Play Misty for Me: Feminine Psychodrama and Restraining Orders

May 4, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“The first time ‘Misty’ broke into the backyard to pound and scream at the bedroom window, the police handcuffed her and said—her face pressed to the hood of the idling black-and-white—that she was not to return. I figured we would never see her again after that early morning in 2012. But the next night, around 1 a.m., I was in bed with my new boyfriend, ‘Scott,’ and we heard the bedroom door slowly crack open. Scott jumped up. ‘No! You can’t be here!’ he shouted, all high-pitched.”

—“This Restraining Order Expires on Tuesday”

Here’s a fascinating look at the female drama behind restraining orders. Its author is a gifted writer, and it’s an engaging read.

The subject of the piece, who’s called “Misty,” actually responds to it in the comments section—repeatedly—and calls some of its details into question, including ones that suggest speculation by the author (which, while imaginative, is nevertheless scrupulous and plausible). The writer, Natasha, was Misty’s rival in a love triangle. She apparently replaced Misty before Misty was prepared to relinquish her man.

That first night, [Scott and I] stayed at my house, and after having an intimate conversation in bed, we noticed his phone had 41 missed calls from Misty.

Then came the texts. She was at his house.

12:03 AM: Where are you? I’m staying here

12:05 AM: Please come back. I’m not going to lose you. I’m not going to give up. Please come back I want to see you. I love you

12:06 AM: I’m too drunk to drive home, can I please stay?

12:10 AM: Ok I’m staying.

Scott turned off the phone. The next morning when we checked again there were 16 more:

6:41 AM: By the way the pup tore the shit out of the house, but don’t worry I cleaned it up. If you can’t take care of him then you need to put him up for adoption.

To judge from Misty’s not contradicting the meat of the story (see the comments that follow it), its more titillating details are substantially accurate—and include serial calls and text messages to a nonresponsive ex, camping out in his yard, and even entering his house uninvited.

Hollywood representations like this one are seldom mirrored in real life. True “fatal attractions” are rare. High-conflict people, though, aren’t as rare as most imagine, which would be better known were their spiteful urges literally murderous (or even significantly violent). Attacks are typically insidious in their effects rather than bloody.

I tried to relax in Scott’s bed and just as I did, Misty appeared in the doorway.

“No! You can’t be here!” Scott cried, as he scrambled out of the sheets.

“I just came to see about the dog!” Misty shouted, rushing towards Scott.

Scott managed to wrangle Misty backwards away from the bed but she broke through and, before I could get fully to my feet, her arm swung back and I felt a fleshy thud against the side of my head.

She looked me in the eye, her nose ring glinting in the lamplight. “That’s what you get, you fat c[—],” she said.

She swooshed around, threw open the door (she had broken in through the window), and ran away into the night.

There was another series of confrontations with Misty but most of them took place in a courtroom, or through the unregulated space of fake Facebook profiles and anonymous emails. In the days after our first six-month order expired in 2013, Scott’s phone buzzed at 1 a.m.

It was a text message from Misty that just read: “Hi.”

Misty’s claim that her rival engaged in some passive-aggressive payback after a restraining order was procured also sounds credible:

Did you tell the people reading this article that you sent me a blank text from your boyfriend’s new phone during the restraining order period? I responded asking “who is this?” Natasha then proceeded to call the cops and told them I had violated the order. The judge laughed at it.

I’m no more a psychologist than Natasha, who chronicles the escapade, and I don’t know that her diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) would be confirmed by a clinician, but I think there’s more than a hint of personality-disordered aggression in Misty’s conduct (that reported and that on display in the comments section beneath the story). Of the various personality disorders that typify high-conflict people, what’s more, BPD seems the best fit.

The individual with BPD demonstrates a wide range of impulsive behaviors, particularly those that are self destructive. BPD is characterized by wide mood swings, intense anger even at benign events, and idealization followed by devaluation. The BPD individual’s emotional life is a rollercoaster and his/her interpersonal relationships are particularly unstable. Typically, the individual with BPD has serious problems with boundaries. They become quickly involved in relationships with people, and then quickly become disappointed with them. They make great demands on other people, and easily become frightened of being abandoned by them.

Most suggestive of a disordered personality is the lack of shame or remorse in Misty’s responses. Her impulse is to blame, derogate, and punish:

One day I will laugh at her and said moron’s obese, ugly children and thank the lord they are not mine. I will defend myself to the end! A gigantic f[—] you to all is well deserved. I really can’t help the fact that she’s ugly. Jealousy is a horribly disease. I can’t really think of any other reason why she’d carry this drama on so long, they clearly talk about me. I’m flattered.

A high-conflict person may act impulsively—i.e., in hot blood—but having a personality disorder doesn’t mean someone is insane or psychotic. After an outburst of pique, rage may cool to mute hostility—which may nevertheless endure and continue to flare for years. (It’s perhaps telling, though, that wrathful women are often portrayed brandishing knives. It’s our go-to image for invoking vengeful malice.)

There’s a temptation to wonder whether all of this couldn’t have been resolved by talking things through. The reactions of the couple, like the behavior of Misty’s that motivated it, might be considered hysterical. On the other hand, had the man in the middle shown empathy and tried to assuage Misty’s feelings, he might have been the one who ended up on the receiving end of a restraining order.

This happens.

People like Misty are on both sides of restraining order and related prosecutions. Dare to imagine what Misty would be like as an accuser—the absence of conscience and the vengeful vehemence—and you’ll have an idea of what those who are falsely fingered as abusers are subject to. They’re menaced not by repeated home intrusions but by repeated abuses of process (false allegations to the police and court), which are at least as invasive and far more lasting and pernicious in their effects and consequences.

Something the story significantly highlights is feminine volatility. Feminism (itself often markedly hostile) would have us believe women are categorically passive, nurturing, and vulnerable. It’s men who are possessive, domineering, and dangerous.

The active agents in this story are the women; the guy (the “bone of contention”) is strictly peripheral.

*The author of RestrainingOrderBlog.com (now apparently defunct) alleged his accuser was a borderline personality.

Talking Back to Irish Feminist and Misandry-Denier Taryn de Vere

April 19, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 2 Comments

Since the publication of this post, feminist Taryn de Vere’s criticisms of Men’s Voices Ireland have been deleted from the Internet.

“Misandry, n. hatred of men.”

—World Book Dictionary

“[A] satirical imaginary concept.”

—Taryn de Vere

This post is inspired by mockery of a group called Men’s Voices Ireland, which in November held a conference titled, “Challenging Misandry.”

Feminist Taryn de Vere, whom we might call “Miss Andry” for fun, felt compelled to remark beforehand, “In what could possibly be a first for Ireland, a conference has been arranged on the theme of a satirical imaginary concept.”

I don’t know for Men’s Voices Ireland or Irish feminists, but I do know something about semantics.

First, all concepts are imaginary. “Women,” for example, is a concept. It represents nothing that is real. It’s an idea. Real are this person and that person and that other one over there. We form the concept “women” by observing that this person and that person have common contours. That’s it.

If that’s difficult for feminists to hear, so much the better.

Second, “satirical” means sarcastic. Ms. de Vere may use “misandry” sarcastically; Men’s Voices Ireland plainly wasn’t.

So there’s her acid characterization neutralized. While I don’t have the resources of the late Bill Safire to trace the provenances of words, I’m assured by consultation with Webster’s New International Dictionary (second edition, which is the only edition I own) that the word misandry was around before Ms. de Vere was born and was not coined by the men’s rights activists she ridicules.

Ms. de Vere endeavors to support her dismissal of any societal manifestation of misandry today by quoting some academics who know nothing about the law, which is something I know quite a lot about after being the butt of serial prosecutions and false accusations for 12 years.

Ms. de Vere:

It is impossible to have an “ingrained prejudice” against men when we live in a world made by men for men.

For this to be true, there would have to be no such thing as “women’s law,” a phrase that explicitly expresses a prejudice in favor of women by the part of society’s machinery that no citizen can safely resist or defy.

For decades, law monograph after law monograph has charted the evolution of “women’s law” (see left for citations of a few): progressively harsher statutes with progressively broader definitions of “abuse” and progressively reduced thresholds of proof; judges and police officers, who’ve received inducements in the forms of massive federal grants, being “trained” according to tailored social science; etc.

That’s “engrained prejudice” to a tee.

The laws themselves are the stuff of satire. Accusers, who are predominately female, are nominated “victims” based solely on their say-so, and they may move a court to dismiss their allegations while defendants, who are predominately male, may not. Defendants are railroaded through.

That’s in the United States, but it’s likely laws and court custom in Ireland aren’t so different, and they should inspire protest. Ms. de Vere, who is the mother of five, might feel very differently very promptly about men’s plaints if she were abruptly to find herself the mother of none based on some random allegations (of child abuse, say) made to a judge during a few-minute interview to which she wasn’t invited.

For many or most of those who constitute Men’s Voices Ireland, the perception of misandry is probably empirical, that is, based on experience.

It’s Ms. de Vere’s concepts, which are ignorantly based on emotions, that aren’t concepts at all but fantasies.

*“I’ve had a lot of super awful stuff happen to me in my life like multiple rape & domestic abuse,” Ms. de Vere says of her own experiences, which, however sympathetic, only make her willingness to understand men’s experiences that much more suspect. Most disappointingly, Ms. de Vere is a gifted humorist who calls herself “The Joy Bringer” yet is immune to stories like the one here—which is desolating and largely unexceptional. The “joy” she brings to her fans may derive, in part at least, from her derision of others’ agony.

New York Magazine Writer Jonathan Chait Says “the Feminist Police Haven’t Gotten Around Yet to Tormenting the Innocent”

April 18, 2018April 19, 2018Moderator Leave a comment

The absurd quotation in the title of this post comes from a critique of an essay of Katie Roiphe’s published in Harper’s last month, which New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait calls “alternatingly brilliant and incoherent.” Whatever the merits of that characterization (which will be considered in a future post), it could certainly be applied to Mr. Chait’s lopsided and out-of-touch perspectives.

[Roiphe’s] complaint about the tenor of discussion, and the way in which angry and extreme rhetoric crowds out more nuanced thought, has some merit. Social media has made this dynamic more acute—not only in feminism but across the political culture, which has grown more polarized into communities in which the most strident iteration of the community’s shared belief is assumed to be the most authentic.

A self-contradictory implication of what Mr. Chait noncommittally acknowledges as a valid criticism of extremist feminist rhetoric is that by influencing the political—and thus legal—culture, the feminist police have gotten around to tormenting the innocent. Actually, they got around to that a long time ago.

Mr. Chait fails to recognize that among the “feminist police” are the police, the ones with badges and truncheons and guns. Judges also qualify.

“What would the world look like if the kinds of militant, uncompromising views Roiphe is grappling with had controlling power?” he naively wonders. Well, it might look something like this:

That’s the title of a law journal monograph by Russ Bleemer published almost 25 years ago—whose subject was not then localized to a particular state and definitely is not today. It pointed up gross injustices in procedures that had been instituted in the 1970s with the best of intentions.

Many a revolution has started off persecuting only the wicked, only to veer off track later. Perhaps the troubling signs Roiphe detects are portents of a dark future.

Mr. Chait’s conclusion would be less speculative if he took his nose out of the The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker and opened his blinds.

