Your faithful investigative reporter InspectorSmith (Lucas Daniel Smith) reporting from the intricately beautiful slums of Santo Domingo! The electricity arrives mostly only in the night, the water comes only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the internet signal I appropriate with my Super USB Antenna that you wont find for sale in any store in the United States. But warning to the Obotopian readers, beware, my back arm is strong!
Embedded below are four separate official Criminal Complaints, all filed on November 1st, 2011, in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia in the following federal criminal cases:
United States of America vs FREDERlCK W. THOMAS; United States of America vs EMORY DAN ROBERTS; United States of America vs SAMUEL J. CRUMP; United States of America vs RAY H. ADAMS.
A criminal informant (CHS1), is responsible for entrapping these four Georgia senior citizens to avoid a prison sentence. I’m going note here for the record that CHS1, i.e., confidential human source #1, is ‘currently [out] on bond for pending felony state charges.’ In other words, this individual is a confidential informant (sometimes referred to as a snitch, tattler, rat, weasel or a squealer) who will say anything and everything to incriminate other individuals (often times this includes the informant’s own mother) to avoid being sent to the State/Federal Penitentiary or State/Federal Correctional Facility.
CHS1 is the number one informant listed in each of the four criminal complaints against our four courageous and patriotic-thinking senior citizens in Georgia. Please note that this informant was already facing criminal charges in state court when he met up with the four senior citizens. Readers of this blog should not misconstrue CHS1 as having been a member of the group of senior citizens from Georgia. In other words, CHS1 isn’t a ‘turncoat’. There was no shifting of allegiance from one loyalty or ideal to another. From the outset, or onset, CHS1 had only one objective and that was to lay the foundation and framework for the future criminal prosecution of four senior citizens from Georgia.
I recommend that readers of this blog review each of the four separate criminal complaints embedded below. These four documents are not exactly identical filings, each is somewhat unique and contains specific data and information not contained within the other criminal complaints.
The freedom of four courageous and patriotic-thinking men hangs in balance so please remember that it is particularly important and imperative that you share your thoughts, ideas, critique, corrections and recommendations in the comments section below. I respectfully and humbly implore you to participate in this discussion via the comments section below this blog report. Thank you.
Lucas,
I’ll add some comments later pertinent to the main subject of your post.
However, for now, I’m just going to link a few videos related to the two great photos of you busily at work spreading the TRUTH about Obama’s Kenyan birth at the Coast Province General Hospital in Mombasa to the entire world (at night when the electrons have awakened and are actively moving around in the wires, via your Super USB Antenna connecting you to the internet)!
This first video shows some interesting views of the slums of Santa Domingo.
http://www.third-world.net/Slums-Santo-Domingo
This second video presents the more customary, enticing, tourist’s view of the entire Dominican Republic. It sure does encourage one to take a week or so off from the ‘daily grind’ and enjoy a fun, educational and relaxing vacation on that island paradise!
Bruce
@ Bruce:
Thank you for your compliments regarding my two recent pictures!
I have also had a chance now to review both of the video links that you supplied in your comments.
Bruce, in retrospect I think that maybe my references to lack of electricity, lack of water, my use of the word ‘slum’ and a pic of me sitting on a half eaten 50 pound sack of rice (rather than sitting on a ordinary chair) might possibly have conveyed a message to the readers of this blog that I did not intend for. I apologize and I will try to explain below:
The areas classified as ‘slums’ in Santo Domingo are what I would refer to as happy places. The same is true with most ‘slums’ in other tropical or equatorial countries round the globe.
The video that you found and linked here regarding the slums was filmed by what I would call the typical European, or sometimes American, who attempts to see the entire world through their narrow interpretation of what they believe is poor, safe, unsafe, clean, dirty, justice, injustice, right, wrong, proper, improper, deathly, lively, happy, sad and so on and et cetera.
I noticed also that they also added an EXTREMELY SAD music background to the video to further emphasize or convey their version of the self-created-reality.
I also noticed that they tried to capture the occasional worn-out-downtrodden looking adult laying or sitting on a patch of concrete in front of a random shacks.
Lastly, I noticed, as with most of the Euros (and sometimes, though rarely, the Americans) that attempt to enter slums really, they didn’t visit the slum-slums but rather some area that is borderline or so-so.
