RE: Case CR 9795209/(F 2208697)
Booking #A 293551
(this material was written ca.1998, and will
be updated and added to in a new book, GUILTY
UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT–Bogus Justice in Mesa,
Arizona…it has been slightly updated here)
I had to dig around and summon up the courage to
ask the judge for permission to say something. And at
my arraignment, when the opportunity came, I asked the
same question someone else should’ve asked far earlier:
“I was attacked by three people. Where are THEY?”
The question got me nowhere, of course, except
into jail from November 20 to December 11. My initial
bond was set at $16,000, apparently fairly normal for a
charge of aggravated assault, one of simple assault. By
the time of the trial, though, the prosecutor, one Ron
Harris, had raised that to two class six felonies, both
aggravated assault. Early in the day on the first of
December, East Mesa Justice Court reduced my bond to
$1600. From the afternoon of the first of December to
about eight p.m. on the eleventh of December, though, I
was incarcerated at Pod 4-B, Towers Jail, waiting for
that bond reduction to show up in the appropriate
computer system.
March fourth, 1998, what I had known all along
became a matter of public knowledge. The jury’s verdict
was “not guilty”… Angry at his humiliating defeat,
knowing the jury had actually laughed openly at two of
his witnesses’ obvious lies, the County Attorney
furiously polled the jury, to affirm their decision.
The prosecutor, one Ron Harris, used, knowingly,
two perjurers, one of them a police officer named
Lines(11942), hid a second police officer, fudged around to make sure that the best evidence I had couldn’t be used.
A third witness was so drunk when the “crime” happened
that it, to be kind, colored his testimony. One or
two others exaggerated, and the testimony of one young
lady was so absolutely irrelevant, I quickly realized
she was there simply because she loathed me, and the
prosecutor wanted to add some seasoning to his broth of
hatred. “Sean” said I picked up “Daniel” and tossed him
into a tree some 90+ feet distant. Daniel is about six
feet tall and weighs about 180 pounds. “Sean” also
“mislocated” all the action, proving before the
jury–which the prosecutor supposedly “missed”–that he
had not even been near the incident at all.
The jury laughed aloud at “Sean” and at Lines, the police officer who claimed there were no marks of any kind on me. The jail photo clearly showed two rather profound wounds, one of which later festered and became infected.
But never, ever let reality and truth interfere with a case being melded by Mesa P.D. and a County Prosecutor…oh,hell no, that would mess everything up!
Check out the Markley and Brown fraudulent drug
cases for more on the depth to which this sort of
criminal (I mean Mesa P.D. and County Prosecutors) will
go to trump up a case, even when they KNOW they do not
even have the correct human being.
Unfortunately for the prosecutor’s case, one of
the “crime victims”–one who had told me weeks before
the trial that he had been pushed into signing a
statement, and had never had any interest in pursuing
the case–not only told the truth, but made it fairly
clear that one “witness”–let’s call him “Sean”–was
nowhere near the action, and had seen nothing.
I’d never been to jail before. And like
virtually everyone else I know, I had made no plans for
such a contingency. But if you live anywhere in
Maricopa County, especially in Mesa, you need to know:
the same thing can happen to you, in a heartbeat, based
on nothing but someone’s hatred and the vicious,
eating-machine nature of the “justice” system.
One problem with the “lock ’em up and throw away
the key” mentality, the way it’s executed here in
Maricopa County, and especially in Mesa, is that none of
the authorities really give a d**n who’s guilty or even
who’s telling the truth. From the police to the
prosecutors, numbers–quotas is the more correct
term–and empire building are all that count. In my
case, efforts to slant the case began immediately, when
the police simply denied that evidence of the attack on
me existed.
No less than three independent, uninvolved
witnesses saw the “crime scene team” from Mesa P.D.
obscure, hide, carry off, and otherwise illegally
disrupt the hard evidence of that attack. Indeed,
part of the reason suspects are held in jail as long as
they are is to interfere with their abilities to build
defenses, later, in court. Thus , Mesa P.D. is directly
guilty of obstruction of justice, and of falsifying
evidence as well…a map in particular.
