“HE IS NOT THE SAME PERSON WHO WENT IN”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Aug. 18, 2014) — Formerly licensed pilot, general contractor, home inspector, radio show host, farmer, adjunct faculty member, and 2006 county executive candidate Mike Parsons is currently incarcerated at the Tennessee state prison in Pikeville, Bledsoe County, more than six hours from his family in Tipton County as he awaits a decision on the revocation of his parole which resulted from several false felony charges in 2007.
The Post & Email recently received a lengthy narrative from Parsons requesting our assistance in exposing the corruption which has twice robbed him of his liberty. His letter told of his victimization by the Tipton County grand jury which indicted him for aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, burglary of a vehicle, and theft of an item valued at less than $500, then forced the case through a tainted trial jury to win convictions against him.
The Post & Email has demonstrated over the last five years how Tennessee grand juries and trial juries are rigged by judges and court clerks in collusion with sheriff’s deputies and other government agents so that the desired results can be achieved. Tipton County is at the westernmost tip of Tennessee bordering on Mississippi, while the cases of Marvin William Young, Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III, George Joseph Raudenbush III, Dennis Burnett, Rex Peak, and Michael Dewy Ellington have taken place in the Tenth Judicial District, which is in the southeastern corner of the state bordering on North Carolina.
Parsons’ letter, first begun on May 3, 2014, began:
I am requesting assistance from The Post E-Mail.com [sic] with an urgent legal matter that relates to government oppression, violation of virtually every constitutionally recognized God Given unaleignable [sic] right, U.S.C. Title 42 Chapter 218…
Parsons spent two and one-half years in state prison after being convicted by a jury which contained a relative of the accuser who lied about her relationship with the purported motive of being seated on the jury.
In his letter, Parsons explained that his persecution by Tipton County government began after he filed a lawsuit challenging the results of the 2006 election, which he believed he actually won “by a landslide” but of which he was not declared the winner. In September 2007, his family and property were “attacked without provocation during the law suit [sic] by a buddy of the county executive who shot 29 times at them and killed their pet wolf hybrid Brandi.”
After apprehending the shooter, Barry Laxton, Parsons attempted to carry out a citizen’s arrest but instead was arrested himself by Tipton County sheriff’s deputies on the charges related above. On a website supportive of him, Parsons described the events which threatened his life, his wife’s, and concluded in his own arrest:
The fact that the arresting officer (Walls), stated he was charging and arresting me without bond, all at the direction of General Sessions Court Judge William Peeler indicates a clear violation of due process.
The cannon of ethics prevent a Judge from deciding or making a ruling over a case he has already make a decision on or ruled on. In this case, Peeler made the decision to have me arrested and then months later Peeler ruled against me at the probable cause hearing clamming there was probable cause. Despite my objections to Peeler hearing the matter at the probable cause hearing, (sighting he had already ruled on this matter at the scene which made his ruling again in this matter a violation of ethic, and the fact that he had a financial interest in this case because of my law suit challenging the 2006 election that could void the election and force him to run again where he could be challenged and he could lose), Peeler denied my motion for him to recuse himself and ruled against me.
On April 1, 2010, CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.) was ordered arrested by Judge Carroll Lee Ross in Monroe County, TN, after attempting a citizen’s arrest on then-Monroe County grand jury foreman Gary Pettway, who had served in the position for 28 consecutive years.
Citizens’ arrests are legal in Tennessee code.
Like Parsons, Fitzpatrick has exposed jurors serving in violation of state law which judges have overlooked. Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood, who will preside over Fitzpatrick’s sentencing on Tuesday on false charges and convictions, honored an indictment from a Monroe County grand jury against Fitzpatrick in 2010 when Angela Davis was found to have served for two consecutive terms. Blackwood’s excuse was that there was “no proof” that the same “Angela Davis” served both terms; however, the proof of who serves is maintained by the court clerk, records of which containing Davis’s name in both 2009 and 2010 were obtained by Fitzpatrick.
Relating his story in a third-person report style, Parsons’ letter continued:
Mike was arrested by Tipton County Sheriff’s deputies at the order of the General Sessions judge who then ruled on his own false charge at the probable cause hearing.
