Six Hours A Week: Adventures in American Exile

Will Tester and Baucus Demonstrate a Commitment to Justice?

2009-10-21T04:37:59Z

If my Senator is co-sponsoring the Justice Bill, he should be into protecting citizens of his own state from ongoing and pervasive civil liberties violations.

Once again I'm reminded of Thailand. This situation is in one aspect like that of Hill Tribe women who had been sold into human bondage (and only in one aspect). In that case, there was really no way for the women to be helped by local communities. They were ethnic minorities that faced total discrimination. There was no incentive for any Thai government agency to help hill tribe people in general as they dealt with the AIDS epidemic and/or the aftermath of having survived sexual slavery. It took complete outsiders, Baptist missionaries, to set up prevention and education programs. And then when women were stigmatized with AIDS or their pasts as slaves and thought to be possessed within their own hill tribes (doubly and fatally stigmatized then, not just within Thai culture) it was Baptist missionaries who created a hospice where women could die and children with HIV could live in dignity. Really, there was no cultural space or possibility for a local Thai person or agency to do it.

For us today, it's hard to know where to start. The corruption is so overwhelming. My civil rights attorney lied about the existence of documents and communications and withheld documents. The ACLU was not interested in helping out in April of 2008 after he screwed us. The local Human Rights Network seems completely co-opted. The Jeanette Rainkin Peace Resource Center was co-opted from its inception. I don't think I've ever had a lawyer that didn't violate attorney-client privilege. In our quest to find new ones, we have noticed a concerted effort to distract us and waste our time.

So -- I don't have any sort of rescue fantasies, but wonder, who will have the courage and fortitude to help us out of this mess and ensure that no one has to endure anything like it again? If not my Senators (will Baucus demonstrate that he's not completely owned?), then who? Is there a Serpico in our midst? The UN? I mean, it's ridiculous. I've written so many letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience, and now I'm going on 2.5 years of virtual imprisonment in the U.S. I have to believe that someone out there cares more about justice and integrity than membership in an unprincipled patronage system. The reason the U.S. is assumed to be so great is because we supposedly don't need international observers or rescuers to swoop in and save its citizens from one another. Right?

Dear Senators Tester and Baucus,

I write because I need your assistance to combat pervasive and intractable corruption in our state. My mother and I have encountered judicial malfeasance, unfathomable corruption of the legal profession, and discriminatory, untruthful local law enforcement. We believe these overall gross violations of our rights have been made possible by lax regulation of intelligence contractors and agencies working in tandem with local agencies. In response to FOIA requests, I got the runaround from the FBI and a “Glomar” response from the NSA. The civil rights attorney I hired to help me ended up lying about which agencies he contacted and withholding documents. My mother and I cannot fight such insidious and pervasive interference in our lives alone.

We need the help of senators who are not afraid to upset the current balance of cronyism in Montana. We are targets of entrenched Republican and Democrat interests seemingly because of our sex, religious affiliation (or lack thereof) and political affiliations and activities. It is very possible that local polluting industries have funded interference in my life at one time or another for at least ten years simply because I was part of a campaign to work with the union and management at Stone Container to stop poisonous dioxin emissions in our valley.

If you are courageous men who are not hemmed by the coal or any other lobby, if you are men who believe that human and civil rights extend to all people in your state and not just the back scratching elite, then please step up and help us. The current strategy seems to be to make the administrative and legal processes of seeking assistance so drawn out and impossible as to drain all of our energy and financial resources. We need men of conscience who truly believe in the best of democratic and republican ideals to keep their compact with the electorate and not the entrenched interests of a corrupt few.

About a year ago, I contacted Senator Tester and described some of the gross violations of my and my mother’s civil rights and liberties. He suggested that I contact local law enforcement. After many more months of harassment, and actual and attempted harm to our persons and property, we did finally contact the Missoula Police Department. We have come up against lies, evasion, and overall discriminatory treatment. Again, we need the help of individuals in a position of power who will use the position that the people of Montana have entrusted them with to take a stand against corruption and cronyism. Every effort is being made to ensure that we cannot do it on our own.

I request that representatives from each of your offices contact me so that we can find a way to work together to ensure that my mother and I emerge from this morass in one piece, and that no citizen of this state will ever have to endure such politically- and socially-motivated hijacking of supposedly neutral local and federal agencies again.

Senator Tester, as a co-sponsor of the Justice Act, I believe it would be unconscionable to leave two citizens of your state who have seemingly been victims of Patriot Act Excesses out in the cold. We could easily serve as “poster children” for the necessity of reform. Please show us that your commitment to constitutional safeguards is more than mere talk.

Respectfully,

Kyeann Sayer

Did RAND Brand Me a "Terrorist"?

2009-10-05T04:03:28Z

Commuting in Los Angeles is an experiment. Just when you think you have a routine down that gets you home in under an hour, there's a surprise. You could find yourself cruising down the 10 and then suddenly at a standstill: that's right, Lakers at the Staples Center. As you're unexpectedly moving at a snail's pace one August morning you remember that it's time for the UCLA kids to clog the freeways and your commute time will double for the next four months. Many days accidents were the culprit. Often I would rely on a web site dedicated to traffic reporting to know when I should go home -- that such web sites exist illustrate how much traffic jams affect all of our lives every day.

Unpredictable, snarling traffic could be fodder for many an ethical discussion. If an ambulance can't reach me because of Lakers traffic, are the Lakers responsible? The Staples Center? The city planners?

The death and destruction related to automobiles is normal to us. There were 41,059 traffic-related fatalities in the US in 2007 alone. We've clearly collectively decided that this astounding loss of life is acceptable in our auto-centric culture.

Sometime while working with RAND I was at dinner discussing this with an acquaintance who worked in the office next to me. I'm not sure he was actually a friend. I believe he worked for Bruce Hoffman on some terrorism-related research but it could have been Brian Michael Jenkins -- I don't remember. He might have just been eliciting comments, as I now realize so many did in those years. We discussed Critical Mass, the bicycle protests where bicyclists flood the streets apparently to create an experience for drivers similar to the one they face every day. I had never taken part in one and am very unlikely to because I can barely ride a bike. He said that people shouldn't take part because if they did, they might be responsible for emergency services not being able to get through to someone in need.

I agree that would be terrible, and if I were a part of any large event that was the obvious culprit in preventing someone from getting essential medical care I'd feel awful. But traffic is so random. We don't consider a Lakers game a terrorist event when the traffic jams caused by it result in delays in all our lives -- in emergency situations or not. So, people involved in Critical Mass, who are on their bicycles, on the street to point out how violent and destructive our car culture is (not only in terms of direct destruction of human life, but astronomical CO2 levels that affect not just local communities but the whole planet) should be held to some higher standard of responsibility because their purpose for being on the street en mass biking is political in nature? What about jams caused by political conventions? It's complicated territory.

At that restaurant in that moment in time I thought that taking the risk to take part in such a demonstration despite the fact that a concurrent fateful act might make it difficult to get an ambulance through would be worth it because overall it might draw attention to the manner in which our reliance on cars kills so many. But it was all hypothetical, because, as I alluded, I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 21 and barely can. I had not intention of ever taking part in Critical Mass.

You would have thought I had approved of the most heinous atrocities known to man. By the end of that conversation my companion could barely look at me, and didn't speak to me much again. At first I thought it might have been simply that he was not used to being disagreed with, but came to believe that my comments about Critical Mass seemed to completely change his view of me -- like, change my category from nice friendly person to "bad person".
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It turns out that RAND research was intimately interwoven with submission of The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, and I think I may have been used as an unwitting guinea pig.

Two weeks prior to the bill’s introduction, Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior advisor at Rand, delivered testimony on “Jihadist Radicalization and Recruitment” to Harman’s congressional subcommittee. In 2005, Rand published a book by Jenkins that included a chapter called “Homegrown Terrorism Threats.” In that chapter, Jenkins posits that “[i]n their international campaign, the jihadists will seek common grounds with leftist, anti-American, and anti-globalization forces, who will in turn see, in radical Islam, comrades against a mutual foe.” He also mentions that the government should pay special attention to environmentalists, anti-globalization activists, and anarchists. Additionally, in his congressional testimony, Jenkins recognized that domestic anti-terror cases have succeeded thanks, in part, to laws being “interpreted broadly” by the courts.

Since I have come to assume that acquaintances at RAND were actually funded to conduct surveillance on and elicitation of me, I remember moments like the Critical Mass discussion with incredulity. Are discussions like that what have led to the surreal and pretty much unimaginable ongoing violation of my rights? I'm living in a city in which the political interference is so intense that it's nearly impossible to get a lawyer who isn't bought and paid for, where the police department has sanctioned unbelievable obstruction and violation of my rights. This can't happen without important people at the federal level at some time having been convinced that I was some sort of threat. Are hypothetical conversations about pointing out the value of human life through traffic protest enough to brand you the type of environmentalist who would join with a "jihadist"?

I am a person who had the opportunity to do tree sits and could have been a Seattle street protester if I had wanted to, but I found the Left completely disillusioning and disappointing. I guess that makes me a good candidate to be a "lone wolf"? But I had friends working with me on my failed protest... Since their lives have not been picked at mercilessly, I can only assume that they were also informants... Because costumes and shopping bags are so terrifying as to require close observation.

If my comments did make my "friend" suddenly view me as a "terrorist" based on some sort of formula/criteria established by the esteemed RAND researchers, then I humbly submit that they need new frameworks for spending taxpayer money on counterterrorism efforts. Maybe the reason I am still imprisoned by the well-funded harassment campaign is that such smart and important people aren't allowed to be wrong? A lot of resources seem to be invested in my being the wrong one, whether anything that makes me so is true or not. I guess once it is clear that the accused wasn't actually in the wrong we get into a cover up is worst than the crime situation. We seem to have been there a long time and I would greatly appreciate its ending. (How long is everyone going to bank on the idea that the next and the next and the next entrapment scheme will work?)

