The Double Standard and the Drew Peterson case! Police officers have the right to kill but victims have no rights! It’s been over a year since I was arrested and I haven’t waved my right to a speedy trial, so why can’t I even get full discovery yet?
I would really like to get your opinion on this even if you don’t read my whole blog!!!
Police officers should not get the benefit of the doubt when complaints are numerous and credible. There is not a lot of evidence against victims, but they have been tortured and often denied the right to legal representation.
I do not believe there are a lot of criminal police officers, but I do believe that there are a lot of victims. Prosecutors are paid to protect all of the public, but often only protect select groups of people. In the United States of America, many people can not defend themselves from police abuse without losing everything!!! Some might think we just can’t afford to staff the public defender with enough public defenders to defend every case, but with the high costs of incarceration, I don’t think we can afford not to.
”In a roughly two-year period beginning in 2002, police responded to 18 domestic disturbance calls at Peterson's house. Savio accused Peterson of beating her and threatening to kill her, but no charges were ever brought against him.
Instead, Peterson twice persuaded prosecutors to charge Savio with domestic battery. She was acquitted both times.”(1
Kathleen Savio, Petersons 3rd wife, was found dead, yet her death was ruled accidental. Drew Peterson was aloud to marry Stacy Peterson who was 17 about 30 years younger then Drew!
”Authorities suspect Savio was rendered unconscious then placed in the bathtub. Glasgow said the head wound was not sufficient to knock her out and that the scene appeared to have been staged to conceal a homicide.”(2
Peterson was not arrested even after his 4th wife’s disappearance!
”Authorities said that during their initial visit to the Peterson home after Stacy was reported missing, Drew Peterson gave his consent for a search, but limited the number of officers and the area.”(3
At least 3 search warrants have been issued and many witnesses have reported abuse and suspicious behavior.
“Stacy Peterson told a priest that her husband admitted to killing his third wife. Former Westbrook Christian Church pastor Neil Schori told Fox News that Peterson told him in August that her husband, Drew Peterson, admitted killing his previous wife, Kathleen Savio.”
A body has even been exhumed, but the murder victims are the only ones who were charged with a crime!
I am a victim of police abuse, (in case you new to this blog).
I was arrested on August 29th 2006 on 3 counts of delivery or possession with intent to deliver, depending on which report you read. In the Drew Peterson case they have plenty of witnesses.
The officers who arrested me needed no warrant. I believe they made the arrest shortly after Sally Fringle’s assault in order cover-up Matt Hathaway’s criminal behavior and the fact that the Spirit Lake police department was negligent in hiring him after I called in as one of his many victims and asked them not to hire him. Sally Fringle, who is 5 feet tall, was fifty years old and had a clean record at the time of her attack. Sally was successfully prosecuted for attacking Hathaway!!! I was out in time to witness her appeal and protest her conviction. Her attorney said something like I believe she is innocent, rather then pointing out the facts of the case! I don’t even think that legal. I wanted to speak up in Sally’s defense, but a court employ prevented me from doing so.
All the officer had to do was arrest my co-worker who could not afford insurance people and get them to “admit” they had purchased marijuana from a “Mary Tormay”. Then he sent her into my house to get an audio tape that was later edited to sound a little like a controlled buy. Then he arrested one of my roommates my roommates for driving on a suspended license and apparently got her to “admit” that she too had purchased marijuana from this fictional “Mary Tormay” then he released her. He then arrested a 3rd person.
Officers went into the house without warrant or permission will I was hand cuffed outside in the cold.
My bail was set at 100, 0000. (This is the same court that declared me indigent and then made me indigent by forcing me to hire my own attorney and pay an excessive bail). I was denied all phone calls and legal representation till the end of October. I was put in hold 7 it was so cold that I could hear another inmate crying about the cold. I only had a wool blanket and oversized jail clothing, not one of the nicer blankets (I think they save those for prisoners who have been there awhile like Duncan who was right across the hall). The jail pants were way too tight for me, since the assault it hurts to ware pants around my waist. I was bleeding all over the place and vomiting for weeks. The window on the cell allowed anyone who walked by to see me suffering in my own filth as I went to the bathroom painfully. This embarrassed the male prisoner they looked away. One male guard laughed at me and ignored my pleas for toilet paper. I completely covered a towel in blood before convincing the jail staff to bring me toilet paper. I begged for showers, but was not allowed to shower as needed.
I have a food allergy so the jail staff was unable to bring me safe food. I was not aloud visitors, because I couldn’t eat. I protested. They put me in a dark cell and took away my blanket and put me on a thirty day restriction. I assumed I had freedom of speech, I haven’t been convicted. I wasn’t even given a rule book till the 31st of September (September only lasts 30 days but this was a long September.)
