Mineola Evidence Missing (Stolen/Lost/Destroyed?)

Get a load of this. If the evidence is embarrassing to Texas Sex Prosecutions, it, um becomes "UnEvidence."

The Tyler Morning Telegraph - "(Dennis Boyd Pittman's Defense Attorney Jason) Cassel wants Child Protective Services to release copies of the tapes to him to see if it might help his client. But Jason Gillentine, a CPS supervisor, testified that the tapes Cassell is requesting do not exist and he does not know what happened to them."

That was two weeks ago. Three days after that, the local TV Station reports on the goings on:

KETK/NBC-Tyler - "CPS says they don’t know where they are, and Judge Skeen says only that the defense is entitled to them, if they exist."

"IF they EXIST?" Is this code speak for "If we can't find them then tough luck?" Bill Medvecky is promising to comment on this story, which he is more intimately familiar with, than I am.

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And they say it's not nice, to point....

But I'm going to do it anyway.

There's an article out in Texas Monthly, and "Grits" has something to say about it.

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"Texas Monthly" and their take on the "Mineola Swingers" prosecution

The full article can be found here.

"The DA in (Wood) County, where the building is located, says nothing happened here at all."

The proximity of the Newspaper office to that of the "Swingers" club is significant. They were right next door, which is what prompted writing the column that more or less set this controversy off.

Remember, this is important because Texas Ranger Philip Kemp is involved. Up to his neck.

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KETK NBC 56 Tyler Texas' take on the Mineola Swingers Story

They use the word "Bombshell."

Bingham retorted, "They can say Matt Bingham's a bald-headed ass, but when they challenge my integrity, that makes me mad."

Methinks the DA protest too much.

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More on Mineola

With the caveat that I do not know the case well, and can't come close to evaluating the guilt or innocence of those involved, here's the story run in the Tyler Morning Telegraph today. The Judge is expressing some degree of skepticism from the tone of this story:

"Justice Hedges also focused on the fact that five children were called to testify in the original trial, when the original two who made the outcries would have sufficed".

Again, the similarity to this case and YFZ is the mystifying failure to go with what would have worked better, and instead running up the number of supposed victims. The Judge seems to think that if the prosecution had just stuck to the first two "outcries," things would have gone better for the prosecution. This makes me wonder about the pathology of Law Enforcement that is involved.

Are they competing to get to a prosecution first?

Are they trying to up their "rep" in the case with more salacious details thereby furthering their careers?

I mention this because a less spectacular approach to YFZ it seemed, would have sufficed, yet in this case the Judge seems to be pointing to, bare minimum, excess. Five kids instead of two which in my mind corresponds to the number of "underage pregnant teenage girls" that were "found" initially at YFZ.

I continue to point out that the cause for going into the ranch seemed silly to me. Why not just go in on a suspicion of Bigamy and list a bunch of places to search and then "Seek until ye shall find?" Instead there is a big splashy raid with horrific allegations (who can forget the "Sex Bed") and now an endangered prosecution.

Does Texas routinely gin up the charges so as to make any potential juror afraid to acquit or give lowered sentences? Is it all about trying the case, before trying the case?

"Wes" Volberding:

"The briefs allege that the Smith County District Attorney’s office concealed vital information pointing to the actual innocence of the six adults involved in the case, and that Judge Skeen has applied different rules in this trial than Texas allows," he said.

"The owners of the club, Russ and Sherry Adams, told the Tyler prosecutors that no children ever set foot in their club," Volberding said.

"The prosecutors believed them and let them go, then kept that information to themselves without telling the defense lawyers," he said.

The original source of the accusation, is questionable:

"Smith County prosecutors also concealed the fact that one of the foster parents of the two children who made the original outcries, John Cantrell, was being investigated in California for molesting other children who had been in his care.

Volberding also alleges that prosecutors held onto recorded statements in which the children say that nothing ever happened to them, and no molestation ever occurred."

Thad Davidson, who was the original attorney of record for the defense said he would be: "surprised if the case was not flipped."

"Jim Huggler, who served as both the original trial attorney, and is now the appellate attorney for Jamie Pittman, another defendant in the case, filed his appeal based on the introduction of other offenses not related to the indictment of his client in the original trial.

Huggler also said, like Volberding, that the state concealed the tapes of the children who said nothing ever happened to them."

There was no mention of the unprecedented "Amicus Brief" filed by the Wood County DA, contradicting the Smith County DA, in the Tyler Morning Telegraph story.

