays out just a few real problems in the prosecution's case. In fact, the prosecution is so unsure that it even is presenting a truthful case that it has resorted to the "three bites of the apple" approach: continue to put Mr. Rasmussen on trial until he no longer can afford any defense counsel and is given a public defender, who then works hand-in-glove with his bosses (prosecutors, as in reality, public defenders might as well be employed by the prosecution) either to plead out his client or to present such an awful defense at trial that leads to a conviction.

As I see it, "three bites of the apple" is dishonest to the core and represents the worst that the state gives us in the administration of "justice." But it does not stop there.

Right now, Mr. Rasmussen is being held in solitary confinement at the Charles County jail. This is being done supposedly to "protect" him from other inmates, as "child molesters" always get "the treatment" from the regular prison body. (Keep in mind that "the treatment" is not possible unless the authorities work hand-in-glove with the inmates to make sure that a rape -- or worse -- occurs. The notion that jail or prison authorities are seeking to protect anyone but themselves is a very, very sick joke.)

So, Mr. Rasmussen is kept in his cell almost the entire day with no contact from anyone else. At last report, he had been in the same set of clothes for nearly a week with no opportunity to change.

Solitary confinement, or putting prisoners in "the hole," is a form of punishment, not protection. Charles County authorities know that their case is weak, that Det. Selkirk and Det. Austin have presented material that is questionable at the least and utterly dishonest at worst. They are aware of the huge discrepancies in the evidence, and much more (as Kerwyn and I will be presenting over the next several days).

So, as I see it, they are trying a new tactic: break the accused through a form of torture. Strip him of everything, give him a sense that there is no hope no matter how much he tells the truth, cut him off from everyone and everything, and then watch him utterly deteriorate.

This is reprehensible, but this is what is done in this country. It is ironic to hear Hillary Clinton lecturing others about freedom of speech and torture and all that, yet members of her own political party (Charles County is controlled by the Democratic Party) pretty much act as though they are Third World dictators.

(I will add that Republicans are not better, and that their "law-and-order" mantra is partly responsible for the deterioration of U.S. law. It seems that no Republican can run for office without declaring that he or she is "tough on crime," which really means that they are tough on the Constitution and the Rule of Law.)

The Charles County strategy is pretty obvious: break the prisoner. There is no case, the man is innocent, but the authorities want to win and they will win at all costs.

Because of the state of U.S. law today, torture is applied regularly by both people wearing the badges of Republican and Democrat. It is not a partisan thing; rather, it is what happens when justice becomes utterly politicized, and when those who are in charge of administering justice are not held accountable for their actions.

The Ordeal of Michael Rasmussen, Part II: The Detective's Questionable Integrity

In my first post on the Michael Rasmussen case, I noted that Kerwyn had uncovered a lot of material that proves devastating to the truthfulness of the three accusers. Since then, even more has happened to cut more holes in the prosecution's attempt to frame this man for "crimes" that never occurred.

For people who would like to get a good across-the-board case narrative, I would urge that they read the comments on the Liestoppers board, which served as a very useful sounding board in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case (a case which brought a number of us today and got me started on blogging). Because of the information that is listed here, I see no use in reinventing the wheel.

Because Mr. Rasmussen is scheduled to go on trial next week for allegedly molesting his daughter, Apryl, I would like to concentrate on the charges she has made. As in all of the cases about which I (with the very, very able help of Kerwyn) have been writing, the more I find out, the more I realize that Mr. Rasmussen is an innocent man, and is the victim of lies not only by his 25-year-old daughter, but also the police.

As the Liestoppers narrative points out, the crux of the charges center on two events that occurred in early 2010. First, his daughter engaged him in a long phone call that not only was recorded by police, but actually set up by Det. Kim Selkirk of the Charles County Sheriff's Department, with Selkirk writing the questions for Apryl.

Second, after police arrested Mr. Rasmussen supposedly for "admitting" to crimes during the phone call, he went spoke to the police without counsel and "confessed" to a number of things that Selkirk claims were part of the phone call. Thus, Charles County had the basis for indicting and now trying him.