*The concern of Mr. Chait’s article is to defend the #MeToo movement, whose revelations condense to “power corrupts.” Mr. Chait seems to feel that a corruptive influence by radical feminism is only an ominous possibility yet to be realized—which is a view that was last excusable in about…

If Restraining Orders CAN Be Abused, then the PROCESS Is Abusive—and Should Be Repealed

April 16, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 8 Comments

This post addresses a block its writer has noted even in the commentaries of those profoundly injured by unjust or false accusations. That block typically runs something like this: “I’m totally for restraining orders when they protect the violently abused, but….” This perspective is blind, and this post will explain why.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

—Proverb

“You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: They don’t alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

—Dr. Who

I was accused of a number of unsavory things in the spring of 2006 by a disturbed and very married woman who had hung around outside of my house in the dark for a few months the previous fall. She filed multiple police reports then complained to a judge in my presence that my request for “an explanation of sorts” had caused her grave upset and interfered with her work. (Also, she was concerned she might be “attacked”…and her husband might be…and her friends might be…and her mother might be…and….)

This man, Dr. Michael Honeycutt, Ph.D., testified to the Superior Court of Arizona in 2013 (by phone) that the government department he heads (in another state) had instituted special security measures to protect a woman from me whom I hadn’t seen or contacted in seven years. When I found this self-styled damsel in distress standing outside of my residence in 2005, I was a practicing children’s humorist who fed birds and had a pup who wore a pink collar. The same woman who would accuse me of stalking and violent intentions had come to my door one night seeking a defender against men she feared were stalking her and had violent intentions. This established a relationship that included her plying me with conversation about her breasts and underwear and trying to follow me into my house after midnight (minus her wedding ring).

That was 12 years ago, and this woman has dramatically and broadly misrepresented me ever since. She’s also induced others to join her in her hoax.

“I tried to find you in our system,” I was told in my initial police interview many years ago (when I still had plans and dreams of my own), “but there was nothing. At all. That’s really rare.”

Over the four years I’ve maintained this blog, begun five years after my interviews with the cop, I’ve heard repeatedly from others who allege they were falsely accused and who report they had had no prior acquaintance with police precincts or courthouses, either.

Consider how this jibes with the assertion that restraining orders protect victims of violent abusers. It plainly doesn’t, and only “the very powerful and the very stupid” would say otherwise.

Public sentiment has been coerced by “the very powerful and the very stupid” to the extent that even those who know the procedure is a travesty feel compelled to allow that there are cases when restraining orders are necessary.

Changing the minds of “the very powerful and the very stupid” has to start with changing the minds of people who are neither powerful nor stupid, and who know better. There is no justification for bad law. It should be repealed.

What victims of that bad law mean when they say “there are cases when restraining orders are necessary” is that they acknowledge there are people in abusive relationships or imminent danger who need relief. They should appreciate, though, that it isn’t restraining orders that are necessary; something is. Rejecting bad law doesn’t obligate its critic to propose what that something should be. Clearly, however, what that something should be should never have innocent casualties. A law that’s supposed to protect the innocent but may destroy them is both wildly flawed and dangerous.

These are facts: Restraining orders deny defendants their constitutional right to due process; justice rendered in drive-thru procedures that may deprive defendants of employment, security, home, and family can only ever be dubious at best; and being misrepresented in a court of law, scourged by a biased judge, and gibbeted on grounds that may be trumped up or cunningly fraudulent is hurtful and possibly ruinous, and shouldn’t be possible…ever.

If you acknowledge these facts, then you must be against restraining orders, and you must be against them categorically—no ifs, ands, or buts. They’re not the answer. They were a stopgap that has become an institution. That doesn’t mean their engineering was ever sound.

Sure, it may be correct to say that you’re certain not all petitioners lie and that some desperately need protection and deserve it. It’s politically correct to say so, certainly, and it’s sympathetic to say so, too. And, sure, it may be correct to say that sometimes justice does prevail.

But if you own that rulings can be manipulated and that pitfalls are built into the process itself, then you cannot be for restraining orders under any circumstances, because the very same procedure that sometimes assuredly works good also assuredly works evil (and more easily).

Lives are at stake. A process that’s inherently corrupt is inherently wrong, regardless of whether its intentions are good and regardless of whether rulings may be righteous.

Put simply, you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

Constituent of #MeToo Politician Sunny Reynolds Describes a Phone Response by the “Victim” Mayor as Dripping with the “Vilest Truculence and Hostility”

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018Moderator 1 Comment

Previously remarked here, Virginia’s Fauquier Times reported last month that Warrenton Vice Mayor Sunny Reynolds was granted a restraining order against one her constituents, local real estate investor Keith Macdonald, for allegedly displaying aggression toward her in a restaurant during a verbal exchange lasting a few minutes. Ms. Reynolds testified she was “afraid” and complained to the press that she felt she was picked on because she was a girl.

This week, the same news outlet ran a letter to the editor by another of Ms. Reynold’s constituents, Robert Bowman, which contrasts with her self-representation to the police and the court as a fragile flower (emphasis added).

In the last city council election, I ignored friends’ advice and not only voted for Sunny Reynolds, but also allowed her to be the only candidate ever to place a campaign poster in my yard.

Since the election I have had three occasions to contact Reynolds.

On the first two incidents she did not call or respond in any way.

On a third issue I wish she had, yet again, ignored me. She responded to [it] by [phone] with the vilest truculence and hostility.

To say she was less than helpful would be a grave understatement.

Robert Bowman
Warrenton

Feminists are oblivious to the obvious, and no one else could fail to miss the implications, which spares this writer any obligation to comment further.

There Are No “Sides” to a Story That’s BS: How Restraining Order Policy Turns Lies into Realities

April 13, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 1 Comment

A mathematician would dismissively tell you that you can’t describe one-half of zero. The project is absurd.

Yet civil courts, as a matter of policy, demand that defendants perform this nonsensical exercise every day.

This advice about telling “your side of the story about what happened” is offered by the California Court System, and it presumes that something must have happened to inspire some accuser to petition a restraining order. No tips are included about what to do if “what happened” was that this accuser had a malicious impulse to lie or is crazy.

I’m not a mathematician; I was trained as a critic. While a mathematician would almost certainly pronounce that trying to articulate one-half of nothing is meaningless and a waste of time (and then wave you away), a critic, arching an eyebrow, would tell you that the act of trying to articulate one-half of nothing raises the expectation that nothing is something after all. The act of explaining, in other words, creates meaning; it exerts an influence. It says there is “a story.”

To describe “your side” of nothing gives substance and dimensions to zero; it turns zero (a lie or lies) into something real—and this is what the civil court forces defendants to do…then it faults them for the stories it makes them tell about what was BS to begin with.

This sorcery goes on routinely and n-n-n-duh-mbly. The presumption of civil courts that accusations are “facts” that have “sides” is a grave blindness. This prejudice can, and it regularly does, turn nothing into “something.”

A defendant could answer honestly: “Your Honor, it’s bullshit, wholly bullshit, and nothing but bullshit.” But the judge would reject that answer out of hand and would, besides, threaten the speaker with penalties for insulting the court’s “dignity.” The judge could even rule that a defendant is “guilty” of allegations that are bullshit to punish him or her for saying the allegations are bullshit.

Fun, huh? Lives are intruded upon by judges (who are paid lavishly to warm chair seats), and then these judges produce reams of records to make people blameworthy for nothing they’ve actually done.

The mindset of judges is that there must be something, which means they find something where there was nothing. They “find” something even if they have to make it up.

This is all (yet another) explanation of how civil process is (1) stupid, (2) corrupt, (3) stupid, (4) noxious, (106) absurd, and (5) reprehensible.

*People are daily deprived of their liberties, livelihoods, and even their reasons for living based on equations like this one: 0 = 22.

One Way to Convince a Judge to Appoint You Free Legal Counsel

April 9, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

Persuading a judge to appoint you free legal counsel in a civil case isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible, especially if the plaintiff of plaintiffs are seeking to have you incarcerated (for contempt of court, say). You have to be prepared to invest dozens of hours and to work at it daily. You have to write, and you have to write a lot. You have to draft as many legal motions as you can possibly find a plausible justification to file. These might include, besides a Motion for Appointment of Counsel:

Motion to Continue
Motion to Dismiss
Motion for Bill of Particulars
Motion to Quash the Warrant (if a criminal case)
Motion to Strike (the plaintiff’s exhibits, for example)
Motion for Medical Examination (alleging your accuser is batshit crazy and a danger to you)
Motion for Jury Trial

To quote a former attorney, you have to “paper the shit out of the thing.” You’re a bombardier whose mission it is to make it a bigger pain in the ass for the judge to deny you counsel and read your reams of documents than to grant you a lawyer (who’ll make the judge’s job a lot easier). For every legal case (or statute) you cite—and you should quote dozens—include its full, highlighted text as an exhibit attached to the particular motion to which it applies. Include all relevant evidence as exhibits, too. Remember, this is defense by blitzkrieg.

Your exhibits should be considerably longer than the “briefs” of yours that they’re appended to. Your Motion to Dismiss could accordingly exceed 100 pages. This is completely justifiable: You’re including full case law citations, because you’re not a lawyer, and you know the court can’t take it on faith that your citations are apposite. It’s not just a ploy, and there’s always a remote chance the judge will read your motion.

Don’t pad your filings like they’re sophomore essays. That won’t avail. Look for models online to use as templates, and try to be as precise and “lawyerly” as you can. Expect the judge to read what you submit, even though s/he won’t.

Judges enjoy an eider-down-and-satin comfort zone. Your object is to disrupt it by throwing a greasy wrench in the orderly, antiseptic workings they’re accustomed to.

By making this investment, besides causing a judge to groan, you contradict the impression immediately formed by judges who see you’re defending yourself (the phrase pro se is regarded with contempt by officers of the court). That immediate impression is that you’re negligible and that they don’t have to worry about being caught with their pants down if you appeal. You create the idea that you’re going to put up a fight, that you’re secure in your faith that the plaintiff or prosecutor is wrong, and that you will preserve your appellate rights and exercise them.

Don’t neglect to tell the judge that, either.

Chances are if the judge does consent to appoint you an attorney, s/he will summarily deny all of the motions you just sacrificed 100 hours and drove yourself to the edge of exhaustion to compose. Don’t be surprised or scowl. That was the payoff.

*The author of this post has been serially prosecuted for 10 years, including three times in 2016. The plaintiffs sought that year to have him jailed in civil court and criminal court, and one of the monsters besides applied for a civil injunction. Both of the trial judges denied the writer’s numerous pro se motions (which fill a crate and were probably wholly unread) but granted him court-appointed attorneys. Restraining order cases are typically too accelerated to apply the advice this post recommends, and service of documents on the plaintiff is hairy. On the other hand, it never hurts to try provided you mind the no-contact rules. Legal process is supposed to be equitable (fair), and a judge may be sensitive to that even if s/he’s callused to everything else legal process is supposed to be about (like, for instance, telling the truth).

“Men Lie” v. “Women Lie,” as Represented by Google News in November

April 5, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

I took the screenshots below in November, when I was still inhibited from publishing anything on this site pending a judicial ruling. Stuck spinning my wheels, I must have performed the searches on a whim. Google returns different results for the same search terms today.

These screenshots are shared because they speak more effectively than words can.

“About 3,880 results (0.86 seconds)”:

“1 result (0.51 seconds)”:

Women, per Google News on Nov. 7, 2017, right about the time the #MeToo movement was in full swing, only lie about their age. Also noteworthy is that the phrase “women lie” appeared in two of the top four results for “men lie” on this particular date, but neither of those was returned for the search “women lie.”

It could have been a fluke or a limitation of my laptop, which was salvaged from the trash five years ago, but it’s almost as if returns for the phrase “women lie” were squelched.