The story has also been covered by "Grits for Breakfast," and by the "Texas Monthly." As mentioned before, Ranger Philip Kemp is in it, up to his neck. Of course Bill Medvecky has been all over it.

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Kaboom? "Mineola Swingers Club" conviction fuse starts burning...

This is something that Bill Medvecky has been following, and it looks like the Volcano is about to blow:

KYTX TV (CBS 19) - "The Mineola Swinger's Club convictions could be overturned. Jamie Pittman, Shauntel Mayo and Patrick Kelly were convicted of sexually exploiting children for profit. All three are serving life sentences for their role in the Mineola Swinger's Club."

The original story is doubtless somewhere else, but I thought I would treat you to a "treatment" similar to that of our FLDS friends, from the website People you'll see in Hell:

"Investigators discovered some pretty upsetting things that had happened, things that the children were able to reveal once their contact with the adults involved was eliminated and the kids realized that they wouldn’t have to suffer any longer. During the trial of 36-year-old Jamie Pittman, the first of the gang to be brought to trial, the full scope of what went on at the Mineola Swingers’ Club was revealed.

Jurors were treated to a two and a half hour videotaped interview with Texas Ranger Sergeant Phillip Kemp, the oldest victim and her then-7-year-old brother. Their new foster mother was also there to help the kids feel a bit more comfortable.

During the videotaped interview, the girl was very cooperative, drawing a diagram and describing the inside of the club that the Mineola Swingers’ Club occupied. She described how there were two guards standing inside the front door. She mentioned how 45-year-old 'Dennis' – who turned out to be Jamie Pittman’s older brother, Dennis Boyd Pittman – would sit at the front desk and collect money from people who came into the club to watch the movies of the children performing sexual acts."

But something is happening in Texas, that is nearly or completely unprecedented. One District Attorney has turned, on another.

"(The) Wood County District Attorney (has) faxed (70 pages of paperwork) directly to the appellate court. It's called an Amicus Brief. It essentially contradicts what the Smith County District Attorney's office is telling the court of appeals. 'I've never heard of an instance where one elected District Attorney directly contradicts what another elected district attorney is telling a court of appeals. I've never heard that happen,' concluded (Patrick Kelly's attorney Wes) Volberding."

Have you noticed something though, in one of the quotes above?

Who is in the middle of all this?

That would be Texas Ranger Philip Kemp, who now may be shown to have participated in some way, in yet another case of false testimony. He's in the chain of investigators that is "investigating......."

....Rozita Swinton.

I'm also going to say that Bill has been on this, all along. Nice unbiased picture of Patrick, don't you think?

This is a lot like the McMartin case.

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Curious detail from the Eldorado Success Story on Rozita.

Brooks Long floated the story that "Sarah's" visit to SCMC had been investigated.

It hadn't been.

In the page one story published in today's Eldorado Success, we are asked to believe that Rozita's computer was thoroughly searched. Since we can't believe a thing they say, was it searched? Just like the SCMC fakery, the result of the alleged search of Rozita's hard drive was "negative" for certain important terms.

Once before, as I have noted, we've been asked to believe that a search was conducted, and turned up nothing, by these same Texas Rangers. Right now, based on their track record I'd say they don't want us to look there.

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Eldorado Success gives a Swinton Arrest blow by blow.

The article is very dry, and concentrates on accuracy and chronology.

Among the disclosures is that Ranger Kemp thought Becky Hoerth knew more than she was saying, just like I have surmised.

Candi Shapley figures in Rozita's thinking on the fake phone calls.

She had also obtained a copy of Lynn McFadden's affidavit concerning temporary conservatorship of the over 400 children that CPS was petitioning the court so as to gain custody.

More later. There are quite a few interesting details.

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And now, the Rangers just resort to LYING, Walther admits an Evidentiary hearing is necessary.

When all the dodges, the hiding behind "Secret Grand Juries" and Judge's peticoats give way, what do tough Texas Rangers Do? LIE. They just plain lie, bald faced. These are not men. They shame their uniforms.

The Salt Lake Tribune - "(A)n investigator for defense attorney Gerald Goldstein testified that he checked with the Schleicher County Medical Center and learned that no one from law enforcement had ever sought medical records related to the caller's claim of receiving treatment there for broken ribs. That contradicts testimony by Texas Ranger Brooks Long, who said earlier this week that the Tom Green County prosecutor had inquired about the records."

