It’s going to take Federal Intervention

JUDGE DENIES FITZPATRICK LEGAL COUNSEL

by Sharon Rondeau

(Nov. 2, 2010) — Today is the seventh day of Walter Fitzpatrick’s incarceration in the Monroe County, TN detention facility.  A second unscheduled hearing took place today for which everyone was apparently unprepared.

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Today there was an assignment hearing, and it dealt with the additional two charges for last Wednesday morning when the four sheriffs came to my door, broke the door down, there was a fight, resistance, and I was arrested.  So those two charges:  resisting arrest and elbowing the police officers were assigned today to an arraignment hearing which will be next week on the 9th of November.  I was taken over there today in four-point shackles, hands and feet, like a murderer, with a bullet-proof vest.  I was told while I was there before the judge this afternoon, just past 1:00, that I’m being held by the Blackwood court by Judge Blackwood without bail.   So that means that I’m here for as long as Judge Blackwood says that I stay here.

Yesterday’s hearing was to establish who was going to be my attorney, and right now it looks as if it’s me, pro se, until I hear word from the outside about anybody else coming to this party.  But I’m going to be held in here to prepare my case while I’m being jailed.  That’s what they expect to have happen.  This is just outrageous.

Now while I’m in here, I’m conversation after conversation which I cannot relate on the phone, but what’s going on here…what we need here is absolute, non-stop pressure on the Department of Justice, on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, just withering pressure on them.  This county is the most corrupt county in the United States.  What I hear here is just off the scale, and it’s going to take withering pressure now.

There’s a young man with whom I knew in the Boy Scouts.  His name is Robert Clifford who is a special agent for the FBI.  He’s very, very senior in the FBI.  He is today in Brussels, Belgium; he is the FBI agent for Legal Attache for the NATO forces and for the U.S. embassy in Belgium.  People need to call him and tell him and bring pressure from all around about what’s going on.  Robert Clifford knows me from a Boy Scout troop we were in years ago.

Other people who can be contacted on this are Judge Roy Moore, and Tim Harrington said that he’s on that; and also a guy named Ross Perot, a former Naval Academy graduate.

Whatever happens here is going to have to come from the federal government.  A federal judge is going to have to hand down an injunction about what’s going on here, and the case is going to have to be moved to a federal court.  These judges are out of control. There needs to be federal intervention, a federal injunction, an award from a federal bench.  Neither this case nor any other is not going to get properly heard in Monroe County, Tennessee.  It’s not going to happen.  That’s the update that I have for you today.

MRS. RONDEAU: Yesterday you said that Judge Blackwood told you that you’re representing yourself, correct?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Yes, he said that if another attorney comes to this, he may or may not let that attorney practice here in Tennessee.  Again, that’s another reason why this needs to be moved to a federal court.

MRS. RONDEAU: Did he say that there would not be a Tennessee attorney provided for you?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: No.  I won’t accept a Tennessee attorney because they can’t defend me.  It’s not going to happen; it’s impossible.  And beyond that, we have this grand jury issue.  This Judge Blackwood has gone past the grand jury and he said that’s something that I can’t raise up at trial court.  If it goes that far, then I will do it anyway.  That’s the whole issue.

MRS. RONDEAU: But the judge essentially said, “You’re going to defend yourself”?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Yes.  He was qualifying me to do that.  He wants this court date to go down on the first of December, and he wants an attorney in place, and because there’s nobody else out there, he qualified me as pro se.

MRS. RONDEAU: What if you did want to bring in somebody else?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: I told him that I would like to do that, and he said, “Well, we’ll see how it goes.  Maybe we will; maybe we won’t.”  He said that this is going to happen on the first of December.  But again, even if an attorney comes to this court right now, I’m telling you, this court is as corrupt as can be.  Judge Blackwood needs to be placed under arrest by federal agents.  This whole thing is rigged, and I saw that happen yesterday.  They’re gleeful about this; they’re smiling, they’re nodding at each other, they know that the whole system is rigged and they can do whatever they want.  Again, this all began when I tried to effect a citizen’s arrest because we found somebody on the grand jury in Monroe County who’s been there for 20 years consecutively.

MRS. RONDEAU: So now they’ve turned that against you, and you’re the bad guy?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Yes.  So they’re looking at trying to put me away for years and years on a felony charge, and this is the way that things work in Monroe County.  I was a citizen doing what I thought was my citizen’s duty, and now you know the rest.  That’s what Special Agent Robert Clifford needs to know about.  He’s a Belgian Special Agent.  People can call their local FBI agents and say, “Get this to Special Agent Robert Clifford.”

Bob Clifford is a very highly-respected FBI agent.  What I’m saying is that I don’t know which federal agents might be involved in the corruption here.  I’m only speculating, but Clifford could come in from the top down and say, “Get to this quick.”  Keep the pressure on all the way around from the top down, bottom up.  But Bob Clifford needs to be made aware of what’s going on.

We know what we know right now.  When Steve Pidgeon got here, he came under the force of Tennessee discipline, and they told him how it was going to work.  He wanted to argue the case on its merits, and my point was, “No, we don’t argue the case on its merits until after we get to a proper grand jury.”  That’s what this is all about.  The grand jury has been taken away from us here; that’s the issue.  It’s not on the merits of the case against me; it’s about the take-away of the grand jury.  And because of the way that the government is working here, this has to go to the federal level.