*It didn’t occur to me to try the phrase “Google lies”—because that’s just crazy. Google’s returns for the same search terms yesterday were “about 3,450” results for “men lie” and “about 3,500” for “women lie.” The reader is urged to consider whether the almost exact equivalence is any less suspicious.

“What Would Mrs. Grundy Say?” Has Nothing to Do with the Law: Scrutiny of the Restraining Order Case against Blogger and Political Activist Derek Logue as Reported by Writer Peter Schorsch

March 31, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 3 Comments

The law is a two-way street. Those who violate it are answerable to it. So, too, though, are those who exploit it. It’s canonical that administrators of law not play favorites. The defendant in the case this post scrutinizes was convicted of a sex offense against a preteen girl in 2001, and the author of this post, a would-have-been children’s writer, is ambivalent about the defendant’s cause, which is articulated here (and is not without valid and urgent points). The plaintiff in the case, however, is not a child. She’s an adult representative of the people whose job is to negotiate issues of concern to society, no matter how thorny or repugnant. And it’s this writer’s opinion that she has abdicated that responsibility and abused the law. Also criticized in this post is a self-styled reporter whose job is to relate facts without bias. It’s this writer’s opinion that he, too, has failed to meet his ethical duties.

No allegation is more prejudicial today than “abuse.” Forty years of slipshod and slapdash legislation, and the pumping of billions of federal tax dollars into police precincts and the court system are among the reasons. Priorities have been bought. And the propaganda that has motivated this investment has been no less effective at influencing the public.

“Abuse” isn’t an allegation these days; it’s Revelation—and skepticism is tantamount to heresy. The torch-bearing mob doesn’t answer to the system. It owns it.

Accordingly, attorneys for plaintiffs alleging abuse are free to exercise dramatic license, and both judges and cops know what’s expected of them and strive to please.

Journalists who report and comment on investigative and court findings in “abuse” prosecutions typically know the least about the law but may be the most arrogant in their judgments.

Enter Peter Schorsch, who introduced me to the restraining order case of Florida Sen. Lauren Book v. Derek Logue in a jaundiced account on the website Florida Politics, which bills itself as a “statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida.” Mr. Schorsch is its publisher.

Mr. Logue, the defendant in the case, was issued a permanent restraining order this month, based, apparently, on political speech, which is protected in our country above all other kinds. It seems his entitlements under the First Amendment were deemed negligible, however, because he committed the cardinal sin of profaning a woman—and because he’s a registered sex offender. Mr. Logue pleaded guilty to first degree sexual abuse of an 11-year-old girl 17 years ago. This is his account from his blog, Once Fallen:

I kissed an underage girl. She was somebody I knew, and I knew better. I am what you call a “situational offender.” I was arrested in 2000 and convicted in 2001 (I sat in jail a full year before my conviction). I served 37 months of a six-year sentence in an Alabama State Prison, and was released in April 2003. I never chose to become an activist, but after I spent years in vain [lying] low, working and paying bills, and bothering no one, I was targeted by local politicians determined to use registrants like me to further their careers. I was forced out of one residence formerly pre-approved by the authorities, and had to fight to keep my second residence. My activism was inspired by my struggle to survive.

That activism, Mr. Schorsch reports, has included R-rated criticisms of Sen. Book since 2009 on a variety of Internet media, as well as in-person protests of her positions at public events where Sen. Book was present. Mr. Logue is said to have “heckle[d]” her at one last year.

Although there’s no mention in Mr. Schorsch’s story of Mr. Logue’s having issued threats, brandished a weapon, or cast literal brickbats, Mr. Schorsch quotes Sen. Book’s restraining order petition as stating: “[B]ecause of the anger and hostility targeted at Ms. Book during the session by Mr. Logue, she had to be quickly escorted off stage by security for her safety.”

The logical non sequitur is obvious, but legal interpretation has been conditioned in “abuse” cases to treat alleged emotional impressions as incontrovertible facts. Why words from a distance required that Sen. Book be rushed off of a stage is a taboo question.

Plainly Mr. Logue has been implicated by implication—and not even his own implication.

Mr. Schorsch reports “he posted a video on Twitter entitled ‘You are a C**t’ that included lyrics saying he would ‘f**k up [Book’s] face.’” If Mr. Logue said he would “f**k up” Ms. Book’s face, then why does “Book’s” appear in brackets in Mr. Schorsch’s story? The referenced video is by Australian singer-songwriter Kat McSnatch (note the stage name).

The video has nothing to do with Sen. Book, nor is Mr. Logue its author. The allegation is that the hyperlink republication of the video by Mr. Logue on Twitter implied violent intent and ignores context. Unreported by Mr. Schorsch, what Mr. Logue tweeted was this: “I think I found the official…Lauren Book theme song.” The meaning of the statement is unambiguous.

Even if it weren’t, though, implication is not a true threat, which must “communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals” (Virginia v. Black). Nevertheless, Mr. Schorsch reports that a hyperlink to a cartoon was “deemed a credible threat to Book’s safety by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.”

Here’s Mr. Schorsch:

Logue claims his lyrics, his website and in-person protests are within his First Amendment rights, though Book’s attorneys vehemently disagree.

Were the lyrics his? Are Sen. Book’s attorneys correct in their interpretation of First Amendment protections? These are questions to which a journalist might have pursued answers, particularly one who has fallen under criminal suspicion himself, as Mr. Schorsch reportedly has.

Instead Mr. Schorsch contents himself with quoting Sen. Book’s attorneys:

“To even flirt with the notion that Mr. Logue’s words directed at Lauren Book are anything less than profane insults or ‘fighting words’ would be nonsensical,” the argument reads. “Mr. Logue’s mission, which he continuously reemphasizes over several social media platforms…has been to target Senator Book because of her political views and her attempt to pass more legislature relating to violent sexual offenders, such as Mr. Logue.”

Without exception, “profane insults” are fully protected by the First Amendment, and the dated phrase “fighting words” (1942) hardly applies. Fighting words are those “which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire). In the age of HBO, there is no conceivable sequence of words Mr. Logue could have strung together from a distance of yards, possibly many yards, that could have inspired a brawl, and tweets to the world at large, for example, can never be qualified as “fighting words” (or “stalking,” a characterization Mr. Schorsch uses in his article’s headline). If Mr. Logue’s “mission” had been to criticize President Trump’s policies “over several social media platforms,” there would be no story. The allegations only survived scrutiny because Mr. Logue committed a sex offense in the distant past, which is “continuously reemphasize[d]” because it’s highly prejudicial. (The website Florida Bulldog reports that Sen. Book’s initial request for a temporary restraining order was rejected for “insufficient evidence showing she was in immediate danger.”)

Finally, Mr. Schorsch reports:

The court approved the restraining order, which requires Logue to stay at least 500 feet away from Book’s house and car, 1,000 feet from her person, and prohibits him from contacting her directly or indirectly in any way.

Finally, I have to wonder, has Mr. Logue ever been anywhere near Sen. Book’s “house and car”? From the reported facts, it seems improbable. So Mr. Logue has been indefinitely prohibited from attending public events to engage in constitutionally protected political protest, and he has effectively if not explicitly been prohibited from criticizing a politician by the court’s misinterpretation of harassment laws, which cannot be applied to one-to-many speech…even if it uses “bad words.”

*On his blog, Mr. Logue writes that in “2007, [he] received a partial pardon from the state of Alabama in recognition of [his] rehabilitation” and has “been ‘free’ for over 14 years without a single accusation or suspicion of re-offense.” He expresses the belief that the pardon signified “hope for redemption, even for those with the label ‘sex offender.’” It granted Mr. Logue the restoration of his “civil and political rights”—as long, apparently, as he declined to actually exercise them.

What Massachusetts Law Firm Dane Shulman Associates Says about Restraining Order Abuse and Divorce

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018Moderator Leave a comment

Below is Massachusetts law firm Dane Shulman Associates writing about the game of false accusation. Lawyers know this happens. They know it very well.

Various feminist advocates doggedly assert that restraining order abuse, particularly to gain leverage in family court, is insignificant—or worse, that claims of it are merely men’s rights propaganda—and such assertions are made even by professors of law. Practitioners of law (the lawyers in the trenches, not the ivory tower) report otherwise.

“Restraining Order Abuse in Divorce Cases” (emphases added):

Unfortunately, some people are abusing Massachusetts’ restraining order laws and using them as a divorce tactic. An individual involved in divorce proceedings may file a temporary restraining order against [his or her] spouse, alleging abuse of him or [her] or of the couple’s children. This would prevent the alleged abuser from having contact with his or her children during the 10-day temporary order, and if the allegations stick, the restraining order would last up to a year after the accusations were made. Often, such allegations are false, and only a way to put a wrench in the divorce proceedings and for the accusing spouse to gain custody of the children involved.

To prevent the restraining order from being extended, it is imperative that the alleged abuser present evidence [in] the second hearing that the allegations made against him or her are false. This is the first and only time an alleged abuser can present his or her case. If he or she fails to appear, chances are that the restraining order will be extended, and the accusing spouse will gain custody of the children.

A restraining order can have disastrous effects on the alleged abuser. The order is put on his or her criminal record, and any violation of the order results in criminal charges. The alleged abuser is also listed in the statewide Domestic Violence Registry, a record that never goes away. All of these actions greatly impact an alleged abuser’s ability to secure new employment, especially jobs for the government or jobs that involve working with children.

Massachusetts’ courts issue restraining orders to protect victims, not so the orders can be used as frivolous tactics to gain the upper hand in a divorce or a child custody matter. Restraining orders have serious consequences for the alleged abuser, and also for the relationship between the alleged abuser and his or her children, since the order could put strain on the parent-child relationship. A restraining order is something no one should consider obtaining without a serious, truthful cause.

*One of the most outspoken critics of restraining orders, attorney Gregory Hession, also practices in Massachusetts.

Previously Paddled Attorney Chris Scileppi Tells an Arizona Superior Court Judge That This Blog’s Author Has “Terrorized” and “Demonized” His Clients with Computer Code—and Isn’t Jeered out of the Room

March 27, 2018June 23, 2023Moderator 2 Comments

What this post relates is typical of prosecutorial conduct in restraining order cases, besides generally. The imperative, which is both profligate and malicious, is simply to win. Neither merit nor justice has anything to do with it. The post revisits a 2016 hearing whose object was to have the writer jailed. To remind those who need reminding, namely, liberal proponents of wasteful litigation whose advocacy is based on sensationalized abstractions, jailed means locked in an iron-and-concrete kennel.

lizard

“See attached Exhibit A—wherein Defendant, via letter to one of Dr. Bredfeldt’s then supervisors [at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality], explains that the intent of his blog is not to speak on restraining order abuse, as would be implied by its name, but rather to expose ‘Tiffany’s conduct and frauds…the ploys Tiffany used to camouflage her hanky-panky…so long as I’m burdened with Tiffany’s frauds, however, I intend nevertheless to keep lighting candles where I can as my time and energies allow.’”

—Tucson attorney Christopher Scileppi

Quick note: Excepting my bracketed interpolation, the quotation above is unaltered. That’s exactly how it appears, ellipses and all, in a brief to the court. Short addendum: Speech about misconduct that includes the abuse of restraining orders is speech “on restraining order abuse.” Superfluous postscript: Obviously.

This is one of several posts that enlarge on aspects of the writer’s most recent cases, which have concerned citizens’ constitutional right to freedom of expression. Procedures forerunning the July 15, 2016 hearing encapsulated here have been numerous and all of them related to the conduct described in the letter to Roberta Grant, Ph.D., quoted in the epigraph. That conduct is what inspired this blog. To conceal that conduct, I’ve been serially accused and prosecuted for 12 years.