Indeed, they attempted to contend, in court, in
concert with the prosecutor, that I, at the ripe, old
age of 51, having never before been involved in anything
like this, simply decided to go outside and punch out a
couple of kids. This, of course, was insane, and a lie,
from the beginning, and they all knew it; but making
the case called for compromises, virtually every one of
which the jury saw through.
REALITY VERSUS FABRICATION
As you read the description of what actually
happened, keep reminding yourself: This can happen to
you. And even if it doesn’t, you wind up paying for
similar calumnies every day, in your tax assessments.
I’m a freelance firearms writer. This is a
tenuous, slapdash existence, with erratic income,
late checks, and so on. I try to
find regular employment, constantly, and it was my
intention on November 20th to have all eleven articles I
had finished, ready to go, pictures captioned and
collated, within the week, the better to begin in
earnest a serious job search targeted for the Christmas
season, figuring if nothing else came up, I might at
least locate a retail position for those few weeks.
I have to live in a fairly spacious apartment to
do my photo work, but I can’t afford high rents.
Indeed, for the last several years, it’s been difficult
to even reliably pay low rent. The place where I resided
then and do now, as I write this, 2030 East Broadway
Road, in Mesa, had deteriorated badly from mid-1996 or
so until November of 1997. Arizona Apartment Investors,
the management firm, was selling the property, and
apparently the on-premises staff had been ordered to
spend no money and allow anybody–just plain anybody–to
occupy the apartments.
For over a year, bands of from three to as many as
thirty juveniles roamed the property, crushing ground
lights, vandalizing tenant’s property, especially cars
and most particularly, mine, smashing shopping carts
into other kids and into each other, cursing, swearing,
and ripping up fences and all manner of electrical
installations.
Having moved here from another building where
there were as many as four drug dealers, doing high
volume work right out in the open, and having
discovered that getting Mesa P.D. interested is almost
impossible, I took note of the respectable general
security and ground lighting here before I moved in, and
for several years, it was very peaceful.
I took an interest in keeping the ground lights
working, and immediately discovered they, indeed,
functioned like crime repellent.
And for the most part, even when the neighborhood
kids began to act like a full-time wrecking crew
comprised of dangerous psychopaths, I intervened only
enough to make it possible to do my work.
Wall-writing vandals, however, began to threaten
my life and property, and one began a concerted
effort to vandalize my property, apparently for her
amusement.
How strange this was can perhaps best be
illustrated by the dominant activity of one of the
juveniles–let’s call her “Whitney”–who not only made a
serious study of how to do physical damage to my car,
but repeatedly spat all over it, in fact inviting her
friends and family and even adults, to do likewise.
This activity was witnessed numerous times, though on
11/20, I did not know she was the one behind this
unsanitary behavior.
Early on the evening of 11/20/’97, while getting
the aforementioned articles ready to go, cooking dinner,
and getting ready for my upcoming job search, I took out
some trash and noticed that the electrical box I’d
earlier seen “Sean” vandalizing was torn open and
various sheet metal scraps, wire, and foil stuffed into
the breaker areas. Concerned with an obvious fire
hazard, I grabbed a couple of tools and returned to that
box to at least eliminate the immediate threat of
conflagration.
I immediately contacted the building
manager–let’s call him “Howard”–to inform him that the
box had to be secured. He, in turn, told me that the
building had changed hands, and that he was no longer
the manager, and therefore not responsible. So I
advised him that I’d do what I could.
Rushed but not looking forward to having a major
fire, I decided at that point it would be wise to
further secure the door on that box, and I went into my
tool box, at the very rear of my apartment, to locate a
few lengths of lightweight chain and a small padlock to
fabricate an expedient solution, until the morning, when
my thought was, I could perhaps execute a better repair.
Little did I know, I would be in jail in less than
five hours, and for twenty-one days.
