The Post & Email Files Ethics Complaint Against Tennessee Prosecutor

WHAT IS “INTEGRITY?”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Aug. 10, 2012) — The Post & Email has filed an ethics complaint against Tennessee Tenth Judicial District Assistant District Attorney General Paul D. Rush.

Rush stated in writing that “Sharon Rondeau,” as editor of The Post & Email, has no “ethics” or “integrity,” which we contend is libel and actionable in a court of law.  Neither Rush nor anyone else from Monroe County government has never contacted The Post & Email to say that any of our articles on Tenth Judicial District corruption are inaccurate, misleading or written in bad faith. If we lack integrity for exposing corruption, what does that make them?

It is a journalist’s responsibility to perform due diligence, which we do, by including hard-copy documentation obtained from primary sources, interviews with subjects, links to relevant sources, and researching the history of the topic extensively prior to publication.  If an error is to be corrected, the writer must first be made aware of its existence.

To our knowledge, two other ethics complaints against Rush have been filed with the Board of Professional Responsibility (BOPR), which has oversight of attorneys, including prosecutors, in the state of Tennessee.  The first was made two years ago by an attorney who claimed that Rush had committed malfeasance during a case involving his client and is reportedly now under review.  A more recent complaint was registered by the homeowners of the the address of record for Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III in a case pursued by Monroe County.

Our complaint form and letter were sent to the Board of Professional Responsibility on August 3, 2012.  Also included was a copy of a document entitled “State’s Response to Defense Motions” which had been hand-delivered to Fitzpatrick’s address of record the evening before the hearing on June 28, 2012 and which contains the libelous statements, which read, in part:

…This third party, one Sharon Rondeau, is the same party who “publishes” the defendant’s continuous rantings and diatribes on her website, which is exceedingly generously self-described therein as an “electronic newspaper” and a “new media initiative  of American patriots.”  She is also the party to whom the Defendant sent the purloined court documents in Connecticut and from whom they were recovered by the FBI.  She is responsible for the reprehensible public display of these records on her website, thereby betraying any lie of claims to be an actual “journalist” with any ethics or integrity.  She admitted in her statement to the FBI that these records did come from the Defendant himself.

Rush neglected to mention in his response to Fitzpatrick’s motions that The Post & Email had redacted all personal information such that only the form and its questions were revealed, which is a tenet of journalistic ethics.

The Post & Email contends that any “journalist” aware of corruption in his community who fails to report on it lacks ethics and “integrity.”

The First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

As The Post & Email has reported over the last 2+ years, freedom of the press in Tennessee has been restricted by a heavy-handed government which has threatened the media should they report the truth about the corruption in their midst.  Freedom of speech is curtailed in communist countries such as Cuba, North Korea, and China.

The accompanying letter reads:

August 3, 2012

State of Tennessee
Board of Professional Responsibility
10 Cadillac Drive, Suite 220
Brentwood, TN  37027

To Whom it May Concern:

RE:  ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST TENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL PAUL D. RUSH

The following form contains a complaint against the above-named prosecutor.

While I do not live in Tennessee, my claim is that Mr. Rush has purposely slandered me in a courtroom so as to impugn my personal reputation and that of the newspaper I own and operate, The Post & Email, which reports on government corruption at all levels.

The attached seven-page document is Rush’s response to motions in criminal case number 12-108 against defendant Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III, in a case of “tampering with government records” which arose on December 7, 2011.

I have never met Mr. Rush, nor have I ever spoken with him.  His office has never contacted me to take issue with anything I have published over the last three years about corruption in Tennessee.  However, in his written response to Fitzpatrick’s defense motions, Motion #22, he claims that I have no “ethics” or “integrity.”  His slander against me reads, in part:

…This third party, one Sharon Rondeau, is the same party who “publishes” the defendant’s continuous rantings and diatribes on her website, which is exceedingly generously self-described therein as an “electronic newspaper” and a “new media initiative of American patriots.”  She is also the party to whom the Defendant sent the purloined court documents in Connecticut and from whom they were recovered by the FBI.  She is responsible for the reprehensible public display of these records on her website, thereby betraying any lie of claims to be an actual “journalist” with any ethics or integrity.  She admitted in her statement to the FBI that these records did come from the Defendant himself.

After publishing redacted versions of some of the documents in December, no one from Monroe County ever contacted me to say that I had the missing documents in my possession, so I had to conclude that they were not those sought.

Rush’s written statement was delivered to Fitzpatrick’s address of record on the evening before the June 28 Motions hearing in Monroe County.  I have a copy of the audio recording of the hearing during which Mr. Rush falsely claimed that the documents with which Fitzpatrick is charged with “tampering” were “seized” by the FBI from my office in Connecticut.  Mr. Rush was neither a witness nor a party to the recovery of the documents and therefore has no knowledge of how they were transferred.  His statements have now become part of an official court record and could be considered perjury.

When a Connecticut state trooper and an FBI agent appeared at my office in February of this year, they were courteous, asked me if I still had the documents, which I did, and I willingly handed them over along with written proof that I had contacted both the FBI and TBI in your area about them shortly after receiving them.  Contrary to Mr. Rush’s contention, they were not seized in any way, shape or form.   I have the contact information for the FBI agent and state police officer who were here who can attest to my statements.

Also contrary to Rush’s claim, my statement to the Connecticut officials was not an “admission.”  I was forthcoming about where they came from and handed the documents over in their original packaging which contained the return address.  I did not make a statement to the FBI; rather, it was made to a Connecticut state trooper, who took notes on what I said.  I told him that corruption in eastern Tennessee was very deep and includes the sheriff’s office, which I have well-documented.  The FBI agent stood by without saying a word until the very end, and then, it was to discuss what a “sovereign citizen” was, which is a topic for another day.  I therefore made no statement to the FBI about the documents.

Some of the papers in my possession for those two months appear to me to signify that Judge Amy Reedy hand-picked the jurors on December 7, 2011.  On January 17, 2012, Judge J. Reed Dixon said that “the judge picks the grand jury,” which violates TCA 22-2-314 and of which I have the audio recording.

I have been told that the papers in question were on a table with other public documents, “completely unguarded,” and have published this on my website.  If Rush can prove that statement incorrect, I will be happy to correct the article.

The case against Fitzpatrick may have come about because he has been exposing corruption in Monroe County and the state at large for more than three years.  By studying Tennessee code, Fitzpatrick has discovered that laws passed in 1984 have never been enacted by the courts (TCA 16-2-506) and that new grand juries were to be “impaneled at least twice a year at times selected by the presiding judge of the district” (TCA 16-2-510).  Twenty-eight years later, criminal courts are still operating at the county level and the judges are in denial, saying that the law is not “the law.”

Because I am in another state, I am considering a federal lawsuit for slander against Mr. Rush, Monroe County, and anyone else involved in impugning my reputation.  It is my clear understanding that Mr. Rush is already facing at least one ethics complaint to be heard in the near future. As you may know, I have recently obtained the complaint and exhibits directly from your office.

I would appreciate an acknowledgement of this complaint as well as a case number in the immediate future.

Thank you very much.

 Sincerely,

Sharon Rondeau, Editor
The Post & Email
www.thepostemail.com
P.O. Box 195
Stafford Springs, CT  06076
203-987-7948