A synopsis of the backstory, with links to corroborating statements given in evidence to the court by my accusers, Tiffany and Phil Bredfeldt, can be found in the preface here.

(In short, Tiffany Bredfeldt, a married stranger who hung around my house up to and past midnight for three months in 2005, told various courts over a seven-year period that I had been “nice” to her and a “friend,” that she “would not wear a wedding ring” while she was there, and that she had “never felt the need” to tell me she was married; but that I had made “several physical, romantic advances toward her,” “propositioned her,” and “ask[ed] for” or “offered her sex”; and that I was a “danger” to her husband and shouldn’t be allowed to talk to him. Readers without Ph.D.’s in science, at least, might detect some inconsistencies in these statements and wonder about the reason for them. Such readers might even think the reason is self-evident.)

The syntactic goulash quoted at the top of this post is the work product of the Law Office of Christopher Scileppi, the Tucson-based attorney employed by the Bredfeldts. Mr. Scileppi is distinguished for having been given a little squeeze by the mayor of Nogales in front of jurors at a rape trial, in which he represented one of the alleged assailants of a 15-year-old girl. The mayor who hugged him was later sent to prison for public corruption. Mr. Scileppi represented him, too. In 2014, Mr. Scileppi was suspended for 60 days and placed on six months’ probation for violating various ethical rules (ERs).

Christopher Scileppi, Chris Scileppi, Phil Bredfeldt, Philip Bredfeldt, Tiffany Bredfeldt

Dr. Roberta Grant—to whom the letter quoted in the epigraph was addressed and from whom I never got a reply—keeps classy company.

I was represented a specialist in constitutional law who has never been embraced by a politician in court—during a rape trial or otherwise.

The epigraph is a statement of Mr. Scileppi’s excerpted from a supplemental briefing to the court on a motion to dissolve a 2013 “prior restraint” that violated my First Amendment rights with shameless gusto (and that was issued by an Arizona Superior Court judge, Carmine Cornelio, who has since been shamed off the bench). It was the reason I’ve previously been circumspect about how I talk about my own case history on this site (pointlessly: The court’s order forbade me from publishing anything, ever, including by “word of mouth”). A prior restraint prohibits publications before they’ve been made; it extorts silence and conformity. The unlawful order of the court was the handicraft of Jeffrey Marks, another unscrupulous Tucson lawyer who represented the Bredfeldts in the most recent action…right up until the judge consented to appoint me counsel, whereupon Mr. Marks discovered he had more pressing concerns to attend to. Noteworthy is that Mr. Scileppi, Mr. Marks’s replacement, is a criminal lawyer (he represents, for example, alleged rapists).

The trial strategy of the plaintiffs has been a study in workarounds: If the law isn’t on your side, find ways to persuade the court otherwise.

In this instance, the plaintiffs alleged that the court shouldn’t consider my words on this site as “speech” but rather as “conduct.” Speech is protected by the First Amendment; conduct may not be.

Relative to this case, there is a clear difference between posting a blog entry to the Internet about the very real debate about whether restraining orders can be abused—which is what the Defendant claims to have been doing—and utilizing one’s blog to terrorize, demonize, harass, and defame another—which is what the Defendant has actually been doing since 2008. While this case involves Defendant’s use of the Internet broadly and tags specifically to make contact with and harass the Plaintiffs and their family, it is not the first time this issue has arisen in the law.

Mr. Scileppi’s argument was that “tags,” the keywords at the bottoms of posts that identify its topics, serve to “contact” anyone whose name appears among them. Tags don’t actually link to anything external to the website, so Mr. Scileppi directed the court’s attention to a case about a woman against whom a restraining order was issued who subsequently tagged comments she made on Facebook with the plaintiff’s name. In the comments, she called the plaintiff “sad” and “stupid.” Mr. Scileppi:

In People v. Gonzalez (New York Supreme Court 15-6081M) the victim had been granted an order of protection against his ex-girlfriend Maria Gonzalez, which ordered the defendant to “refrain from communication or any other contact, directly or indirectly through third parties, by mail, telephone, e-mail, voicemail, or other electronic or any other means.”

The plaintiff, in fact, was a woman, Gonzalez’s former sister-in-law. Either Mr. Scileppi was careless (for which he has previously been spanked), or he just adapted the details of the case to suit his purposes.

Facebook: “Tags in photos and posts from people you aren’t friends with may appear in Timeline review where you can decide if you want to allow them on your Timeline.” The woman who prosecuted her former sister-in-law for calling her and her family “sad” could instead have requested of Facebook that comments tagged by her not be included on her Timeline. One can’t but conclude that she wanted her to be punished by the criminal justice system…for calling her “sad.”

Ignoring the questions of what a miscreant someone has to be to want a woman jailed for calling her “stupid,” and whether such an allegation is worthy of the court’s time—which questions say a lot about both the value of restraining orders and why they’re sought—tagging on Facebook does cause a contact with the person tagged. That’s its purpose.

Tagging in blogs is in no way related (and even tagging on Facebook is defensible as protected speech; the court has held that “where comments are made on an electronic medium to be read by others, they cannot be said to be directed to a particular person,” that is, they cannot be called “contact” and therefore cannot be called “harassment”). Mr. Scileppi, whose law firm is on Facebook, knew that what’s called “tagging” on Facebook is distinct from what’s called “tagging” on a blog. Mr. Scileppi again:

While tags on Facebook may differ from the tags employed by the Defendant—the former are primarily understood to be direct contact while the latter are likely indirect contact—the fact remains that they are contact nonetheless.

You see how Mr. Scileppi’s style of lawyering works: You tell the judge what you want him or her to conclude. You sketch a false correspondence and only let on that the two things you’ve represented as analogous “may differ”…but not significantly.

They differ entirely. A section of my attorney’s competitive briefing to the court was titled, “Plaintiffs Misunderstand the Meaning of the Verb ‘Contact.’” I like this explanation from Chan v. Ellis (2015):

“To ‘contact’ is readily understood by people of ordinary intelligence as meaning ‘to get in touch with; communicate with’” (citation and punctuation omitted)). Although one may “contact” another…by communicating with the other person through any medium, it nevertheless is essential that the communication be directed specifically to that other person, as opposed to a communication that is only directed generally to the public.

Also readily understood by people of ordinary intelligence is that a tag isn’t even a “communication”; tags just identify keywords in a communication to the general public, and a communication to the general public is protected speech.

Mr. Scileppi’s case to the court relied almost entirely on these words and brief phrases at the bottoms of posts that summarize their topics. He even loosely equated the use of HTML metatags with harassing person-to-person telephone calls. The “operator” said to place the calls was Google. The explanation ran something like this: Tags used on this blog were detected by Google, whose algorithm allegedly made posts more prominent among search engine returns for queries that included the terms in their tags. This in turn hijacked the plaintiffs’ public images and “created” a contact…or whatever.

In fact, Google doesn’t use lexical tags at all, whether to determine webpage hierarchies or for any other purpose, nor has it done for almost 10 years.

Based on the foregoing science fiction, given the veneer of credibility by an expert witness and garnished with protestations of terror and trauma, it was argued that I should be incarcerated while my father was dying. (Contrast the robotic feminist refrain, which should be heard in the voice of a sententious child and is summarized thus: False allegations are extremely rare and seldom have serious consequences.)

Horrific is that BS like this can actually snooker trial judges who don’t know better. Almost as horrific is that it’s meant to.

*I was an aspiring author of children’s humor when my seclusion was invaded by my accuser and some equally disturbed girlfriends of hers 12 years ago. My initials, which I had considered using as a pen name, are T. A. G.

#MeToo Restraining Orders Petitioned by Politicians This Month

March 25, 2018March 30, 2018Moderator 1 Comment

Some recent posts on this blog concerned a frivolous restraining order granted to Warrenton, Virginia Vice Mayor Sunny Reynolds. Curious, I took a look to see whether this was a one-off among politicians.

It wasn’t.

This post looks at other restraining orders petitioned at the people’s expense by representatives of the people (all women)—reported in one month (March 2018). The majority seem to concern disruptions of public speeches. Of note, especially considering the plaintiffs are representatives of government, is that at least one of the orders is patently unconstitutional.

From the various news stories digested below, my favorite quotation was this: “It’s hard to keep track of who is driving this clown car.”

Republican Congresswoman Tarah Toohil was granted a three-year restraining order against fellow Republican state representative Nick Miccarelli, both of Pennsylvania, after alleging he abused and threatened to kill her during a relationship six years prior. Miccarelli, who was stripped of a badge that allows lawmakers to swipe into the Capitol complex and must enter with the general public through a metal detector, is being criminally investigated based on Toohil’s claims and those of another woman who prefers to remain anonymous.

Democratic Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, a candidate for governor of New Mexico, was granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) against a former intern, Riley Del Rey, a transgender woman who alleges her termination was discrimination-based. Del Rey interrupted a Mar. 11 political speech, for which she was jailed, and was alleged to have “barged into a room” and “disrupted” a different event the month previous. A criminal investigation is pending in this case, which already required that Del Rey keep her distance from Lujan Grisham. The TRO was consequently tossed.

Cape Coral, Florida Mayor Marni Sawicki was granted a restraining order against her ex-husband, Ken Retzer. The only reported allegation was that he was “previously accused of attacking the one-term mayor last year during a conference in Miami.”

Florida Democratic Sen. Lauren Book was granted a permanent restraining order against Derek Logue for political speech (i.e., an unlawful prior restraint). Logue reportedly heckled Book at public events and published criticisms of her on Twitter and YouTube that included obscene words. (“Logue posted a video on Twitter entitled ‘You are a C**t,’” reports writer Peter Schorsch on the website Florida Politics, “that included lyrics saying he would ‘f**k up [Book’s] face.’” Schorsch also reports “[t]hat video was deemed a credible threat to Book’s safety by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.” The quoted lyrics are plainly those of Australian singer-songwriter Kat McSnatch, whose performance of the song is viewable here, and if Logue only linked to McSnatch’s video, the finding of “credible threat” by law enforcement, the court, and, most deplorably, Schorsch, is absurd.)

*In an instance of the people’s getting theirs back, the ex-husband of a woman said to have had an affair with Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who was reportedly indicted in February on the charge of felony invasion of privacy for taking a nude photo of the woman without her permission in 2015, is seeking a restraining order against Greitens, a retired Navy SEAL, on the grounds he feels intimidated by him.

Most False Restraining Orders against Feminists Who Abuse Children Work

March 23, 2018March 23, 2018Moderator Leave a comment

If you’re not sure what the title means, that’s the point.

It’s satirical and intended to emphasize that if you falsely accuse someone of abusing a child and the accusation sticks, there’s about a 100% probability that the restraining order will work to deter future abuse of that child by the falsely accused person who never abused the child in the first place.

As a feminist might reason, however, zero probability of abuse is good, and that zero probability recommends that all feminists be restrained by order of the court from abusing children…because how could that be a bad thing?

It’s certainly likely that there are feminist child abusers. If all feminists were put on notice, then, malefactors among them would be discouraged from committing further abuses.

Okay, sure, non-child-abusing feminists might resent the implication of a court order that prohibited them from abusing children. But so what? As a feminist might observe, the net effect of forbidding all feminists from abusing children would be enhanced protection of children. Unquestionably this would be worth some ruffled fur.

Now, do I mean the above as lampoon, or am I being serious? When it comes to the subject of restraining orders, both amount to the same thing.

