Tag false arrest

A Man’s “Tasty Little Balls…What a Treat!”: On RAINES v. ARISTEO, Free Speech, and Censorship

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Typical of cases stemming from court injunctions, the case that occasions this post, Raines v. Aristeo, is a he-said/she-said quagmire. Not disputed is that the woman and the man had a four-month relationship in 2010. He says he ended the relationship after learning “disturbing…information” from her ex-husband about her. She says she ended the relationship because he became “strident,” “demanding,” and “threatening.” Both acknowledge they had a business relationship outside of their personal relationship. He says she owed him money and brought criminal complaints against him to get out of paying. This post doesn’t belabor the backstory but instead raises some questions: Is this, as in so many similar instances, a tempest in a teapot? Has a public interest been served by a man’s serial arrest and prosecution, or has it only sated a single woman’s rancor? Should this be countenanced? And, finally, is it lawful? The only pointed observation this post makes is that a woman has been annoyed, and a man is in jail.

NOTE TO THE COURT: Facts in this post were gleaned by its author and do not originate from its subject, Bruce Aristeo, who had no influence on its composition. Commentary, likewise, is solely that of its writer.

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

In her YouTube video “Smiles for Ruger,” Internet marketing adviser Jody Raines imitates feeding a man’s “TINY, TINY, TINY” testicles to her dog.

“Agitator” Matthew Chan, who introduced me to how restraining orders are used to squelch protected speech, brought this search engine return to my attention on Friday:

This notice greets the person who queries Google either about Jody Raines, a woman who describes herself as a “recognized expert with Social Media, Internet Marketing and Website Development,” or Bruce Aristeo, a former schoolteacher she has prosecuted, not for the first time, and had sentenced to three months in jail.

Bruce Aristeo, Jody Raines, Raines v. Aristeo

Bruce Aristeo

The two dated in 2010, besides having a business relationship at the same time. Beyond these details, accounts predictably differ. Beyond question, however, is that Mr. Aristeo has been jailed for expression protected by the First Amendment.

His “crime” was posting satirical videos on YouTube ABOUT Ms. Raines—and even asserting that much is subject to interpretation. The basis for Mr. Aristeo’s arrest and subsequent incarceration was his being issued something called an “indefinite temporary restraining order” (unique to Camden County, New Jersey) in 2012. This bizarre instrument (issued in a state long-known for its harsh judicial treatment of male defendants) exposes Mr. Aristeo to warrantless arrest anytime for the rest of his life.

Prior to the most recent prosecution, Ms. Raines has had Mr. Aristeo arrested multiple times and jailed for over half a year. (Whatever Ms. Raines’ talents as a marketer outside of court may be, inside of one she’s proven herself to be highly effective.)

The conflict between the two inspired a YouTube “cold war” that went preemptively nuclear in 2015. Ms. Raines’ latest prosecution concerned Mr. Aristeo’s videos. This post examines one of his and one of hers.

Among Ms. Raines’ reported passions are motorcycles and Belgian Malinois dogs. One of her personal pets is called Ruger (also the name of a gun manufacturer). Mr. Aristeo waggishly produced a video “promoting” a brand of breakfast meats called “RU Burger Farms” (RU…ger).

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

The vid’s “production company,” “MonkeyCom Banana Strategies,” both identifies the work as satire (which is protected speech) as well as takes a poke as Ms. Raines’ company, WebMarCom, which advertises marketing strategy advice. In the video, Mr. Aristeo (clad in a scarf and a fuchsia sweater) lustily tucks into some “Malinois sausage patties,” and his narration includes tongue-in-cheek patter like this: “I love to prepare my Malinois like the Amish do, where they put a little syrup on top after….”

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

This apparently is supposed to represent a “true threat” to either Ms. Raines or her dog, neither of whom is explicitly identified. The video wasn’t brought to Ms. Raines’ attention by Mr. Aristeo—that is, he didn’t contact her—which means to have seen it, she had to have sought it out.

Ms. Raines responded to Mr. Aristeo’s homemade flick with a satirical video of her own. It suggests she has castrated Mr. Aristeo and is feeding his testicles to her dog. It’s called, “Smiles for Ruger.”