In truth, those places in that video (as well as the slum-slums that weren’t shown) are lively and happy places. Half-naked, and completely naked, children run around naked because that is normal to do so for small children here. It’s NOT because they don’t have clothing. And adult that is found lying on the concrete in dirty clothing and unshaven is, without a doubt, a drug-addict who has chosen that life and is only starving because they government here, unlike in Euro and American, does not give free-rides to drug addicts. They don’t get a check or food stamps.
The slums are a place where raw capitalism flourishes unabated. Around the clock (and a little more so in the evening and the night) the people are smiling, singing, and dancing, cooking, cleaning and in the act of making babies. There is no sad cut-your-wrist violin music playing in the background, to the contrary there is loud inspiring beautiful dancing music that can be heard coming from all directions.
The water and electricity do not run 24/7 anywhere in this country. Even at the cushy resorts they use generators and batteries that kick in when the electricity goes out. There is one difference I guess though in the slums and that is that the people in slums don’t pay for water and electricity, they take it. They government (who owns the electricity and water utilities) looks the other way while this happens because there would be a violent and bloody revolt if the slums were forced to pay.
However, there is a trade-off and that is that the electricity and water come much less to the slums than they do to other areas. But that is not really a bad thing, and by design or not, it encourages people to get out of the hot, and sometimes mosquito infested, houses in the morning and to prepare for a days work, what ever work that might be and yes it might not be what some pasty Euro face considers to be a ‘legitimate’ job. The electricity will return later on in the day, sometimes in afternoon for a little while, other times in the evening, but rest assured normally at some point in the night there will be electric and you can run your fans and other appliances and keep cool and keep the mosquitoes off of you (sleep with a fan over your bed because mosquitoes aren’t strong enough to fly into the fan’s wind).
The slums are not places of sad crying faces. The slums are full of color, happiness, laughter, dance, camaraderie and raw capitalism.
You know, I recognize one of those pictured slums areas in that video and its is the slums area on the river Ozama in Santo Domingo and do you know that one time there was a some great demand by foreigners that the government here ‘save’ those poor river people from the constantly flooding shacks. The government then built a whole bunch of USA-styles cold-looking housing project buildings far-far from the river in a different neighborhood and gave lots of the ‘river people’ deed to apartments in the buildings. DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THEN??? The ‘river people’ sold their apartments as condos to other wealthier people and they returned to their shacks in the river slums! You see, happiness is not always OSHA approved!
You know, when I was a boy I watched my father lay-brick and block and work with cement as a mason. He always was ‘self-employed’ and we never seemed to see much profit, if any, but he was a hard worked and a great mason and had a tremendous skill and could lay handsome level walls with the ease that a pizza maker pops and pizza into the oven at Pizza-Hut. I grew up thinking that concrete structures had to be constructed precisely and with great skill otherwise they would collapse and cause injury. Well, many years ago when I arrived in Santo Domingo I learned that most everything that I has learned in the United States was just a bunch of government control crap that meant just about absolutely nothing aside from the government controlling your daily life, reaching into your pockets ($$$) and stifling raw capitalism.
If you visit the Dominican Republic, including the slums, you’ll see concrete structure that have been standing for hundreds of years and these structures are lopsided, un-level, crooked, and in forms that appears defy the laws physics. My house has so many crooked and winding walls that I’m sure that if it was in the US the government would order it to be demolished. But this house, and the houses connected to it, have been here for many decades and they haven’t collapsed and haven’t caused diseases or other health hazards. And I am happy and my neighbors are happy.
And what about that water that only comes on Mon, Wed, and Fri? Well, when it comes you have to store it. Some people tanks that they put on their roof. Some people dig cisterns (concrete tank) under their house. Much like American of the past did. In most cases, including me house, we fill large plastic garbage cans with water. You can use this water for cooking, cleaning and showering. You don’t really want to drink it but it you have no other choice you can but there is the risk of cholera and also intestinal viruses. So you buy a 5 gallon water bottle and you refill forever at local water stores for the price of 15 pesos (about 40 cents American) and you drink that.
You know, before the pasty faces Euros arrived in Africa things were happy there too. Who made these rules that people need to be fully clothed, only have one wife/husband, pay property tax, a permit to drive a car, a permit to sell a sandwich and fries, insurance, and record of how many times you used the bathroom, and a permit and a tax to own a weapon?
Can the slums in Santo Domingo be dangerous? Or course they can. Robberies are rampant. But life isn’t supposed to be OSHA approved and sometimes a man has to think for himself and not allow the government to provide for all of his safety. So perhaps at night in slums you may wish to stay somewhat near the area that you live, perhaps you should travel in groups to avoid being a lone target, and better yet perhaps you should actually meet your neighbors and form bonds with them and make yourself a known member of the community and less of a target for robbery.
