Horse Sense
Mar. 19th, 2012 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdI'm going to put most of this behind a cut, because it will be long and shocking.
It started out like this: Facebook saw that I had included in my history a stint as a summer intern cameraman at KOMO-TV the summer of '69. They suggested I find friends from that gig. The first person who came to mind was Don McGaffin, who came to KOMO as an investigative reporter. THE investigative journalist. For a week or two, Don was conscripted to host the station's daily morning show, which had a small live audience (maybe 30 people) and one special guest. His included Tiny Tim, Dr. Irwin Corey and Shari Lewis. I was one of the cameramen. Don was a Character. And very sharp, and a heck of an interviewer. He showed up roaring drunk at least once, but not on a day he was on the air.
When I was about to go back to school, Don gave me a photo of an AWOL Army draftee he was looking for, telling me the guy had started an underground anti-war newsletter which the soldier somehow was distributing at Fort Lewis. In Fort Lewis. Don was strongly anti-war, knew I was too, and he knew I was on the campus daily newspaper. I don't remember if the newspaper published the photo, but one night I came back from a rehearsal to find the dorm counselor waiting for me. It seems my roommate had parked himself near our room with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a Bowie knife. By the time campus police arrived, he had finished most of the whisky, and apparently he was planning on killing me.
A few nights before, he had seen the photo on my desk, and asked how I'd gotten it. I told him Don McGaffin gave it to me at KOMO. The counselor said the roommate had thought I said "Tacoma" , checked it out, discovered Don had never worked in Tacoma, and figured I was an Army spy trying to trick him into giving up his brother's location. You can't make this shit up. And it gets better. Roommate had been in a mental hospital, and was at the University because the shrinks thought he might be ready to handle the real world.
McGaffin did find the AWOL soldier, did a series of stories on anti-war draftees, and I lost track of him when I left Seattle in 1972.
I wanted to find out what ever became of Don, so I did a search from FB, which sent me straight to the following obituary-cum-memoir by a Christy Diemond, who had met him when she was working as a helper at the Seattle PD's horse patrol, and saw that one of the senior officers was abusing the horses. Don loved stories like that, and loved cleaning up the mess they pointed to. Here's the article. It's long, and worth reading all the way through to get the full impact of what I found next.
Donald E McGaffin
July 23, 1926 – May 29, 2005
Don McGaffin was a journalist. Not just any journalist. He has been deemed by many the reporters’ reporter. At minimum he was the epitome of what we all have come to believe the press should be. At most he was the last of a dying breed.
McGaffin was born in Mt. Vernon, NY and grew up in Elmsford, NY. At 17 he joined the Marines to fight in WW II and served as pilot in the Koran War. Twice, planes he was in were shot down and he survived. He attended Cornell University and graduated from Davis & Elkins College in Elkin WV. He received his masters in journalism from Columbia University School of Journalism.
McGaffin started his journalism career at the Schenectady Gazette, moving west to the San Diego Union-Tribune in 1957. He was the bureau chief at the Riverside Press-Enterprise for five years and then the editor of the Corona Daily Independent.
In 1963 McGaffin went to the San Jose Mercury-News where he entered television, becoming the news director and anchor of KNTV. In 1967 he moved to Sacramento as bureau chief for San Francisco KPIX. In 1968 he came to Seattle where he worked at ABC affiliate KOMO-TV.
Two years later McGaffin found himself enjoying carte blanche reporting during the heyday of news with the Seattle flagship media empire, KING-TV.
KING-TV was run with an iron fist by Dorothy Bullitt, a known nonconformist at the time, a woman in a male dominated business. It was at KING-TV where McGaffin contributed to the station’s fearless reputation of high journalistic standards breaking national news, investigative reporting and documentary work.
McGaffin’s career saw 35 awards including 14 Emmys. Notable were an interview with Richard Nixon, “Young, Black and Explosive” – the exposure of corruption in the Seattle Police Department, “Poor El Salvador,” “The Buck Stops Here” “Catch 33”- about the capturing of Orca whales for aquariums, “The Burned Child” exposing the flammability of children’s clothes, the later winning 5 national awards.
Don McGaffin rarely left any one person with a milquetoast impression. Where he evoked fierce loyalty in many; his fearless manner induced absolute terror in others (especially those who had something to hide).
