Fitzpatrick: Monroe County Sheriff’s Department guilty of “human trafficking”

“SURVIVING AND ENDURING”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Nov. 14, 2010) — The following is a transcription of a phone call from Walter Fitzpatrick from November 13, 2010.

LCDR: A visitor was here this morning with whom I shared some information; I suspect he’ll be on the phone with you quickly if not already.

SHARON: Yes, we’ve already spoken.

LCDR: The lockdown yesterday was because of an escaped prisoner named Chris Chittum.

SHARON: That’s what he said.

LCDR: It may be in the news; I don’t know.  That’s about all that’s fit to report right now.

I’m told that there are a lot of veterans that are involved in this and that they’re really upset about what’s going on, so that was good news.

SHARON: I do see comments from veterans on the website, and they are upset at what’s happening.  I believe many of them are making calls to various groups and the FBI.

How is the numbness in your left hand?

LCDR: It’s still the same.

SHARON: I interviewed someone else who reported the same symptoms for three months after being tightly handcuffed by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.  He said it finally went away.  My question to him was, “Why don’t people there go to a lawyer and file a lawsuit for damages which could yield millions of dollars for physical and emotional damages?”

LCDR: The attorneys will tell you here that it’s because they want to make a living.  If they do that, then they will no longer work in this community.  The judges have everything under control.  The way that the Tennessee legislature set things up, they have a Judiciary Board of Review and Tennessee will act against any attorneys who act against the system.  That’s one of the things that I think Steve Pidgeon ran into.  They will act against the attorneys.

SHARON: So if an attorney brings a lawsuit on behalf of a client who was physically or psychologically injured, then this board says the suit can’t go forward?

LCDR: I don’t know all the details, but I do know that defense attorneys are not allowed to defend their clients.  They’re told to work out plea deals. The defense attorneys are working for the courts.  A civil attorney coming in here from out of state…who knows what would happen there?

SHARON: So that’s why no one can find an attorney to prosecute the sheriff’s department for brutality or excessive force.  I’m told that the attorneys in the area respond with something like, “Maybe your civil rights were violated and maybe they weren’t.”  But if you’re dragged out of a car, thrown on the ground, beaten and tasered to within an inch of your life, of course your civil rights were violated.

LCDR: There is no question about it, and again, they’ve been doing this because of this down-, back-home, old boys’ network; nobody’s going to watch it.

SHARON: I’ve been told that Nevada also has some kind of law where the attorneys all fall under the judiciary.

LCDR: Yes, and it’s the same thing here, or very similar.  The defense attorneys have to play ball because the judges have taken over.  I’m told that there’s a report in the Sevierville paper (Sevierville is very close to Knoxville, northeast of it) very close to where Dollywood is, about the corruption in Monroe County based on your writing at The Post & Email.

SHARON: The visitor told me that he knows for sure that the people at the jail are reading The Post & Email because the lady he spoke with on Wednesday who told him he couldn’t visit said something like, “Don’t believe what you read on the internet; it’s all lies.”  He said he believes the word is getting out there.

LCDR: That’s what he told me this morning.

SHARON: I’ve spoken with people who intend to go to an attorney, and there is one who has said he will speak with them.  There could be a big class-action suit.  It’s outrageous that people are beaten up like this…

LCDR: Yes!  You said it earlier; they’re picked up off the streets and thrown into jail and they haven’t committed a crime.

SHARON: And then they feel as if they have to “lay low, stay out of trouble,” when they didn’t do anything to get into trouble in the first place.

LCDR: Right.

SHARON: I can’t believe that this is going on in the United States.

LCDR: I’m in a cell with a couple of guys who have been here for two years waiting for their cases to go to court, for goodness’ sakes.  And this is a common thing; they lock you up and then they keep delaying your hearings over and over.  This facility gets paid money by the state for every day that an inmate stays here.

SHARON: That’s what I understand.

LCDR: It’s like a taxicab ride; they just keep running the meter.  This is nothing but a totalitarian dictatorship.  The sheriffs are working for the judges and the judges can’t be arrested.  You’ve got judges doing cocaine just before they come onto the bench.  I have stories to tell you when I get out of here, but it’s just outrageous.  This place is the model of corruption in the United States of America.  This tells you everything that is corrupt about a sheriff.  Bivens needs to be held up as the icon for bad policemen.  Someone has a lead on that, too.  I’d be talking to him about what he knows about Bill Bivens.