Should the people be so afraid that you stay in the house all day and listen to sad songs and wait for the pasty face Euro’s to come save you from your malicious hell-like surroundings? No. On the contrary, you should smile, think positive, live life, have sex, work, have fun with hobbies and outing, read, build, create, do whatever it is that earns you a living and also have some fun when you can. And smile! But….. if you see you some guy/lady coming with a clip board and a badge that say World Health Organization or the United Nations you should tell them that you have a large machete in your house(as all Dominicans have in the house) and that they are not welcome in your neighborhood nor your house.
And those places that were featured in the tourist video that you linked, yes, those places are beautiful as well. And if a person has the money and the time they should visit those places and have some fun. But that person should, somewhere at least in the very back or their mind, remember that those places are not the real Dominican Republic.
If the readers of the WOBIK blog see their faithful and objective investigative reporter InspectorSmith (Lucas D. Smith) in additional and subseqeunt photographs sitting on 50 pound bags of rice or in other strange settings they can rest assured that he is happy and so are those that may be pictured along side or within the photographs.
Thank you everyone for reading!
Thank you for your wonderful, experience-based description of what life is REALLY like in the slums of Santa Domingo.
The following statements seemed particularly informative and helpful in putting things in proper perspective: —
“The slums are a place where raw capitalism flourishes unabated. Around the clock (and a little more so in the evening and the night) the people are smiling, singing, and dancing, cooking, cleaning and in the act of making babies. There is no sad cut-your-wrist violin music playing in the background, to the contrary there is loud inspiring beautiful dancing music that can be heard coming from all directions…. If the readers of the WOBIK blog see their faithful and objective investigative reporter InspectorSmith (Lucas D. Smith) in additional and subsequent photographs sitting on 50 pound bags of rice or in other strange settings they can rest assured that he is happy and so are those that may be pictured along side or within the photographs.
Now, let me try to make a few appropriate comments regarding your currently posted topic.
First, I need to follow up a bit on the comment I made to your immediately-preceding (11/24/2011) related report, “United States of America vs Frederick W. Thomas, Emory Dan Roberts, Samuel J. Crump and Ray H. Adams”
I believe there are at least two ‘hidden agenda’ items associated with this entire story. One, well-camouflaged item, which I discussed previously, was the increasingly-frequent attempt by many to link this story to Mike Vanderboegh in order to discredit and bury his ground-breaking and important work on the ‘Fast & Furious’ (gunwalker) scandal. I just did a Google Search for the words [vanderboegh 2011 “georgia terrorist”] and got back 558 hits. I feel certain that this attempt at linking of the two topics will increase as this story unfolds.
The other ‘hidden’ agenda item is actually pretty obvious: —
“OMG! If four, previously law-abiding senior citizens can’t be trusted to own FIREARMS, without worrying about them going crazy and killing thousands of innocent people, then NOBODY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO OWN THEM! Who cares what the 2nd AMENDMENT, or even the entire U.S. Constitution, says. It’s just an obsolete scrap of paper. GUNS CAN NO LONGER BE ALLOWED IN THE HANDS OF PRIVATE CITIZENS, EVEN FOR SELF DEFENSE! IT’S JUST TOO RISKY!
Thus, I believe a major hidden agenda item lurking just below the surface of this story is an attempt to push the radical-left’s long-sought goal of TOTAL GUN CONTROL AND EVENTUAL CONFISCATION!
Now, on to one initial comment regarding the actual ‘terrorist plot’ story, as written.
The following paragraph caught my eye in the below linked article titled, “Georgia Militia Plot / Affidavit Outlines Plans for Killings”, which was published 11/2/2011 in the ‘Atlanta Journal Constitution’.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/georgia-militia-plot-affidavit-1214918.html
“The FBI affidavit noted that the agency’s confidential informant, whose name was not disclosed, is out on bond for a pending state felony charge. The FBI gave the INFORMANT a polygraph test during the investigation of the militia group, and the informant gave “LESS THAN TRUTHFUL RESPONSES” about the militia group’s activities, the affidavit said. (caps emphasis added.)
Hmmmmm! “less than truthful” seems to indicate that the low-life criminal informant ‘LIED’.
(to be continued)
Bruce wrote:
Very true! And I made an serious error in not pointing this out in the blog report. Each complaint that is embedded herewithin the report states exactly the same thing.