McGaffin had a reputation that preceded him. He was the absolute investigative reporter. He lived it. He ate it. He slept it. His life at KING-TV was replete with stories of his pot stirring and prankster antics. Hardly any of them were absent a hearty laugh before the end of the story. Unless, of course you had the misfortune to be the corruption he uncovered, day after day, week after week. His professional ethics carved a standard in journalism history. Today few are fortunate to have the opportunity to emulate and master these standards.
In the early 1970’s McGaffin got on the air in his usual spot and read the names of people who were paying Seattle Police to let them illegally gamble. It was simple. It was clear. It was factual. It created a series of events that led to a huge scandal and a much needed clean up of the entire Seattle Police department and its reputed payoff system.
In the mist of the scandal two hooded police officers surprised McGaffin late one night in KOMO-TV’s parking lot – their intent - to permanently convince McGaffin to end his investigation.
A major scuffle ensued. McGaffin was a boxer in his day. He always said, “My dad taught me when you’re going down to drop and roll.” And roll he did under the nearest car just as one of the men was in full kick at McGaffin’s head. The sound of bone breaking as it hit the running board of the car was clear for all those present. The perpetrators were easy to find.
McGaffin was destined to meet his attackers the next day in his employer’s office where they begged him not to file charges… In true McGaffin style he said, “Are you kidding? You tried to kill me last night. (Meaningful expletive)--- you.” McGaffin never backed off of a good rumble.
Within another year or so, after the police chief had been replaced with someone who was supposed to clean up the gambling issue, McGaffin found a list of people who were spied on by the new chief. McGaffin went right on the air and read the list of citizens on the air. All of them were honest citizens tailed at the behest of the new chief. The list included the then current Mayor Wes Uhlman and his staff, another reporter and Don McGaffin.
It is amazing how the simplicity of reporting facts could be so effective to clean up those who operate beneath the radar. “Don’t try to make it pretty,” he was known to mentor other reporters, “Just SAY it.”
McGaffin had one other quality that made him dangerous. There was no price that could buy him. He reported the facts, he busted bad guys and he documented every single piece of it….on the air. In his day this meant doing research sometimes for months, sometimes years. If McGaffin was anything it was tenacious.
The newsroom circles were full of stories about McGaffin. There were the typical boisterous pre-game newscasts rituals where the brave would loudly argue current events and politics have one last smoke and an occasional taste of Wild Turkey in McGaffin’s small office prior to airtime.
It wasn’t just the brave who got his attention either. McGaffin didn’t hesitate to leave anyone out including the secretaries where often he would exclaim noisily that the brownies they brought to work were made specifically for him - which endeared him to every secretary who brought them. One thing for sure, he knew no boundaries.
If you were one honored enough to be part of McGaffin’s motley circle of friends, undoubtedly you would have a story or two or three about him that would rival the next…all of them full of trouble, adventure and entertainment. None of them were without a twist of McGaffin wit, style and sagacious wisdom. With McGaffin nothing was ever dull or easy, unless it was when he was up to one of his usual prankster rights of passage, which seemed to weave its way throughout his daily life …and any unsuspecting soul who may have found himself part of his next foray.
When President Nixon came to town attempting to find a safe haven on a cross country campaign meeting with local reporters, McGaffin was the local reporter selected to interview him. It was 1972 and Nixon had been uneasily twisting in the press. The resulting on air debate is famous to this day. It enraged Nixon to the point of storming out of KOMO TV news station where he took out his anger by kicking every tire on his limousine before he got inside.
McGaffin’s trophy of the event was a framed photo of Nixon and McGaffin on air – with a bubble asking, “Would you buy a used car from either of these men?”
Although he was the master he truly touched anyone who strived to be a true consumer advocate or writer. He knew no social barriers. He was passionate about people. He did things because it was the right thing to do. He was driven to see that news groups produced quality journalism. He was interested in all. This is how he applied his belief that the press was so important to our nation’s communication ecosystem. This is how I came upon the man - the investigative journalist - Don McGaffin.
How I met McGaffin- I was a worldly 19 years of age and a young college coed working my way through school. I had just signed on as a volunteer to help exercise horses at the Seattle Police Department’s Horse Patrol. It was not too long before I began to understand things were not so right up at the SPD Horse Patrol. I was too young to understand the significance of some of the paperwork scandal but I certainly and clearly understood one thing, some of the horses were being abused – terribly beaten by one superior officer.