Here’s a still from it:

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

The word troll in the frame that follows is Internet slang for a person who lurks in forums and sows discord on the Internet for self-amusement. Its application here is an ill fit, because Mr. Aristeo didn’t plant his video anyplace with the intent to provoke: Ms. Raines had to know where to look.

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

The frame below intimates that Ms. Raines’ video was inspired by Mr. Aristeo’s “picking on” Ruger (who’s an intelligent dog but doesn’t speak English) with his video.

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

Ironic is that the video documents Ms. Raines’ taunting Ruger before finally letting him devour the “TINY balls.” The video also taunts Mr. Aristeo. It doesn’t just mock his genital size and virility but concludes with Ruger’s “saying”: “Yes, they taste like CHICKEN.”

Jody Raines, WebMarCom, Raines v. Aristeo, Bruce Aristeo

Ms. Raines plainly means Mr. Aristeo is a chicken. She taunts a man whom she had already had arrested several times and jailed.

A question the court might have considered during sentencing this year, if not before that, is whether this is the act of a woman who’s “afraid.” Another question it might have considered is whether a sophisticated online spat justifies interference by the state at taxpayer expense. Finally, it might have considered whether it was constitutionally sanctioned to stick its nose in, which it wasn’t.

Ms. Raines meanwhile is performing a post-trial mop-up for “image maintenance.” Her video “castration” of Mr. Aristeo remains online, however, and has not been targeted for censorship by Google or age-restricted by YouTube.

Copyright © 2016 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

*How many tens of thousands of dollars of public funds have been chewed through to sate what is arguably one woman’s yen for vengeance is anyone’s guess. Besides the costs of the trials, arrests, and incarcerations, Mr. Aristeo was jobless and homeless while prosecuting his defense, and living on the state’s dime in government-subsidized housing. Worthy of reflection, too, is the setback to citizens’ constitutional entitlement to free speech:

You Don’t Want to “Be a Part of It”: Commentary on New York’s Protection Order Biz

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I corresponded with a man last year, a man in a homosexual relationship, who was assaulted by his partner severely enough to require the ministrations of a surgeon. His boyfriend was issued a restraining order coincident to his being charged with assault. That’s how it typically works in New York: A protection order is issued following a criminal complaint.

The man who wrote reported that he contacted the violent partner while the order was in effect to impress upon him how badly he had been hurt. The boyfriend used the contact to have the assault charge reduced and to obtain a protection order of his own, which he then abused serially to drive the man he had assaulted from his job and eventually from the state. This only required that he repeatedly claim he felt threatened, which is what he did. (According to the man, “The DA did not even try to substantiate my ex’s allegations and pursued the case to the utmost of his ability.”) The law licenses “mandatory arrest” under such circumstances. Arresting officers told the man all they needed was his accuser’s statement. (It didn’t matter who the actual victim was.)

The man was badly traumatized, at least as much by the lies and legal abuse as by the violence. Though he can’t look in the mirror without being reminded of it—one of its mementos is a scar under his eye—the effects of the violence subsided; the lies and legal abuse eventuated in his public disgrace, alienation from his friends, his being arrested at his place of work, and his being asked to leave by his employer after his business dried up and he had accrued massive debts, including from legal fees and medical treatment for PTSD and depression. He says he developed “terrible agoraphobia” (“afraid I would inadvertently run into my ex and have him accuse me of anything just to have me arrested yet again”) and continues to suffer nightmares (“that cause great daily despair”) even now—in another state where he fled to the safety of his family and where he gets by on disability insurance while he plots a reemergence secure from the risk of further legal assaults.

His story, which has here been stripped of detail to preserve his confidentiality, should serve to inject some color into the black-and-white tutorial on New York protection orders that’s examined below.

I digested a page on protection orders recently that was prepped for the New York Court System by the very earnest Judge Penelope D. Clute. It obliquely highlights absurdities in the system that merit some remark.

According to the judge, there are two types of protection orders: “stay away” orders and “refrain from” orders.

The former are pretty straightforward in their prohibitions:

  • No physical contact of any kind.
  • Stay away from the home, school, business or place of employment of the person named in the Order.
  • No phone calls.
  • No letters, emails, or faxes.
  • No messages through other people.
  • No presents.
  • No contacting the person in any way at all, even if you are invited to talk or meet by that person.