Mike was indicted by a grand jury that was hand picked by the election commission office manager who was appointed to that position by the county executive Mike was suing.
Mike was forced to stand trial without counsel by the circuit court judge who was being sued by Mike in federal court for official oppression.
The trial was before another hand picked jury selected by the election commission officer [sic] manager who was appointed by the county executive Mike was suing.
Mike was prosecuted by the district attorney with a history of attacking political rivals and who Mike also was suing in federal court for malicious prosecution due to a conspiracy to falsely charge Mike disclosed by the district public defender who’s [sic] assistant overheard the conspiracy plan revealed by the DA to his assistant.
Regarding his current imprisonment, Parsons explained that his farm was raided in February by “a small army of unidentified armed men and a parole officer” who accused him of violating TCA 39-17-1307 for “unlawful possession of a weapon” based on his convictions from 2009. As of that time, Parsons had been out of prison for almost two years and was attempting to recoup the losses his farm had sustained while he was away. He reported that at the end of the raid, one of the alleged government employees who remained unidentified asked him, “Do you plan to run for county executive again?”
The raid was initiated by PETA, an animal rights and protection organization, which claimed that Parsons was confining animals cruelly. However, Parsons was found to be in compliance with all local and state laws regarding the maintaining of the animals on his farm. It is suspected that members of Tipton County government worked with PETA to file the complaint to initiate the raid.
Parsons was placed under arrest despite explaining that his wife’s guns were stored in a safe outside of the house to which he did not have a key and that she brought them inside the house when he was gone on business. “My kidnapping by this corrupt government, not recognizable by the Constitution only occured [sic] because we, the real freedom loving independant [sic] people did not seek to hold positions in government whereas, by our very nature we do not seek to control others, as we do not need to be controlled by anyone. We instinctively self govern. Therefore, it was taken over by a weak controlling class, which sought to obtain power through deception, then by fraud and now by force,” Parsons wrote.
His parole revocation hearing has not yet been held, although his wife said that routinely, parole revocation hearings occur within 90 days.
“The original charge against him in September 2007 was ‘aggravated assault.’ The following year he wanted to present before the grand jury to indict the D.A. and judges,” Mrs. Parsons told us. She then related of the February raid:
My husband is 6’5″. I am 5’7.” They had an officer who is shorter than me jump on his back and arrest him with a blank sheet of paper. Michael said, “I want to see the warrant,” and there was no warrant. And that’s another thing: When they came here with that PETA letter and searched the house, they did not have a warrant, either. I am told by a lawyer that even if he’s on parole, they have to have a warrant; however, the papers Mike signed to get out on parole, #8, says that the parole officer and/or any officer of the law can search without a warrant. So I don’t know on that one. But that’s when they indicted him for kidnapping.
Mrs. Parsons told us that “When they sentenced him, he was the poster child for diversion,” but that the judge refused to assign “diversion” instead of prison time. She also told us that her husband served in the Civil Air Patrol during the 1980s flying search-and-rescue missions to recover illegal drug shipments. “His father was a Marine; his first stepfather was Navy; and his second stepfather was Navy. His mother was a civilian for the Navy for 37 years in the Office of the Comptroller, so he is a Navy brat,” Mrs. Parsons said. “He has very bad eyesight, and back in the day, they didn’t allow corrective vision. He wanted to fly a fighter jet, but being 6’5″, his torso was too long, and if he’d had to eject, he would have hit the canopy. So that’s the only reason he wasn’t in the Navy. But by being in the Civil Air Patrol, that did give him access to planes. He could fly the military planes and flew several of them.”
During his present incarceration on the alleged parole violation, Parsons was placed in a 7′ x 11′ concrete cell, having been classified as “PC,” which means “protective custody.” Mrs. Parsons told us that when a family member recently called to check on Parsons’s well-being, she spoke with an associate warden who told her that “some anonymous woman called claiming to be Mike’s sister, said that he had been threatened and needed to be moved into ‘PC.’ We think that it was his roommate’s wife. Why would you move somebody to PC based on an anonymous person’s call? That was what was in the file. Also in the file is to not move him from there.”
She told us that even though Mike is classified as “minimum 2 restricted” security, he is in a medium-security prison, which violates state law. “They have policy – and Mike’s policy book was stolen and he can’t seem to get another one – but they don’t even follow their own policies,” she said.