I also knew if I were to complain to anyone in a male dominated military world such as a police department at that time, it would be unlikely that anyone would take me seriously. I was, after all, pretty much the embodiment of Ted Bundy bait. In the early 70’s it was often that men did not take women seriously.
So after I had documented the horrific injuries on high definition kodachrome film, I made a call to KING-TV. The news director I spoke to ran the gauntlet of tests on my phone call attempting to get me to spill the beans but I persevered and insisted on speaking to someone in person.
In an hour, I was meeting Mr. Don McGaffin at one of the school parking lots and on my way to a high end restaurant on Lake Union known as Jack McGovern’s. McGaffin had been pulled out of the middle of a golf game (a sport he dearly loved and participated as often as humanly possible).
I was very nervous. They had sent the guy who broke the Seattle Police Department payoff system. This was big time. It took three drinks for me to calm down enough to talk. Finally I was able utter words. McGaffin waited.
The first thing I requested was that none of the other officers were to be harmed. McGaffin was kind and patient (the patience part -a trait - as I soon would learn must have been difficult for him). He promised he would not put anything on the air without my reviewing it first and he promised he would protect the other police officers as he could.
The next months were a whir of scandal. McGaffin made one phone call inquiring about the horse patrol and the police department went into a tailspin. Internal panic resulted within the department.
“What does McGaffin know?” was the cry that could be heard as far away as Tacoma. “Hey you Estenberg! What’s going on up there at the horse patrol?” an officer shared with me later.
An investigation was initiated immediately. Soon I found myself in McGaffin’s Mini Cooper with a British flag painted on the roof roaring downtown at no less than 60 miles an hour. As we pulled into the police department’s parking garage, McGaffin parked in a spot marked for someone else (as if he owned it himself) and we walked to the elevator.
“Don’t talk too much – be polite,” he instructed me, “Just smile and let me do the talking.” I was hoping the terror of the road trip down fifth avenue didn’t show too much as I accompanied him up the elevator to the chief of police’s office.
When we got to the chief’s office, I was introduced and offered a chair where I gladly sat down. McGaffin did the talking with a few calculated moments where I was to answer a few questions with a “yes” or a “no” and the occasional “uh huh” and I of course smiled nicely.
All this took maybe five minutes and McGaffin and I were down the elevator to his car again. Once we settled in the car I thought McGaffin was going to have a fit. “Did you see the look on his face when I walked in with you?” He chortled, “I thought he was going to have heart failure! You did good kid. You did good.”
I couldn’t help but notice that McGaffin was exactly right. It took the police department less than two months to clean up the corruption in the horse patrol. McGaffin tried to get footage of the guy who beat the horses but he never had another opportunity because the abuser was dismissed shortly after. The sergeant who protected him was transferred to a desk job in traffic division for the remainder of his five years until retirement. He kept complaining about that B---h that turned him in.
The officers I had wanted to protect were left unscathed by the ordeal and I learned to write effective letters with McGaffin’s tutelage and oversight.
I appeared in front of the Animal Control Committee and told my story. It was very interesting. When I got done describing all of what I knew (there was much more than just the beatings), I concluded with, “I have pictures, would you like to see them?”
They didn’t think that would be necessary and allocated enough funds (it was a lot) to quietly clean it all up. And indeed they did. They did such a good job McGaffin never did a story. McGaffin was good to his word at least until the City Council decided to stop funding the horse patrol and shut it down a year later. Then McGaffin did a story. It was about me and everything I did to save the horses. The City Council decided to reconsider after the story aired and the horse patrol was saved again, this time in public.
That was the beginning of our friendship, McGaffin and I. I was kind of an outsider to his regular group of peers and friends since I didn’t report in front of a news camera. It was for no lack of consumer advocacy but I suppose I was his own little secret.
Often in those early years, I would find myself helping him research and investigating various topics and stories. He knew I was attracted to investigative reporting and suggested often that I change my major to communication to become a journalist. At some level I didn’t believe I was good enough but he never gave up teaching me. For 32 years he taught me. Sometimes I didn’t know it but he was always teaching me.
It was 20 years into our friendship when McGaffin came back from El Salvador and told me the CIA was selling arms to the contras. McGaffin told me, and my children, about how he and his cameraman were captured, held captive and how they escaped. I knew this was important but could not fathom the immense ramifications of the event. It was two years before this information was well known and in the press. I never tired of hearing his stories. McGaffin was an amazing story teller.