Going out my front door, and before my second foot
hit the ground, the door pulled shut and locked behind
me, I was struck about ” in front of my eye, on the
right bridge of my nose, with something very hard at
rather high velocity. There was another immediate
stinging sensation on my neck. Something like pepper or
wet sand struck my face, ears, and right arm. I later
found out some excrement, probably from a small animal,
had also been in the mix.
My vision blurred, I looked to my right, towards
where the missiles had been launched, and was quite sure
I saw three people.
“Now I’m going to die!” That was the thought.
And there was nowhere to go, really. Fight or flight!
I’m about 5’8″. One of my assailants was much
taller, at least six feet. Another was at least my
height. Two of them ran west. The third–“Sean”–went
someplace else. And I followed the two big ones,
determined to find out who it was, what had happened,
why.
I don’t run much any more, and they gained on me
rapidly. The bigger of the two disappeared suddenly,
turning south. The one immediately in front of me
began to go down, after a run of perhaps twelve to
fifteen yards, tripping or falling. Moving full
speed, I was virtually certain to drive my knees into
the back of the kid’s head.
Not gracefully, but quickly, I leapfrogged over
the juvenile, winding up to the west. Turning, I saw it
was “Whitney”, and I pointed my index finger at her and
said, “Stay there!” She ran off immediately, crying.
Later, it would start to bother me that perhaps I’d
kicked her in the head as I flew over her, or that
maybe I’d stuck my finger in her eye. And at the trial,
the prosecutor tried to make this concern into some kind
of evidence of guilt. But right now, I had other fish
to fry. And pressing ones, at that.
“Hey!” It was the big guy, and he was moving
toward me.
I shot out my left arm, grabbing his neck firmly,
and turned my body as close to perpendicular to his
thrust line as I could.
I recognized him once I was that close.
“Daniel, just relax and talk to me and nobody’ll
get hurt.”
I knew I was giving up a reach advantage, and if
he punched me or tried to, I wanted to make sure he
couldn’t get to my face or vital organs. I kept my
right hand poised, but a paper tiger, and though I for a
brief instant wanted to punch him, he relaxed quickly
and so did I.
“This harassment has to stop! It’s been going on
for over a year, and it’s costing me money and time!
You can’t be doing this!”
“It wasn’t me.”
In a firm and only a little loud voice, I tried
to tell him about the danger inherent in fooling with
the electrical system, of getting up on the roof, of
attacking people and their property, and I strongly
suggested he relay this information to his friends and
associates. By this time, we were having a sort of
conversation.
I stormed off, not realizing I had two wounds, one
of them open. The latter one would become infected
later. There were some tiny scratches on my left leg,
too, probably from the twisted-up piece of hanger wire I
found near my door. Inside, I inspected my clothing,
and found the excrement smears on my jeans, which I
removed and rinsed out and cleaned, and I swept off
some of the mess left by my front door.
It was half an hour or more before the police
arrived. I tried to inquire about Whitney, to no avail.
Suddenly, there seemed to be people everywhere, one of
them a wandering drunk who was talking endlessly about
“hitting kids” and other s****.>lady I never did identify came past while this man,
“Sean’s” father, was reciting his litany of nonsense,
and accused me of more-or-less everything short of
murder, and even said I smelled like a brewery.
I was startled, not having had a drink for some weeks.
“That’s me”, “Sean’s” father responded.
Let’s call him “William Smith”. Eventually, it
turned out, the putrid little rat b*****d who made up
the story had immediately rushed home, yelling to his
father that someone was “beating up kids”–namely,
me–and though neither “Sean” nor the drunken sot who
claimed to be his daddy had seen anything, the words
started boiling around. Apparently unable to get a
doper to actually hallucinate some evidence, the weasel
prosecutor instead decided to proffer up this diced
salad of perjured trash and half-assed drunken
recollection. You, by the way, pay this piece of
garbage, and way too much, no matter what it makes.