Mrs. Parsons said that she believes someone “from the outside” has influenced her husband’s treatment in prison. She has a theory that an influential politician is responsible. “I don’t think the parole officer has that kind of power,” she told us.
The Parsonses are hopeful that Mike will be relocated to West Tennessee in the near future. “I think they’re sending everybody to Bledsoe County to be classified, but Mike says that after classification, which could take 30-90 days, everybody who showed up there from West Tennessee with him that was classified at the same time he was was moved back west within a week or two. So they’re trying to keep him away from anybody who could help him here locally.”
Mrs. Parsons related that her husband suffers from claustrophobia and that his time spent in the small enclosed cell and in prison has made him “a damaged man.” She describes her husband as “brilliant” and “three-quarters Cherokee Indian.”
When The Post & Email requested copies of the indictments issued against Parsons from the Tipton County Circuit Court, we were told, “Oh, we don’t do that…we just don’t have the manpower to go looking for things.” When we invoked the Tennessee Open Records law, we were then told that we could send a fax to make the request.
Ultimately, we obtained the documents from Parsons’ wife.
According to Fitzpatrick’s defense attorney, numerous counties throughout the South use the local “justice” system to carry out retaliation and revenge against individuals with whom they have had a disagreement or who they view as political enemies. In August 1946, a group of World War II veterans drove a corrupt McMinn County sheriff and several deputies out of the county after The Battle of Athens erupted over blatant election fraud and voter intimidation, supported by a culture of corruption that was, at that time, at least 15 years old.
After election integrity was restored by veterans who ran and won election to public offices, corruption again took hold in the form of judges taking over the grand juries, which by the Fifth Amendment to the Bill of Rights are charged with evaluating evidence against an individual before he can be charged with a crime. By creating a judicially-selected grand jury foreman position, Tennessee judges have solidified their hold over the grand jury in order to secure the production of indictments, whether or not enough evidence exists to justify them. Laws are bent and twisted, trial juries are “rigged,” and judges decree “law” from the bench, thereby rendering an accused unable to defend himself. Local defense attorneys participate in the ruse of defending their clients while procuring large fines and fees from them payable to the court to “keep them out of jail.”
“It’s a money thing,” one victim told us four years ago in relating the story of how he was stopped by Tellico Plains (Monroe County) police officers and slammed to the ground, tasered unmercifully, struck in the head, including during the booking process by Officer Sonny Smart, and charged with resisting arrest, DUI, aggravated assault, and felony fleeing to avoid arrest, despite his having been beaten and tasered by the police officers after pulling his car over.
Smart is also accused of running an automobile refurbishing company dishonestly.
The Post & Email asked Mrs. Parsons how her husband’s mental state is currently. “Even the two and one-half years he did at Henning, they put him in the hole for things he didn’t do, and he was in protective custody there. It damages you. You will start talking to the roaches. Fortunately, some of the guards were kind enough to leave his flap open so he could look out. But he spent a month in PC because this woman called and said that he needed to be moved. He is damaged. I’ve been with him for 30 years. The first time around, he came out damaged. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t even sleep in our bed; he had to sleep out under the stars. He’s three-quarter Cherokee Indian, too, which may be where some of the claustrophobia comes from. He is a damaged man. What more can you say? He is not the same person who went in. During the sentencing hearing when he requested diversion, the judge said, ‘You don’t qualify for diversion; you’re the most dangerous man to ever come through my courtroom.’ Several months later – I don’t know if you heard about the two women postal workers killed in Henning – the killer was in the same courtroom, and I was thinking, ‘They’re showing it on the news…’ and I wondered if it even crossed his mind: here’s a guy who killed two women in a post office, and Judge Walker said that my husband is the most dangerous man who had ever been through his courtroom…my husband doesn’t want to hurt a flea.”
In our first article on Parsons’ case, The Post & Email published the first five pages of his letter. The following seven pages follow.
Parsons’ story is yet another in a long line which illustrates how the justice system envisioned by America’s Founding Fathers has been hijacked so as to be used to imprison political enemies, just as Adolf Hitler‘s SS did in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.