He always told me that he would never go to work in Washington DC. He said it was too controlled. Breaking news, he said, always broke out of Seattle. I never knew exactly what he meant by that until I decided to do my own documentary on an issue in Washington DC. It involved covering congressional public hearings in a public hearing room.
I went through my due diligence to get press credentials for the first hearing. This I was denied. I was told that if I inasmuchas blinked a camera lens, it would be confiscated immediately and I would be thrown out. I thought – well, I really don’t have a reputation as yet nor had I produced a documentary yet so I quietly conceded at the time.
The next trip I took to DC, I REALLY did my due diligence to get press credentials.
Not only did it not happen but I was told it would never happen.
Was this because I had a criminal background? No. Was it because I failed to do something in the application process? No. It was because this is the way it has been done since 1970 and if you do not work for a large media group or you do not live in Washington DC (and even living there may not make it happen) your request would never see the light of day.
I have shared this story with numerous reporters (including McGaffin) in mainstream broadcasting and they were shocked. When you think about it, how would they know? After all, mainstream broadcasting always gets free rein including press passes because they are with large corporate news groups. It is just assumed all reporters get press credentials. This is not the case.
When it happened to me, I was horrified. I literally went down the hall in the Congressional Rayburn building and retched. This was by definition a clear first amendment violation of freedom of the press by my own government.
It was an interesting phenomenon that as my life developed I became quite well schooled in the art of business, ultimately becoming a fairly accomplished financial consultant and entrepreneur. This is interesting because as I would voraciously consume my next advocacy challenge I could always hear McGaffin tell me, “Just follow the money Honey. Just follow the money.” And indeed, upon investigation and without fail, I would always find the source of a problem usually with an accompanying conflict of interest.
Of the many things McGaffin taught me was how important the business of journalism is. He used to tell me that if the news media ever failed to investigate and report the facts to the public the nation as we know it would most certainly fail. That news is really the voice of the majority who do not have lobbyists, an organized national committee or corporate funds to pay for marketing. What they do have is the right to vote but if their information conduit fails them they are left twisting in the wind.
Our communication system is based on an ecosystem of sorts where as long as there is the check and balance of consequence then everything would tend to stay in balance. I always understood the concept but I never really believed the news and journalism could be undermined. I was young and naïve - and wrong. He was right.
It is interesting how the consumer is responding to the lack of credibility in mainstream journalism. Traditional and mainstream media have almost overnight lost 60% of their audiences. They report the reasons as this and that and occasionally they mention it is the public’s sense of lack of credibility. The information starved consumer is turning to the internet for information and mainstream media is going right there with them attempting to regain their audiences.
But there is something on the internet that is a fierce competitor of mainstream media and their millions of corporate marketing dollars. Now there are members of the public who are now on a level playing field. Anyone can put information up on the internet with very little in the way of capital. The consumer is making change with their purchasing dollar…again.
Not long ago McGaffin told me, as I was groaning on about how corrupt things appeared to be, “Honey – they’ve been moving their people in place for thirty years. Now we can finally see them in the open.” I do hope that the consumer market succeeds in making that change.
In his last 19 years McGaffin was robbed of his speech and ability to walk due to several strokes. He was well known as a scrapper and he always got up from a fight. The strokes were no different. He fought back, recovered his speech and his zest for politics with both strokes. When he recovered from his first stroke and was again able, I vowed there would never be long silences between our visits.
One day not too long ago I arrived at McGaffin’s full of anticipation. I had the raw cut of my documentary and he didn’t know anything about it. I told him I had a surprise for him that I wanted him to watch. I briefly explained what it was. I warned him that it was totally beer budget. He understood and was ready to watch it.
As I cued up the tape and started it for his viewing, I watched him closely. He watched the 40-minute piece silently, moving only to shift his weight from time to time. As it came to an end, he quietly straightened up, squinted his eyes at me (as he was prone to do when he was particularly interested in something) and he said sternly, “Who edited this?”
I stammered, “Well…well uh, I did…”
“Well who wrote the script?” He demanded.
“Uh well uh um ah… I did…” I choked preparing myself for what was surely going to be an hour of how I should have done it.
Then with a bellowing I haven’t heard from him in years he says,
“Gawd Damnit Diemond!” (pause as he took another breath) “GAAAWWD DAMMIT!” “I’ve told you for thirty years you should have been a reporter…” (there was a little spitting going on at this point)
“Gaawwd Damnit!”