When I was taught in school about human rights and the environment, no one ever taught me that staying involved in those issues after graduation could have such a devastating impact on my life. Why allow schools to have human rights groups if individuals will only be punished later for believing in equality and international human rights? Why teach them to restore wetlands or care in general about the fate of the biosphere if we've made a collective decision that any action that in any way puts the health of humanity and the fate of the earth above anyone's right to make a buck will be branded a terrorist?

It's just mean. Wouldn't it be more honest to tell kids from the beginning that if they stick their necks out in even the most rudimentary way for issues that they care about, their lives could be ruined by private contractors and intelligence agencies? Or -- if they have the potential to want to do so, they may find themselves surrounded by people who aim to entrap them or elicit comments that could result in private or government funding? Why instill in generations a myth about an America where we stand up for the little guy and for our principles in law-abiding ways, and work with the rest of the world to assure democratic protections and ideals? Why make it an aspiration and then punish those who want to work to make the country and world more livable?

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Loken Builders' (and Friends') Neverending Abuse of the Legal System

2009-09-21T20:05:00Z

If my mom can't be declared incompetent, then she should be portrayed as a criminal. That's what the justice system is for, right? To ruin people's lives through civil and criminal conspiracy. To keep completely baseless law suits alive through the collusion of unethical attorneys until all options to wrest their property, livelihood or reputations from their control have been extinguished. That's what the taxpayers want from their District courtrooms.

It seems to be a very Rovian technique, accusing your opponent of what you have done. And we seem to have stumbled upon another of those efforts in the midst of this construction lien law suit that has been a pretext to steal property, drain time and resources, discredit, and declare incompetence (Mr. Geiszler told my mother's first attorney, at one of their first meetings that he planned to subpoena her medical records -- in a construction lien case that she was defending herself against). After most of those efforts failed, we now believe that this latest attempt was to try to make it appear as though my mother was engaged in civil conspiracy instead of... the numerous individuals working together to make it appear that way.

If my mother was the criminal mastermind, rather than David Ryan, then he and John Boyle would be off the hook for attempting to take over her property without her permission? And then Loken and the scores of others who have taken part in this absurd and epic effort to devalue the property and harass us wouldn't be in the wrong? All the legal malpractice that was committed would be nullified? Because rather than hapless victims trying to improve property and live productive lives, we would be the perpetrators then. Oh, how simple for everyone.
]]> without his co-defendant client's informed consent -- one of the many latest instances of legal malpractice). And why he refused to mitigate its damage. And why he claimed the corrective affidavit she begged him to file had been destroyed when she attempted to retrieve it after firing him. And why the original mysteriously reappeared after it became clear that she was filing a copy as an exhibit.

This affidavit was an attempt to frame my mother as having been caught in a lie rather than following the very bad advice of her attorneys and no one apparently wanted her to produce evidence of that, or her efforts to immediately correct her attorney's malpractice.

Apparently, the goal was to use that affidavit as part of an effort to "roll back the clock" on the case so that many of Judge Deschamps inexplicable rulings, and the general shenanigans that have taken place within the case in the last year, could be stricken. This would have apparently opened up a number of opportunities for Mr. Loken. We think it might have even given them the opportunity to revisit their coveted incompetency strategy because Deschamps' ruling that it was moot would have been set aside. Given the bizarre introduction of an unnecessary affidavit that contradicted another affidavit my mother was instructed to sign, we think there was some sort of effort to portray my mother's actions as criminal. (Rather than, like all of us should expect, she simply trusted that her attorneys would never ask her to sign something that wasn't in her best interest.)

After my mother fired the rogue attorney, Quentin Rhoades, I was still stuck with him as a codefendant. I couldn't fire him at first because we had a settlement conference coming up and had to be represented by counsel. Then, I thought we were required to file an answer brief. He made every effort to damage our case in addition to forcing the harmful affidavit upon my mother the codefendant. It became clear that I was not going to allow him to make arguments that were damaging and, indeed, had nothing to do with the law we were dealing with or any sort of necessary response to Mr. Loken's arguments.

That's when Judge Deschamps did the strangest thing (not strange for him, I guess, but strange for a judge who's generally into correctly upholding the law and interested in justice). We had September 9 as a deadline to file an Answer to one of Mr. Loken's briefs, and Deschamps rendered an Order on September 3rd, completely violating procedure and ignoring my mother's very cogent and legitimate pro se arguments. We're guessing that the overall strategy was for us to feel panicked because Deschamps had denied a motion that should have been granted (and indeed would have enormously improved our position) and for him to do so in such an outlandish manner that we would feel obligated to object, and even be open to being persuaded by Mr. Rhoades to pursue the bogus jurisdictional and other issues that he was shoving down my throat.

They didn't anticipate that this opportunity would be eliminated by my firing Mr. Rhaodes as soon as I researched the Montana Code and realized that we were not legally required to file a Reply (he had lied to me about this, of course).

See, once Mom is "incompetent" or a "criminal" (or some fabricated evidence turns me into whatever I was supposed to have been), all of the malfeasance we've encountered is supposed to be subsumed by the spectacle of whichever narrative sticks. We always ask ourselves why so much energy and effort would be invested in such a weak law suit, and it can really be the only explanation. It's an opportunity whose angles have yet to be exhausted. Until they are, apparently people will continue to do really blatantly illegal and unprofessional things on the gamble that we will soon be so discredited that none of them will matter.

What next? Judge Deschamps has once again stuck his neck out and provided a bizarre Order that helps us on appeal. An attorney has committed malpractice so blatant and egregious (and so consistent with the pattern of previous colluding attorneys) as to border on surreal. Now the goal has to be to prevent us from gaining legitimate representation before the settlement conference (one they're working on overtime, of course). We are sure they do not want to go to trial, as we are happy to do even as badly as our case has been hindered by attorney malpractice. Loken and his staff do not want to testify under oath -- we've long believed that his high tolerance for criminal mischief caps off at perjury.

For over a year, the Loken camp has given repeated blatant indicators that they are desperate for us to settle -- and indeed spoke directly with Judge Deschamps regarding what seemed like an attempt to extort us into doing so -- they just want it to happen on their terms. That's why it's still hard to understand why the case is continually used as a pretext for harassment. They have to know that any settlement will not include any sort of confidentiality provision, and that we can still pursue other claims related to civil conspiracy and other crimes. Do the people funding this want to fund an appeal? Why is it so important to discredit us and waste our time?

We initially fought the bogus lien because it was ridiculous, Loken had been way overpaid, and the job wasn't finished. He also caused a flood in the basement that he took responsibility for but refused to remedy. If the facts of the case had been sorted out by attorneys simply focusing on the law, this would have ended long ago and the impulse to fight it because we were right and didn't think a lien should be used as an extortion tool would have paid off. That attorney after attorney pretended to be working in our best interest while ruining the case is not our fault. Even for those unwilling to believe that so many attorneys and a judge are lacking professional ethics enough to collude, you have to ask yourself: why would Loken spend $40,000 in attorneys fees to pursue a $15,000 construction lien when his case is so flimsy?

We have fought his harassment because we knew the facts of the case were on our side. He has completely relied on attorney collusion to damage our case. I guess his plan is to keep doing so.

~~

Wanted: A Lawyer Who Cares About the Law

2009-09-09T00:58:04Z

So, we have just fired the third attorney who has engaged in criminal conspiracy to sabotage the case being defended against Steve Loken. This attorney's malpractice was so blatant and his manner so caustic and abusive, he seems to be among those who believes there will never be consequences to his actions. Really, Loken could no have ordered a more ideal attorney to serve his needs.

Add to this another very questionable ruling from Judge Deschamps (with procedural/clerical errors as well) that gives us one more appealable issue. It's hard to gauge his strategy. He's still making very prejudicial rulings that will make him look so bad in the eyes of an appellate court. One surmises that he bets it won't get that far... So does he assume we'll be "incompetent" or dead? Or that Mr. Loken will finally throw in the towel? Or we'll be forced to settle for some unforeseen reason?

So, we are in the position once again to find an attorney. One that is not a sadist who seemingly derives joy from putting his client in powerless and dangerous positions. A lawyer who automatically acts in his client's best interests rather than fighting tooth and nail to do all he can to ruin the case. I can't imagine the day when a lawyer will actually act on my or my mother's behalf.

So -- anyone out there? Know any lawyers who care about their clients and the law? Who are immune to whatever amalgam of energy industry and right wing funding still intent on ruining our lives? Not every lawyer in this state can be corrupt to the core.

(A month and a half and no word from Chief Muir... or anyone at the Mayor's Office, the City Attorney's Office, The County Attorney's Office...)

~~

The Legal Malpractice Playbook: Organized Crime Tool

2009-08-18T17:04:53Z

There's an organized crime strategy that I haven't heard discussed, but has become very evident in my encounters with attorneys over the past three years: lawyers/firms who take on clients only so that they can ruin or interfere with their cases and/or affairs. There must be an instruction pamphlet for this somewhere.

The dominant image of this type of behavior is some sort of Italian Mob interference rather than the specific targeting of environmentalists, feminists or non-Christians. Since those seem to be the characteristics about Mom and me that have sustained a well-funded overall life interference campaign, I imagine that others are targeted for similar political/social characteristics.

The forms of malpractice we have encountered are just too consistent for these tactics to be isolated to us. Attorney/client interference seems to be a favored means of depriving "undesirables" of their Constitutional rights. Here are some examples -- I'll do some more editing and adding later.

(I am not qualified to give legal advice -- the anecdotes here are my experience and I take no responsibility for what anyone does with the information. But I hope it's helpful!)