“The FBI polygrapher determined that CHS1 gave less than truthful responses concerning the activities of the militia group.”
Those words, verbatim, are in the official Criminal Complaint/Affidavit!
Bruce, this is precisely the reason why I encourage everyone to leave comments. There is always data that will me missed, overlooked, or maybe just spaced-off absent mindededly when an individual is reading, analyzing and then issuing a find of facts and/or objective report.
I feel a little dumb for leaving out such essential and significant data!
I am happy and in retrospect relieved that you point out this particularly vital and weighty segment of the affidavit!
Again, for the record (via the official record): ““The FBI polygrapher determined that CHS1 gave less than truthful responses concerning the activities of the militia group.”“
The music and dancing in Santo Domingo is indeed very cheerful, as I readily found from a quick YouTube search. I believe the below-linked two videos, though not filmed in the slums of the city, do give a hint that this island paradise is a very “happy place”!
BACHATA DANCING
MERENGUE DANCING ON A BOTTLE
@ Bruce:
I like bachata dominicana, merengue dominicano, salsa dominicana, and reggaeton dominicano (and that is not to be confused with “reggae” the music from Jamaica which I do NOT like).
Below I have provided a link to one of the absolute best example of bachata dance that I have ever come across online (however, it didn’t physically take place in República Dominicana but rather in Florida, USA):
Xtreme Te Extrano ~ Original version
@ Lucas Daniel Smith:
WOW! That is one very sexy dance!
———————–
As an introduction to this next comment regarding the complex criminal case under discussion, I need to say that I AM biased on the matter.
I am biased as a result of my own studies, to cite just one example, regarding my readings in the alternative press in 1995 about the tragic bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.
It was quite obvious at the time that facts in the case were being manipulated by the FBI and that a cover-up of evidence was actively in progress. I believe it is likely that the FBI is continuing with a similar lack of integrity in the current case under discussion.
I also reference the following prominent masthead statement by Mike Vanderboegh on his website, Sipsey Street Irregulars.
“A professional opinion based upon decades of study — The FBI is a taxpayer-subsidized agency made up of cowardly arsonists masquerading as brave firefighters.’
I also cite, regarding the actions of the FBI in the Oklahoma City Bombing tragedy, the following 11/24/11 article by Mr. Vanderboegh titled, “SSI Exclusive: Hiding mass murder behind “national security.” What Newsweak & the FBI didn’t want you to know about PATCON and the OKC Bombing.”
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2011/11/ssi-exclusive-hiding-mass-murder-behind.html
Somewhat mitigating my above-explained bias against the FBI in this case, I have read over the four Criminal Complaint downloads provided with this report and have judged Thomas, Roberts, Crump and Adams themselves, all to be rather ‘low-life’, illogical, low-tier-IQ individuals, probably not too different in personality from the criminal informant, CHS1.
The Criminal Complaints all mention that many conversations were “CONSENSUALLY RECORDED” by, in most cases, CHS1. Any viable ‘terrorist wannabe’, with an IQ above room temperature, IMO, would probably have issued strong objections at the first mention of ‘conversations being recorded’. As a general conclusion, I don’t think any of these four defendants would have been bright enough to actually accomplish what they were allegedly accused of planning.
Crump, for example, seems so illogical, at least according to some of the statements he allegedly made in the Criminal Complaint, that I almost have come to think of him as possibly an undercover FBI provocateur himself.
“Put it (ricin) out in different cities at the same time: Washington, DC, maybe Newark, NJ, Atlanta, GA, Jacksonville, FL, New Orleans. Dump that little (unintelligible) that’s all ya gotta do is lay it in the damn road, the cars are gonna spread it”
This broad terroristic statement, regardless of its total lack of practicality, just doesn’t make sense in describing a task to be accomplished by a ‘militia group’ allegedly interested in effecting an overthrow of the government. However, it MIGHT make some sense for someone interested in giving this whole story a more frightening appearance to the general viewing public.
(to be continued)
Bruce wrote:
HAHahahahahA!HAhaHAHa! I know that this discussion is a serious and humorless one but I couldn’t help but audibly laugh when I read that.
Additionally, I agree that the alleged statements and dialog that were allegedly recorded don’t seem like they were uttered by particularly ‘highbrow‘ individuals. Also some of the alleged statements don’t seem like what we’d expect to hear from calculating and ‘brainy’ individuals.
