The Tribune Finally Owns Up

As if we didn't know already. The Salt Lake Tribune has alternately sat on stories or not investigated them from the beginning. They're not the only ones. From about fall of last year, if you hadn't caught on to what was being said between the lines, you weren't reading. Now they just say it:

The Salt Lake Tribune - "We continue to have reservations about the raid on the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas in April 2008 that gave rise to this and other prosecutions. The appeal of the Jessop conviction may bring rulings by higher courts in Texas on whether the evidence from that raid, which was based on a bogus phone tip about a young woman in distress, was tainted by the false foundation for the state's searches and the breadth of the resulting seizures.

Procedural questions aside, however, we believe that justice was served by this prosecution, the conviction and the sentence."

And we, those of us who were outraged by this business, do not. You cannot in this country, separate the procedural from justice, and even relegating it to the bin of "procedural" shows a sort of snooty bias that causes me to grind my teeth a bit.

The bill of Rights is largely concerned with procedure. Our 4th Amendment is in fact nothing, if it is not about procedure.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

By failing to do anything but step back, and NOT editorialize on the issue, and then in the final analysis issue a weak "We continue to have reservations," The Salt Lake Tribune openly declares that when it comes to personal freedom, they opt to subordinate it to what they evaluate as creepy:

"The whole notion of pressing young women into polygamous sexual unions with much older men is abhorrent, and any state which respects the rights of the young, the vulnerable and the brainwashed should prosecute it."

Thanks at least, for telling us that. The fact that no member of the community came forward to testify against Raymond, his "wife" included, who is an adult now, is of no importance to the Tribune. Their claim of abuse only holds legal, but not real water. Had their been real abuse, one of the women of YFZ would have broken ranks, but no one did. Not even to this day. Isn't Janet, Raymond's wife, able to say if she feels abused now? If in fact it is a date on a calender that makes a girl a helpless victim of sexual violence, doesn't the passing of another date on the calender make her capable of saying she wasn't?

Furthermore, if polygamy was the issue, as the Tribune clearly seems to think it is, along with the age of the polygamists involved, why was it that Texas didn't charge the FLDS with bigamy? Certainly there was probable cause to enter the Ranch and claim bigamy. All that evidence could have been collected and we'd be sitting right here, right now, with the same verdict.

And I'd have been reluctantly supportive of that verdict, because I too believe Raymond broke the law.

But we would have had a test case eventually going before the US Supreme Court on the issue of polygamy, and every State, Utah, Arizona and Texas is too cowardly to set that confrontation up. Instead they concocted a premise of abusive teaching and atmosphere and went into YFZ in a procedural way forbidden by our Constitution. That should be more important to the editorial board of the Tribune, but it's not.

You would think that a Free Press would have some allegiance to the idea of rights.

"In our view, there is no question that this is a crime of sexual violence which cannot be justified or explained away by reliance on the constitutional rights of religious freedom."

I guess the 1st Amendment only pertains to them.

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Latest Rozita Revelation started with this: Was she a NARC?

The latest Round of Rozita Revelations started with my friend "Toes," after one of our brain storming sessions. I updated a speculative post that was primarily written to tweak press interest which is typically pointed in other directions:

March 30, 2009 - "The owner of the MySpace page has made a convincing presentation that she is not a close friend of Rozita, but a passing acquaintance. For that reason I am at least for now, removing references to her home page and her name. What is odd is that this paints a portrait of a young woman trapped in the idea that she is still in High School, and hanging out with High School students in Colorado Springs, pretending to be one of them.

It has been suggested to me by a friend that this is what a 'NARC' does. It's a totally wild speculation, but could it be that Rozita was such a person, employed by law enforcement to befriend High School students, as if she was one herself?

Right now, I caution, that's just wild speculation, under the heading of "What if?' "

Trying to follow Rozita has always been very difficult. Her associations, aside from that claimed by former foster mother & GLBT rights advocate Mary Catharine Nelson, and a probable foster parent in Idaho have always been glancing at best. Rozita often claims strong ties by implications or actions with persons whose memory of her is fleeting. Either that or their memory of her is strong and they view her now as radioactive and lie about it.

The above quote is an edit from the original speculative post which was based on the fact that one of Rozita's two known "My Space" accounts was claiming to be moving, and the other was claiming to live in Ontario. As a now "put off" trial date approached, it seemed as if Rozita was saying she was leaving the country. The flurry of associations around Rozita led to a woman now no longer in Colorado Springs (or the west for that matter) that seemed to know Rozita well, based on what Rozita was saying about her. According to that woman, who I still believe, or at least want to believe, she barely remembers Rozita.