1. Bait and Switch (Fraud)
The unsuspecting client can be lured into hiring an attorney who promises to provide specific services or take the case in a certain direction. The problem is, most retainer or other attorney-client agreements don't allow for spelling out in detail why someone has agreed to hire a specific attorney or firm. To ensure that our interests are protected, we have started to add Addendums to contracts that stipulate what has been promised, and our understanding of what the firm has agreed to do.
]]> 2. Providing Constant Attention at First, and then Disappearing
This is a tactic employed along with Bait and Switch. Since finding an attorney takes so much time and energy, it's natural to feel a sense of relief when you do, and to be too busy or overwhelmed to find yet another one. It can take a while to realize that someone does not have your best interests at heart, and by the time you do, you might be up against an important deadline.

To provide an initial impression of competence and concern, attorneys may be hyper-available for the first few weeks of representation -- answering emails immediately and giving thorough answers to your concerns. Then, when an important filing is due, they may completely cut off contact or provide little information about your case. If issues central to your livelihood/existence are at stake, this is highly anxiety-producing. When they do appear again, you are grateful to get even cursory responses.

3. Taking Action Against Your Interests or Without Informed Consent
We should all be able to assume that whatever our attorneys ask us to sign or do will be in our best interest. After all, they were hired to help. But if you're a politically active or otherwise even mildly controversial person, it seems that it is necessary to take extra precaution.

Attorneys have to explain to you why they are doing what they are doing so that you understand the directions they take with your case. They can fail to do this by not telling you that they've changed their minds about taking a deposition, or simply not explaining the consequences of a filing. They may attempt to wrest your property from your control, and if you don't understand the ramifications of what they put in front of you, you're screwed. In the midst of efforts to use a law suit to get you declared incompetent or otherwise discredit you, they might provide advice that makes you more vulnerable to these machinations. In these instances, you can be placed in a vulnerable position when you are not fully informed of your rights and options, and an attorney takes action that is detrimental to you.

4. Avoiding Documentation
The actions described above are clearly malpractice, and attorneys don't want to lose their licenses. So when they give bad advice, or ignore your wishes, they like to do it in untraceable ways. We have witnessed attorneys give every excuse to get us on the phone or in a meeting so that their bad advice is not in any way documented.

Insist that advice is provided in writing/email. Provide written summaries of any phone calls or meetings with your interpretation of what occurred and what the next steps will be.

5. Escaping Documentation
Once you let it be known that you insist on documenting advice and decisions, the next strategy will be to make it difficult. Most of us rely primarily on the computer. Suddenly, however, email communication becomes impossible. Your troublesome emails are interrupting someone's Saturday football game (as though he can't turn of his blackberry and respond to your message when he is able). Your very clear responses to emails are suddenly apparently nonsensical. If tactic 2 is employed, your multiple emails seeking answers to essential questions are portrayed as unreasonable. A dictum that you may now only discuss and make decisions about the case via snail mail is put into effect (I'm not making this up).

All of this is to keep bad advice from being easy to document.

6. Administrative Stonewalling
You have an important deadline coming up, but suddenly all forms of communication are impossible. She's suddenly unavailable all day. He's on vacation. She's out of cell phone range. She's suddenly on vacation. She has to cancel a meeting at the last minute for personal reasons. He agrees to a meeting via telephone but forgets to tell his assistant, who insists that he is not available for a week. He will only meet in person at his office. Though you indicate the location of the meeting, the assistant deliberately and repeatedly continues to confirm another location. Once email communication is forbidden, since you need to have written documentation of advice, you have to wait days to get answers to important questions by mail. (When any of this frustrates you, you are just "impossible.")

7. Sowing Conflict and Blaming You
If an attorney takes on your case only to screw it up, and you're not letting that happen or are identifying malpractice, then he/she needs a pretext to get rid of you -- preferably at a really bad time. Any of the following will do to make you seem difficult. Deliberately misinterpreting communications to make them seem adversarial. Insulting you so that you will fire back an angry response. Portraying any reasoned attempt you make to provide clarification as incendiary. Their malpractice is obscured by their theatrics around how supposedly difficult you are.

So, the focus shifts from an attorney cutting off communication or not doing what is promised to a client harassing an attorney. Thus, when the attorneys are unable to manipulate us to their satisfaction through other techniques, they can simply claim that we are difficult/impossible. As this becomes quite surreal and overall appalling, all one can do is stick to facts, hope not to feed into whatever angry/difficult narrative they're promoting, and keep cool until your next option is clear.

8. Divide and Conquer
When two or more people are involved in a case, an effort will be made to prey on each individual's weakness, isolate the parties, and try to create conflict between them.

For instance, my mother's legal knowledge has saved her from being completely railroaded by a cadre of corrupt attorneys and public servants. My advocacy and strategy have also been essential. Mom can do legal research to counter attorneys' bogus claims, and knows how to file documents with the court, but isn't great at defending herself verbally. In situations where my assistance would be beneficial, every effort is made to isolate her and attempt to get her to do what she has done in the past -- be persuaded to trust attorneys who are ethically and legally obligated to protect her interests. When I am too good at ensuring that communication is documented and they aren't getting away with malpractice, they disparage me to her in an apparent attempt to divide us. A favorite tactic is to (often quite cruelly and always inappropriately) disparage one of us to the other via email, or exclude one party from essential email discussions. (Of course, this is also designed to provoke an angry response to the attorney per tactic 7.)

(BTW, depending on what serves them, at one time the judge or opposing counsel or corrupt attorney will claim that my mother "should have known better" when she was being sent down the river -- because of her legal degree. At another time, her having been taken advantage of is supposedly proof that she's incompetent. So -- the problem is that she's either too knowledgeable or needs a guardian -- it just shows how tactical it all is.)

Any client is going to have strengths and weaknesses. We should all have the right to attorneys whose intention is to give us sound advice rather than prey upon them.

9. When You Call Them on Their Malpractice, They Try to Frame you as Difficult
This is classic. They've avoided you for weeks, taken action without your informed consent, made a mistake in a filing -- any of these, all of these, or more. You have frantically attempted to get them to correct their mistake or omission. When they don't respond, you copy partners or other associates to remind the firm of its professional obligation to you. You do all you can to ensure that you have protected your interests, and as a result of these actions you are accused of being difficult or impossible. Your efforts to have them mitigate the damage they have done to your case are portrayed as unreasonable.

Your case has been mangled. Your lawyer's only response is that your efforts to get mistakes rectified have sealed you as impossible to represent. You have to find yet another attorney, pay him or her to get up to speed on the case, and hope that he/she won't put you through the same process all over again.

You can see how any of these tactics is stress-inducing. When many of them are applied together, they work as part of an overall strategy to disrupt someone's life. Having to spend so much time to get someone who should be serving your interests to do so is frustrating and time-consuming. One ridiculous, baseless, extortion-like law suit can be protracted for years when your attorneys aren't working for you. It's time that people can't spend writing, organizing, or pursuing the leisure activities that keep them happy. It's a great way to destabilize and interfere with political enemies.

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Chief Muir Contradicts Himself...

2009-07-23T20:51:24Z

For starters: here is what Conspiracy Against Rights is. It has nothing to do with space aliens or black helicopters.

It's always scary when people in positions of authority give different explanations for their procedures based on what is most convenient at the moment, all while trying to blame you for their choices.

I'm not sure what all occurred in the conversation that just took place between Chief Muir and my mom. She's summarizing it, and she asked him to put his strange contentions in written form so that there would be a record of them. Though he refused to take an official statement from my mother when she offered, he is going to take one from Alain Goodman. Yay for impartial police work.

In response to my inquiry about the report that she filed about Alain Goodman accosting her, Muir told me in writing that he could not comment because it was reported by her. Fine.

Today, he told her that he never responded to her because he was waiting for "corroborating evidence as to how [her] complaint fits into [my] overall conspiracy theory." (Though I specifically said we were waiting for action on her complaint and wanted to know the process of obtaining a restraining order...) He didn't want to stir up the neighborhood with "unsubstantiated claims." He also said to her that he had requested more information about the incident from me but I had refused to supply it.

So... when I am interested in knowing when the police are going to follow up with my mother about an assault, responding would violate her privacy. Yet, they can't follow up with her because they're waiting for something from me?

And -- her complaint just ended up on Muir's desk without any official record of her having filed it. My understanding is that no action can be taken on an issue unless there is a recorded complaint filed. Though she did not file it in relation to the overall harassment situation (indeed, until recently Chief Muir hadn't even agreed that he would examine evidence in that light -- I'm not yet sure he has), he just left it on his desk and awaited more info from me? Rather than following up on an assault? And when I asked him about it he said (on official police stationary) that he couldn't respond?

Clearly, this is some sort of backfill explaining.

Even better: apparently, he has heard from a third party that the incident did not occur out of the blue as my mother was walking down the street with croissants, but the frightening encounter was somehow a response to my mom's taking a picture. That's not the case (mom didn't have a camera with her), but even if it were, since when is someone allowed to assault someone else because he or she is being photographed? And why would a police officer decide to omit any official record of a complaint based on some third party claim? Aren't they still obligated to follow up and get a statement from the complainant about what occurred?

This third party called and complained about Mom's having taken a picture before he received her complaint. But -- I called Sergeant Richardson immediately after it happened. I wrote about it right away. So -- why does that call about photography somehow cancel out my Mom's written complaint about assault? Why does what other people say carry so much more weight than what we say? I have repeatedly asked about any documentation or official complaining about us from the neighbors and have just gotten very vague, non-specific answers.

