Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job. – W. Somerset Maugham
Most of you probably heard back in June that F. Chris Garcia, retired president of the University of New Mexico, was arrested in conjunction with the persecution of Southwest Companions;
regular readers don’t need me to point out the usual pompous cophistry such as referring to a review board as a “prostitution ring” and calling a website administrator a “recruiter of prostitutes” (a phrase intended to conjure images of a pervert luring doe-eyed innocents into his van with the promise of candy), nor the trumped-up charges such as “conspiracy” (which basically means talking to someone else about something the cops decide to label a “crime”) and “destruction of evidence” (which means there is no evidence and never was). But you may have missed this item from September 29th:
Bernalillo County’s District Attorney has dropped prostitution charges against former UNM President F. Chris Garcia. However, the decision doesn’t mean the nationally known political science scholar is out of hot water. It’s a move that buys the D.A. and the police more time to analyze evidence and the build their case against Garcia and other men busted in what police call a prostitution ring. “When we have complex, multi-defendant cases that involve a lot of documents that have been seized, computers that have been seized, typically it takes awhile to analyze all of that,” said District Attorney Kari Brandenburg. The law requires prosecutors to take a case to the grand jury within 60 days of the defendant’s arraignment. Dropping the charges and re-filing later gives the prosecution extra time – even months…
In other words, the district attorney hasn’t got a case (remember “destruction of evidence”?) so she’s dropped the charges for now in order to have the freedom to harass Dr. Garcia later after she threatens some arrested hooker into making up a bunch of “human trafficking” bullshit. Or, she just plans to leave it hanging over his head indefinitely, or else the dismissal is part of a behind-the-scenes deal of the type for which Brandenburg is well known (perhaps involving her buddy, escort-raping judge Pat Murdoch). Since I’m not from Albuquerque I’m not personally familiar with her, but my research indicates she’s the sort of female politician who is bound and determined to prove that she is as sleazy, unprincipled and amoral as any man: She has been accused of gross misconduct (including reneging on plea bargains and leaking privileged information to the press),
has allowed innocent people to sit in jail despite knowing of exculpatory evidence, and has been caught lying and inventing “facts” in interviews on numerous occasions. But her chief claim to infamy is her widely-criticized tendency to wield prosecutorial discretion like a sledgehammer against ordinary citizens (such as the decorated Marine whom she and Murdoch sent to prison for two years in order to discourage citizens from protecting their property against thieves), but to show no interest in pursuing charges against Murdoch or her other colleagues. Which of her many faults is in play this time?
As I have pointed out before, cops and state-employed lawyers consider themselves a ruling class to whom the rules simply do not apply; they feel entitled to break laws, inflict violence on the citizenry and otherwise do whatever the hell they want:
Wayne County [Michigan] Prosecutor Kym Worthy…has filed charges against former Romulus Police Chief Michael St. Andre, his wife Sandra Vlaz-St. Andre, and five Romulus detectives…for misconduct, corruption, embezzlement, and witness intimidation…[in connection with] a scheme to improperly use drug forfeiture funds for personal benefit. Worthy says the allegations include purchasing a Westland tanning salon operated by Vlaz-St. Andre, hiring prostitutes and spending $40,000 on marijuana and alcohol in a one-year period. Chief St. Andre and his wife are alleged to have had bank account balances in excess of their combined annual income [and] the officers are…accused of “double-dipping” expense reports and making “fictitious payments to confidential sources.”
Their alleged criminal activity, which began in January 2006 and continued up until this month, took place under the guise of a Romulus Police Special Investigation Unit investigation into allegations of Liquor Commission violations, prostitution and narcotics trafficking…this supposed investigation was hidden from the Special Investigations Unit supervisor and supervised only by St. Andre. No information from this case was ever turned over to prosecutors. Worthy said the Michigan State Police began investigating allegations of police corruption in January 2009 at the request of someone she termed “a highly-placed Romulus Police official”…
In other words, the excesses were too egregious to ignore, especially since the informant (most likely the unnamed “Special Investigations Unit supervisor”) was both highly-placed and brought in too many others for the affair to be effectively hushed up. Even so, the prosecutor prefers to hide the bald truth under euphemisms; armed robbery and grand larceny are softened into “improper use of drug forfeiture funds”, in other words dirty cops pocketing money they stole from people at gunpoint after accusing them of the heinous crime of possession of drugs without a badge. Obviously, Dr. Garcia chose the wrong profession; had he been a cop or a judge instead of a university professor, he could have hired as many hookers as he liked as long as he invited the district attorney and other highly-placed cops to the party.
One Year Ago Today
“An Older Profession Than You May Have Thought” demonstrates that our trade is very old indeed, predating our species by millions of years.