These remarks and my choice of words in this post’s title were inspired by a 15-year-old “family violence special report” headlined, “Most restraining orders work.” It was written by Kristen Go for The Denver Post and published Sept. 12, 1999.

The headline’s assertion is the kind that makes people who’ve been falsely accused grate their teeth.

Imagine, just for argument’s sake, that most restraining order accusations are hyped or false. If that were the case, then naturally most restraining orders would “work” (to curb behavior that the accused never exhibited in the first place).

What Ms. Go’s report saliently relates is that three Colorado women who obtained restraining orders against “abusive husbands” were subsequently shot to death by those husbands.

While these recent high-profile cases in Grand Junction, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs make it appear that restraining orders don’t work, experts say that’s not the case. Enforcing a restraining order can be difficult but not impossible. And obtaining a restraining order is just one step toward leaving an abusive relationship and staying safe, experts say.

“The reality is that a restraining order is a piece of paper,” said John Poley, an assistant city attorney in Denver’s Domestic Violence Unit. “It’s not going to stop bullets. If you get a restraining order without a safety plan in a domestic situation, I think that’s almost asking for trouble.”

Translation: Restraining orders against violent people may not actually do a damn thing but make those violent people murderously angry, and those much-promoted pieces of paper may inspire a false sense of security in their applicants that gets them killed.

No one…keeps track of how many domestic-abuse homicide victims had restraining orders against their killers.

Translation: No one really cares what the consequences are so long as perception is predominantly positive.

Recent studies—which include data collected in Denver—are inconsistent about how often orders are violated. A 1994 study by the National Center for State Courts found that two-thirds of restraining orders are never violated. Yet a 1993 study by the Urban Institute reported that 60 percent of women said their abuser violated the order.

Translation: What the courts report contradicts what women report, and what women report contradicts what Ms. Go does (“Most restraining orders work”).

What the studies do agree on, however, is that about 70 percent of people who obtain restraining orders report feeling safer.

Translation: A majority of people who obtain restraining orders report “feeling” safer, and this means most restraining orders “work.”

The foregoing may be summarized thus: (1) Restraining orders against violent people may get their applicants killed; (2) no one takes a particular interest in how often this occurs; (3) most restraining orders “work”; (4) if most restraining orders are based on BS, it only stands to reason that they should; and (5) we know that three restraining orders obtained in Colorado in the late 90s were presumably legit…and ascertainably worthless.

*Ms. Go’s report also relates the following data: “In fiscal 1998, about 18,000 temporary and 3,300 permanent domestic-violence-related restraining orders were issued in Colorado counties.” If Ms. Go is correct, there’s no evidence in her reportage that she understands this means over 80% of domestic-violence-related restraining orders issued in Colorado counties in 1998 were dismissed. Of the approximately 18,000 petitions preliminarily approved by the court, that is, less than 20% (3,300) were affirmed (made “permanent”). Over 14,500 cases, then, may have been (tacitly) deemed frivolous, flimsy, or false by Colorado courts. Appreciate, besides, that a significant proportion of the 3,300 orders that were upheld may have had false grounds. Almost 20 more years of this charade have gone by since.

Alison Friedman and Karen Mallard: A Consideration of Two Congressional Candidates from Virginia Who Could Move for Reform of Corrupt Abuse Laws if Elected But Who Probably Wouldn’t

March 20, 2018March 21, 2018Moderator Leave a comment

Two recent posts here have commented on a restraining order petitioned by Warrenton, Virginia Vice Mayor Sunny Reynolds. The order was grounded on an exchange of words in a restaurant that lasted “three or four minutes.” To critics of feminist-inspired civil court processes that reek of kangaroo, the absurdity of Ms. Reynolds’ complaint, for which a man is now registered in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, isn’t necessary to remark.

Misapprehended, though, almost by everyone, is that what makes such travesties endlessly possible are laws, laws made by the legislators who we vote into office (and can vote out of office).

This post rhetorically analyzes the campaign videos of two congressional candidates from Sunny Reynolds’ state. The women in the videos may be tomorrow’s lawmakers.

One message is by an activist mom and former State Dept. official, Alison Friedman (“Alison for Virginia”):

The other is by a schoolteacher, Karen Mallard (“Teacher for Congress”):

Both advertisements conspicuously center around children, and their appeals are emotional. Her voice trembles as Ms. Friedman narrates a series of stills. She describes her grade school daughter’s fear that the President would “[bring] his guns to [their] house” if news of a letter she wrote to him were leaked. Mrs. Mallard, who’s on camera throughout her ad, gets teary-eyed as she recalls learning that her father was illiterate and teaching him to read.

Adult male presences in the ads are tame or mute. Ms. Friedman seems to be a single mom. Mrs. Mallard’s husband, David, appears in her video, but how he appears is positively morose:

Mr. Mallard becomes animated later on—after he cooks dinner, which he’s filmed doing. Two young men, who seem to be Mrs. Mallard’s sons, are seen on the beach in her company but never speak.

The structure of Ms. Friedman’s video is provided by a homework assignment given to her daughter, Olivia, “to write a letter to the President.” Below are some of Olivia’s appeals to “Trump,” juxtaposed with images that will resonate with citizens who’ve been injured or crippled by false allegations of abuse.

“Make sure everyone has freedom.”

“Love instead of hate.”

“No violence; only words.”

“Please remember everyone matters.”

In this still from Ms. Friedman’s campaign video, her daughter, Olivia (in the foreground), is flanked by predominately female protesters in pink, some holding up feminist signs, one with a clenched fist. Olivia’s sign reads, “EV[E]RY ONE Mat[t]ers,” and features a daisy chain of unified male and female stick figures.

Mrs. Mallard is endorsed by the People’s House Project:

We recruit and support excellent candidates in Republican-held congressional districts in Midwestern and Appalachian states. Our candidates are classically Progressive, true to their working- and middle-class roots, and focused on issues of consequence to those who work not for personal fulfillment but for a living.

It purports to be looking out for the interests of “working- and middle-class” America.

The president of the People’s House Project is described as “an author, activist, [and] social media innovator” who’s “central to Glamour magazine’s political coverage, where she concentrates on issues important to women.”

Her name is Krystal Ball…which is something no one should need to predict the future if the present course isn’t corrected.

What Feminist Writer Sandra Newman Gets Right about False Accusation and Why That Disarms Her Contention That It “Almost Never [Has] Serious Consequences”

March 16, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 4 Comments

In a recent Quartz.com article titled, “What kind of person makes false rape accusations?” (commented on here), novelist Sandra Newman answers that, among others, people with (Cluster B) personality disorders do (sociopaths, narcissists, histrionics, and borderlines), which is true. People who exhibit the traits associated with these disorders, whether clinically or subclinically, are identified in the law as “high-conflict people.” Court process perfectly syncs with their drive to blame, and they may lie without compunction.

Here’s the problem: While psychological motives may be discerned in major criminal investigations, they are never detected in any “lesser” type of prosecution, particularly in civil court. “Investigators” like Ms. Newman, whose agenda is clearly to challenge the notion that false rape accusations are a serious matter, must discredit that notion while relying on the legitimacy of “lesser” so-called “epidemic” violations like stalking and domestic violence, which may also be alleged (and to a much greater extent) by high-conflict litigants. No one can know what quotient of violence hysteria is based on lies or distortions, and the Sandra Newmans out there have no interest in dispelling that hysteria or promoting a balanced perspective. Sympathy for “the adversary” is unthinkable.

The goal is to emphasize the victimization of women and to dismiss the victimization of the falsely accused (who include women, which is a fact that’s also ignored).

The title of Pulitzer-prize-winning columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz’s book, No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times, characterizes (false) accusation much more squarely, that is, damningly.

Here are some stories about false accusation and its effects:

Ms. Newman has elsewhere acknowledged what she thinks of liars and expressed how she feels society should regard them:

Yet the thrust of her Quartz arguments is not that liars are monstrous and should be stopped. It’s that lying, even about rape and even to people with guns and gavels, is unworthy of remark, because it “almost never [has] serious consequences.”

*The link on Ms. Newman’s Twitter remark is broken because her account has been suspended since the publication of this post.

Warrenton, Virginia Vice Mayor Sunny Reynolds Explains What Legitimates the Protective Order Process

March 15, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“[Warrenton, Virginia Vice Mayor Sunny] Reynolds called the protective order process ‘very difficult, both timewise and emotionally’ and said she ‘could not imagine someone [enduring it] if they didn’t have a legitimate complaint.’”

—Jill Palermo, Fauquier Times

The previous post examined Virginia politician Sunny Reynolds’ “legitimate complaint” to a court, indulged at a cost to the taxpayer possibly as high as $1,000 or more. A detective was assigned to the case. A statement was taken. Paperwork had to be filed at the court, data entered, and police notified of the court’s preliminary ruling. The respondent had to be physically served with her restraining order by a constable or law enforcement official. A judge had to hear her complaint, and another judge had to rehear it. Then more paperwork had to be processed, data entered, and police notified a second time (and more paperwork processed and data entered).

Ms. Reynolds alleged she was angrily addressed, had a finger pointed at her, and felt crowded during an exchange in a restaurant with a local real estate investor, Keith MacDonald, who was addressing a grievance to an elected official (albeit in an unofficial venue).

Ms. Reynolds’ complaint, in essence, was that Mr. MacDonald intruded on her meal, which somewhat contrasts with how advocates for the restraining order process tend to justify it:

Law, like language, follows usage. Certainly in the sense that a judge is licensed to entertain any petty gripe, Ms. Reynolds’ complaint was “legitimate.” By this standard, though, what occasion for hurt feelings or indignation wouldn’t legitimate a complaint to the court that incriminates its target?

A question arises: Is this the first time Ms. Reynolds has sought a restraining order? The statement of hers quoted in the epigraph would suggest the answer is yes. If a public exchange in a roomful of people is the most fear-inspiring interpersonal experience Ms. Reynolds has ever had, she has led a charmed life indeed. If it isn’t, then what were her motives really? It’s one thing to seek protection after an act of violence has been committed (or at least threatened); it’s another thing to punish someone for an act that only exists in the complainant’s imagination.

In a more detailed account of the incident than that reported by the Fauquier Times, one published on the website FauqueirNow.com, Ms. Reynolds is quoted as testifying: (1) “He just got more and more aggressive. I was afraid he might hit me.” That’s during a dialogue that her witness testified lasted “three or four minutes” with a gap in between. Then Ms. Reynolds is quoted as remarking: “He said, ‘I’m gonna get you. I’m gonna fix you. All it takes is 125 signatures’”—to get on the town council ballot, something Fauquier Now reports Mr. Macdonald has done. If the stated threat was political opposition, why was a physical blow “feared”? The alleged threat by Mr. MacDonald, which was probably emphasized in typical tattletale fashion because it contained the phrase, “I’m gonna get you,” actually exculpates him. It makes his intention clear: to unseat Ms. Reynolds in the May election (an intention that’s conveniently hamstrung by the protective order Ms. Reynolds petitioned).

In her Fauqueir Times interview, Ms. Reynolds described her filing for a restraining order as “very difficult…emotionally.” For her, being challenged, then (and offered a brochure), was very stressful and so was “having to” complain about it.

It’s a telling commentary on the system that it’s there to provide emotional succor to fragile politicians.

Ms. Reynolds also told reporters that she felt singled out because she’s a girl, and maybe she’s right. So?