People have been working overtime to make our taking of photographs of people who exhibit odd behavior in front of our home, or of vehicles who park in the proximity for no apparent reason, as some sort of crime. We do it defensively as stalking victims to document the odd/stalkerish/harassment behavior in the neighborhood. We have explained to our neighbors why we do it and have asked them to contact us with any concerns. If there is some legal issue about taking photographs on the public street, I'm sure that someone in some sort of official capacity can let us know.

Sergeant Richardson indicated to me that it was perfectly legal for Alain Goodman to stand on the sidewalk and photograph our property. I can't imagine that it's illegal for us to stand on our own property and photograph the street. Though these people take pains to get us to interact with them, we never do.

Anyhow -- the double standards and multiple explanations are odd.

It seems as though Chief Muir's next rhetorical tack (since "insincere" didn't quite work out) is the woo-woo, crazy ladies conspiracy angle. Again, conspiracy is when two people get together to plan to do harm/make mischief/deprive people of their rights. The way that Chief Muir contradicts himself, fails to give sufficient legal/procedural explanations for his or his officers decisions, engages in slippery policy, and strives to come up with reasons that our claims are illegitimate, suggests to me that he has spoken with at least one other person about ways to deligitimize our claims or keep them from becoming official police record. Given what he and Sergeant Richardson have written, and how they have responded, this is legitimate interpretation. But I can see why Chief Muir would want to promote an inaccurate interpretation of what conspiracy means rather than one that might apply to him or to officers in his department.

He said he would let my mom know in writing by the middle of next week why he chose not to follow up on her assault or create any official record of it.

~~

Missoula Police Department "Losing" Our Complaint Records...

2009-07-23T18:08:25Z

So, today Mom called to follow up on the Citizen's Complaint she filed against Alain Goodman after he accosted her on June 25. It's no wonder Chief Muir didn't want to comment on it or voluntarily follow up. Despite the fact that she both faxed the complaint and sent it certified, there is no record of it in the Department's system. Two separate officers searched for it and couldn't find it.

And we're supposed to believe that the Department is a neutral party, dispassionately interested in protecting us as much as any other citizens? That Chief Muir is just itching to follow up on our array of Complaints? I have corresponded with Chief Muir about this incident repeatedly. Now we have to ask -- who/what is the Department covering for? It's seemed from Day 1 that Sergeant Richardson and Chief Muir were mostly interested in preventing us from supplying documentation and evidence. Then when one of us makes a report, it disappears. And the problem is supposedly my/our "insincerity" about wanting to make official reports? This is ridiculous.

Now I'll be interested to see how many of my 911 stalking/harassment calls have been "lost."

It's not at all an exaggeration to say that we're venturing into official cover-up territory here. It's going to be more and more difficult to make this about us instead of the people and practices Chief Muir seems to be protecting.

Dear Chief Muir... Please Provide Legitimate Assistance.

2009-07-19T16:22:42Z

Sunday, July 19 at 10:22 PM

Chief Muir,

(Blog post below for your perusal.)

Your July 10 letter was the first one in which you gave any instructions on how you would like to receive evidence, so I find it odd that you spent so much of the letter describing how I was not providing you with evidence, and questioning my sincerity.

I will file police reports to avoid the one-year statue of limitations issue. Until I retain a civil rights attorney, I will continue to seek out others in County and State government who might take a more sympathetic/responsive tack toward addressing someone who has endured nearly two years of relentless harassment in your jurisdiction. I don't consider you a neutral party, and will therefore seek out additional people to send information to in addition to you. You professed a preference for me to send evidence and documentation to you directly without officially filing the reports. However, I will file official reports and include evidence -- it is my understanding that in order for a complaint to be actionable it must be reported. Is that not true?

I must say that your ongoing attitude toward me suggests that you don't believe that your policies/responses will ever be reviewed by an independent body/that you will ever be accountable for them. This is disturbing since we have dealt with numerous attempts to harm us, and/or completely diminish our credibility through entrapment and other means. I would certainly hope that you are not relying on such an eventuality. Your taking this "insincerity" approach is in itself quite insincere, and seems like a further attempt to diminish my credibility.

In regard to specifics:

It seems that the one year statute of limitations on individual misdemeanor offenses would not apply to incidents that are an aspect of an ongoing criminal conspiracy. Please clarify how I can submit information from over one year old that is/has been part of ongoing efforts. Please clarify how I can best coordinate with you and the county and/or state attorney on providing the criminal conspiracy information. Feel free to elaborate and provide any and all helpful information I could use for reporting criminal conspiracy -- this should save us all a lot of time.

You indicated you are not in receipt of the letter your were copied on that I sent to Alain and Darla Goodman's landlord dated June 4th. Sergeant Richardson responded to that letter by looking up my blog and responding to the email address there, rather than responding by post. I find it odd that he had not forwarded the letter to you since you were the one copied on it.

We believe that many suspicious vehicles are associated with the ongoing harassment campaign. We wouldn't provide a "general list of vehicles parked in the neighborhood which you feel might have been suspicious in some unknown way" as you suggest in your response to this description of the issue of license plates:

We have dealt with an overall stalking and harassment situation. We have dozens of incidents to report, and many associated suspicious license plates. Investigators who are truly interested in the why and how have a lot to go on. Again, we could report these all as individual instances or provide them succinctly to a genuinely curious party who would like to follow up thoroughly. The latter seems more efficient.

What about that description suggests that I intend to provide the "general list" that you describe? As must be abundantly clear by now, what I am reporting is stalking, harassment and hate crime. I believe suspicious vehicles and individuals associated with them (some of which have been photographed in the process of bizarre/harassing behavior), are part of this larger effort. Hence, my desire to report these incidents as part of stalking, harassment, and hate crime. Please let me know how to report them as an aspect of that, or if that would involve coordination with County and/or State agencies.

You say that you can't answer the following without receiving my evidence. I beg to differ. It might be uncomfortable for you to explain your department's handling of this, but certainly many of these questions are imminently answerable. If you had enough information to claim that Sergeant Richardson's procedure was not "bizarre," you must have enough information to explain to me why, from an objective procedural and legal standpoint, it was not.

You claim that a general prohibition on contacting the neighbors in any way is not "bizarre." What legal or department procedural policy allows a police officer to instruct a citizen not to communicate in any way with her neighbors -- without indicating which neighbors or citing specific complaints from any of them? I provided ample documentation of harassment from neighbors to Sergeant Richardson -- has he instructed them not to contact us? Have they provided any evidence or documentation of our supposed harassment of them? My understanding is that I need to file a restraining order against anyone whom I don't wish to contact me, and that I need to have documentation to do so. It seems discriminatory to take their concerns seriously, but not ours -- especially when we are the ones who initiated contact with your department. Please clarify.

Only the last statement seems to rely upon my evidence. The rest of the information should be professional knowledge or gleaned from Sergeant Richardson.

We have large amounts of food and liquid evidence. When workers were in the house last summer, in addition to seemingly purposeful attempts to expose us to toxic chemicals (not warning us about toxicity, removing the barriers we set up to protect ourselves) a number of pantry items were tampered with. We have become ill a number of times due to what seems like tampering with food and bottled water. We have saved these items for testing. Please let me know how best they can be submitted to the state lab. (We have been concerned that one of the goals of the drug entrapment attempts was to remove these items before they could be tested.) Specifically, around the time a doctor misdiagnosed me with hepatitis (seemingly to make me appear as an IV drug user -- another doctor was shocked at her misreading of the blood work and treating me for an affliction I clearly did not have), I suffered major pain for months that turned out to be my gallbladder. It became evident that bottled water that I drank consistently caused and exacerbated the problem. I believe it may have been tainted with oxalic acid, which promotes gall stones. Clearly, I believe that the doctor who misdiagnosed me should be questioned, as well as individuals who seem to have been involved with the food and beverage tampering.

And to preempt any more of your language about all of this being some sort of impression we have -- that is why we saved items for testing. I'm sure the individuals involved thought that we would be dead or discredited before anyone would be accountable for it. The fact of people deciding to do these heinous things to us does not reflect on our stability or capacity. Again -- we have evidence.

Finally, your questioning my sincerity at this time is disappointing to say the least. Though the overall atmosphere of intimidation and harassment has for the most part abated in the neighborhood, we are still dealing with a major campaign to disrupt our lives. Right now it is necessary to provide documentation to a number of entities. Just this last week, we dealt with what seems like an additional entrapment attempt when someone somehow piped what smelled like pot smoke into our first floor bathroom. I recently suffered food poisoning, and the recent chemical exposure in the back yard of which you are aware. As is clear by the way you relate to me, documenting and reporting such incidents in a manner that law enforcement can act on them is difficult; they are that way by design. We go through each day knowing that a number of people in the local community wish for our demise so that the prospect of facing consequences for criminal wrongdoing will go away. Again, you did not instruct me about how you would like to receive evidence until your July 10 letter. Doing so will be very time consuming, and your incomplete information, lack of straightforward answers and seeming inability to understand basic descriptions of criminal activity (see below) don't help. I have wanted a procedure in place to make it easier for all of us. Though the process may take time, and immediate issues of survival pop up in our lives with alarming regularity and demand our full attention, please never doubt for a moment that I want more than anything to see appropriate legal remedy for the overwhelming amount of illegal activity that we have endured. It would be nice to know that the person receiving the information had a genuine desire to see justice served.

I will do my best to make it easy for local law enforcement to pursue crimes that my mother and I have endured in Missoula. I will make every effort to supply evidence and documentation at a timely pace. I hope that you will become sincere and forthcoming. The things that have happened to us are bizarre, but that is not our fault. Believe that there are thousands of things I'd rather do than try to find out a way to provide evidence and documentation to you that best serves justice. Had we not documented most aspects of our lives as well as we have, I sincerely believe we would not be alive right now. Please do not add insult to injury by continuing with insincere deflective strategies and what seems like a continuation of "blaming the victim."