So Brooks is exposed as a liar. That means everything he says is now called into question and cannot be believed unless it is corroborated. Not by the testimony of OTHER liars, but by hard evidence. Phone records for instance. By the way, one of the reasons you don't call hospitals and confidently state that no one came into the emergency room by that description? You already know no one came into the emergency room fitting the description of Sarah. One of the reasons you know there is no "Sarah" in an emergency room? You already know the calls are coming from Rozita Swinton. Just a thought here.

Next liar? Philip Kemp. Allegedly it was Brooks Long that was calling the Colorado Springs Police Department on April 13th, a Sunday, in 2008 to investigate Rozita Swinton. Now we are simply asked to believe a new story contrary to those published reports I have already proven were false?

"(Ranger Philip) Kemp said he was asked to investigate the calls on April 14, 11 days after authorities received a search warrant that gave them access to the sect's ranch. Authorities removed 439 children from the ranch last spring after receiving Swinton's calls."

Sorry boys, your Modern Pharisee already talked to CSPD on this one. We are now asked to accept bald faced a new date and a new caller. Not Brooks Long on the 13th, but Philip Kemp on the 14th.

The problem is it wasn't either of them on the 13th or the 14th. It could have been one of them earlier than that. The FBI made contact with CSPD, probably looking for someone for Kemp to dance with that week. That means, as I have contended before, that it was already known who Rozita was before that. Kemp's alleged Monday the 14th "investigation" is most likely a set up. A staged event to mark on the calender when it was that the "shocking" news of Rozita was "discovered."

I saw this coming.

"This is pretty much going to be the evidentiary hearing," Walther said (this) afternoon.

On no you don't. It's your resistance that has forced this proceeding to turn into a near evidentiary hearing, but you don't get to change it to that because you have lost control. Everyone deserves real notice for one thing.

If Walther says this IS the evidentiary hearing, then she has now admitted the evidence standard was cleared by a country mile, that an evidentiary hearing was dictated by weight of the evidence a long time ago.

Now she's trying to pull the fast one of limiting the hearing, and tricking attorneys who were not prepared to argue admissibility, only the need to have such a hearing. If you admit that you're having the hearing already, then you admit to it's necessity. If you admit to it's necessity, you admit to the need to do it right.

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Walther struggles to gain control, Rozita subject spills out into court, Texas admits there is no "Sarah"

She imposes a "time limit."

The San Angelo Standard-Times - "It is the fourth day of the session, and 51st District Judge Barbara Walther opened proceedings by imposing a time limit.

'One hour per side per witness...' "

She made the 400 plus kid soup that is the evidence mess with a hoax tip, now she wants to be home in time for dinner?

This also tells a witness that if they can obfuscate and drag their feet for a while, they can get out of saying anything.

I continue to be amazed that the Judge actually thinks she can dictate the size of the evidence notebook that is presented to her and the amount of time a witness can be on the stand.

Texas also officially acknowledges Rozita Swinton:

"Defense attorney Kent Schaffer called Texas Ranger Sgt. Phillp Kemp, who confirmed information in reports regarding Rosita (sic) Swinton, the woman now known to have made the hoax call to a San Angelo shelter for battered women that ultimately led to the April 3, 2008, raid on the polygamous sect's Yearning for Zion Ranch."

Kemp also tries to sell the story that Texas didn't know this until April 16th, 2008. Well, at least he may not have known.

"Kemp acknowledged in brief answers to Schaffer's lengthy questions that cell phone records obtained after the raid showed an array of calls from four cell phone numbers traced to Swinton, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., including calls to NewBridge Family Shelter in San Angelo, a shelter in Everett, Wash., and former sect member Flora Jessop in the days before the raid.

Kemp also testified that Texas law enforcement authorities learned that Swinton had an extensive record of such vexatious calls. She posed as Sarah Barlow, a 16-year-old girl living on the YFZ Ranch, mother to one child and pregnant with another, who claimed to have been abused by her husband, Dale Barlow, in calls to both the San Angelo and Everett shelters, Kemp testified. Swinton, Kemp said he was told by Colorado authorities, had posed variously as persons named Erica, April and Jennifer in calls reporting she had been raped, forced into incest, forced to have multiple abortions, and held against her will in a basement by drug dealers.

In the call to Flora Jessop, Swinton pretended to be Sarah Barlow's sister, Laura, Kemp said.

The information came out after the raid, Kemp said, and he learned about it when he was sent to Colorado on April 16, 2008, to consult with authorities there."

And "Sarah?" She is now officially non existent.

"It was only in the days after the raid that authorities determined that no such person as Sarah Barlow existed, the state has said."