“Well well I’m I’m doing it now right? Right?” I tried to fill the sputter with a nonsensical explanation.
Then just as quickly he regained his composure.
“This is amazing. This is just incredible that you could produce this on your first time out. It’s just amazing. Without skipping a beat he said,
“You know you could add just a little bit here…” At which point, in typical McGaffin style, he gently put the finishing touches on it. I had, after thirty years, graduated.
It was one of the best complements I ever received. But then that was McGaffin and I loved him for it.
McGaffin was a regular with my family and friends. He was a lover of children and helped guide mine. He always attended birthday parties and personal gatherings. He never hesitated to rush to my aid and defend my name in times of need. Both my children grew up with him in their lives and each was honored to a special event with McGaffin for their graduations. He was deeply loved by us all.
My dear friend and mentor Don McGaffin passed away May 29, 2005. I miss him. But he will not be forgotten.
During the time that UnInformed Consent was evolving into its own, McGaffin enjoyed consulting and advising us on many occasions. I’m not sure who enjoyed it more actually – him or me. I, as well as my children, the friends and relatives who were honored to know and learn from him watched in amazement as he battled each day with his disabilities never letting it get the better of him. He was truly an inspiration for all that we can be.
It was a strange twist of irony that Washington Post Bernstein and Woodward’s “Deep Throat”, the secret source in Watergate scandal, one of the most famous journalistic mysteries of the century that destroyed Richard Nixon, revealed himself just a few days after McGaffin’s death. Rumor has it that if all the bets were called - McGaffin would have won a tidy sum.
So here’s to you Donald E. McGaffin – my friend – UnInformed Consent is dedicated to you, your ethics and your tough and gritty style. You will always fly with us.
UnInformed Consent will forever and always be committed to report the truth and fight injustice.
We hereby dedicate the word “McGaffinize” to mean:
The application of ethics, facts, truth, liberty and the American way.
-Christy Diemond, Exec. Producer
UnInformed Consent
http://www.uninformedconsent.org/mcgaffin.htm
The article moved me. I wanted to write to Ms. Diemond and thank her for it, even though it was written 7 years ago. I looked at the Uninformed Consent web page, the organization she headed for years, but it hadn't been updated since 2009. Linked-In had a listing but it was also out of date. A web search for her name produced a shocking article about her in the Seattle P-I:
Woodinville woman charged with starving horses
By VANESSA HO, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Published 04:46 p.m., Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Weeks after King County prosecutors accused an Enumclaw couple of starving four horses, they charged a Woodinville woman with starving two more horses who were found sick, shivering, dehydrated and emaciated in February.
Christy Ruth Diemond was charged with two counts of animal cruelty, in which prosecutors said she had failed to feed, water and care for the horses named Bud and Brandy.
In February, a group called Hope for Horses asked the King County Sheriff's Office to do a welfare check on the animals. A deputy found the horses shivering in the cold, with no access to food or water, according to a detective's statement filed in court.
The detective said Bud, an Arabian chestnut gelding, was "nothing more than skin stretched over the top of his ribs and shoulders."
Brandy's rib bones and back bone protruded from her body, and she had an infected sore on her withers – a part of her back - caused by a blanket she wore that had rubbed her raw, prosecutors said. Both horses needed dental and hoof work.
Diemond told the detective that she had tried to give the horses away, but was unsuccessful. She also said she had lost her job, filed for bankruptcy and was caring for her mother who had suffered a stroke, police said.
The horses were expected to recover.
In the Enumclaw case, one of the starving horses, a blind mare covered in lice, had to be put down.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 05:58 am (UTC)Before my MIL died I wanted to explain myself and tell her what a shit her son was to me but in the end I am glad that she never had to hear the actual words...it was too much for a mother to bear.
Also, just so you know the horse thing is happening EVERYWHERE. People can not feed them now and no one wants them and it is illegal to just kill them. So what can they do? Wish the horse rescue people would offer euthanasia when they have no place for any more...this horrible suffering makes me physically sick.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 05:39 pm (UTC)You can't believe everything the Sea PI (press) says anymore.
Date: 2015-10-06 09:57 pm (UTC)They really only got two phony news articles in before they realized they had tangled with the wrong person this time. Neither of the two reporters bothered to call me for the other side of the story. They just printed fabrications designed to witch hunt.
I do thank you for the kinds words but I assure you, I am far from dementia and you don’t need to feel bludgeoned, not yet at least. This whole thing has become a vehicle - now a gift - to expose a horrible RICO organization. Admittedly, it was hard and I was a resistant hero but… it is turning around.