Kyeann Sayer

Chief Muir's "Insincerity" Narrative

2009-07-19T13:33:25Z

Chief Muir sent me a letter dated July 10 (postmarked July 13) in response to the email below. It is the first communication in which he has provided any specific information about how he would prefer to receive evidence and documentation.

Yet, the new tactic is to make it look like I'm simply not supplying evidence and only like to argue. When I've been waiting for procedural preferences as well as assurance that someone other than Chief Muir will bear responsibility for reviewing the information I submit. This man's first substantive communication with me involved warnings to keep quiet about my claims that the department was mishandling our situation. Since that first interaction, he hasn't given me much of a reason to trust him.

For example, I stated these concerns about Chief Muir's defending the legitimacy of Sergeant Richardson's actions in his last letter.

You claim that a general prohibition on contacting the neighbors in any way is not "bizarre." What legal or department procedural policy allows a police officer to instruct a citizen not to communicate in any way with her neighbors -- without indicating which neighbors or citing specific complaints from any of them? I provided ample documentation of harassment from neighbors to Sergeant Richardson -- has he instructed them not to contact us? Have they provided any evidence or documentation of our supposed harassment of them? My understanding is that I need to file a restraining order against anyone whom I don't wish to contact me, and that I need to have documentation to do so. It seems discriminatory to take their concerns seriously, but not ours -- especially when we are the ones who initiated contact with your department. Please clarify.

His response?

I will reply to your third point upon receipt and review of your evidence, as I am unable to knowledgeably respond without that evidence.

What? He is unable to make a statement about legality and department policy? He can't answer these specific questions? He can't provide clarification on the restraining order issue? He doesn't have access to the information supplied to Sergeant Richardson?

Is putting off responding to these very answerable questions (albeit uncomfortable, because they reveal some pretty fuzzy/shoddy procedure), because he believes that I for some reason will not be in a position to supply all of the documentation and evidence? I'll be too distracted, perhaps?

You've gotta love the way he ends his letter:

I do not understand why you have not already brought me the evidence which you so repeatedly have insisted we accept from you. If for some reason you have been insincere as to your intent to share your evidence with me, please feel free to cease communication and seek the assistance of state or federal authorities...

Is there anything about my communication that seems insincere? Seriously? As though I wouldn't sincerely want to help law enforcement to punish the people who have relentlessly harassed and intimidated us? I'm sorry, but that seems like a very insincere tack.

My major concern has been wanting a procedure in place that makes sense. My entire life has been derailed by this harassment campaign, and documenting it all takes time and energy. A proper process is important, as it sets the framework for how these matters are handled. I guess it will be necessary to file individual reports for every single incident and send copies to his attention. I think that the department's obligations are more extensive if an actual report is filed, so it seems necessary to do so. Of course, It's going to take a lot of time to file all of these individual reports. To me it makes complete sense why a person in my position wouldn't just hand over all of her documentation and information to someone who has revealed himself to be less than objective or trustworthy and isn't accountable to anyone else in the department.

So, here we have local law enforcement playing into the goals of the overall campaign: creating such overwhelming and pervasive harassment as to halt someone's life to a standstill. Right now we are in a position of having to provide documentation to the health department, lawyers, insurance agents, the doctor's office that I have to follow up with constantly to ensure that they don't send paid accounts to collections, the police department, and others. By not answering questions, not volunteering appropriate information, and taking an overall defensive posture, I have to work overtime to figure out my rights and how our evidence will avoid slipping through the cracks. I am the victim of stalking and harassment and attempted entrapment, and have been preemptively treated as the perpetrator. I wonder if they treat all stalking victims this way or if we're special.

So, when there are all of those people out there waiting for information who have an investment in making it seems as though it doesn't exist or that we're making it up, I always pause when a key person like the police chief portrays my lack of immediate reaction as "insincere." (Especially when -- again -- I've repeatedly emphasized an overall desire for a process that ensures accountability and efficiency.) I've learned that such a rhetorical turn usually indicates a narrative is forming: in this case it seems to be the "insincerity" narrative. Something like, "Those ladies, they like to make claims, but they never follow up." But we have been put in a position where we need to document nearly every business and consumer interaction in order to protect ourselves. For heaven's sake, we just found out last week that we avoided an incompetency hearing for my mother! (This letter was written before that matter had been decided -- maybe he thought we'd still be overwhelmed by that.) That's the a central goal of a harassment campaign like the one we've endured: complete and utter disruption of a person's life in such a way that is difficult to document and makes him or her seem to be the party at fault. So the Department preemptively does not want to see it as though we're dealing with constant criminal assaults, but are simply insincere and withholding. Wow.

I can see why he admonishes, "Please don't continue to haggle or dispute this department's handling of your complaints, it is just taking time away from determining the validity of those issues you feel we aren't addressing." His emphasis takes legitimacy away from the importance of the process. If I'm just haggling, then apparently I'm not expressing legitimate concerns about Chief Muir's neutrality and the objective handling of my case. Then I'm a haggler, not someone who wants to be assured that if she takes the time to amass piles of narrative and documentation that it's not going to end up in the back of the Police Chief's filing cabinet. Also, since the situation has obviously been completely mishandled, I can see why he would discourage me from continuing to point out inconsistent or discriminatory procedure.

Interestingly, I copied Chief Muir on a letter to our neighbor's landlords dated June 4, but he seems to have never seen it. It was the basis of Sergeant Richardson's contacting me. Strange that even now he has not forwarded Chief Muir a copy of the letter.

I'm also concerned about Chief Muir's ability to accurately interpret clear written communication. In response to my concerns about David Merrill making extortion-like threats, he says that "Threats of legal action or law enforcement investigation is not a threat upon which any criminal charge may be undertaken." But I said clearly:

if my mother did not pay him a certain amount, he indicated that he would circumvent legal channels and sic the police department on us.

Does Chief Muir not understand the meaning of "circumventing legal channels"? The point about Mr. Merrill was that he did not threaten legal action, as would have been appropriate. He should have gone through appropriate legal channels. Instead he said that if he was not paid a certain amount of money, he would call the police, in addition to other threats. He knew that we were fearful of law enforcement's involvement with our harassment at that time -- the threat seemed designed to scare us. As you can see below, I indicate clearly that the problem was that he was not using appropriate legal remedy but threatening to use the police as enforcers for his demand for money.

Then, there are little niggling annoying things. I asked for follow-up on Mom's report filed re: the neighbor's assault. He can't follow up with me because it would violate her privacy. Great -- completely valid. But, why not follow up with her directly? His department's mishandling of the situation contributed to incident's even taking place. One would think that the department could follow up with her within a month's time. And, my asking about it would at least alert them to the fact that our household is interested in the outcome... And might prompt a follow-up. But we haven't heard anything. (Waiting for her to be declared incompetent, perhaps?)

Another thing: he says not to submit evidence that's over a year old. But if it's part of ongoing criminal conspiracy, isn't it still valid/valuable? Or would the state attorney need to handle that? This is where I find the handling problematic. It seems that it's being viewed/handled in the narrowest possible terms, with the least amount of helpful information provided. Of course, it would be lovely to have a civil rights attorney that wasn't for sale. We don't have that luxury yet. But we will. And when that day comes it seems like the Department will want to have lent the appearance legitimacy.

You may ask: why do you take the time to write these posts? Well, if I didn't, I believe the next door neighbors would have remained in full on campaign mode and that Chief Muir wouldn't even be giving me lip service.

~~

County Attorney's Office Not Interested in Hearing about Criminal Activity. Yet.

2009-07-09T13:23:00Z

I sent the email below and then thought it best to follow up with specifics. At least the recipients at the city and county can't pretend they haven't been somewhat filled in.

Am I handling this badly? Wrong? I guess there's no Emily Post Guide to convincing law enforcement and county prosecutors to care about crimes against you. I would feel worse about my handling of it if someone had taken the time to explain to me exactly how to best submit evidence of multiple, interwoven crimes and I was ignoring them.

All along it has seemed as though everyone was holding his or her breath, waiting for one of us to die, for one of the entrapment schemes to work, or for us to be labeled crazy for saying out loud that all of this was happening. As long as any of that was in store, none of the specific crimes would matter because we would be discredited and not in a position to pursue them.

We'll see how long that trend continues. Can they really get away with ignoring claims like those below? They're only a teeny tiny piece of the tip of the ice burg.

from       Kyeann Sayer
date        Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:12 AM
subject    Specific Examples of Criminal Activity

Let me provide some examples in the hope that it will clarify my dilemma of how best to provide evidence.

In an email exchange, a Missoula resident named David Merrill threatened what amounts to extortion -- if my mother did not pay him a certain amount, he indicated that he would circumvent legal channels and sic the police department on us. This is a violation of many laws (including those governing email communications locally). We believe that he was threatening the extortion as part of a larger scheme to foreclose on my mother's property. I could simply submit a police report with evidence of his threat and so it would be treated as a single issue. It seems, however, as though it would make looking into all of this simpler if someone had a file labeled something like "Conspiracy to Damage/Foreclose on Property X" and Mr. Merrill's individual extortion attempt could go there. From an investigative perspective, it seems like it makes sense to have the overall context along with the report of the individual attempt.

Also, the day before an important court appearance, my mom suffered carbon monoxide poisoning because her car had been tampered with. Not only was the exhaust system somehow blocked, but a part was pulled out of the engine so that it was burning and smoking. When she took it to the mechanic, he said that it could have exploded if we drove much further. We have pictures of it, the receipt from the mechanic, and an idea of who could have done it. It seems that all of this information would be very helpful to investigators.