Two police showed up fairly shortly thereafter, an
Officer Lines and an Officer Jepson. I was primarily
interviewed by and gave my statement to Jepson, who,
later, would mysteriously disappear from any and all
paperwork. He was also mysteriously “out of town for
two weeks” during the trial. It was he to whom I first
showed the oddments of projectiles, including the hanger
wire, and eventually the excrement, though Lines later
would perjure himself and claim he had seen neither.
Not only was this vital evidence therefore suppressed
unlawfully at the scene, out of the view of the court
and judicial authority, but from the very onset, all
investigation was very carefully edited, exaggerated,
and coaxed and fabricated, to feed into what the local
authorities apparently felt would be an easy and, most
of all, prestigious double felony conviction. This
insanity continued to and through the trial, and is all
now a matter of record.
What actually happened? It seems one 14-year-old
girl–let’s call her “Sara”–either planned the entire
episode beforehand or cruelly exploited it afterwards,
or both.
I had no way of knowing, but a year before this
episode, she had repeatedly stated, in front of several
sets of witnesses, that she would “get me” as revenge
for my having admonished one of her friends for
intentionally destroying a ground lighting fixture, very
nearly electrocuting himself in the process.
In the interim, I have been ticketed for driving
while intoxicated, by police waiting for me at my
parking space, and having passed the blood and blow
tests, the Mesa prosecution apparatus is persisting.
The notorious officers Marrical (12187) and the repeat
felon perjurer Cantrell (10730) faked and lied about
evidence and situations so much that their evidence was
all thrown out, and the charges dropped.
And my car was broken into, searched, and instead of the
customary “withdrawal” of merchandise, something was
“deposited”…and disposed of within seconds of when I
found it. March 12th, the license plate off my car
disappeared. The Mesa P.D. helicopter seems to spend
an unseemly amount of time near these premises.
Coincidences? Sure! Maybe pigs fly at night, too,
when we cannot see them.
There was a very serious attempt to enter my
apartment while I was in jail. There have been at least
two, probably three since. Two girls were seen entering
my back yard enclosure by a witness. Mesa P.D. never
even interviewed the witness. About half a case of
expensive synthetic motor oil was stolen. There was no
investigation at all, though I did report the episode.
I have been “questioned” by police at least fifteen
times since 11 December, and most of my friends are
convinced I’ve been followed.
“Sean”, who, it is now firmly established, told
Mesa P.D. that I had struck Whitney, that I had
“pushed her into a tree”…and that
I had, with my extended left arm, simply flicked
“Daniel” to the ground, was lying, and was heavily
encouraged by Officer Lines. Later, on the stand, he
claimed the action took place in front of the pool, an
error of some 15-20 yards. Just as “Daniel” and I had
surmised, he simply made up a good story,
apparently with the complicity and cooperation of
“Sara”, who also saw nothing. There is no tree within
20 feet of where he had the action happening, and even
the one near where things actually happened is a good
seven feet away. The one he claimed I “threw” Daniel
into, the “BIG” one, is some thirty yards distant.
But none of these facts inhibited this
steamroller.
It seemed apparent to me from the beginning, had I
fabricated the attack, I’d have had a name to put on
the imaginary perpetrator. But I still have only a
couple of “maybe” theories on who actually did what I
now refer to as the “kiddy hit”.
Without an opportunity to discuss the case after
the verdict with the jury, I can only guess at what
point they figured out what actually happened. There
was some trickery involved. I had to make sure my jail
picture was introduced, to show the welt and the wound,
and I knew the prosecutor would have to call for it. I
was told by an experienced inmate, early on, “If there’s
anything that can help you or exonerate you in your jail
picture, your jail picture will disappear”, and since I
already knew the police were fully prepared to lie and
fabricate, I simply shaved. This was taking a chance.
Just as everyone looks like a convicted felon in a
driver’s license photo, so everyone looks like Charlie
Manson in jail photos. But as ratty as my hair and beard
looked after sixteen hours, and knowing full well that
the printer would crank up the contrast to make me look
worse and severely demented, I forged ahead and scraped
my face, completely.