I would also add that many of these cases we are seeing are a complete fraud. Sure, there are a few starving horses in sad situations but, every case we looked at was a fraudulent claim fueled by criminals under the guise of "rescues."
I would add, for the amount of funds expended on these cases, a small portion directed at correcting and supporting folks in trouble, would be very cost effective.
There are reasons for things like, for example, the professional marketing campaign that the criminals who extorted the ownership of my horses through while trying to drive donations for an act of animal cruelty I am not guilty of. There are hazards for being a good investigative reporter. This… was a painful complement.
A lucid argument could be made this entire post and thread was about spin just in time for selection of jurors for my trial.
Yes their falsified prosecution put me into financial damage control. I do not have a farm. I have a almost 2 acres and a house in a very nice location that they were attempting to steal through a mortgage rescue scheme. Part of a mortgage rescue scheme is to sabotage the property owner’s ability to service it so that it can be acquired for 30% to 60% of market value. Fabricating a criminal charge is a very effective method of sabotage. It is called stealing.
I have owned my home since my ex husband and I separated and divorced in 1986 – 1990 (quit claim deed). I have lived here since 1986 when we built the place.
If you check the King County Tax Assessor’s public records, you will find I am not behind in the taxes and it has not been sold although I’m sure the folks I’m exposing right now wish it was so at the time you pulled this up. They were busy driving my case to trial because I was uncovering a massive amount of corruption in their little RICO model. They were hemorrhaging so badly they were hoping a trial would disable me. I would readily admit, I was terrified at the time. This kind of misinformation was apparently a method to “color” and spin the situation for potential jurors.
I was and am still a fierce defender of the rights of those who are unable.
My horses were elderly at 39 and 35 (104 and 92 in human years). As such, they did not look young. If someone has access to a fountain of youth, let me now. Of course any animal, including humans, fail to make muscle mass as they get old. These animals were not starved. They were just simply old but still very spry. I might add they were both almost twice their life expectancy. I owned my two horses for 20 years. They didn’t get that way because they were being abused and starved or they would have died long ago.
They were still very healthy. My elderly mother was dying and I was hoping to find a nice 14 yo to give the horses to while my mother and I said our farewells.
In organizing this, I was reaching out to my mother’s church list and apparently there were 3 “volunteers” for 2 disreputable horse rescues who are apparently in the business of finding hardship cases to prey upon.
I was targeted. They used my old horse family members as a vehicle to bilk municipal dollars from the county by fabricating “evidence” that I abused them when the people who took them are the guilty parties.
To get possession of them, I was visited by a King County Sheriff - Sgt Bonnie Soule - who claimed that Jenny Edwards, director of a nefarious horse rescue, Hope for Horses, sent her to my property unannounced.
She told me she was there to do a “well horse visit.”
Bonnie did not get this request through police channels, she got it through these "rescue volunteers" who were apparently trolling the church list. Bonnie was out of her jurisdiction and had been trespassing on my property three hours earlier without my permission or knowledge.
Bonnie Soule used her uniform to extort the situation. This called under the color of authority and is a federal crime under 42 US Code § 1983. I gave the horses to the county under their promise do find a nice home while I focused on my mom's impending death.
In the next 3 months, under the care of the veterinarian, Hannah Mueller Evergreen, Jamie Taft and Bonnie Hammond from Save a Forgotten Equine (rescue), my old friends, Bud and Brandy, were systematically starved,then when skinny enough, pictures were taken in an emaciated state, then they blamed the deed on me.
8 months and 18 months respectively later, these “rescue” people killed them. I was criminal arraigned… a completely new experience.
All of these people had “perjury scripts” at the trial that have since been debunked. The transcriptions were egregiously altered from the private audio (thank you Don!) I had at the time. It was apparent they were attempting to marginalize and spin everything into a mental illness. Even your posts are a very sophisticated demonstration of directing reader's thoughts in that direction with not once contacting me to find out for sure.
I have more education than most of the witnesses and none of them have any education in psychological evaluation. They claimed no expertise either. There was no demand for a psychological evaluation yet, the prosecution and all their other witnesses suggested I was not quite “square.”
It was interesting how they came to these convenient conclusions without once, ever talking to me or having an analysis done. No they didn't ask for a psychological analysis because it would kill their case. They just were allowed to continually make allegations while my defense counsel threw me under the bus.