When I first read the Criminal Complaints and read the seeming feeble, inept and non-calculated statements that were allegedly recorded I chalked it up to one or more of the following a thru e:
a. I myself don’t talk exactly how I write (not that my writing style is in any way exceptional or extraordinary). I sometimes try to avoid phone conversation with important people that because I fear that they will find me to be, categorically, what is referred to in RD as a ‘ñame’ (pronounced as YA-ME), i.e., a person that has a yam or a sweet potato for a brain.
b. Perhaps, at least inwardly (not physically or visually detectable), these men were excessively affected by emotion or ‘all riled up’ while discussing new (or maybe not new) and frightening topics such a real uprising and revolution and spoken in a way that was atypical when compared to their ordinary and daily conversations that held with their wives, friends and the public.
c. I have a family member who is still living and is in the their 80s now and they served in the US Army in World War II in the 1940s and, from what I’ve heard (and also read) killed a lot of people in Europe during the war. By all accounts that I have heard and read, they were a calculating and keen minded solider. Today, many many many years later I have sometimes, though not often, had the great opportunity to listen to them express opinions regarding contemporary politics and economics. For the record, they never say anything that about inciting violence or revolution or anything like that. But their thoughts, as they speak them, might be construed by an eavesdropper in ways that are not at all accurate and correct.
d. I don’t even know if these men really made such statements.
e. If they did makes such statements, we don’t know exactly in what context they were made. I’ve overheard cops talking about how they’d like to just pass through the city one day and eradicate all of the criminals. I don’t think these cops meant that to mean AFTER due process of the law, they were talking about murder. Did they ever do it? No. So if these senior citizens spoke hastily and in an unsophisticated fashion about murdering government officials, I don’t think that those statements are all together ‘atypical or significant’ from statements made by persons of all walks of life and social castes (and subcastes) in the United States of America.
The story of these four men seized my attention by nature of the age of defendants.
Additionally, if it weren’t for the CHS1 (the confidential informant) I find it VERY DIFFICULT to believe that ANYONE would have sold these senior citizens explosives such as C-4, especially when they were supposedly stating their intended plans to cause the death of many people in Georgia and Washington, DC. Furthermore, the CHS1 and the actual FBI employee that set up and attended the ‘buy’ didn’t even sell them real explosives! The FBI created a scenario in which a real life version of the scenario would be, at best, about as possible as these men buying a spaceship to fly to the moon.
Lastly (for now), I believe in a society that is free from conspiracy laws. I don’t see how freedom can coexist with conspiracy laws.
I posed a question in my previous blog report regarding these four senior citizens. Some readers, even the silent readers that post at other websites where they pretend to be attorneys, might have dismissed the question as farcical or nonsense but the question posed has been tossed around in the minds of the brightest and most astute thinkers in the USA for a number of years now.
If Frederick conspires with Emory to commit a crime, but that crime is in fact impossible to commit, then did Frederick really commit the crime of conspiracy?
@ Lucas Daniel Smith wrote:
“If Frederick conspires with Emory to commit a crime, but that crime is in fact impossible to commit, then did Frederick really commit the crime of conspiracy?”
I certainly would NOT classify myself in the company of the “brightest and most astute thinkers in the USA” in discussing a proposed defense of ‘factual impossibility’ in answering a charge of ‘criminal conspiracy’.
Regardless, and in spite of my total lack of any formal legal training, I’d like to take a crack at your interesting and challenging question.
I find that I AGREE with both the Common Law (majority rule) and Model Penal Code prohibitions against using ‘factual impossibility’ to commit the crime of conspiracy as a defense. The two following links are pertinent to the topic of the crime of ‘criminal conspiracy’:
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/conspiracy
http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/study/outlines/html/crim/crim22.htm
I agree with you that it may have been impossible for Frederick Thomas or Emory Roberts to commit the crime they were planning. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that they have a legal right to use this fact in their defense to the charge of ‘criminal conspiracy’.
The current case under discussion is very complex so let me postulate the following simpler case to use as an example in support of my argument:
Let’s say, Jim and Jack ‘conspired to STEAL a new, very large and expensive, HD, wide screen TV from the house of their neighbor, Sam. (Sam left the empty shipping box for the TV out by the street in plain view.) Jim and Jack gleefully discuss and plan the proposed crime. They emailed a friend, gave him the model number of the TV and found out, via return email, exactly how much cash they could receive for the TV. They purchased a crowbar for use in breaking open the locked door on Sam’s house and also a hand truck for use in moving the TV out of the house. They had to wait about a week before Sam went off on a weekend fishing trip, leaving the house unoccupied. Jim and Jack hopped into Jim’s pickup truck, went to the house late at night, jimmied open the door and entered the living room. DAMN! THE TV WAS GONE! (They later found out that Sam had bought the expensive TV as a surprise present for his girlfriend and had actually delivered it to her a few days previously, while Jim and Jack were off on a hunting trip.) Thoroughly discouraged, they then just left the house without taking anything.