BABY ON BOARD: Restraining Order by Virginia Vice Mayor Sunny Reynolds Kneecaps Town Council Election Rival Who “Pointed His Finger at Her”; Letter to the Editor Criticizes Conduct

March 11, 2018March 12, 2018Moderator 1 Comment

The administration of restraining orders is a frequent target of censure by First Amendment scholar and UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh in his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. That’s because restraining orders may be exploited, besides as gag orders generally, as SLAPPs to suppress political speech, which the First Amendment is there to protect above all other kinds.

This post shares a letter to the editor of the Fauquier Times that was recently submitted by Virginian Nathan Larson and that concerns an injunction sought by Warrenton Vice Mayor Linda “Sunny” Reynolds, whose nickname and whose evident hypersensitivity are strikingly incongruous. “Misty” Reynolds would seem to suit her better—or maybe “Runny.”

According to the Fauquier Times, Ms. Reynolds petitioned and was granted an obviously spiteful restraining order against Warrenton real estate investor Keith Macdonald based on the allegation that he “appeared to be ‘very angry’” and “pointed his finger at her” during a public exchange about a proposed municipal development project (a library) that occurred in a restaurant where both were dining with others. Ms. Reynolds testified that Mr. Macdonald “invaded her personal space, preventing her from leaving the table.”

Not clarified in the story is whether she ever asked to be excused or made a move to rise.

One of Ms. Reynolds two female witnesses in court worked for the newspaper that reported the story. The other, Ms. Reynold’s dinner companion, Crystal McKinsey, “testified that she could tell Reynolds ‘felt very threatened by the situation and was very fearful.’” What was characterized as a harrowing confrontation transpired in a populated eatery, and there was no report that voices had even been raised.

Mr. MacDonald represented himself in court; Ms. Reynolds had an attorney.

The judge, J. Gregory Ashwell, “decided in favor of Reynolds’ petition, saying he believed Reynolds’ testimony and that of her dinner companion met the legal requirement to issue a protective order.” He offered the explanation that it was “clearly an ‘awkward interaction.’”

Mr. MacDonald, who says he intends to appeal, opposes Ms. Reynolds in an upcoming town council election.

The Fauquier Times reports “[i]t’s not clear if the final order, which will be issued by the court, will…bar Macdonald from town council meetings or town hall.”

Ms. Reynolds’ reelection campaign is titled, “Sunny, for a Voice.” Her bio identifies her as the mother of two daughters but contains no reference to a father.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

By Nathan Larson

The recent article, “Judge grants Warrenton vice mayor protective order against council opponent,” shows why we need to reform Virginia’s laws concerning restraining orders.

Warrenton Vice Mayor Sunny Reynolds was able to obtain a restraining order under a statute, Code of Virginia § 19.2-152.9, that required only that she prove she had been “subjected to an act of violence, force, or threat by a preponderance of the evidence.”

This is a much lower standard than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard which is used in criminal court. That higher standard exists because of the principle that a person’s liberty should not be taken away without strong evidence that he broke a law. Yet without having been convicted of any crime, Reynolds’ challenger in the May election, Keith Macdonald, has been deprived of his First Amendment right to petition his government (specifically, his vice mayor) for a redress of grievances. He also has been deprived of his Second Amendment right to possess a gun.

The article says, “Reynolds also said she felt taken advantage of as the only woman member of the Warrenton Town Council.” But it will have a chilling effect on free speech if men feel they could easily be deprived of their liberty just for confronting a female elected official about her public policies and threatening to run for office against her. The voters lose out too, because now any prospect of these two candidates’ appearing together in a forum to debate issues of public interest is gone.

Mr. Larson retracted his statement about Mr. McDonald’s being denied the right to own a firearm. In Virginia, he explains, a citizen may be slapped with a restraining order for an unwanted gesture, like pointing a finger, but to be denied gun ownership, Mr. McDonald would have to have been in an “intimate” relationship with Ms. Reynolds.

*Probably unsurprising to a reader here, Ms. Reynolds, the plaintiff in the case, called applying for a protective order, which requires filling out some forms and appearing in court for a brief hearing, “very difficult, both timewise and emotionally.” In contrast, proponents of the process argue that being publicly accused (and having one’s name indefinitely registered in local and federal police databases) is no big deal at all.

Using BREDFELDT v. GREENE to Illustrate How Courts Frame Facts

March 8, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 1 Comment

This post quotes a judicial ruling, which is a public document. This is worthy of note for two reasons. Defendants may believe it’s unlawful to air and criticize rulings of the court, and plaintiffs may believe they aren’t accountable for their pleadings and testimony because rulings of the court are secret. Both beliefs are mistaken.

“On March 27, 2013, Plaintiffs [Tiffany and Phil Bredfeldt] filed a lawsuit alleging [Todd] Greene ‘set on an intentional course of conduct since 2006 to constantly defame Plaintiff Tiffany and cause her emotional distress’ and ‘to have Plaintiff terminated from her employment, lose her credentials, be blacklisted in her profession, and have her marriage to [her husband] fail.’ Plaintiffs’ Complaint listed numerous examples, including sending a highly disparaging letter about Tiffany to the Inspector General of the United States Health and Human Services and an [i]nternet posting with a ‘concocted article’ referring to Tiffany’s vagina. According to the Complaint, the ‘harassments and defamations occur[ed] on a weekly basis….’”

—Ruling of the Pima County Superior Court (Sept. 20, 2016)

The reason for the bracketed i in the quotation above (“[i]nternet”) is anyone’s guess. It isn’t an editorial correction of mine. Trial court rulings are seldom scrupulous—in any sense.

The quotation is an excerpt from a ruling returned against me after being the butt of 10 years of false allegations to the court, multiple police agencies (including the FBI), government officials outside of the “justice” system, and even staff at a former workplace of mine, the University of Arizona. This, of course, isn’t remarked in the ruling, whose author ignored the question of why a retiring, literate man would bother criticizing a former cheerleader named Tiffany who extols a Keanu Reeves movie as “[e]ye candy for your mind!”

In a future post, I may comment on the politics that make reportage of contradictory testimony by a female Trump-appointed EPA rep who works for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), an agency whose “science” favors polluters and is widely disdained, a matter that no left-leaning, environmentally sensitized reporter wants to touch. I’m frankly convinced that the feminist-dominated media would sooner spur a voter exodus to the right and damn the planet (which can’t cheep “Me too!”) than own that a woman is capable of unsavory conduct.

Here I want to show how courts frame facts (true or untrue) to serve a particular interest—which, in so-called “abuse” cases, may have nothing to do with the law. In this instance, the interest was mitigation of a judge’s flagrant violation of the law. (When citizens violate the law, it’s called a crime. When judges do it, it’s called an error.)

That story, about an unconstitutional speech injunction, or “prior restraint,” and how a judge who has since been shamed off the bench was manipulated into entering it, is here for any reader who’s curious. It exposes the estranged relationship between process and justice.

This post isn’t about the story but about the sketch artistry that typifies judicial rulings.

To perceive the technique, first consider a couple of phrases in the epigraph: “filed a lawsuit alleging” and “According to the Complaint.”

That these constructions appear in a judicial ruling about an earlier case creates the expectation that the cited allegations were ascertained at trial (like, with a jury and stuff). They weren’t. There was no trial. The statements are assertions only—quoted by a judge for the sake of expediency.

In the dozen years I’ve been accused in court and by the court, I’ve never had a trial, only some brief “hearings.”

Allegations are cited in this ruling to give it and the earlier ruling it endeavors to salvage some commonsense rationale. The purpose is to make alleged actions of mine sound “bad enough” to excuse censorship, which is always presumptively unlawful.

Now consider the allegations. They are untried histrionics and wanton conjecture by a plaintiff who has, in testimony to the court, acknowledged being in the care of a psychiatrist and whom I’ve had no contact with since 2006. The first of the two cited “examples” of harassment or defamation or whatever is a letter to a government official about a government official. It is in excess of any court’s jurisdiction to censure such a complaint; a judge’s disapproval is irrelevant. “The right to petition the government for redress of grievances is ‘among the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights.’” Balboa Island Vill. Inn v. Lemen, 156 P.3d 339 at 352 (Cal. 2007) (quoting United Mine Workers of Am. v. Ill. State Bar Ass’n, 389 U.S. 217, 222 (1967)). Significantly, the case I’ve just quoted is one the judge who issued the ruling against me cited himself (in defense of censorship), which presupposes that he read it.

This exemplifies the post’s point that courts practice selective hearing. Remarking that the letter was “highly disparaging” has rhetorical, tattletale value, and rhetorical, tattletale “evidence” is the sum and substance of most restraining order adjudications.

What the second cited example, a “‘concocted article’ referring to Tiffany’s vagina,” is supposed to import isn’t clear. “Concocted” means fabricated. The modifier could either mean made or made up. Nothing in the article was false, so nothing in it was defamatory. The article wasn’t directed TO anyone, so it can’t be called “harassing” by any legal standard. Nor, finally, did it discuss genitalia; it used the anatomical word vagina in its title as a metaphor for sexuality. The article contemplated motives for deception and concealment—a pocketed wedding ring and misrepresentations to law enforcement officials and the court are examples—and bore a headline that was intentionally inflammatory: “Tiffany Bredfeldt’s Vagina: On Marital Discontent and Restraining Order Abuse.” Is speech that’s intentionally inflammatory lawful? Yes. Speech that’s “offensive,” “insulting,” “upsetting,” “coercive,” or even “outrageous” is protected by the First Amendment, as the court had been well informed prior to issuing its ruling. (Also, both the judge and his law clerk graduated from law school.) The title doesn’t state a fact. It’s merely a label and can’t be called true or false. Therefore it can’t be called defamatory.

Lastly, consider this: “The ‘harassments and defamations occur[ed] on a weekly basis….’” By no standard of law have the words “harassments” or “defamations” ever been qualified. Furthermore, application of logic makes their posited “weekly” occurrence every seven days from 2006 to 2013 pretty tough for a reasonable mind to accept. Half of the claim is unsubstantiated; the other half is false.

Such a tissue of twaddle sounds grave, though, and that’s all that matters.

Psych Patient Tiffany Bredfeldt’s “Victim’s Impact Statement,” Presented to the Arizona Superior Court (2016)

March 6, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

Tiffany Bredfeldt, an inveterate liar, is a senior toxicologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the second largest regulatory agency of its kind in the country after the EPA. You won’t find her name among its staff, though, because for years she has alleged she’s in danger.

She gave a presentation before the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in defense of fracking in 2013, was appointed to the Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board last April, and was interviewed in May on ABC News but the ruse is maintained nevertheless, and it has garnered her a private office and a wealth of special attention.

Bredfeldt’s title today is Dr. When the writer knew her, she was a Mrs. who represented herself as a Miss. The writer, then an aspiring children’s humorist, babysat Mrs. Bredfeldt, who invaded his seclusion and was routinely to be found outside of his residence up to and past midnight (minus her wedding ring), for three months in late 2005.

The writer has been in and out of court with Mrs. Bredfeldt again and again over the decade since he demanded an explanation for her conduct, and has variously been accused by her of stalking, sexual harassment, and posing a violent threat to her and others. Her boss at the TCEQ, Toxicology Director Michael Honeycutt, also a recent EPA appointee, testified in 2013 that special security measures had been instituted at the TCEQ to protect her against the writer, who lives in another state and has had no contact with her since 2006.

Tiffany Bredfeldt, Ph.D.

Mrs. Bredfeldt’s claims, which she reports she has made to “multiple police departments, detectives, federal agencies, and other officials in several states” and with which the writer has lived every day, have been calculated distortions or frauds, and all have been made to conceal an extramarital indulgence and to demonize, terrorize, oppress, and defame the writer, who only ever treated her kindly.