There is a huge problem, however, and I mean huge. Kerwyn has listened to the entire phone call and has transcribed much of it, and she tells me unequivocally that Selkirk's claims as to what was said during the call are false. I repeat, she tells me that Selkirk has utterly misrepresented the contents of that call.

For example, Selkirk writes in her notes (and claims that Mr. Rasmussen admitted to as much during the "confession") that Mr. Rasmussen told Apryl to lie to the police. He did not say anything of the sort, and Selkirk knows it (unless she has not listened to the tape, and if that is true, then she is lying when she claims to know the contents of the call).

Instead, when Apryl pointedly asks him, "Do you want me to lie to the police?" (and she asks him more than once), he replies, "Do what you feel." Never once does he instruct her to lie. That is not there, yet Selkirk has submitted notes that make that false claim. In other words, Selkirk is willing to commit a felony in order to try to win a conviction, and the Charles County State's Attorney's office is willing to go along with the scam.

That's right: scam. When a police officer lies and a prosecutor attempts to use that lie -- when knowing that the truth is otherwise -- then we have officers of the court breaking the law and destroying all of the ethical standards upon which courts supposedly are built.

But it gets worse. During the call, Mr. Rasmussen clearly states his disdain for Selkirk and says he will not talk to her at all. Suddenly, we are supposed to believe that this guy spills his guts in a long interview with the same detective.

Now, put yourselves in the shoes of a cop -- and I have spoken to other police officers and prosecutors about this very thing. Assume that you have wanted to get a confession from someone who will not speak to you, AND SUDDENLY HE STARTS TALKING.

What would you do? Obviously, the police officer would at least record the conversation on tape, or maybe videotape it. Selkirk did nothing of the sort. All that exist from the meeting are a hurriedly-written set of notes (which I have in my possession). No recording, nothing.

[Update: As Kerwyn notes in her comments, two detectives were involved in the questioning, Selkirk and Det. Austin. Austin claims that writing notes "distracted" Mr. Rasmussen, so the story is that he asked the questions and got Mr. Rasmussen to "tell all," and then Selkirk sat in another room, listened, and took notes.

Sorry, people. That doesn't fly. It does not explain why police failed to memorialize this alleged conversation with a recording. THAT is what they are supposed to do, and they failed to do it. Maybe, just maybe, they failed to do it because it didn't happen. Maybe, just maybe, there WAS no "confession," and we have two detectives writing fiction.

Don't kid yourselves about how police will operate in such situations. Because they have immunity and because they are protected by their unions and by their politicians, police know they can lie with impunity and many of the do just that.

Because I was not in the room, I cannot say for certain that Selkirk and Austin are not telling the truth. However, their very failure to follow procedure, and the fact that Selkirk's notes absolutely misrepresented conversations that occurred in the phone call between Mr. Rasmussen and Apryl lead me to be suspicious of what they are saying. End Update]

(Selkirk has claimed that even writing while Mr. Rasmussen supposedly was "confessing" distracted him, so she just listened. I'm sorry people, but her claim does not pass the smell test.)

Why does Selkirk lie? Yes, lie? Because she knows she can get away with it, and nothing will happen to her. In her former job as a bank teller, she could have gone to jail for lying to investigators about anything regarding her work and the transactions she was making.

Her current job, however, does not require honesty. The problem is that her notes are written down for everyone to see -- and soon enough, jurors will hear the entire telephone call between Apryl and Mr. Rasmussen and they, too, will know beyond a doubt that Selkirk and telling the truth apparently are mutually-exclusive things.

There will be more posts -- many more -- but for the time being, I want readers to understand that the person most responsible for pursuing the case has lied to a grand jury and lied to a judge in order to bring charges. We will look further at the contents of the telephone call and show how other things said don't match what Selkirk is claiming. One hopes that someone in a position of authority in the State of Maryland will deal properly with Selkirk, but I have my doubts, serious doubts.