Note the last line—and note that it is the last line.

It acknowledges that people who are nominated “victims” on protection orders may entice their “abusers” to contact them. The quotation marks around the words victims and abusers in the previous sentence are there to stress that the language used by the courts and inscribed in the law is suspect. The court itself recognizes that there are cases when “victims” invite “abusers” to chat or hang out (or move in). As the story that introduces this post shows, besides, there are instances when actual victims seek the understanding of abusers, and this may come with its own host of complications and horrors.

Attorneys like these know very well that allegations of abuse may be hyped or fraudulent.

Unstated in Judge Clute’s bullet list is that the burden of blame falls on the accused even if s/he’s invited to violate the court’s order. Unstated but implicit is that “victims” may not be victims, and “abusers” may not be abusers. Entirely unconscious is that telling people whom they are or are not “permitted” to send a message or gift to contravenes the basic principles of liberty we define ourselves by and pride ourselves on. Restraining orders obviate the chance of reconciliation between parties in conflict by criminalizing contact and making what may be strained relations wholly and possibly virulently antagonistic.

(But, I hear you counter, you sacrifice your freedom when you violate the law. The issuance of a restraining order may be in conjunction with a criminal case, as it commonly is in New York, or it may not be; doesn’t necessarily require proof conclusive of anything; isn’t itself a criminal judgment but an admonitory one; and may be grounded on cranky interpretations of perfectly lawful acts, on lies constituting fraud, or on mere finger-pointing and a few moments of the court’s attention only. The issuance of a restraining order is, however, regarded as a criminal judgment, even in the absence of a criminal charge, and a finding that the order was violated is a criminal judgment. Appreciate that a violation could be the “abuser’s” calling the “victim” and reporting, “Your dad phoned and says your mom’s been in an accident.” A restraining order makes that act criminal, and the court’s prohibitions aren’t negotiable. Restraining orders make perfectly lawful acts, even morally imperative acts, criminal ones, ones you may be arrested for, denied jobs and housing for, and/or deported for.)

These contradictions will likely be familiar to the repeat reader.

Fascinating to learn of was New York’s “refrain from” order. Its contradictions are less likely to be familiar. According to Judge Clute, if you’re issued a “refrain from” order, “you can live together and have contact, but you’re prohibited from harassing, intimidating, threatening, or otherwise interfering with the person protected by the Order.”

This means, evidently and bizarrely, that there are people dwelling under the same roof as their accusers who may be cited for criminal contempt if an accuser calls and reports them for “harassment” that occurred, for example, in the hallway or the kitchen. The implications, which are fairly stunning, bring to mind the phrase “sleeping with the enemy.” The law invests its complete faith in the virtuousness of accusers’ motives. What will be plain to anyone who’s been falsely accused is that an accuser who’s been granted a “refrain from” order and resides with his or her “abuser” holds the life of the accused in the palm of his or her hand.

A writer for the feminist house organ Jezebel might ask, “Why would anyone make a false accusation of harassment, intimidation, or threat? What could be gained by that?”

Since feminists aren’t actually obtuse, the question doesn’t require an answer. Pretending, though, that they are obtuse, here is one: A residence could be gained by making a false accusation. Property could be. Children could be. Revenge could be (see the introduction above). Attention could be. The list goes on.

Judge Clute wraps up her tutorial on protection orders with this advice on “How Defendants Can Avoid Problems,” which reinforces the earlier observations that “victims” may call their “abusers” or otherwise attempt to reconcile, and which notes, besides, how a court order may stir conflict and confrontation with “family or friends.”

  • Do not go to places where you know the other person goes.
  • Leave a building, restaurant, store, or other place if you realize that the other person is there.
  • Hang up the phone immediately if the person calls you. Record the call on your answering machine, if possible. Tell your lawyer about the call.
  • Do not send letters, emails, or faxes to the other person and do not respond if that person sends one to you. Give your lawyer any message you receive from the other person.
  • Do not get into arguments or confrontations with the person’s family or friends. Walk away. Try to avoid them completely.
  • Do not get together with the other person, even to apologize or to try to work things out unless the Judge has dropped the Order of Protection.