SHARON: Someone is running that down.  People are coming out of the woodwork telling their stories of horror at the hands of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.

LCDR: We need to keep doing that.  The word is spreading here in the community, and I know other people are calling you, and we need to keep doing that; keep the pressure on.  Someday I’m going to be out of here, and the fur is going to fly.  This all began with a citizen’s arrest, Sharon.  What more do I need to say?

SHARON: And a citizen’s arrest is legal in Tennessee.

LCDR: Yes, well, why did the judge call it a riot?  Well, because the judges and the sheriffs are frightened to death as more information is revealed.  So we have three people here who are going to dig and dig and dig, and that’s why the FBI needs to be pressured to investigate, and everyone else who has a stake in this needs to keep reporting on the corruption here in Monroe County.  And then we’ll go from there.

SHARON: If an out-of-state attorney comes in and represents a client who claims he has a permanent injury as a result of the sheriff’s department, could the attorney get around this judiciary board or law which constrains Tennessee attorneys?

LCDR: If he brings a civil suit at the federal level for civil rights violations, he can be free of it.  That’s why I told you we need federal intervention to stop these judges from doing what they’re doing, and that’s why the FBI is involved.  Other agencies need to look at this also.  The corruption here is just off the scale.  It’s going to take a federal intervention to come in and stop this, because the state has this thing locked up.  So we need federal intervention coming here and unlocking it so we can get things squared away and get back to the Constitution, because the Constitution isn’t working here.

SHARON: And totalitarianism takes over when there is no working constitution.

LCDR: I told the visitor something this morning which I’d like to repeat for you:  what you have going on here is a form of human trafficking.  These sheriffs are locking up people and sapping them dry of their assets and using these people as tools.  They go and they rob them, they take money away from them; this is a form of human trafficking.  When you think of it that way, you have another very explosive comment to make at The Post & Email:  this is human trafficking of a preying kind.   They prey on people, and some of the same people.  Again, this is one of the things I will talk about when I get out of here, but this is human trafficking of a very sinister kind.

SHARON: It has recently been reported that a human trafficking ring was broken up which began in Minneapolis and ended up in Nashville involving underage girls.

LCDR: I know about that kind, too.

SHARON: But what we’re now talking about is human trafficking of residents of the county:  throwing them in jail, taking their property, their assets, their money…

LCDR: Yes, and then going after other family members and doing the same to them.  As I say, federal intervention is what we need here, and we just have to keep…

Automated Operator: You have one minute remaining.

SHARON: I contacted the FBI again and said that Mr. Fitzpatrick is waiting for a visit because of what he knows about the death of Mr. Jim Miller, even though the Knoxville News Sentinel says that Mr. Miller’s death “remains a mystery.”  I contacted the newspaper, and your visitor also said that he would contact the writer article about the fact that you have information even though they say that the investigation has “hit a wall.”

LCDR: Let’s call it a day for now, Sharon, and we’ll talk on Monday.

SHARON: OK, God bless.

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Editor’s Notes: The spelling of the escaped inmate’s last name has been corrected here based on an available local news report of the incident.  The Post & Email will attempt to verify whether or not the sheriff’s office employee’s last name has the same spelling, as we reported previously.

An organization was formed several years ago in Monroe County which disseminates leaflets and flyers to the community to inform people of the deep corruption of government officials.  The Post & Email has recently been told that they rely on donations and could use new equipment to enable them to mass-produce faster and more efficiently.

More misinformation about the Fitzpatrick published by the Knoxville News Sentinel can be found here.

The Tennessee Court of the Judiciary, where citizens can file complaints against judges, lists contact information here.  The requirements for the licensing of attorneys in Tennessee are listed here, and they are required to swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution and Tennessee constitution.  However, an attorney must make application to “the bar of this Court (Tennessee Supreme Court)” to practice in Tennessee.  It is also stated that “Admission to practice law is controlled by the Supreme Court, which acts on the basis of the certificate of the State Board of Law Examiners.”

Mr. Tim Fasano of Nevada has reported that in regard to finding an attorney to represent him, “There is no attorney out there that is going to take this on, because that means they would be going against the system to which they swore an oath.”