A gentleman named Ty Cranmore threatened to use a Sheriff's Department employee as a hired goon when we wouldn't return a piece of property that my mother had purchased from his employer and that he had damaged. We believe he intentionally damaged property, and think his threats bordered on extortion. He used hate speech in our home, apparently to contribute to the overall atmosphere of intimidation. We would like to know why Mr. Cranmore was so confident in his feeling of entitlement to damage our property and then receive local government back-up.

We have dealt with an overall stalking and harassment situation. We have dozens of incidents to report, and many associated suspicious license plates. Investigators who are truly interested in the why and how have a lot to go on. Again, we could report these all as individual instances or provide them succinctly to a genuinely curious party who would like to follow up thoroughly. The latter seems more efficient.

I have a hard time believing that the city and county of Missoula would not want to follow up on issues like these. I hope you will start treating us like citizens to help and protect.

Kyeann Sayer

from    Kyeann Sayer
date    Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 6:50 AM
subject    Re: Request for Liaison
mailed-by    gmail.com

Mr. Van Valkenburg,

Are you not interested in pursuing criminal activity in the county? I have evidence of harm to persons and property including fraud and criminal conspiracy -- as well as attempts to do physical harm to my mother and me. Many of these crimes appear to have been hate-based. It seems odd that you would make a predetermination that you are not interested in pursuing such serious matters.

We have such extensive documentation and material evidence that I would like a consistent and clear means of providing it to your office and the police department so that we are all spared a great deal of energy and effort. I would like to help your office operate efficiently, so that tax payer dollars are not wasted unnecessarily through sloppy communication and duplication of efforts.

Since you will not identify a liaison, please let me know how you would like to learn about the criminal activity we have endured in Missoula County.

I am sure you don't want to send the message that you are not interested in receiving information about and pursuing criminal activity by preemptively ensuring that your office is not aware of it. So far, that is what your communication suggests. Many of the people involved in doing us harm are prominent community members and it seems as though they have felt protected by individuals in the police and sheriff's department (I have evidence of this); I'm sure you don't want to lend the appearance of obstructing our efforts in order to protect them.

I look forward to working with your office to ensure that justice is served in Missoula County. Again, please let me know how best to so.

Kyeann Sayer

- Hide quoted text -

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Fred VanValkenburg <fvanvalk@co.missoula.mt.us> wrote:

Dear Ms. Sayer,

You are not getting a liaison in the County Attorney's office. We have no business with you to discuss.

Fred Van Valkenburg

Missoula County Attorney

>>> Kyeann Sayer <kyeann@gmail.com> 7/8/2009 04:07 AM >>>
All,

Since Mr. Van Valkenberg sent me the pasted text of an email he claims to have sent on June 29 (I never received it), I have not heard from him. I am eager to have a liaison in the county attorney's office in order to streamline communication.

Thank you,

Kyeann Sayer

from Kyeann Sayer <kyeann@gmail.com>
to Fred VanValkenburg <fvanvalk@co.missoula.mt.us>
date Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 9:15 PM
subject Re: Threatening Behavior from Alain Goodman This Morning

Mr Van Valkenburg,

I never received a June 29 email and don't see it below.

My mother and I have endured much criminal activity in Missoula County and believe that your office should seriously consider our claims. Please let me know with whom I should confer about this. I will be forwarding information to the police department, but also think it's important to have a liaison in your office.

Thank you,

Kyeann Sayer

More Sleazy Fun with Tim Geiszler's Silly, Little Lies

2009-07-08T12:33:26Z

This man is priceless. The minutiae of these peoples' ploys is so incredible. That people are paid or volunteer to sit around thinking of the tiniest ways to discredit my mom astounds me. I always have to wonder how many people this is happening to.

So, the Geiszler/Loken camp is in a desperate full court press to convince Judge Deschamps to convene a completely unprecedented and uncalled for competency hearing. Apparently in order to back up his claim that Mom is unreliable or incompetent, Geiszler does the pettiest little thing.

He files a motion with the court to extend the deadline for the settlement conference the judge has ordered. Only, he says that he's tried to contact Mom regarding the rescheduling but she didn't respond. He files the motion with the description of her non-response on Thursday, and on that same Thursday afternoon sends Mom the email asking her if she minds rescheduling. Obviously, she couldn't respond after Geiszler had already filed something saying she didn't.

So he's lied. In a court filing. About something so stupid and little. He clearly doesn't mind lying. I guess if you're willing to try to wrest control of someone's life away from her for strategic reasons, your professional ethics don't dissuade you from lying in court documents.

This is the kind of petty ridiculousness we deal with -- it's also very instructive. This is how people are discredited and their lives ruined. Little by little. A tiny lie here, and a tiny lie there, and a few big lies thrown in, and suddenly you have what seems like community-wide consensus about someone's character or, in this case, competency.

I would wager that Geiszler thought that his little lie would slip through without rebuttal. He would think that because he would assume that our new attorney would start filing immediately and he would be reasonably confident that that attorney would not want to dispute Mr. Geiszler's representation. He would assume that our new attorney would go along with the incompetence narrative. Because previous attorneys have gone along with Mr. Geiszler's narratives.

And there it would be as evidence: See, the Defendant can't function on her own -- she can't even respond to simple email requests.

Sorry, Mr. Geiszler. The tricks you learned in whatever Sleazy Lawyer Guild you belong to can't work forever. Now your silly, little email is part of the public record along with your silly, little lie of a filing. Congratulations -- the Montana Bar should be proud to have you.

~~

Chief Muir's Response: Not Much Accountability or Genuine Responsiveness Yet

2009-07-08T12:10:55Z

Ok, I admit it. When I wrote this post I hadn't read Chief Muir's letter (sometimes we need a break from all of this) but relied on Mom's report of it. The July 4th vibe got the best of me and I wanted to interpret it through rose-colored glasses. I already knew that I was going to have to keep on my toes and document my socks off. But it's becoming more and more clear that in a situation like this, it's important that our evidence is actually documented and doesn't just end up in the back of someone's file cabinet. I have to say that so far that seems to be the official desire.

I'll be interested to learn what departments are legally required to act on. For instance, if I don't file official reports, is there a lower standard of accountability? It seems like all possible has been done to point me in other directions than filing actual reports, so it seems that I should definitely file them.

Since we reported our neighbor Alain assaulting my mom things have settled down remarkably. That momentary loss of control on his part ended up sort of being a blessing to us.

So: here we go!

from   Kyeann Sayer
date    Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 5:09 AM
subject    Addressing MPD Issues/Criminal Claims

Dear Chief Muir,

This is in response to your June 29 letter (I typed in the text below). I will also send you a hard copy since you don't respond to email communications from me.

I'm glad that you have shifted from advising me that you will not tolerate my opinions about my treatment by the department to expressing an interest in receiving my claims. Since June 26 the change in the neighborhood has been remarkable -- someone seems to be sending a new message about what sort of behavior is acceptable. It seems that the overall tone of accountability has shifted and individuals no longer feel that they can harass and intimidate us with impunity, which of course is a welcome change.

My concern is not only that my desire to relay information about criminal activity and provide evidence was ignored, but also that a concerted effort seems to have been made to delegitimize my concerns and prevent me from submitting evidence of them to your department.

Sergeant Richardson seemed to have had the singular goal of heading me off before I could provide documentation of criminal activity. He sought to frame my issue as isolated to my unfounded concerns about harassment from my neighbors, while I repeatedly emphasized that I needed the department to send a clear message in the community in general that hate and organized crime directed at my mother and me was unacceptable. He continually instructed me to just relax and enjoy my neighborhood as I implored him to look at the overall law enforcement atmosphere that seemed to condone harassment of us. Ironically, my mother was then assaulted by the neighbor that I initially complained to you about, illustrating that Sergeant Richardson's intervention/conversations with his household did nothing to diminish their impression that it was acceptable to harass us. If he had intervened appropriately to begin with, it is doubtful that my mother would have been assaulted.

Additionally, I find it alarming that your initial response to my understandable concerns about the Department's handling of this issue was to threaten that you would not tolerate my exercise of free speech.

I have some points of clarification. Please explain:

Why neither you nor Sergeant Richardson never explained the procedures for filing police or hate crimes despite my repeated requests for guidance.
Why you did not explain the procedure for filing an Employee Complaint Form. I clearly believed I was receiving one-sided treatment from Sergeant Richardson, and his mishandling and adamant refusal to take my claims seriously allowed for a continuation of the atmosphere of permissiveness that enabled mother's assault by Alain Goodman.
You claim that a general prohibition on contacting the neighbors in any way is not "bizarre." What legal or department procedural policy allows a police officer to instruct a citizen not to communicate in any way with her neighbors -- without indicating which neighbors or citing specific complaints from any of them? I provided ample documentation of harassment from neighbors to Sergeant Richardson -- has he instructed them not to contact us? Have they provided any evidence or documentation of our supposed harassment of them? My understanding is that I need to file a restraining order against anyone whom I don't wish to contact me, and that I need to have documentation to do so. It seems discriminatory to take their concerns seriously, but not ours -- especially when we are the ones who initiated contact with your department. Please clarify.
What was the outcome of Sharon Boyce's June 26 report of Alain Goodman's assault? Is he prohibited from approaching her? Does she need to apply for a restraining order?

Again, I appreciate your willingness to receive our information. In the absence of clear direction on how to proceed, Sharon Boyce and I will file individual police reports for scores of incidents over the past few years. We will also provide you and a designated investigator with categorized narrative descriptions of what has occurred so that you are not simply inundated with random reports. Please let me know if you have any other ideas for making sure our reports remain part of our overall hate/organized crime claims and don't slip through the cracks.

It is important to me that you designate another person in the department who will be responsible for reviewing the information in addition to yourself. Again, your initial response and lack of basic instructions about procedures for citizens to file reports indicates to me that it is necessary to widen the net of responsibility for reviewing and acting upon my claims.