Consequent to his responding to overtures from an obviously lonely stranger hanging around his house at all hours, the writer’s professional aspirations long ago flew to wherever dreams go to languish and expire.

This post shares Mrs. Bredfeldt’s characterization of the intervening years in a statement she gave in evidence to the Pima County Superior Court in April 2016. The object of that four-page “Victim’s Impact Statement” was to have the writer censored and jailed.

The mentality of false accusers and the persistence of accusations and their toxic residue are among what critics of those who complain of misrepresentation invariably fail to comprehend. Scoffers imagine false accusation is over and done with as quickly as a mere physical violation, and they think violence is worse. To paint a contrast, the writer has been run down in the road by a 4×4 doing 45 mph. The collision, of a nature only 15 out of 100 survive, lifted him out of his shoes, gashed his face two inches above his left eye, tore ligaments and cartilage from bone, and shattered joints. Five days post-surgery, after he was released from ICU, the writer was hobbling on a broken leg and within six months was running. The number of times he’s thought about the driver in the intervening years is zero.

For social justice advocates with the stomach for unwelcome truths, a full account of this matter (to date) is here. What has become a 12-year ordeal was licensed by a commonplace, one-hour-in-and-out court process that anyone can exploit entirely for free and that generates a permanent public record registered in state and federal police databases.

Victim’s Impact Statement

Tiffany Bredfeldt, PhD

I am not sure how to begin this statement, even though I have told this story to so many people so many times. This ordeal has endured for nearly 10 years now. I have been pursued, harassed, and defamed since 2006, yet I see no end in sight. Even as I write, I know that this Victim’s Impact Statement will soon be posted online and used as fodder for group stalking and defamation among people I have never met. It will be intentionally tagged and ranked high in search engine results under my name, in an attempt to maximize its damage to me, my reputation, and my family. My words will be parsed out, obsessed over, and conspiracy theories and alternate meanings developed. That withstanding, the truth of this matter needs to be stated. This has all been alarming, disturbing, frightening and isolating. I have simply wanted to live my life in peace. Until this moment in time, I had all but given up that this would ever end. Even now, I am not confident that it will end unless the Defendant has significant consequences to encourage a different life path.

Since 2006, the constant cyberstalking and harassment has significantly altered the decisions and the direction of my life. It has also altered lives of my family members. Hundreds of people have been contacted by the Defendant about me, often multiple times. Contacts include both sides of my extended family, my employers and colleagues, my mother’s employer and colleagues, my father’s employer, my father-in-law’s employer, friends, church pastors, professional societies, and state and federal agencies. Essentially, anyone that can be confirmed by extensive online searching to have any real (or perceived) connection to me has been contacted by the Defendant and told that I am a fraud, perjurer, criminal, mentally ill, sexual deviant, etc. Literally thousands of pages have been written, emailed, and blogged to an untold number of people. I have been to the Court multiple times, talked to multiple police departments, detectives, federal agencies, and other officials in several states. It has cost me tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and related expenses (some of which the defendant has been ordered to pay and never has). This ordeal has caused diagnosed physical and psychological harm to me, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

In addition, these behaviors have been a major deciding factor in the path I have taken in my career and whether or not I consider employment opportunities. It has altered where I live and how I live. The ongoing fear, stress, and associated physical impacts have been a decision factor as to whether or not I have children. It prevented me and my family from moving back to Tucson for a job opportunity. It has damaged relationships with my family, friends, and spouse. I also know that it is one of the first things that people see when they conduct an online search about me, influencing their perception and first impressions. These impacts to me have not just happened by some accident—they are the intentional result of the Defendant’s purposeful actions over the past 10 years.

[Omitted here is a protracted interlude in which Bredfeldt chronicles “important events” from 2006 to 2016 and how she reacted to them, including by notifying the FBI, which rejected her complaint (possibly while the responding officer made vertical propeller motions beside his or her temple). Excepting the year 2006, what Bredfeldt terms “events” were either letters or emails from me to others asking for their help or online publications to the world at large like this one. None of these “events” included contact with Bredfeldt, who could only have culled publications from this site to implicate as “disturbing” by obsessively monitoring it for “untold hours” every month for five years.]

CLOSING

I came to the Court and law enforcement for the first time approximately 10 years ago. What has happened since has been a continual rollercoaster of fear, disappointment and hopelessness. What I had been told would be easily fixed by an Injunction Against Harassment in 2006, placed on someone I only knew as an acquaintance for 3 months, has turned into a decade of vicious cyberstalking and harassment. It has injured my health and mental well-being, altered my path in life, and harmed relationships with those that I love. I have incurred enormous costs for legal expenses, court fees, travel back and forth to Tucson, legal insurance, and medical costs. I am tired. I have looked for help everywhere I could for 10 years. I have talked to more people at police departments, sheriff’s departments, and federal and state agencies than I can count. Meanwhile, the cyberstalking and harassment drags on and on and on. Through untold hours of online searching and contacts, the Defendant literally knows more about my extended family than I do. Disturbing and exhausting are not nearly strong enough words. I fear for my safety. Multiple people have told me that they also fear for my safety. I want my family and I to be left alone and live in peace. Why is that too much to ask? What I have gotten since the 2006 IAH has been the furthest thing from peace.

Thank you for your interest and consideration in this situation. Please consider all possible and appropriate actions and restitution to correct the Defendant’s ongoing behavior as soon as possible. It is very difficult to describe in these few pages the enormous impact this has had and continues to have on my life. I do not want the next 10 years of my life to be like the last 10 years. Please help this to finally end.

The highlights in the text, many of them meant to stress an irony, are added. Here is a letter the writer hired an attorney to prepare in 2009 to “help this to finally end.” Bredfeldt represented it to the court in 2013 as evidence of harassment.

*(Post-conviction) victim impact statements originated in the 1970s after the Manson murders. Their purpose is to impress upon parole review boards the impact magnitude of violent crimes on victims and those close to them. Their exploitation for the purpose of cover-up mocks the pain of people who have suffered unspeakable violations and losses.

Why Are Pro Se Defendants More Suspect in the Eyes of Judges than Lying Accusers?

February 26, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 3 Comments

Showing candor that was as unexpected as it was refreshing, a judge I stood before in August acknowledged that he knew restraining orders were “abused” by litigants who made “blatantly false” statements to the police and the court.

Doing the former is a misdemeanor crime; the latter, a felony.

The judge, Tony Riojas, besides being the presiding magistrate of the Tucson City Court, is a member of the Task Force on Fair Justice for All. Much of what he told me I already knew: Neither false reporting nor perjury is ever prosecuted, there are no “mechanisms” to stop false litigants, and there’s no statutory limit on the number of times they can file fictive complaints with the court.

(For the curious or indignant: This status quo owes to feminist politicking. See also VAWA. No act by government, women’s advocates insist, should be seen to discourage “true victims” from coming forward. It’s a sentiment whose use-by date expired at least 20 years ago.)

After my brief dialogue with the judge, he tossed out allegations brought against me 20 months earlier by a woman I’d only met once in the previous decade and who is reportedly diagnosed with a mental illness (bipolar disorder). I lived with her allegations, made in one of three legal actions she brought back-to-back in 2016, every day for most of two years. All of the actions were frauds, and all have been dismissed. (In 2014, she had initiated or instigated multiple prosecutions against her own husband, from whom she’s now divorced.)

This post formerly featured my accuser, Jennifer Terpstra, in a selfie she published on a website cataloging her professional accomplishments. A generous critic might call her countenance “forbidding.” This person, whom I first encountered hanging around my residence in late 2005 and who insisted I meet with her and give her a hug in 2012 (when she called herself my “avid reader”), told officers in multiple police departments in 2015 and 2016 that I had been stalking her since she invited herself into my house 11 years earlier.

When all of her and a friend’s legal actions began to unravel in 2016, Terpstra, who also uses the names Jenn Oas and Jen Oas-Terpstra, fled the jurisdiction.

(She had been employed for over a decade as a researcher in the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Today she has apparently returned to my home town and possibly to her old job but has assumed a new last name.)

I was a “pro se” defendant in the restraining order case Terpstra initiated, and after 11 years of false accusations, it was the first case I’d won—despite having been denied my lawful right to a hearing and having had my first notice of appeal dismissed by the judge quoted above, possibly because I was a pro se defendant.

Pro se is Latin for “for oneself” or “on one’s own behalf.” It means I was my own lawyer.

In court, where no phrase is used more pejoratively, pro se connotes unqualified, unworthy, or off-the-wall, and lawyers use it to remind judges that they shouldn’t trust anything their unschooled adversaries say. Pro se, in other words, means easily blown off.

It’s yet another excuse to deny the credibility of the accused in restraining order cases, which can be initiated by any scrofulous degenerate entirely for free. (See again VAWA.)

No one, of course, applies the phrase pro se derogatorily to plaintiffs who breeze into courthouses, fill out some forms, and recite narratives that may be arrant lies during a five-minute interview with a judge—which is all procurement of restraining orders demands. Accusers, who are largely pro se, are called “victims.” They don’t have to be competent to represent anything but their “torment.”

To prevail, in contrast, the falsely accused

MUST appear in court to defend themselves already prejudged guilty;
MUST defuse lies that may be incapable of disproof like “I’m afraid”; and
MUST do it within rigid time constraints (usually minutes).

They may what’s more be prohibited from cross-examining the prosecuting witness, who may not even be required to show up. (In the prosecution against me referenced above, in which there were three hearings, the plaintiff never appeared a single time.)

On top of this, defendants may be treated dismissively based on their inability or unwillingness to shell out $5,000 to hire an attorney…to troubleshoot the court’s defective garbage disposal.

*As the reader might have predicted, remedying inequities like those sketched above is not the brief of Arizona’s “Task Force on Fair Justice for All.”

“INFEST ’IM”: Some Anagrams of FEMINIST with Commentary about Why It’s a Dirty Word

February 20, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 4 Comments

Feminism has been called a “cancer,” and there’s no question many of its manifestations are malignant. Or that its cells metastasize unchecked. Despite those cells’ being a minority in the body politic, they exercise a systemic and debilitating influence on the whole.

“Plague” might be a better metaphor yet.

While only 20% of the population “identifies” as feminist (according to the Huffington Post), feminism has proved an epidemic contagion—“infest ’im” feminists have, many ’ims and ’ers.

Alas, a pocketful of posies is no deterrent. Brandish a bouquet at a feminist, and there’s a good chance you’ll be accused of stalking (#YouToo?).

Which leads to another anagram of feminist: “fine mist”—like fog or like the spittle that might cloud your glasses when a rabid crank holds forth on “rape culture”…before retiring to her laptop to tweenishly effuse about a male lead on HBO’s Game of Thrones.

This sort of self-ridicule makes the anagram “finite S&M” a pervect fit, though it may be optimistic in its appraisal of feminism’s longevity.

A final anagram of feminist is “mini-fest.” Feminists have certainly had their fun. Here’s hoping the anagram is auspicious and that their next “wave” is goodbye.

*The anagram “fistin’ ’em” was considered and then rejected upon consultation with an online slang dictionary. Apparently having a fist inserted in their rectums is considered pleasurable by many—which may account for a corrupted movement’s lasting as long as it has.

Feminist Writer Emily Lindin Explains How “Innocent Men Losing Their Jobs over False Sexual Assault/Harassment Allegations” Isn’t a Matter for Concern

February 19, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

Feminists manage to reap the best of both worlds. They enjoy the insulated life of the nursery but are patted on the heads and told what big girls they are. They purport to understand life’s grim realities better than anyone and arrogate to themselves the right to nominate which of them most urgently deserves attention. And they are parentally indulged.