The police tracked down our two perpetrators from fingerprints left at the crime scene. They also found a trail of incriminating evidence, including the finance-related emails and the store receipts for the crowbar and hand truck. Jim and Jack are then charged with the crime of ‘criminal conspiracy’.
Criminal Conspiracy is defined as: “An agreement between two or more persons to engage jointly in an unlawful or criminal act, or an act that is innocent in itself but becomes unlawful when done by the combination of actors.
In thinking about the above outlined crime, and with a desire to provide reasonable protection to a civilized society, I believe it is fair to charge Jim and Jack with the crime of ‘criminal conspiracy’.
The fact that their planned crime turned out to be ‘impossible’ for them to commit, simply due to a condition over which they had no knowledge or control, does not significantly change my opinion regarding the proper charge against them of ‘criminal conspiracy’.
I agree that TOTAL freedom can not coexist with conspiracy laws. However, this seems to be a case similar to that of, ‘Freedom of speech must somehow be constrained in civilized society so that one can NOT have the freedom to yell FIRE in a crowded theater just for the fun of watching people trample each other in their panic to escape!’
Yes, we need to have freedom of speech, but there does have to be some reasonable limits established! Likewise, I think for the reasonable protection of civilized society, we need some reasonable laws addressing the crime of ‘criminal conspiracy’. ‘Factual Imposibility’ to commit the planned crime is not and SHOULD NOT be an acceptable defense tactic. Grey areas of interpretation need to be decided before a legally constituted judge and jury.
(to be continued)
@ Bruce:
Thank you Bruce for taking a crack at the question.
Let me state here of the record that I am certainly not a member of the “brightest and most astute thinkers in the USA”.
Bruce, the example (and I know that you stated that it was was a simplified example) that you have provided consists of what I term as a low level ‘gutter crime’ who perpetrators probably did have an IQ much below room temperature.
When we use examples of ‘gutter crime’, such a three drug addict killing planning to rob (and kill) a lady for her purse (which ended up containing a measly $20) when she leaves her place of business at night, I can sort of understand why extremely intelligent people would decide to support conspiracy laws.
Conspiracy laws are essentially a mode of convicting criminals when there is no real evidence aside from the testimony of their ‘co-conspirators’.
Conspiracy laws were adopted by the Federal Courts for exactly that reason. Mafia and other organized crime was out of control and how could you bust these guys when they had the financial and intellectual ability to commit crimes without leaving evidence behind and or intimidating the public from testifying against them?
The only way to get at such criminals was to pin one of them down and explain to them that look here, you are going to prison for 3,745 months (yes, that is how its done, in months, often in the thousands of months) if you don’t agree to cooperate. At this point the crimes against his co-conspirators are whatever he says they are.
When a person cooperates with the federal government and pleads guilty to a lower level offense, or receives immunity, they go through what is called ‘debriefing’. Debriefing is when you give the United States of America every single detail of every single crime that you ever committed and crimes committed by your family and friends that you have knowledge of, in your entire life, starting at the earliest age that you can remember.
You might ask, Lucas, how do you know this? I know because in the 1990s my name was listed in such paperwork. What I read was a bunch of low-life criminals (more than one) that were fabricating tales of criminal acts that never happened and sometimes acts that did happen but not at all how they portrayed them to have happened. Why did they do this? Because the Federal Courts told them that if they don’t spill their guts they will be facing possible life-sentences, sentences within the 1000s of months, and sentences within the 100s of months. Some of them ended up reducing 1000s year prison sentences to 36 or 22 months. You might be thinking now, oh, that bit about the 1000 months was only intended to scare them and such a sentence would never have been order. Not so. To the contrary, there is a well known saying that is known within the federal penal system in the USA. It goes something like this, “There are only two types of people in federal prison. There are those that told (testified against others) and those that didn’t” Those that didn’t usually don’t, if ever, hit the streets until at least a few decades have passed.
When you hear the terminology of ‘life sentence’ you might get visual images of very egregious and violent crimes. Well, that’s not how it works in the federal courts, just about any sort of crime can garner you a life sentence.