“Crazy” only goes so far when you have some 15,000 documents that prove otherwise. Upset? Of course I am. Any rational person would be.
Do I have proof? Of course I do. Don taught me well. The metadata in the digital photos my defense counsel that the prosecutor concealed from me until after trial, exposed it all.
I was unnecessarily (and painfully) handcuffed and sexually hazed during booking at the King County Jail during the hour and a half I spent there getting mug shots taken and fingerprints.
The animal cruelty case was completely falsified from the police records to the airbrushed hard copy prints, my defense counsel, the prosecutor and the judge – and many others - literally used the judicial system to make a mockery of our constitution throwing me under the bus. It was literally a dog n pony show attempt to get me to plea. It turns out, I wasn't alone. They do it in every case.
The King County Police Officer in my case, Robin Cleary, has now been fired and made a Brady Officer (someone who can’t be relied upon to tell the truth). She was the major crimes investigator in the Gary Ridgeway trial… and 3200 other prosecutions…. What does that say about our judicial system?
Cleary falsified her police reports to say I was arrested (when I wasn’t). She told Adult Protective Services I was financially exploiting my mother while being the “live-in daughter.”
As you already know, I have solely owned my home since 1986 -90 and it was my mother who was the “live-in.”
Cleary knew. There is documentation of this. She took it herself. Not only is my property a public record 30 seconds away but Cleary took a recorded statement where I told her.
The Regional Animal Services of King County Animal Control Officer, Jenee Westberg, has nearly two decades of a criminal career that has been concealed by numerous King County Deputy Prosecutors, judges and others.
Westberg’s criminal career has never been disclosed by the prosecutors in any of these cases until we started showing up Nor has the fact that her mother, Ann Westberg worked as a level V Admin. in the criminal division of King County Prosecutor’s office (a big conflict of interest for the KCPAO that also is never disclosed).
The prosecutor that brought the charges in my case was the same prosecutor who prosecuted Jenee Westberg in her spectacular 2008 drug bust and concealed 19 counts of which several were grounds for instance termination in King County. KCDPA Maggie Nave along with Judge Mariane Spearman failed to make Jenee Westberg a Brady Officer.
Jenee would go on to testify in at least 15 of 22 other trumped up animal cruelty cases in King County. I was one of them.
Maggie had the audacity to pretend she didn't know anything about Jenee's criminal activities at my trial.
There was not much time before trial for me to discover all the fraud but I was on to a good part of it just through the discovery that was provided to me in an attempt to terrify me into taking a plea.
However, like Don, I just don’t have that kind of DNA. That’s why we got along so well…
It took a while to find the other victims. Most have joined in the effort. That is what I’ve been doing instead of updating Linked In and our website. But through the PRA, and reaching out to others like me, we have uncovered a massive amount of corruption in King County, Snohomish County and Pierce County et al.
It is apparently a national RICO business model. It is as brilliant as it is ruthless and vile.
Innocent people are being targeted, They steal their animals AND their properties through these falsified animal rights extremists driven terrorists. The scent of drugs is everywhere.
Some of my friends have uploaded some videos of a few of the victims and their animals on rescueschemes channel on youtube. It is really quite stunning how far these criminals have gotten in our government. And they are using our tax dollars to fund their own profiteering (like stealing isn’t enough).
Don has been both an inspiration and present in spirit during the entire ordeal. We had a lot of fun cleaning up the Seattle Horse Patrol in 1976. I was a mere child. It was the beginning a unique and meaningful friendship that would last the rest of our lives. I’ll always cherish it. I especially miss him now. He would have loved this! I know if he were here now, he’d be telling me “Honey - give ‘em Hell…” and by God, I am.
There are updates that will appear on www.uninformedconsent.org website as I am able. But frankly, up until recently, grieving for my mom, fighting falsified criminal charges - updating UIC and Linked In seemed pretty trite in comparison of reaching out to the carnage left by these predators who are busy cannibalizing our country and constitutional rights.
If anyone thinks helping other victims, exposing RICO, freedom of the press and fighting to preserve our constitutional rights is worthy of a diagnosis of dementia, so be it, but I don’t see it that way and the some 15,000 documents (demonstrating the deeds) we’ve collected through the Public Records Act would beg to show otherwise.
Please don’t be a stranger. I loved Don too.
Christy Diemond, Executive Producer, UnInformed Consent.