Everything that makes these bureaucratic intrusions and impositions ridiculous is right there on the page.

Remember: If you spot your accuser, run away and hide! If s/he calls, hang up immediately (and call your lawyer posthaste)! Also…no sending presents!

Should such a debasing and debased statutory process really be one embraced by an enlightened citizenry?

Copyright © 2015 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

*The author of this post has listened to National Public Radio for about 20 years (and done The New York Times crossword for at least as long). If a cosmopolitan New York doyen(ne) of the art world, someone with the right background and the right associations, were saddled with a protection order based on false accusations (which are easily staged or concocted and may be heinous or a foot in the door for the commission of years of legal abuse), it might be treated on an NPR program (or in The Times) like a rare and inexplicable bird sighting, and the torments, indignities, and privations of the sensitive, cultivated victim of this “anomalous” miscarriage of justice likened to those suffered by a detainee in a Siberian gulag. It’s estimated that millions of restraining orders are issued in this country each year, and it’s posited that a majority are based on hyped or false claims. It’s further speculated by this author that only a tiny minority of the country’s privileged class are victims of such frauds.

The “Nightmare” Neil Shelton Has Lived for Three Years and Is Still Living: A Father’s Story of Restraining Order Abuse

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The following account is reported by North Carolinian Neil Shelton, a father denied access to his son and daughter for “three years now and counting.”

In his account, Mr. Shelton alleges that his sister, in collusion with his ex-wife, lied to have him involuntarily committed, and that one or more partners in the law firm of his ex-wife’s attorney fabricated evidence to have him incarcerated. He alleges, in short, some very dirty divorce tactics.

Mr. Shelton’s allegations are abhorrent yet all too believable. Significantly, none of the criminal allegations introduced against him have held up in court.

Because, however, its author has no means of corroborating Mr. Shelton’s allegations of fraud, it is not the position of this blog that Mr. Shelton’s sister lied to the court or that either the attorney in question or his associates engaged in forgery. The blog author’s investigative wherewithal is limited, and he has no way of determining the allegations’ accuracy. Rebuttal responses from the accused are accordingly welcomed.

Neil’s story, then, as he tells it:

I am the victim of false allegations and restraining order abuse resulting from my divorce.

I’ve been wrongfully incarcerated for almost a year and falsely arrested numerous times for nothing I’ve done. To get a better idea, look at my page on Facebook, Growing UP Mayberry, and that will give you most of the full story. For this website, I want to share the restraining order abuse, as well as the ex parte abuse, and several things resulting from the restraining order and false allegations.

On May 29, 2012, which was shortly after I was kicked out of my house by my now ex-wife, I was arrested three times in one day.

This was the start of a campaign by my ex-wife’s divorce attorney, who is also my state representative, Sarah Stevens of Surry County and Mayberry (Mt. Airy), North Carolina. Yes, Mayberry, home of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for The Andy Griffith Show. My only reason for pointing that out is that no matter where you live, you are not immune to this unnecessary attack and, ultimately, bullying.

My ex-wife had my sister, Joan Shelton Phillips, a family nurse practitioner and my primary care physician, lie on two Involuntary Commitment forms saying I was bipolar, refused medication, and was riding around in a limousine threatening myself and others. At the top of the commitment papers, it says clearly: “wife wants husband committed.” The interviewing physicians were able to get my medical records, which showed I had never been seen or medicated for bipolar disorder. After some questioning, I was released from the first commitment attempt.

The Surry County Sheriff’s Dept. had arrested me at 10 a.m. the first time. I was released at 2:30 p.m. and rearrested by the MAPD at 3 p.m. for the second commitment attempt. When I arrived back at the hospital, the head physician asked, “What the hell are you doing back? I just released you!” Again, after a shorter session with the doctors, my ex-wife was made aware they were going to release me. On the commitment forms, the doctor even wrote that the one needing commitment was my soon-to-be ex-wife, not me.

When my now ex-wife was made aware of my impending release, she took her sister-in-law, who was the director of Surry’s Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN), and they went to the Surry County Sheriff’s Dept. and had me charged with criminal trespassing.