This may well spill over into next week:

"The session may continue into the afternoon. Defense attorney Jerry Goldstein informed the court that one witness, retired probation officer Bill Loader, is being brought to San Angelo from out of state and is not expected to arrive until late in the afternoon."

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Texas KNEW all along. The FBI continues to Stonewall on Swinton investigation.

Mark D. White of the Dallas office of the FBI continues to have my calls verbally screened. Today though, the message changed.

Instead of saying that he doesn't have the time, or that he has nothing for me, he's now changed to saying he can't talk to me.

That'll do I guess. I am forced to interpret this as YES, The FBI DID open a case on the Texas side of the inquiry into Rozita Swinton. I am also forced to interpret this as being they are sensitive on the date.

What this means, until I am supplied information to disabuse me of this notion is, that if revealed, the date of inquiry into Rozita's phone numbers would substantially alter the public perception of the case. It's TOXIC in other words.

Mark of course could ask me to print a retraction of this, but in doing so, he would have to tell us when it was that the FBI requested the information. He knows my number. From now on out, I will cite this conversation with the Dallas office of the FBI as proof that Texas or the Texas FBI knew about Rozita Swinton, prior to executing their search warrants.

I will be HAPPY to issue an immediate retraction, but to do so, I would have to have the acknowledgment that a case was opened, when it was opened, and who requested it.

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Does the press possess the courage to report the FLDS story?

Let me say first that without the reporting of the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, and to some extent (unconsciously) the San Angelo Standard-Times, the blogosphere around the FLDS controversy would be nowhere.

Having said that, they've settled into a sort of sing song complacency that is infuriating. It is more than difficult as a blogger to be the source of real news in this story. I for instance, am in New England, Bill Medvecky is in Florida, Kurt Schulzke is in Georgia. We're not reporters, yet some of the key events are having original reporting done on them by the bloggers.

Contrast for instance this story, in the Deseret News about two hours ago.

"Only eight children remain under court oversight as the custody battle over the children from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch withers away.

Texas Child Protective Services confirmed to the Deseret News on Tuesday that a total of 431 children have now been dropped from court jurisdiction in the ongoing child custody case. The children belong to three mothers, CPS officials said."

But this is old news since Free the FLDS Children reported this story 72 hours earlier. Perhaps with so few children left, and their release from oversight being so regular in the last four months we've become desensitized but this is big news. Five is one of the biggest number drops in the total recently. In addition, it represented almost 40% (38.4) of the remaining total. How long did it take for one (only one) member of the main stream media to report this story? THREE DAYS.

Since Bill was accurate in his reporting of this story it stands to reason his inside sources have him correctly reporting this one as well;

"After last evenings rant on a friends blog by Natalie, whereby she, as an Officer of the Court, named children involved in the CPS 'Investigation' and sent copies of the testimony of Merril Jessop to the blog to purposely inflame any possible Jury Pool against him, (Judge Walther) wasn’t too happy with her girl wonder and bitched her out loud enough to be heard in Peggy’s Office.

I’m sure (Barbara Walther) would have loved to, but neither Willie nor Merril are sitting in jail tonight for contempt of Court, but Natalie is going to have to go out tonight and buy a much larger pair of knee pads to keep barbie happy in the future."

If remotely true, this set of basic circumstances seems to suggest that Natalie Malonis is the active agent of Barbara Walther in the courtroom (news in and of itself) and confirms what a bad choice for stooge she is, and what a loose canon as well.

In addition, there is this bit of news over at Contraries, which if I understand it correctly, is what Bill refers to as "a friend's blog." An extensive section of transcript from the deposition in which Ms. Malonis, goes after the "Teresa Jeffs" child issue. Malonis as gone back and forth, but mostly towards the notion that she does think there is a child, until confronted pointedly, and then she says it's just a hypothetical that we could imagine to be true about other children.

All of this is news.

Then there is my own humble effort to expose a lie hidden in an affidavit to create the warrant to arrest Rozita Swinton, about which the Deseret News bravely says in the same article;

"Hundreds of children were taken into state custody in April when law enforcement and CPS caseworkers went to the YFZ Ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, to investigate a phone call of someone claiming to be a pregnant 16-year-old in an abusive, polygamous marriage. The call is believed to be a hoax, but authorities claimed to have found other signs of abuse on the ranch."

Oh puh-leeeeez. There are so many other ways to write that last paragraph that say so much more and still preserve the paper's position with regard to liability. They could for instance touch on the length of time it is taking to "investigate" charges against a woman who is known to own the phones from which those calls came. After all, it's in the affidavit.