It was loud in the jail and the jail staff woke me up regularly to make sure I was still alive. (Had I been found dead I doubt the jail nurse would have been able to fix the problem, it seemed she couldn’t tell the difference between urine and vomit.) After I started to eat I was brought a try containing only items I was allergic to the green bean looked safe, but it turned out they were in corn based margarine. I got dizzy and slept for almost 12 hours without even being able to get up and use the bathroom. I woke up around an hour before court and asked if I could take a shower. I was rushed to the courthouse without a shower and forced to sit under the jail in urine and feces for 3 hours while a public defender who I had never met asked for a continuance!
I was sent to Blackfoot South where I met at least 3 other victims. My roommate at Blackfoot was pulled over in Sandpoint. She showed police officers her driver’s license, but she refused to exit her vehicle, because the policemen didn’t have a reason to pull her over and they where acting strangely. She tried to drive to the nearest police station like they tell you to do on the news. She was arrested for alluding! Her car and dog were impounded. Her dog had been taken to a local Animal shelter and was about to be given up for adoption, but we convinced my mother to take care of the dog.
My roommate said she had a B vitamin Deficiency, but they forced her to take drugs and refused to let her take her B vitamins.
I also met an older woman, who showed me pictures of burses that would shock the conscience. She looked like she might be a person who would burse easily, but didn’t seem like a person who would or could put up a lot of resistance against a police officer.
She was convinced, (like my roommate and another person I met there) that the doctor was trying to kill her. She said she was being forced to take lithium in spite of a heart problem, and when she complained the doctor increased her dose.
She also said she was not being allowed to take her B vitamins for Pellagra (Pellagra is a fancy word for a B vitamins Deficiency).
I explained to 3 separate individuals that the doctor was a phyciatrist not a medical doctor. It was his job to diagnose everyone with a mental condition and treat them with drugs. They all seemed to trust me and understand. I think all of these people could be reasoned with, and should have been forced to take drugs against their will. Even if these people really need medication, they would pretend it worked and stop taking it as soon as no one was looking.
The older woman, decided to fake recovery and pretend, like her beliefs had changed. So that the doctor would stop increasing her does of lithium.
The older woman soon told me she was being moved to a new unit where they could take better care of her heart problem, after she was moved I didn’t see much of her after that.
I saw my roommate’s mental and physical health deteriorate quickly, after she was forced to take risperdal. She slept a lot and gained a lot of weight. Her gray hair became noticeable. It seemed obvious to me she was getting worse, but the doctors would not take her off the drug. She agreed to plead guilty to a crime she didn’t commit so she could leave the hospital sooner. They said that it would take much longer to get her to the point where she was fit to proceed.
The third victim I met was shy young man who was arrested for “resisting arrest”. When the police asked to talk to him he just walked off. He had already pleaded guilty in exchange for his freedom and they were helping him find a job and a new place to live.
The stay at Blackfoot had discredited all of these people who where witnesses to civil rights violations. If these witness did not have mental illnesses when they where arrested, then they had been tortured and drugged to the point that they did. Health and welfare has sent me bills totaling over $40,000 for my stay at Blackfoot. I can not afford to pay those bills.
Thanks to my mom and Janet Phelan I got media attention. I think they saved my life by preventing the doctor, from increasing my dose of risperdal till it killed me or left with permanent seizers, diabetes or tarditive dyskinsia.
Once I was finely released from Blackfoot I was sent back to the jail where I spent both Christmas and new years cold alone and in pain. I was given thyroid medicine, but the dose was so high that I had a heart beat of 138 beats per minute when I went to the emergency right after I was released from jail.
I finally got my preliminary hearing on January 2nd. My lawyer was not notified in time to contact witnesses. Only the prosecutor was aloud to call witness. The prosecutor was also aloud to promises evidence they could not deliver. The first witness they called seemed to be suffering physiologically, and kept asking for her counselor. She pleaded the 5th a lot but she did testify that the officer had given her my name and the name one of my roommates.
Next they brought out Mason he looked like he had just swallowed a turd by mistake! His memory was convenient to say the least. He could not remember the address. He contradicted himself as to how many bags of marijuana he collected and also were he collected them. The prosecutor had not gotten the tape of the “controlled buy” yet even though I had been in custody for over 4 months. It took them over 9 months to produce an edited tape that had very poor sound quality. When the judge heard the tape he decided to drop the last distribution charge.
Mason alluded to other witnesses as much as he could, but no other witnesses showed up to tell the truth and set the court strait.
