Update: Public Defenders in Monroe County are Aware of the Corruption but Won’t Act

“NOW THEY’VE BEEN CAUGHT”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Apr. 26, 2011) — Yesterday, April 25, 2011, in Madisonville, TN, Mr. Carl Swensson attended a hearing at which he learned that Judge Donald Paul Harris will be adjudicating the case against him.

The charge of obstructing a public meeting was made after Swensson attended a court hearing in Knoxville on January 4, 2011  for another defendant stemming from an April 1, 2010 incident in which Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III had attempted to conduct a citizen’s arrest  on the grand jury foreman, who had served in that capacity for 20 years.

On April 25, Swensson reported to The Post & Email that he had a statement prepared for the court but did not have the opportunity to deliver it.

Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III was an eyewitness at Swensson’s hearing yesterday.

Swensson described the day’s events as follows.

MR. SWENSSON: At 9:00, I went over to the courthouse and there I met Walt, who was waiting for me in a little vestibule area.  We went into the courtroom, and curiously, this time, my name was called first.  Judge Amy Reedy was the judge of the court today, and she called us first to let me know that a new judge has been assigned to the case and she has been recused.

MRS. RONDEAU: Was that a surprise to you?

MR. SWENSSON: No, I totally expected that.  I requested that initially at my arraignment.  I was surprised that she even heard the first meeting that we had up there last month.  But she was there, and she also said at that time that she thought that another judge was going to be assigned.  So today, she let me know that the judge who is going to be hearing this just happens to be the same judge hearing Walt’s case, and his name is Donald Paul Harris.

If you know anything about him, he’s from the 21st Judicial District, and he is also guilty of doing the same thing Reedy had done here in the Tenth Judicial District by appointing a grand jury foreman for 20 years that he was on the bench.

Walt has already put forth the subpoenas for this judge, to the counties in which he worked, to find out how many appointments he has made of grand jury foremen.

There was nothing much more for my counsel to say at that time.  I requested a meeting with her outside, so we went down to the same vestibule where I had met Walt, who was with me at that time.  I began questioning her:  what her intent was, why she had not been in contact with me over the past month at all – not one word.

MRS. RONDEAU: Had you known she was assigned to your case before this?

MR. SWENSSON: Oh, yes, absolutely.  I had contacted her prior to my last hearing and had never been able to arrange a meeting with her.  She was always unavailable.  She has been given all of the information concerning the corruption, and it came down to the simple question of “Are you aware of the crimes perpetrated by these judges in appointing these grand jury foremen?”

In front of Walt, as my witness, she said, “Yes, I’m aware of that.”  So the question became, “Why is it that she does not report this to the authorities such as the FBI,” and she said, “Well, I can’t, because I report any irregularities to the Board of Professional Responsibility.”  So the Board of Professional Responsibility is a buffer between the lawyers and the court system.  Any problems you have with the court will be buffered, and they will wither on the vine right there at that Board.  Nothing will happen; we know what that’s all about.

But the public defender was pressed.  We pressed her time and time again as to why she would not go to the authorities with the information she has in her possession.  She is aware of that and acknowledged being aware of it.  But she said, “That will only hurt this case.  I plan on taking this case up on appeal.”

The last time I checked, I would have to be found guilty in order for there to be an appeal in the first place.

MRS. RONDEAU: I believe Atty. Stephen Pidgeon has said something similar when he was defending Walt.

MR. SWENSSON: Absolutely.  So my lawyer is willing to concede my guilt to make sure that this goes out on appeal so that she can further her career.  It makes no difference to her that I am completely innocent of all charges and can prove it.  It makes no difference whatsoever.  So that took me by surprise to hear her so adamant about that.

MRS. RONDEAU: It seems to prove that the public defenders in Monroe County know what’s going on and are willing to let their clients go to jail.  They’re not really defending them.

MR. SWENSSON: That is correct, and I told her exactly that:  “I do not expect you to represent me in the fashion that I need to be represented.”  I also do not expect anybody in the state of Georgia or anywhere else to be able to come here and adequately represent me when the jury system and the court system are rigged and completely corrupt.  Steve Pidgeon said almost the exact same words; she is now uttering the same response.

You have to understand, first off, that these charges are completely bogus.  They were designed, in my opinion, to intimidate and harass those people who were in any way involved in the events of April 1, 2010.  It doesn’t matter that anybody other than Walt was merely a witness; they all need to be made examples of in this court’s eyes.

That’s a mistake, because I am not, in any way, shape or form, going to allow them to play games with my freedom to give me a record just because they think they can.  That’s just not going to happen.

MRS. RONDEAU: May I call her?

MR. SWENSSON: Walt gave her your card.  I do not believe she would discuss anything with you because she is the counsel of record.  If she calls you, that’s one thing, and I hope she does.  I would doubt that very seriously, though.

I’m on my way to the FBI office in the Atlanta area to make sure that they are aware of what’s going on here because this needs to be pushed to the federal level for prosecution.  These judges need to be arrested.  The district attorneys who are doing this need to be arrested, and the court clerk, Martha Cook, needs to be arrested for jury-tampering.  They are completely eliminating our Fifth Amendment rights in Tennessee.  I am entitled to a fair trial.  They took an oath to uphold and defend that very same constitution and the state of Tennessee’s constitution, and they are working in direct defiance of those documents when they do what they’re doing with these juries.  And now they’ve been caught.