I will send you copies of the sixhoursaweek.com blog posts related to the Missoula PD to ensure that the department has a record of them (of course I keep copies of them in case the blog is for some reason hacked into). However, my blog was not created for the purpose of communicating with you or your department. It is in many cases very general and only very partially conveys the criminal activity we have endured in Missoula County. Reading my blog should not serve as a substitute for direct communication with me regarding these matters, and should in no way serve to constitute your full understanding of what we have endured. I will continue to chronicle my relations with the department over these issues, however.

Again, to clarify, I contacted you in a letter about harassment from the Goodmans. Sergeant Richardson responded and I provided documentation of my responses to verbal assaults, harassment and entrapment attempts in the neighborhood. Sergeant Richardon's provided a "blame the victim" response, stigmatizing my efforts to document the neighborhood harassment. That led to these blog posts below.

I look forward to receiving your responses and moving forward together to combat corruption and hate crime in Missoula.

Kyeann Sayer

June 29, 2009

Dear Ms. Sayer,

I received your e-mail in response to my concerns about your allegations of misconduct by members of this department. I understand your concern that we don't appreciate what the real problem is and that you are simply looking to know who you can give your extensive evidence to.

Please feel free to provide me with copies of any written statements and documented evidence of criminal activity which you have in your possession. Another investigator or I will review all that information and provide you with notice of our findings and recommendations, if any. I might add that I took the time to review the archives of your blog to familiarize myself better with the situation you believe you find yourself in, so you do not need to provide me with copies of those posts unless you are planning to take down your blog site.

For your information, there is nothing "bizarre" about a police officer giving notice to cease contacts with neigbors and is in fact quite common. The notice is based on a request by any party who feels they are being harassed by another.

At your convenience, you may deliver copies of the above documentation/evidence to me or phone me with a time to have someone from the MPD pick it up. Again my office is open to you at any time with reasonable notice for discussion of your concerns.

Respectfully yours,

Mark Muir

Jeffrey Doud's Legal Malpractice -- Buisness as Usual in Montana?

2009-07-05T19:04:14Z

Timothy Geiszler will have to answer to Jeff Doud for this. In a July 2 filing, Geiszler went on an all out assault on my mother's mental health in what seems like a last ditch attempt to bully her into settlement with Steve Loken. He used a claim that my mother made about Mr. Doud's conspiring with Loken's camp to ruin her case to back up his assertions. So, here I explain why the use of the word conspiracy could indeed apply to Mr. Doud's actions, and why any reasonable person would come to such a conclusion. (Again, the Geiszler has pulled a quote from Mom's effort to amend her counterclaim against Loken to include civil conspiracy. The quote centers around the discovery request issue elaborated on below.)

After what I've seen, I feel comfortable stating that Mr. Doud should not be allowed to practice law. He is a young attorney whose ethical/professional sensibility was clearly quickly shaped by the Montana culture of cronyism. It's hard to imagine his moral compass being righted enough to entrust him with any unassuming client. (Having Tim McKeon as a father-in-law can't help.)

Doud took over the Loken case in fall of 2007 because Mom's other attorney was doing little on the case. Initially that attorney was very enthusiastic, but was never the same after a meeting with Mr. Geisler, at which he told her Mom was paranoid. (We have called Geiszler on this bit of slander -- clearly the incompetency angle has been part of his and Loken's plans for quite a while.)

In January of 2008, without informing his client, Mr. Doud propounded a second set of discovery requests on Mr. Loken. A year earlier, Mom's first attorney had received answers to discovery requests. The original attorney had asked around 14 questions. Mr. Doud asked around 80. This was in no way helpful to Mom's case -- the questions gave Mr. Loken the opportunity to elaborate upon and revise his narrative of what happened. It also allowed him to produce a schematic that my mother had never seen before, and that Loken claimed she provided.

Though Doud found the time to do this, he ignored Mom's pleas to follow up on details essential to her case like a previously-ignored Request for Production to get copies of canceled checks showing Loken's supposed $14000 worth of payments to an employee for work that was never finished. (Mom later followed up when she was defending herself pro se and newly printed versions of these supposedly already produced checks were submitted to court. This was that point at which an unrecognized attorney from Geiszler's firm started filing. This was completely against procedure, but Judge Deschamps never required this other attorney to become an attorney of record. It seemed like Geiszler was trying to put distance between himself and fabricated financial records.)

Mom didn't find out about the second set of discovery requests until around the end of October 2008 when Mr. Doud was no longer her attorney and she received her file from him. Attorneys are required to operate with their clients' informed consent. First, the requests obviously should not have been propounded without her knowledge. Second, if a defendant has no knowledge of the plaintiff's revised narrative of what occurred based on answers to 80 discovery questions, how can she make informed decisions about what direction to take the case?

If an attorney takes action in secret that is so clearly favorable to the opposing side isn't it reasonable to assume that he is conspiring? Of course, that's not all. The depth and breadth of Jeffrey Doud's malpractice is astounding. Please see a partial list of his greatest hits after the jump.

What's frightening is that the malpractice is so objectively identifiable and true, and Mr. Geiszler is working so hard to brand Mom's identification of it as symptomatic of paranoia. Do attorneys ruin their client's cases without speaking to another about it? (It would take a great leap of faith to believe that Doud is innocently and overwhelmingly incompetent.) Speaking to one other person about it makes it conspiracy. Doud did a lot of speaking to Mr. Geiszler without Mom's consent. Maybe that's why he needs Mom to be "crazy." ]]>
Jeff Doud:

Delayed entering a substitution of counsel over a three month period until Mom's original lawyer withdrew. (When your lawyer withdraws, it looks bad -- much worse than if the attorney just files a substitution. To add insult to injury, Doud would later use that attorney's withdrawal as evidence that my mother has a pattern of asking her attorneys to perform unethical services that force them to withdraw.)
Represented himself as working for Wold Law Firm. This was why Mom agreed to work with him. He didn't ever create a retainer agreement, so Mom didn't know that she was supposedly a client of "McKeon Doud" until much later. All of his electronic and written correspondence was through Wold. McKeon Doud was created after Doud entered his appearance as Mom's counsel in the court, and it appears that she has been its only supposed client.
Withheld a total of 15 documents over a 12 month period (including 3 invoices for his first three months of representation).
Originally agreed to depose Mr. Loken but then changed his mind without his client's informed consent, and never performed this crucial deposition. He never gave Mom a copy of the scheduling order, so she did not know when discovery had ended and it was too late. After that deadline, Mr. Doud still corresponded with her as though he would still be able to depose Mr. Loken.
Without his client's knowledge or consent, named as the sole expert witness a person who has never seen the remodel, is not from Missoula, and therefore is not familiar with Missoula prices or billing practices. Doud gave Mom no information about him -- she didn't know he existed until Geiszler asked Mom about him in her deposition. Weeks before the trial was initially meant to occur, he had never spoken with anyone who had seen the job site, never issued a report of any kind, etc.
Without his client's knowledge or consent, prepared an erroneous lay witness and exhibit lists. Crucial witnesses were omitted and twelve of the twenty-six witnesses listed are affiliated with Loken. Three of them were individuals Mom had never heard of and she didn't think they even worked on her property. (Where would he get those names if not from Loken?)
Without his client's knowledge or consent, listed only a small fraction of the evidence necessary to present her case at trial. On the Exhibit List, he listed only six of over one hundred photographs Mom provided to him. The ones he chose do little or nothing to illustrate the facts of the case. Ten of the thirteen exhibits refer to items provided by the Plaintiff. He listed a "Scope of Work and Drawings Provided by Loken Builders" that Mom had never seen or heard of. While he listed these without consulting her, he left out scores of vital exhibits they had discussed. He led her to believe they could be submitted while he knew that discovery had closed (and she did not).
Did not allow for the submission of necessary potential witnesses and exhibits not yet identified.
Engaged in discussions with Mr. Geiszler (opposing counsel) without Mom's knowledge or consent.
Refused to inform his client about the procedure regarding foreclosure of her home if she should lose the case. She asked repeatedly about the procedure followed in a foreclosure. He never provided the correct information. Instead he insisted that she sign an Acknowledgment of Informed Consent stating that she understood that if she lost she could be found responsible for all attorney's fees and that the Loken could foreclose on her home. (She found out later from another attorney that in actuality if she lost, there was a simple means of ensuring the home was not foreclosed upon. Mr. Doud produced this document after a very skewed settlement conference at which Mom was pressured to settle under Loken's terms. It seems that Mr. Doud wanted his client to be under the impression that losing the case would make the loss of her home imminent.)
Never took appropriate action to have the lien removed from his client's property. There were a number of obvious ways to do this, and Doud did none of them, leaving Loken with the lien leverage.
Refused to speak with me when I began to advocate for my mother's interests in the case. We asked him to problem-solve around how I could be involved. He was very resistant because of his supposed concern over attorney-client privilege and his only solution was to have my mother declared incompetent (he wrote that he had no reason to believe she was, only that this would allow my involvement). We later learned from another attorney that I could become intimately involved as a registered agent for the LLC.
Accepted a "Proposed Pretrial Order" entered by Mr. Geiszler as an actual pretrial order. There was never a pretrial conference, and Mr. Doud never created a Defendants' Proposed pretrial order. Therefore, Mom was stuck with this illegitimate Proposed Pretrial Order that was completely favorable to Mr. Loken. It meant that the case was shaped for trial without Mom's knowledge, input or consent. And that her otherwise very good case was sucky.
Refused to meet with his client to discuss the Proposed Pretrial Order, and the witnesses, exhibits, etc. that should be entered.
When finally meeting with his client, discussed the addition of witnesses and exhibits as though the deadline had not passed and they could still be added. This amounted to deceiving her into believing that her case could still be accurately represented.
Refused to respond to numerous queries from his client after the issue of the Proposed Pretrial Order and lack of evidence and witnesses came to light.
Refused to tell his client why he had withheld 12 documents from her.
Hung up on client's daughter as she read the list of questions he had not responded to over the phone. He was on a Wold Law Firm line and presumably hung up so there would not be a Firm record of his malpractice.
Ignored repeated pleas to repair the damage he had done to the case.
Withdrew as counsel without notice three weeks before a trial setting hearing.
Discussed his withdrawal with Mr. Geiszler, but not with his client.
Lied about his reason for withdrawing as counsel, stating that he had not been paid for an invoice he had not yet sent to his client.
Slandered his former client in a court filing regarding his inappropriate withdrawal. If the slander had been true, it would have constituted a violation of attorney-client privilege.
Charged his client nearly $17,000 for the privilege of having her case destroyed. She paid it dutifully while he kept her in the dark about the true state of her case.