Many of the witnesses in the Drew Peterson case have already made written statements and have been waiting for years to testify against Drew Peterson. The witnesses in my case are much harder to find! The only written statement I have seen made by a witness about the case is just a note that say’s “I’m afraid”.
I think finger prints would clear up the last charge of possession with intent to deliver, but I would really like to face my accuser. The witness list only includes Mason and his cronies my ex-co-worker, my ex-roommate and my partner. Of course my partner was not notified of the preliminary hearing even though he has worked at the same job for 13 years has a clean record and still lives at the address I was arrested from!
Point 4
Drew Peterson already has a lawyer working hard to defend him and he hasn’t even been arrested yet!
“John Carroll, who spoke at a hearing in Will County Court, also belittled the warrant that allowed for the seizures after Peterson's wife vanished more than a month ago. He said it's only reasonable if Illinois State Police believe Drew Peterson used all 11 guns to kill his wife and both vehicles to transport her body.”6)
“Carroll argued at the hearing that even if Rozek agrees the warrant is valid, there's no reason to keep the items for more than a month.”6)
"The original warrants only authorized a search of the vehicles, not a seizure. That means that potentially any evidence -- and I'm not saying there is any -- that they've acquired from the vehicles prior to today could be tossed out of court for illegal seizure."4)
Drew might get evidence dismissed on a technicality, but I have been waiting over a year for my suppression hearing!
I have the burden of proof when it comes to my suppression hearing. Mason got to lie about almost every detail in the warrant and start the search about 2 hours before getting a warrant! Some of things confiscated from Drew Peterson have already been returned! I had to wait around a year just to get my computer back. The money Mason confiscated from my person has not been returned! They made a judgment against the“$184”. Mason got buy adding $174 he took from me to 14 dollar bills he found during the search (Mason has a learning disability. His low self esteem would most likely prevent him from questioning authority).
Drew Peterson has started a web site to pay for his defense,
“"We are not asking you to decide whether or not Drew Peterson is guilty, but in the United States of America, one should be able to defend one's self without the losing everything (sic)," according to the site.”7)
That sounds good to me! I had over $40,000 when this case started, now I have less then $2000. Court dates prevent me from getting my job. I’ll put it this way I’m not refusing donation. Heck I’d be grateful to get a ride to the store, since the harassment has caused a lot of my friends to either stay away or lose their drivers licenses.
In the United States of America, many people can not defend themselves without losing everything!!! For everyone who has been forced to plead guilty to a crime they did not commit, so they could keep their children, so they could avoid having a felony on their record, so they can get a job, so they can move on, so they can get their vehicle out of impound, so they can get out of jail, so they can stay alive, so they can vote. I know you all did what you had to do. The real criminals go free or get off easy and the victims are often forced to take the blame that is what a plea bargain is all about! Lawyers have told me I should take the plea bargain and this would all be over, I wouldn’t have a felony on my record, I wouldn’t even have probation! Giving up all my civil rights in exchange for getting some ridicules charge dropped, doesn’t seem like a bargain to me! If I plead guilty, I’m not just giving up my civil rights I’m giving up on the civil rights of everyone who can afford to defend themselves.
In closing Police officers often get the benefit of the doubt even when complaints are numerous and credible. Criminal police officers can victimize copious amounts of people without ever being prosecuted. The understaffing at the public defenders office does not save money but leads to the costly incarceration of innocent people!
I haven’t finished my research on the public defenders office so I’ll leave you in anticipation of that blog.
I have a lot more to say about this topic, but this is a good lead to a blog I want to write about the public defenders office. “The public defenders office is desperately understaffed!!!”
1) “Peterson case: Did cops protect one of their own?”
BOLINGBROOK, Illinois (AP)
updated 12:34 p.m. EST, Fri November 30, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/30/missing.wife.ap/
2) “Authorities exhume body of Bolingbrook cop's third wife”
By Matthew Walberg and Gerry Smith | Tribune staff reporters 10:51 PM CST, November 13, 2007
4) “3rd search warrant served on Drew Peterson”
By Matthew Walberg and Erika Slife | Tribune staff reporters
December 5, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/chi-peterson_05dec05,0,7006993.story?coll=chi-homepagebiz-utl
5) “Stacy Peterson Told Priest Husband Admitted to Killing Kathleen Savio”
Atlanta, GA 12/11/2007 03:18 PM GMT (FINDITT)
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=30242&cat=0
6) “Peterson Attorney Seeks Items' Return”
By DON BABWIN December 12, 2007
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9LSLrzFQGStXb1io5FdErAtFFKgD8TG67NO1
7) Ex-Cop Drew Peterson Launches Web Site for Defense Fund After Wife Disappears
By Melissa Underwood Tuesday, December 11, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316469,00.html
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