As it stands now, they want me to appear on May 16 – they just love to have me drive up, back and forth to Tennessee – before this new judge, Harris, at which point I have my statement that I’ll be reading before him calling out the conflict of interest that he has and on the criminal activity that they have been engaged in with the grand juries and the petit juries, and we’ll see how that goes.

We will also see how the public defender there in the county wants to pursue this because I’ve told her that I don’t believe she can give me fair representation because she’s locked up in the process.  She’s all about the process.  She’s not about the rule of law.  Nobody in that district is about the rule of law; they’re only about the process.  She confirmed it in no uncertain terms when she said, “I believe that the only way for anything to change here is through the process.”  And I said to her, and Walt said to her, “No.  The only way to change this is to have the criminals arrested.”  She thinks that that would “interrupt the process.”  Well, duh!  Of course it would interrupt the process. It would bring it to a screeching halt, and maybe even ensure that we have a fair court system…maybe even ensure that our Fifth Amendment rights are adhered to.  Go figure…wouldn’t that be a novel thing?

MRS. RONDEAU: A public defender is supposed to be your advocate and defend you against the charges, not assume that you will be found guilty.

MR. SWENSSON: I handed her a sworn affidavit from one person who was there on April 1, 2010 and who swore to the fact that I was never in that courtroom.  If I was never in that courtroom, I could not have interrupted the meeting, which is the only charge that they are actively pursuing against me.  The attorney was not interested in it.  She took it from me but was not interested.

MRS. RONDEAU: So she is being paid by a corrupt court system and has admitted that it’s corrupt to you, her client.  She has documentation attesting to your innocence, and she is not pursuing your defense?

MR. SWENSSON: That’s it.  That’s where we stand.

MRS. RONDEAU: Can you ask for another public defender?

MR. SWENSSON: Actually, there’s not reason to.  There are no private or public defenders who are part of the process who can mount an adequate defense when it comes to trying to defend someone based on the rule of law, which is our Constitution.  They don’t know the Constitution and don’t know how to mount that kind of defense.  Therefore, the only option left for them is to navigate the system and navigate “the process.”

The only person who can represent me in that situation is me, and I am fully prepared to do so.  I will fight this battle to the end, and the end will be the way it’s supposed to be, and that is that these judges need to be arrested for jury-tampering and jury manipulation.  This is judicial corruption on a scale that I could never even imagine.

The sad part of this is that there are various levels of this type of corruption.  I know that it exists in my state of Georgia, but it doesn’t exist in the same context.  What is common to the various states is one entity, which is the district attorney.  He is the one who controls what information gets to the grand jury.

MRS. RONDEAU: So your next court date is May 16, and you expect that the new judge, Donald Paul Harris, will be there?

MR. SWENSSON: I expect that that date will be pushed back, because either my attorney is going to file the motion that I need filed in the form of subpoenas of this judge’s records of appointments in the counties where he did business, or she is not.  I believe that she will not, because she knows what this can of worms is that Walt and I have opened, and she is about as nervous as an individual can be.  The whole process may come down around all of them.  She can either be part of the solution or part of the problem.  I don’t think at this point that she has the mental ability to be part of the solution because she is so wrapped up in the problem from being a part of the problem.

I told her the motions I want put out, but I told her that before and she never did it, again, because they go contrary to what the “process” is.

As Walt told me when reflecting on a quote from Lincoln, if the lawyers tell you that the dog’s tail is a leg, how many legs does a dog have?  The answer, of course, if “four.”  It doesn’t matter what they say; a dog has only four legs.  But they want you to think it’s something other than it is.  That’s what we’re dealing with.

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Editor’s Note: Mr. Swensson contacted The Post & Email after our initial conversation and stated that he had met with a duty agent at the FBI office in Atlanta, GA.  He reported that the duty agent did not seem interested, would not accept the evidence packet he presented, and would not give Mr. Swensson his name.  Of that, Swensson stated, “I’m very concerned over their lack of desire to act.  They told me that it was the business of Tennessee to act, not Georgia.”

However, when Swensson told the duty agent that he was concerned for the well-being of Walter Fitzpatrick, as he expects another confrontation with Monroe County law enforcement via the court system in the very near future, he reported that the duty agent began to take notes.  Swensson told him that “Fitzpatrick will not allow himself to be taken,” and at that point the duty agent said, “Of all the information you gave me, this concerns me the most.”

Update, 9:25 a.m., April 26, 2011: The Post & Email has just contacted the Knoxville, TN FBI office.  The woman who answered the phone was very courteous.  When we asked whom we could speak with in regard to corruption in Monroe County, TN, she said, “I’m not sure if it’s here or not.  We have offices in Johnson City and Chattanooga.  Let me check.”

We were on hold for several minutes, after which the woman returned, apologizing for the delay.  She then said, “I checked, and it is here, but I am unable to reach a duty agent right now.  Is there any way that you could call back?”

We answered “Yes,” and stated that we were from the press.  We then briefly described our concerns:  judicial corruption, people being picked up off the street for no reason, thrown in jail, tortured, fined, and terrorized, in addition to jury-rigging and human trafficking.  She reiterated that we should call back, which we will, in about 90 minutes.

Contact information for public officials in Monroe County and Tennessee is:

Monroe County Criminal Court:  423-442-1382

Tennessee Attorney General Robert E. Cooper:  615-741-3491

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam:  615-741-2001

Knoxville, TN FBI:  865-544-0751