Again, the judge knows that all of this occurred. He allowed the case to go to trial without the defendant ever having the opportunity to submit a Proposed Pretrial Order. A legitimate pretrial order was never created.

And on, and on...

~~

John Boyle and David Ryan Took Over my Mother's Property without her Permission

2009-07-04T01:30:24Z

This is more in-the-muck Missoula-specific info that is informative if you are interested in how people try to steal from and take advantage of retired ladies.

So, Timothy Geiszler went on an all out assault against my mother's mental health yesterday. He used a bunch of quotes from a motion to amend her counterclaim as evidence that she is paranoid. (Legalese translation: she was sued by Steve Loken, but also had claims against him. She was trying to add more claims.) The hilarious part is that she was trying to add civil conspiracy as a counterclaim, and has the evidence to prove it. Let's review what conspiracy is, courtesy of findlaw:

A criminal conspiracy exists when two or more people agree to commit almost any unlawful act, then take some action toward its completion. The action taken need not itself be a crime, but it must indicate that those involved in the conspiracy knew of the plan and intended to break the law. One person may be charged with and convicted of both conspiracy and the underlying crime based on the same circumstances.
For example, Andy, Dan, and Alice plan a bank robbery. They 1) visit the bank first to assess security, 2) pool their money and buy a gun together, and 3) write a demand letter. All three can be charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, regardless of whether the robbery itself is actually attempted or completed.

Clearly this has nothing to do with black helicopters. Mom's language about conspiring made perfect sense in this legal context. Apparently, Mr. Geiszler hoped that quotes ripped out of context would simply read as paranoia. Big, big stretch.

But since our run-ins with the justice system seem to conform to others' big stretches, it seems prudent to flesh out some of the conspiracy of which my mother wrote (and has evidence and would like/would have liked to argue). Here goes.

While I was in Russia in winter of '06 I received a frantic Skype from Mom. Her property was no longer in her control and Steve Loken had filed a lien against it. Before leaving for Russia, all of my boxed belongings had been soaked due to a flood caused by Mr. Loken's negligence. I had been in the dining room listening while Mom met with him and he tried to make excuses for why she had been charged for incomplete work, and why the contractor in charge of her project was such a disaster. I overheard him swear at her and watched him storm out of the kitchen. By this point I knew the man was bad news, but neither of us had any idea of what he was mixed up in or what was in store for us.

So I was feeling pretty helpless a world away as my Mom found her property slipping away. Especially since her lawyer at the time, David Ryan, seemed to have orchestrated it. Here are the boring details:
]]> LLC to oversee her property. I had left San Francisco and was going to use my trust fund (modest by trust fund standards, but still a generous amount that I felt lucky to have) to invest in creating a studio above Mom's garage so I could use Missoula as a home base for travel. The trustee was a family friend: John Boyle of Boyle, Deveny and Meyer, PC.

Mom worked with David Ryan to set up the LLC. On January 30, 2006 she transferred the property to it. She was listed as the contact person.

On March 7, 2006, without Mom's knowledge or consent, Ryan notified John Boyle in writing that Mom had requested that he be named as Registered Agent of the LLC and that he would be the person to accept service of process if a lawsuit was filed against it. Ryan requested that he fill out the paperwork. Mom saw John all the time at March Madness gatherings but he never made any mention of this important request. Ryan did not copy her on the correspondence with Mr. Boyle.

On March 9, 2006, without Mom's knowledge or consent, Mr. Ryan filed the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of state naming John Boyle as the registered agent. This was after John signed on as registered agent without checking with my mother or me to confirm that these were her wishes. This meant that he was in control of the property as the trustee -- the trust now essentially owned the property. Mom has been advised by another attorney that this had horrible tax ramifications. Not only did she have no intention of such a property transfer, but there would have been a huge gift tax. It made no sense on any level. It seems that most accountants would have advised against such a move.

I want to be clear: the property was my mother's main asset and she was retired. The trust was my nest egg.

On March 15 Mom met with Mr. Ryan regarding another matter. He never mentioned having named John Boyle as the registered agent. Mom mentioned in passing that Loken had pulled out of the remodeling job. Though she had misgivings that it would constitute a conflict of interest, Ryan insisted on meeting with Loken to discuss the incomplete remodel. She found his eagerness odd because he had told her that Loken had repeatedly lied to him and that the two did not get along.

On March 20 the Secretary of State wrote to Ryan announcing that the LLC had been created effective 3/13/06. Mom still had no idea.

On March 22nd Ryan met with Steve Loken and his girlfriend/office manager Georgia. Obviously this was completely inappropriate. Ryan had some sort of relationship with Loken, and he should not have been communicating with him directly about this matter. He would later imply to my mother that he learned unsavory things about her in the meeting.

On March 23rd, Ryan finally wrote to Mom to let her know that he had created Articles of Organization with John Boyle as the registered agent and that the Secretary of State had accepted them.

Upon receipt of the letter and discovery that her attorney had for some reason done something so bizarre and underhanded, Mom was in a panic. It was around this time that we spoke across continents. I had no idea what to do. She consulted an attorney who contacted John Boyle to see what was going on. He said that he was tied up with tax season and had not yet looked at the paperwork from the Secretary of State. At that point she had no idea that John had actually signed paperwork without her knowledge -- he behaved as though the whole situation was a surprise to him. Upon the other attorney's questioning, he agreed that the transfer was a huge tax problem. Mom let John know that she was going to become the registered agent effective as soon as possible. That was a Friday.

On Monday, March 27, 2006 Loken filed the lien. When you file a lien, you look up the property with the registrar at the court house. The property had been in the name of the LLC for months, so when Loken looked up the address, he would have encountered the LLC's name. It would have taken further research to discover who the registered agent was, and it would have been John Boyle at that point. Perhaps with foreknowledge that John was no longer going to be the registered agent, he filed it against my mother. She wasn't the registered agent officially until April 6, 2009 so the lien wasn't even valid. But none of her attorneys ever argued that effectively. So here we are.

Fishy, no? Weird? Frightening?

My mom has theories about what all of this maneuvering was about, and felt confident enough that conspiracy would be revealed in court that she added it to the counterclaim. If memory serves, the judge refused to consider adding any of it on a technicality, not because he looked into any of the merits. I don't believe he commented on them.

There is no doubt that what Mr. Ryan did constituted malpractice and that John breached his fiduciary duty to me and my mother as trustee and also perhaps committed malpractice. That Ryan met with Loken, and the lien was filed so quickly after seem like much more than coincidence. Given all of the entrapment and property devaluing that occurred subsequently, conspiracy isn't much of a stretch. At all.

Mom tried to pursue malpractice against Mr. Ryan but her attorney at the time, the legendary Tim McKeon, stalled and essentially refused to pursue it.

All of this seems like evidence of moral deficiency rather than mental deficiency.

~~

Chief Muir Agrees to Review Evidence!

2009-07-03T22:54:50Z

Yay. Chief Muir wrote a very conscientious letter indicating that he and another investigator will review our evidence.

Bright side: all of this has been an incredible learning experience and promises to reveal so much about the workings of local and state government. I know how dorky that sounds, but we've been living in this state of helplessness with the never ending COINTELPRO-like life disruption. It not only felt impossible to make any headway with local officials because of the general mistrust engendered by the sheer volume of people who were convinced to make life difficult for us. But also, when dealing constantly in fight or flight mode, it was difficult to get a handle on how to advocate for ourselves in spite of the overall terror/harassment. Until last week, I had no idea how to file a police report or make a report to the health department. Today I do.

Now just being aware of some of the local laws that individuals have broken, and the steps to take to remedy them, is empowering. There were probably many things that we could have done to make the harassment more difficult, and to create accountability, but we didn't know them. If we didn't, then I don't think many people do have much of a handle on how to advocate for themselves.

If I hadn't been creating some form of public accountability through my blog, I might not be in the position to get at least lip service to a genuine look at what we've been through in this jurisdiction. We know what a sorry state the world would be in if only windbags with blogs got a hint of justice. (Why reporters haven't long ago exposed a fraction of the people who have attempted to mess with us is a question deserving serious consideration.)

There's a ton of work to be done! We have these rights because we are American and if we don't know how to claim them we are just screwed by the greedy and brutish. This Independence Day I am grateful to be in this beautifully imagined but imperfect country, getting up everyday and giving substance to the notion of inalienable rights. For the foreseeable future that will mean trudging through slow, long legal and law enforcement processes.

Again, I hate to be cheesy, but there is something really beautiful about the idea that all of our sufferings and efforts might make things easier for another Montanan or other American. I am typing now because others have fought and died and suffered much more terribly than I ever have -- on the battlefield and in the struggles for free speech and civil liberties/rights. It's humbling to think that maybe a small bit of our efforts will enable some woman or man to suffer in front of the future's version of a keyboard generations from now. Or help those who don't know that luxury.

~~