When Pidgeon got here, he fell into this trap here in Tennessee and was working with the people that we were trying to work against, and that just wasn’t going to happen.

MRS. RONDEAU: And you maintain that there is no case because there is no grand jury?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Right.  And we got this far because judges have been breaking the law to get this case moved along.

This is the biggest story going on in the country right now.  It’s huge.  What they’re doing here is nothing but a pure dictatorship.  The crime committed by the government here is out of control.

Again, we have to burn up the phone lines to FBI offices around the country.  If there’s any cooperation by the feds, they can’t get away with this.  There are so many reasons why this is happening here.  We have to have FBI agents paratrooping in here.

In this court system, they doctor the records; they know that.  They don’t give out the recordings.  They control everything.  The court reporters are controlled, the sheriffs are controlled.  The amount of criminal conduct that is reported in Monroe County is just beyond imagination. It’s massive.

MRS. RONDEAU: People are coming forward at The Post & Email stating that they were a victim of the corruption in Tennessee or they know someone who was, and we are encouraging them to tell their stories.

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Yes, and getting the word out into the community is great, and the word is getting out into the community; it’s coming from the jailhouse, for goodness’ sakes, but the more people who can be put on notice here in Monroe County, the better.  I’m being kidnapped; this is attainder in pure form.  This is punishment without a jury.  They are trying to lock me up as the guy who can blow the whistle here in this community, and the judges are involved in doing that.

Reed Dixon was the judge again today.  Dixon had no business being on the bench.  Reed Dixon, Amy Reedy, Carroll Ross, and Jon Blackwood are all criminals, and there’s nothing to stop them except a federal judge, a federal police officer, a Federal Bureau of Investigation guy coming in.  The corruption here is massive. It’s just beyond belief.

MRS. RONDEAU: The reason I double-checked with you about the issue of representation was that there was a story from the Associated Press about the hearing yesterday which stated that you said at that time that because you have a master’s degree, you’re capable of representing yourself and you didn’t want any other representation.

LCDR FITZPATRICK: That’s not what I said.  I was asked what my level of knowledge was, and I answered the question.  When you’re asked questions, you answer them.  “How old are you?”  I gave my age.  “What’s your level of education?”  “I hold a master’s degree in Business Administration and Technology Management.”  So the truth has to come out.  The judges are rigging the grand juries.

I told the judge yesterday that I did not see any way to defend this case.  He asked me if I wanted a public defender, and I said, “No, this case can’t be defended because we didn’t do the grand jury part.”  I told the judge that I thought this was nothing but a dictatorship and I called the judge one of the dictators.  He asked me a question about my education and I answered it.  The Associated Press is evidently making this stuff up.  I told the judge that another attorney may come to this case, and that I waived the right to bring another attorney in at that point.  I said that there was no defense possible in this case, and I said that over and over and over again.

MRS. RONDEAU: So you waived your right for a Tennessee lawyer to be put on the case?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: I told him that there’s no way that this case can be heard in a Tennessee court.  The corruption here is massive, I said that the fix is in; if we have somebody come to this case, then fine; we’ll see how this goes.  I told the judge yesterday that I knew what was going on, and I told you that in the courtroom that they were snickering, they were laughing, they were looking at each other.  They know the fix is in.  When I asked the judge if a recording or the transcripts would be available, he said, “I don’t know; maybe; maybe not.”  So that’s how that works.  And you can’t trust any court record that comes out, don’t trust it, because they’re just making this stuff up.

There were no reporters in the courtroom on Monday.  A guy named Mark Boren came running up as I was exiting the courtroom, and he was kind-of holding his hands out to the policeman, saying “How come you didn’t tell me about this?”  He had been right across the street.  In other words, Boren got late notice of this.  I was rushed over there.  Nobody knew when I was going to be there.

MRS. RONDEAU: Was there any reason why that hearing was closed to the public?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: I don’t know why they did that, but when I was being let out of here, these jailers were scrambling because they were given no notice that I needed to be at the courthouse.  That was done at the very last minute.   There was no press in that room yesterday.

MRS. RONDEAU: Then it appears someone is putting out erroneous information purposely.

LCDR FITZPATRICK: Wherever that came from, it didn’t come from me.  The corruption here is being covered up by the local newspapers.  That’s part of the reason why we have this problem.

MRS. RONDEAU: Do you feel you’re guilty of the two additional charges?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: No, I’m not.  These other charges are a product of the government coming after me because I tried to effect a citizen’s arrest.  What they’re doing here is an attack against me, and they’re trying to quiet me; they’re just piling on, which is what this is all about.  They’re trying to make as much a case against me as they can.  I don’t want to get into details on the phone; we can talk about that once I’m out.  But this is all piling on and piling on; that’s what they’re doing.

MRS. RONDEAU: I guess you’re holding up as well as can be expected?

LCDR FITZPATRICK: I’m doing what I can here,…

At this point, the automated voice stating “Your time is up” signaling the end of the 15 minutes came on, and the call ended.

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Editor’s Note: A copyrighted photograph dated March 31, 2010 of Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood contains a caption stating that he denied Rocky Joe Houston an attorney at his trial in Roane County, TN.

Here, Judge Blackwood reportedly “forthrightly pointed out the seriousness of the offense” of “judge-shopping” because it “casts doubt on the due process of law afforded defendants in the cases, and creates “’an appearance of impropriety in the judicial integrity of the court.’”