Furthermore, most cases taken up by the United States of America are NOT, I repeat, NOT, gutter crimes. With the exception to that rule I will concede that their are a very significant number of low-level-gutter-drug-dealers in federal prison but that is because one or two of their buddies supplied embellished stories about how they were really big time drug dealers (which most of them never were, never will be, and never had the sort of connections and as well as personal character needed to be).
This is the simple truth: Federal Prosecutors wield God-like power as they decide how to interpret vague and open-ended statues that can turn the stuff of everyday life into a federal crime.
More of the simple truth: The average law-abiding professional in this the USA wakes up in the morning, goes to work, come home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed SEVERAL FEDERAL CRIMES that day.
Bruce, I feel that it is imperative that I give you a more realistic example of just what sort of crimes that the Federal Courts prosecute each an every day. I feel this way because I feel that my integrity may be on the line here and I fear that if I don’t provide the following example that you maybe, if you haven’t already recently started, might start to question my judgement and possible mental aptitude or lack there off.
Routine and ordinary everyday criminal cases in the Federal Courts:
Three pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’ home in Spring Texas. Six armed police in the trucks jumped out. In the house Mr. Norris (a 65 year old man) opened his front door, thinking that these police agents must have come to the wrong address.
Seconds later the Mr Norris was showed up against the wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while federal officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through paperwork and dumped things on floor throughout the house. They later left with 37 boxes full of Mr Norris’s possessions. The federal agents refused to tell Mr Norris what he had done wrong.
The 65 year old Mr Norris was a collector of “orchids”. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling flowers into the USA, which is a criminal offense under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock to him. All he did was import flowers and sell them to orchid lovers. And it was true that some of his suppliers in Latin American sometimes were sloppy with paperwork. In a shipment of any similar plants it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.
In March of 2005, five months after the raid on his house, Mr Norris was indicted. He was handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murder and suspected drug dealers. Btw, those inmates were not federal inmates, they were state inmates. The county jails hold all types of inmates, whether they are state or federal. When the gutter-crime- State inmates asked what he was in for, and after he explained, they found it to be hilarious and hard to believe.
Check this out Bruce, the Federal Prosecutors described Mr Norris as the “KINGPIN” of an international smuggling ring. Mr Norris was dumbfounded, his annual profits were never more than $20,000.
Federal prosecutors then suggested that Mr Norris should inform (rat, snitch, tattle) on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence. Well, he refused to do so. Mr Norris, insisted that he knew nothing beyond hearsay.
He plead innocent.
But….and undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few had arrived without the correct and precise papers. For this Mr. Norris was charged with “MAKING FALSE STATEMENTS TO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS”, which is a federal crime, and based on his specific point spread at that specific moment in time (I will discuss what that is later another day) carried up to 60 months in federal prison.
Also, since he has communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with “CONSPIRACY”, which also carried, for him at least at that specific moment in time, up to an additional 60 months in federal prison.
As Mr Norris’s legal bills exploded, and as he began to realize that there was no way to beat a CONSPIRACY case, he later changed his plea to GUILTY.
Now remember what I stated in the foregoing from the outset of this discussion. Federal Court in NOTHING like States Courts. There is no simple quick plea of “Guilty” in the federal courts. Mr. Norris, as part of pleading guilty, was DEBRIEFED, and his testimony in debriefing was, NO DOUBT, used later down the road the entice other defendants to plead guilty and to inform on other individuals.
Eventually Mr Norris was sentenced to 17 months in federal prison. In federal prison there is no parole and there is not real tangible date to the end of your sentence. First you must serve at least 85% of your sentence. Then you enter a strange world called “Supervised Release” which can actually extend for a period of time beyond what your original sentence order. And during Supervised Release, you can be sent back to prison, and sometimes for a period of time surpasses the original length of prison sentence.
Well, after some time passed Mr Norris was released while his appeal was heard but then, again, he was put back in the prison after appeal. His health suffered and he has Parkinson’s disease.
This is just one case of many.
At this very moment everyone in the United States of American is breaking some sort of federal law, they just don’t know what law they are breaking and neither does the Federal Government until the moment arrives when they suspect you of having done something that they don’t approve of. At that point they will pick out a several or more statutory crimes that are so broad and wide that the language used within could apply to just about anything that anyone is doing at this moment right down the act of eating fried chicken at the dinner table. One of the crimes that will, invariably, be presented will be “conspiracy”. Because conspiracy crimes do not require real evidence.