Consequent fact: You can’t persuade feminists of anything they don’t want to believe. On the upside, though, you don’t have to prove to other grownups that feminists’ positions are vicious. You only have to quote them.

This sequence of “tweets” was brought to my attention by Dorothy Cummings McLean in an article that I chanced upon while dealing with the aftermath of 12 years of false allegations (including of sexual harassment), the effects of which are only comprehensible to adults who have also experienced them.

Emily Lindin, the author of the tweets, writes for Teen Vogue, a magazine whose title verbalizes the essence of contemporary feminism, a movement sustained by social media, where playground popularity determines value.

Here are Ms. Lindin’s Teen Vogue writing credits with some emphases added:

“Rob Kardashian Slut-Shamed Blac Chyna — and the Internet’s Response Is Part of the Problem”
“What You Need to Know Before Sending a Nude Photo”
“How to Get Your Parents to Stop Slut Shaming You”
“Slut-Shaming Actually Makes Life Worse for Straight Guys, Too”
“6 Ways You May Be Slut Shaming Without Realizing It”
“Why Sexist Dress Codes Suck for Everyone”
“How to Say ‘No’ in the Middle of a Hookup Without Feeling Awkward About It”
“How I Learned the Definition of ‘Slut’”
“Why You Should Stop ‘Playing Hard to Get’ and Start Masturbating”
“If You’ve Ever Ordered Pizza, Then You Already Understand What Consent Is”

Ms. Lindin writes in the magazine’s “Wellness” section—or did: Her last byline is dated July 5.

Assigned the same job, I would probably have encouraged today’s youth to read more (books, I guess I have to add). Being slutty is bound to be more fun, or at least less challenging, but there are some rewards to cultivating the mind. I’ll try to demonstrate some.

Ms. Lindin “identifies” as a member of an oppressed class. Oppressed is a word that means held down or held back by abuse of power or authority…such as men and women are who are falsely accused and arbitrarily vilified by the state.

Being able to discern contradictions in what people argue—and being outraged by them—is a hallmark of intelligence, and an instruction to a young woman that a feminist might have given when I was a child is this: “Intelligence is sexy.” (Such a feminist might even have counseled: “Self-reliance is sexy.”)

There’s probably a fossil exhibit about feminists like this in the Museum of Natural History.

Ms. Lindin, who was evidently never steered toward a library, insists that “false allegations very rarely happen.” Actually, false allegations never “happen”; false allegations are made, typically (but not always) by lying women. How often is unquantifiable but certainly a lot more frequently than “very rarely,” a judgment Ms. Lindin probably copped secondhand from another feminist source. On Twitter, maybe.

Consider the wording here: “The benefit of all of us getting to finally tell the truth + the impact on victims FAR outweigh the loss of any one man’s reputation.” A trained mind might pause and wonder: Who are “all of us”? And: A man whose reputation is ruined by lies isn’t a victim? And: What do you mean “one man”?

The face of “patriarchy”

Feminism purports to advocate for equality, which would make “us” inclusive of “innocent men losing their jobs over false…allegations.” The feminist “us” clearly means girls only, and the exigency of their “truth” makes all other truths insignificant. It makes all other people (one or 100 million) insignificant. A trained mind might observe that in a democracy, where “all…are created equal,” value judgments about who should be thrown under the bus have no place. No citizen is more important than any other, nor any class of citizens more important than any other.

Self-contradictory rhetoric like Ms. Lindin’s works, because it is supported by power and has been for a long time. It has determined, and it continues to determine, what lawmakers’ priorities should be, how statutes are shaped and sharpened, and how they’re applied by our courts, the Constitution be damned. So who are the oppressors really? The “patriarchy” that Ms. Lindin would have her “followers” believe is being undone went out with the fedora. The members of today’s “patriarchy” wear bras—or maybe they don’t, for which omission they absolutely should not be slut-shamed.

The hit to “some innocent men’s reputations” by lying women is a price Ms. Lindin says she, for one, is “willing to pay.”

At a cost to her and her family (and Tweetmates) of exactly nada.

What’s Wrong with the Protective Order Policy “Better Safe than Sorry”?

February 11, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 30 Comments

“I was wondering if you have a rebuttal to the argument that restraining orders should be granted based on little evidence, because it’s ‘[b]etter [to be] safe than sorry.’”

—Recent query

The question implicit in the epigraph is this: What’s wrong with the policy “better safe than sorry”?

The questioner refers to the judicial practice, long inculcated, of taking complaints of fear on faith and issuing protective orders “just in case.” Appreciate that these protective orders may be based on no substantial evidence and are effectively “mini-criminal statutes.” Their violation, real or alleged, leads to criminal prosecution. They are custom-tailored laws applied to individual citizens about whom the court knows nothing but is willing to presume the worst—and whether they’re violated or not, they may be accompanied by a host of privations like loss of access to home, family, property, and money (and even the ability to earn it).

There are a plenitude of reasons why the policy “better safe than sorry” is crass and hypocritical. Liberal feminism, based on whose politicking the policy originates, eagerly supports discrimination and stereotyping in one context. We see it applied almost daily in response to the #MeToo movement: Men are accused; men are fired. The same policy, in other contexts, is vehemently opposed by the left, however. Profiling to screen potential terrorists or catch illegal immigrants, denial of entry into this country by citizens of others associated with anti-American sentiment, and forced deportations of aliens who came here as children are nominated cruel and unjust.

People of the same political stripe oppose bullying. They denounce finger-pointing, name-calling, and humiliation (like “slut-shaming” and “fat-shaming”), which may inflict emotional harm and lead victims to commit rash acts, including violence or self-violence. But they decree finger-pointing, name-calling, and public revilement urgent and commendable when it’s done by a complainant of violation: “Believe her.”

So an evident double-standard demonstrated by its advocates—whose self-contradictory battle cry is “Equality”—is a compelling logical argument against the better-safe-than-sorry position. A compelling legal argument against it is that in a democracy, privileging the interests of one party or collective over the interests of another or others is unconstitutional.

The most forceful argument against it, though, is that it’s unethical:

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

This 350-year-old formulation, which most of us have heard at one time in our lives, is attributed to English jurist William Blackstone but could as easily be credited to ancient sources (see, for instance, Genesis 18:23-32). Its point, as interpreted by Wikipedia, is that “government and the courts must err on the side of innocence,” that is, they must grant the benefit of the doubt to the accused, not to their accusers. “Better safe than sorry” is an inversion and perversion of this principle, and the argument is best dispatched on the grounds that it’s savage.

*To suffer, for those who need reminding (and they are legion), is to endure pain or distress, incur loss or damage, or sustain disability or handicap. All obviously apply in this context. The position that being falsely accused never causes suffering is monstrous.

Another Instance of a Restraining Order against a Woman Petitioned by a Man She Allegedly Talked ABOUT

February 6, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator 5 Comments

Traffic was directed to this site Friday from another one intriguingly called ScamBoard.com. I followed the link. It led me to a 2016 complaint posted by Arizonan James Cukr, who says a woman has been making “false and untrue” statements about him “on every social media outlet available to her,” and that he’s sworn out a restraining order against her, which he includes in his complaint.

I had intended to leave reportage of my own case topmost while I rebuilt this blog. I’m led to comment on the Scam Board post, though, because it relates.

To see how, first consider Mr. Cukr’s “restraining order,” which is a public document:

Look at the case number: DV20160965. The prefix “DV” stands for “domestic violence.” In other words, in an affidavit given under penalty of perjury to the Superior Court of Arizona, Mr. Cukr alleged domestic violence against a woman who criticized him on the Internet. The closest thing to substantiation of his domestic violence claim that he offers on Scam Board is that she had a “temper.” The “OP” that you see in the lower right corner stands for “order of protection.”

Apparent is that Mr. Cukr was upset and wanted to intimidate his accuser into silence for remarks like this one posted on CheaterLand.com: “James Cukr trolls dating sites like POF, Match, and OKCUPID lying to U of A students and desperate older women to get sex…but he is married with a wife and child in France he is lying to.”

The protective order is almost entirely blank, and there is no indication that it was ever served (which does not necessarily mean the record was discarded).

In other posts on Cheater Land and elsewhere—presuming they’re all by the same person—Mr. Cukr’s accuser, who is anonymous, does make statements that might be qualified as defamatory (pursuant to a civil lawsuit that would demand a filing fee and a lot more effort than filling out a form). Since those comments were directed to the world at large, however, and not to Mr. Cukr himself, they cannot properly be characterized as harassing, never mind “violent,” and are not grounds for a protective order.

A reasoning person might deduce that effectively accusing someone of domestic violence is easily accomplished, irrespective of the facts or the law. Mr. Cukr might just as handily have alleged “stalking”—and maybe he did.

Here are two other cases chronicled on this site that reflect the same gender dynamic, similar facts, and an identical misapplication of the law/abuse of process:

The court wrongly arrogates to itself the power to censor speech to the world at large because it is alleged to be harassing to some party it criticizes.

To quote eminent constitutional scholar Aaron Caplan, a law professor at Loyola:

American law deliberately makes defamation difficult to prove…. By contrast, civil harassment is designed to be easy to prove…. A petitioner should not be able to evade the limits on defamation law (many of them constitutionally mandated) by redesignating the claim as civil harassment.

The highlighted cases exemplify how restraining orders are exploited as cheap workarounds, possibly to conceal any nature of objectionable conduct by plaintiffs, from deceitful to criminal.

To quash embarrassing criticism, you allege you’re in danger.

*See The Volokh Conspiracy for related stories and commentaries.

Restraining Order Lies Acknowledged by Chief Tucson Judge

January 10, 2018July 28, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

The contents of this brief post are excerpted from the previous one. They’re highlighted separately here because of their almost unique significance. It’s very rare for a judge to frankly criticize the protective order process and the indifference of the justice system to false accusation. The occasion that prompted the judge’s candid discussion of the fraudulent abuse of court process was the dismissal of allegations brought by University of Arizona scientist Jennifer Oas-Terpstra (who today apparently uses an alias).

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” Judge [Tony] Riojas told the writer on Aug. 25, 2017, “and I’ve never known a police [officer] or a prosecutor to charge someone for…false reports, no matter how blatant….” He added: “I wish they would, because I think people come in, and they say things that are just blatantly false—and lying.” A false or vexatious complainant “can keep filing [protective orders] as much as [s/he] wants,” Judge Riojas said (costing an attorney-represented defendant thousands of dollars a pop and his or her accuser nothing; application is free to all comers). “There is no mechanism to stop someone from filing these orders.” What may be worse, even a dismissed order, the judge explained, “can’t be expunged” (and anything may be alleged on a fill-in-the-blank civil injunction form, for example, rape, conspiracy to commit murder, or cross-dressing; whether heinous or merely humiliating, allegations that may be irrelevant to the approval of a keep-away order and/or that may never be litigated in court, let alone substantiated, will still be preserved indefinitely in the public record above a judge’s signature). Significantly, Judge Riojas, who is the presiding magistrate of the Tucson [City Court] (and a member of the Arizona Judicial Council and the Task Force on Fair Justice for All), agreed that restraining orders were “abused”. Of that, he said, “[t]here’s no doubt.”

*In a given year, there are reportedly 5,000 active restraining orders in Tucson City Court, which recently added an annex dedicated to their administration exclusively—and the municipal court is just one of three courts in Tucson that issue such orders.

TALKING BACK to restraining orders

THEY’RE NOT JUST ABUSED BUT ABUSIVE

Author Moderator