Speaking of which, my own little contribution over the last week or so to the "reportage" on the story has been to reveal that the affidavit attached to the CSPD warrant of April 16th, 2008, is cleverly contructed to promote a falsehood which the press dutifully reports on as fact to this day. That falsehood is that Texas in the person of Ranger Brooks Long called CSPD and talked to Sean Mandel on Sunday, April 13th, 2008.

That is simply false.

Keeping in mind that the "raid" ended with evidence collection by the FBI (and maybe some more Texas activity) on Thursday, April the 10th, 2008, the date of April the 13th is a strange one, and not even a date substantiated by the players involved.

First of all, it's a Sunday. You don't have an Government job because you want to work weekends folks, so if you do work weekends, you don't buy troulbe on weekends. Nobody calls up from one FBI office or Police station to another on something that can wait, on a weekend.

Second, it was the FBI who contacted the FBI but the FBI agent who spoke to me personally whose story was corroborated by the CSPD Sgt. can't even tell me it DID happen on a Sunday. he "doesn't recall." "It could've been earlier" and he "doesn't recall" how he was contacted and "he didn't open a case" and I have since talked to the FBI in Dallas, and they won't comment on the fact that at one end or the other, the FBI was supposed to have opened a case, when one FBI agent requests information of another regarding a crime.

No case. No comment, and it would appear that Ranger Philip Kemp, at the very least was on record as having requested information of the FBI on the Rozita Swinton Phone Call Matter on Friday, the 11th.

I'm sorry, but this is big. You don't go through elaborate trails to hide nothing, yet it appears that this is what the FBI did.

Either Law Enforcement has either deliberately postponed looking into the Rozita Swinton matter until the raid was done, or they are covering up, in advance, the researching of where the phone calls came from. Why pray tell do you cover up carefully the investigation of something you don't know? Isn't one of the answers that you do know?

At this point Mark White of the Dallas FBI office won't even confirm to me if a case was opened to investigate the phone numbers. If Agent Steve A. Smith was lying to me (unlikely), a case should have been opened on one end or the other. The only reason Mark White won't tell me is that he either does not want to confirm the request made of Steve Smith, or he doesn't want to let us know that the FBI tried to investigate Rozita Swinton completely "off the record."

All of these things are news. The last one might even show that the FBI and Texas both knew that there was a Rozita Swinton, and that she was calling, during the raid. Maybe even right up to the point where Sheriff David Doran is standing at the gate to YFZ, wanting desperately to get in, and willing to say anything to do that.

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We Can't Tell You That, Oh No, No Can Do! Talking to Mark White of the FBI in Dallas about the YFZ raid.

I spoke with Mark White, Media Relations, FBI Dallas.

As expected, Mark appealed to the "ongoing investigation" to explain why it was that he wouldn't give out information as to who spoke with FBI Agent Steve A. Smith from the Texas end, namely, the FBI office in San Angelo. I was able to extract the following commitment from Mark though. Since Agent Smith (I get this funny Men In Black thought every time I say that) said that there was no case opened on his end at the FBI office in Colorado Springs, that there would be a case opened on the Texas side, Agent White will check and see if there was a case opened on the Texas side. If there was not, I imagine this represents a violation of some procedure, if not some sort of law or administrative rule.

I will again ask him the question of WHICH agent opened the case, and if he declines because of the "ongoing investigation" I will be asking him how many agents handled the case, WHEN it was opened, and which agency caused there to be a case opened in the first place. This will be to nail down whether or not Texas opened the case with the FBI.

Potential answers will be as follows of this sort. "Only agent X handled the request that came from the Texas Rangers," or "Local Law Enforcement (that would be Sheriff Doran) made the request." There could be multiple agents. There could be no request from the outside.

A potential answer would be that the request came during or near the beginning of the raid. That would be earth shaking. At least I think so.

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Other end of the Old Boy FLDS - Rozita Swinton Network?

Apparently, it is a Ranger Philip Kemp

with the Texas Rangers, who contacts the FBI on the 11th of April, 2008. I will research this more. It means the chain is now:

1. Texas Ranger Philip Kemp
2. (Unknown FBI agent working out of San Angelo)
3. Agent Steve A. Smith - FBI Colorado Springs Office
4. Lt. Sean Mandel (then a Sgt on detached duty from CSPD to the FBI)
5. Sgt. Hugh Velasquez CSPD
6. Detective Terry Thrumston CSPD

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