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.
“Cophistry” – is that a combination of “cop” and “sophistry”?
Maggie, I have to disagree with your belief that Judge Pat Murdoch shouldn’t have sentenced that Marine, Elton John Richard II, to two years in prison. I agree with the commenter on that blog post who said: “I have no issue with Richard shooting someone ON his property in defense of his property, but chasing the perp 1400 feet away and then fatally shooting him is, frankly, overkill. This is supposed to be a society governed by rule of law, not the Wild West.”
Murdoch did absurdly order Richard to pay $500 a month to the robber’s family, as if that’s restitution for the money the robber could have stolen in the future if he were still alive.
It really depends on where you live. I live in Slidell, LA and if I did something like this – the local police would likely give me a medal.
No, maybe the Marine shouldn’t have chased him down – but was the shooting intentional? I thought I saw some testimony that said he caught up with the perp and the guy grabbed his gun … which resulted in a struggle?
Re “cophistry”: Very good; I figured you’d catch that if anyone did. 😉
As for Richard: He had no previous criminal record and was reacting as one might expect a military man to react; in the past such cases were nearly always sentenced to probation, community service, etc. And when the “perpetrator” is a judge, cop or other official, they still are. Cops are routinely “punished” for willful murder of innocent people by merely being relieved of duty, if they’re punished at all.
Giving anyone – judge, cop, public official, Marine, or anyone else – only probation or no sentence at all for willful murder is wrong. Richard wasn’t forced to keep chasing the robber after the robber left Richard’s property. I can’t agree that he reacted “as one might expect a military man to react” because I believe or hope that most military men wouldn’t kill someone they don’t HAVE to kill.
Well – the message may be sinking in, at least in New Orleans. I heard on the radio at lunch that the NOLA Police “Favorability Rating” was down to only 48% from 60% one year ago.
Chief of Police blames “bad media coverage” … LOL!
Ain’t it the truth. Cops are a higher type of citizen. Assault and battery on a cop or murder of a cop are much worse offenses than they would be for an ordinary citizen. They’re slightly better than gangsters.
I think George Bernard Shaw said “By the time you’re 40 you have the face you deserve.” I think this applies in spades to the face of the prosecutor you expose.
We get the cops we deserve, too. We’ve a seriously bad case of cop-worship in this country. They get away with all the bad behavior because we allow it. We’ve given them too much power, respect, funding and weapons.
Cops are supposed to be public servants, not lords and masters. How would you react if a city worker from the water department arrived unannounced at your door, forced their way in, roughed you and your family up, held you at gunpoint, maybe even injured you, then, when they didn’t find what they were looking for, made up a lie about you? But put on a uniform and that’s routine.
Yet get a bunch of the sheeple on a jury, and most of the time they will give the cop the benefit of the doubt, no matter how bare his lies.
And we continue to support lawmakers who pass bad laws abetting bad cop behaviour.
The fact that there is no evidence, in fact is the evidence.
I wouldn’t have dared write that into a science fiction story. It would have been too hard on my readers’ suspension of disbelief. But maybe I’m selling readers short, because here we are.
Like I mentioned before: it’s amazing what you can get passed if people are scared. I remember a few years back thinking, “If one more person calls into C-SPAN to boast of his cowardice, I’m gonna have to be put on medication.”
Again, I agree Cops think they are above the law. St. Andre’s actions are detestable. St. Andre effectively stopped all investigation of his criminal enterprise by concealing it from the SIU supervisor, thus letting him supervise the matter at his own discretion. To say the Prosecution is hiding the truth and softening a charge of Armed Robbery and Grand Larceny “to improper use of forfeiture funds”… without a badge is not factually or legally accurate. First off, “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 at Romulus’ Landing Strip Bar..” Under the guise of Romulus Police means precisely with Badge. They went in uniform, carrying themselves to be working within the duty of their police role. However heinous there future intent to defraud was, it is not armed robbery for a cops to seize illicit substances if they had PC to think it was there or a warrant. I think it is safe to assume yes, since they did seize drugs and money and entered the forfeitures into the police database . (no one knew about it until the books didn’t add up. he was supervising himself for three years.) It is a misrepresentation with intent to defraud (embezzlement, false pretenses), with which they are charged.
Either way Grand Larceny would be a lesser included offense with Armed robbery (Larceny by threat of deadly force) and they could not be convicted of both. To be convicted of larceny the taking must be tresspassory or unlawful. Again, they went as cops, presumably under a valid warrant. The taking would therefore be considered lawful (for the purposes of a larceny charge). There actions afterword, to embezzle the money, run a criminal enterprise, obstruct justice, (7 total felonies total of 128 years initially) are all being tried. The case is currently in trial and they face 20 years. it is unfortunate these scumbags aren’t going away for longer. But that is no fault of the DA, as they charged them with every crime they could. (also a civil suit was filed against him and the police department, so hopefully they get hit there as well)