By the way, the same “contrast enhancement” and
additive red is used by Mesa P.D. on their “injury”
photos, so as to make a pimple look like a bullet wound.
Plainly and simply put, this–plus doctoring evidence
every step of the way–is downright fraud. And you’re
paying for it, by the way, every single day, just as you
paid for my 21 days in jail, and will pay for the very
large lawsuit now being prepared.
Hopefully, these actions will result in the
disbarment of a prosecutor, even his prosecution and
subsequent imprisonment, for little things like
subornation of perjury, ethical and other misconduct,
etc., etc. , the censure and unemployment of at least
one police officer. But don’t bet on it. Mesa is a
community which, politely put, is not especially high on
self-examination or, for that matter, justice. The
scams roll on, like huge hogwash s****.>downhill in this desert dump…
And Maricopa County, in particular, seems to be
in the businesses of incarceration and filling jails.
A great many people for whose room and board you pay
are incarcerated on charges which are greatly
exaggerated or downright false, and the general policy
is to keep them in as long as possible, at whatever
level best feeds the system. System building, aka:
empire building, and the establishment of Rick Romley’s
vicious police state, which is where you actually live,
is what my tiny episode was really all about. Just a
little piece of a very large and expensive puzzle.
I was an easy victim, and there was no interest
at any time in what had happened to me. I never was
able to raise enough money to hire a private attorney.
In fact, the crushing financial impact of this whole
episode destroyed any stability I might have built while
this mess was going on. The kids committed a crime,
albeit a small one I’d have simply forgotten about, but
there was no way that tiny neighborhood matter could be
inflated into a double hit to satisfy the quota. So
two were manufactured out of air, the police thus
contributing directly to an avalanche of juvenile crime
on this property.
All the people who testified against me have been
evicted or have moved, except the one we call “Whitney”,
who never lived here. She was banned from this property
long ago due to vicious criminal activity and vandalism.
Just yesterday, spotting my car, the sweet, darling
child felt compelled to run into the street to deliver
to me the single-digit obscene gesture she frequently
employs. She’s about twelve, talks like a drunken
Marine, and looks to be at least in her late teens.
(In late ’98, “Whitney” moved, apparently to Tempe)
It is unlikely any of the perjurers will ever be
prosecuted. That doesn’t fit the bogus agenda of the
County Prosecutor’s Office and his storm troopers.
I do have sufficient hard evidence to have Harris
disbarred, Lines, other officers named Cantrell and
Marrical censured, at least, for perjury and worse. But
that won’t happen here, not in cozy little Mesa. Hell,
no! That would be JUSTICE, and THAT Mesa cannot abide.
At least her city government cannot. A little light
in certain corners and the dense little cadre often
called the “Mormon Mafia” would have to scurry away and
hide; their actions (SEE MESA CORRUPTION REPORT WEBSITE)
are absolutely indefensible, in all dimensions, and
equally criminal.
And make no mistake.
It can happen to you. If you are vulnerable, it
will happen to you, simply because this is what Mesa
authorities do, lacking the courage to confront any of
the thousands of crack dealers and meth houses in the
community. And make no mistake: THEY WILL LIE EVERY
STEP OF THE WAY. They hold their power that way.
The County Sheriff did finally pay off on the
false imprisonment suit. But the real criminals, in
and out of the local LDS crime apparatus, will probably
never even have to answer for their offenses. This cost
the taxpayers of this city and county MANY THOUSANDS OF
DOLLARS…
This and other stories were for almost two years on
a Netscape Website named “FISHNOODLES”, mysteriously hacked and fragmented by a phony “administrator” named “[email protected]”, just as my private phone and online accounts and transmissions have been examined and hacked.
This is how corrupt communities survive: by hiding truth,
investigating the innocent, and promulgating lies and
treachery.
Welcome to Mesa.
Jim
Mesa, Arizona
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Mesa Arizona
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on various Police Departments