I went straight from the hospital into police custody. Even though I was charged with criminal trespassing, my now ex-wife would later admit that I’d never been physically violent toward her. Using the criminal trespassing charge, of which I would later be found not guilty, my soon-to-be ex-wife was able to get a restraining order against me. Because I was never physically violent toward her, her divorce lawyer got creative. I had called my ex-wife a bitch and said, “You are not going to keep me from my kids.” This was used as the reason for the restraining order. Three years later, I’m still subject to the same restraining order.

The first day I met the divorce lawyer, Sarah Stevens, she asked to talk with me out in the hallway before the trial, saying maybe we could reach an agreement before being heard. I turned on my audio recorder and placed it in my shirt pocket, and proceeded to go speak with her. Once in the hallway, she said: “Now two things can happen today. One, you can be found guilty, which I promise you will be, and leave here with a restraining order against you from not only your ex-wife but your kids. Two, you can take a $5,000 settlement with no child support and agree to supervised visitation with your children, and the restraining order will disappear.”

I told her my children were not mentioned on the restraining order, and all I did was call my wife a bitch and tell her she wasn’t going to keep my kids from me, and that’s not domestic violence. She said yes your kids are mentioned in it, at which point I said then if you believe that, you need to go back to law school, because I haven’t been and know better than that.

“I’m dangerous broke, as y’all have shut down all my businesses, but I’m not dangerous with $5,000 and no restraining order against me?” With that, I told her I was finished. She said, “Yes, you are,” and we proceeded into the courtroom. I called her a few choice words, and her reply was, “Boy, am I gonna have fun playing with you.”

This is the nightmare I’ve lived for three years and am still living. I was arrested every time I turned down a settlement offer for an alleged restraining order violation. I began trashing Sarah Stevens on Facebook by posting what she was doing to me in court. I got warned to shut up and stop, but I didn’t and, again, everything I was doing was legal.

A total of five restraining order violations were alleged, leading up to a sixth, before they got tired of my winning in court without representation and got tired, also, of my political Facebook posts, and did something borderline genius, instead…only they executed it wrong.

They sat down with Zach Brintle, Stevens’s law partner, and penned a letter posing as me. In it, “I” threatened to kill all the lawyers, including him and his law partner/aunt, Sarah Stevens. It also threatened that all the district attorneys, the police, my entire family, and others would be killed, and ended, “Boston is nothing compared to what I’m planning.” This letter was purportedly mailed to my now ex-wife, and I was arrested for making terroristic threats.

During my almost yearlong incarceration, I was found not guilty on all counts of violating the restraining order, but I lost everything in my divorce. That’s because I was only allowed to work on my criminal trial while in jail, and my incarceration just happened to end two days after the deadline to appeal my divorce decree passed, and the decree gave my now ex-wife everything. The incarceration continued, because the district attorney claimed the FBI was doing an analysis of the letter. But after I was released, the FBI told me it had never received this letter for analysis. When I took the letter to my own handwriting expert, he concluded it was 98% likely that Brintle, not I, wrote it.

Upon my release, I showed the judge the two failed commitment attempts, the six not-guilty verdicts for allegedly violating the restraining order, the dismissal of the letter charges, the phone number of the FBI agent who told me the FBI had never been involved and had never investigated the letter—which supposed investigation the other side had used to hold me in jail—and the handwriting analysis proving the lawyer, Zach Brintle, wrote the letter. But the judge still extended the restraining order for yet another year.

I met Michael Volpe, the author of the upcoming book Bullied to Death: The Chris Mackney Story, who told me that these tactics are quite common in family court. I also met Raquel Okyay, who knows a lot and has helped raise my awareness that there are others going through this, too. She has also helped me tremendously in getting my story out.

My story is bizarre and extreme, but there are a many with stories like mine out there. I have not been allowed to see or speak with my children for three years now and counting. I’m sure I’ve left some things out, but there’s not enough room to tell my tale in this forum.

Since you’re reading this, chances are you’ve either experienced the same or are experiencing it, as most people don’t care until it happens to them. Honestly, I didn’t either, but that has changed. When reading this and all articles like it, remember you are not alone.

GOD BLESS.

Copyright © 2015 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com