Bruce, I like to debate with extremely and profoundly individuals such as yourself, especially with ones of great character and honor such as yourself. Please note that nothing that I have written above, including the perhaps rambling writing style that I often use, is intended to offend you in manner or fashion.
Furthermore, I am in no case implying that I am correct and that you are incorrect. I don’t know everything, and I probably only know almost nothing.
NOTE- Conspiracy laws have proved to be so effective in producing criminal convictions that conspiracy laws are used in practically every criminal case brought by the USA against individuals.
I for one don’t believe that there can be ANY FREEDOM AT ALL when a government can, at will, criminally convict citizens its citizens without real evidence and based on nothing more than testimony from other citizens that fear that they will be sent to prison from 1000 months.
@ Bruce:
I just reread my own comment last night and I’d like make a correction regarding the “well known saying that is known within the federal penal system in the USA. It goes something like this…”
The incorrect saying that I posted last night: “There are only two types of people in federal prison. There are those that told (testified against others) and those that didn’t.”
That saying should read: “There are only two types of people in federal prison. There are those that told (testified against others) and those that WISH THEY HAD TOLD“.
@ Lucas Daniel Smith:
You make an excellent case, with the use of several horrific, real life examples, for concluding that ‘criminal conspiracy’ laws have been shamefully and tragically abused in the USA.
I AGREE that the government should NOT be able to criminally convict citizens “without real evidence and based on nothing more than testimony from other citizens” who fear that they themselves may be facing a very long prison term unless they provide the ‘desired’ testimony. This is just common sense.
You stated, “Conspiracy laws are essentially a mode of convicting criminals when there is no real evidence aside from the testimony of their ‘co-conspirators’.”
I would HOPE that this would NOT be the PRIMARY reason that the ‘criminal conspiracy’ laws are currently being used. However, I have no valid reason to doubt your statement, since you have personal experience which has been impacted by our judicial system and I believe you have also studied the issue extensively. I have no such experience and I have not done any significant study in the area.
Thus, as a general statement, I will readily concede that the “criminal conspiracy” laws in the USA (like so much else that is currently not functioning properly here, unfortunately) probably do need some serious attention and perhaps modification by qualified legal professionals. However, I don’t think this legal concept should be abandoned and I think the reasonable protection to civilized society provided by them should be preserved in some fashion. Lucas, I guess we will probably just have to disagree on this point.
That said, we still need to examine how the ‘conspiracy laws’ are being applied in the case in question. In reading over the criminal complaints for the four individuals charged, I DID NOT PAY ANY SIGNIFICANT ATTENTION to what was just STATED by CHS1, since he himself is very suspect.
However, I did pay close attention to the RECORDED STATEMENTS made by the four defendants.
(btw: I see from the ‘Covert Group, 11.21.2011, Detention Order’ download provided in your 11/28/11 post, that the recording are now being described as ‘surreptitious’ rather than ‘consensual’! This makes a lot more sense and I hereby withdraw my earlier statement about the defendants apparent sub-room-temperature IQs)
I would classify ACTUAL VOICE RECORDINGS as ‘REAL EVIDENCE’, assuming of course that the recordings were not in some way technically altered to provide a false impression of the conversation. These statements are not just some ‘low-life’ lying to preserve his own fanny! These statements, it would seem, were made by the defendants engaging is a ‘criminal conspiracy’.
There is a lot more to this story, of course. We have not discussed the important topic of ‘entrapment’ yet, for example. However, I would like to continue with my comments as a reply to your latest, 11/28/11 report.
Brett Gyllenskog, Ogden, Utah
???
Excerpts:
Two more held over Logan fight
Brett Gyllenskog, 22, and Sam Lofland, 25, were arrested and booked into the Cache County Jail on second-degree felony aggravated assault and first-degree felony aggravated burglary charges. In legal jargon, “burglary” means the unlawful entry of a dwelling to rob or assault the inhabitants.
http://news.hjnews.com/article_2c704eec-5a1c-5123-9395-648fceece6d8.html
Police informant Brett Gyllenskog charged
Brett Gyllenskog, Smithfield, UT, was booked on charges of Possession of meth/cocaine, Possession of drug paraphernalia, Possession of marijuana.
http://www.voy.com/6978/11884.html
@ Bruce:
Hey Lucas. You fat fucking douche.
You are a whale.
A lying whale.
A fat fucking lying whale
No one cares