I believe her because of what she insisted was true about Rozita. That she was part of another group of High School students that hung out at the same bowling allies. She saw her, heard her name, and knew of her, but associated her with that "other High School" group. Why does one woman remember another woman she doesn't know in another group of High School students? The most credible reason is that the woman I mention that gave me this information is a lesbian. Rozita would seem to be one herself, and hung out with a group of lesbians in that time frame, in Colorado. Perhaps this unnamed person found Rozita attractive, at any rate, she remembered Rozita, but didn't really know her and claimed she was on the periphery of her activities.

This is what my tipster saw. The tipster has inside information that I have verified first hand. The tipster began to search the internet for terms like "Rozita" and "NARC" and found me. The tipster was concerned and increasingly agitated about the free pass Rozita was getting and claimed to know why.

Why?

Because "Tipper" alleged that Rozita was employed by Lt. Magdalena (Maggie) Santos of CSPD and her lesbian life partner who also works closely with Maggie at CSPD. Lesbians. Again.

I verified that the two individuals DO in fact work for CSPD. They are often mentioned together in CSPD and association literature. They own or recently owned a home together in in the Colorado Springs area and the other woman whom I've called "Beta" has been "outed" as a lesbian, by name. It makes sense to assume that she and Maggie are a "couple."

So on Saturday, I got an email from "Tipper."

"The interesting part about this is that during the interview of Becky Hoerth at Colorado Springs Police Department she stated she meet Rozita through friends Maggie Santos and **** ****(Beta) these two individuals are both Sargent's with CSPD who happens to be a Lesbian couple.. Rozita use to be there nanny! Very Interesting, right? For someone who claims to be LDS is surrounded by lesbians does not make sense. I was also told that Maggie Santos has a hand in the investigation with Terry Thurmston who is also a female. Does this not seem odd? Why would you not remove yourself from a case when you have a relationship with the individual involved? It's all shady to me but what do I know."

A subsequent interview with Maggie, which led off with me asking for "Rozita" after calling Maggie on her cell phone had Maggie immediately claiming that the relationship was 20 years old (Rozita was 14 and in Nashville TN). I discounted that as unlikely (frankly nearly impossible) and Maggie retrenched at 1995 being the date, after being confronted with the date of 1997. Maggie's recollections were alternately wrong, vague or specific based on what served her best. For that reason I do not believe Maggie. She has changed her story and Tipper has not. Maggie would not clarify and promised to swear out a criminal complaint if I contacted her again. All of this started in very friendly fashion but in less than 12 hours descended into threats and claims that I was "blackmailing" her. I would not publish her name until after she refused to clarify and after she cut off communication and after her story was called into question. I had kept her name out of the story because it would be wrong to name her if she just had a passing relationship with Rozita once. It now seems it was not a passing relationship. Back to Tipper, paraphrased and redacted ever so slightly so as to hide Tipper's identity:

"Page 1/50 of the discovery under Becky Hoerth Statement says:

'Ms. Hoerth stated she met Rozita in 1997 through a mutual friend at the Colorado Springs YMCA. She stated at the time Rozita was doing day care for Maggie Santos and **** ****(Beta). She stated the two of them have been friends and that Rozita has helped her out when ever she needs it. She stated she had just recently moved back from Wisconsin and due to financial reasons is staying with Rozita."

This cannot be disputed as it is in the discovery."

I stress that this document simply exists, or does not. "Beta" and Maggie are close enough to the situation to verify this, but Maggie will not. CSPD or El Paso/Douglas County officials can verify it too. I'm either wrong, or right about the existence of this statement, which is worded almost exactly as I have presented it above. There is even a page reference. Back to Tipper:

"Some of (Maggie's) statements to you are incorrect also; such as (Rozita) worked for her longer. (It was hoped that) if either one of them spoke with you that they would be honest this. My concern (is that Maggie) is hiding something. One of the problems is it's affecting the case against Rozita (for Rozita's benefit) since Maggie didn't recuse herself 3yrs ago. The only reason she pulled out was because Becky outed her and Beta in her statement so she was forced to pull out."

Again, this is ever so slightly redacted and paraphrased for the purposes of concealing Tipper's identity.

Since nothing Tipper has said to me has been contradicted by the facts and Maggie has already owned up to getting one critical detail wrong, I'm going with Tipper for now. Tipper has not had to retract one bit of the story so far. Much of it has been independently verified.

So when did Rozita start getting into trouble with the law on phony tips?

"ABC News - Colorado Springs police said Rozita Swinton had made calls in February (2008) in which she pretended to be a girl locked in a basement, claiming abuse and calling authorities for help. Swinton has a record for making similar calls in 2005."

2005? That fits with "3 years ago" when it is said that Maggie was forced out of the case, forced to recuse, as opposed to doing so voluntarily. If this is the case it would call entirely into question everything that Maggie said, such as details like not knowing what part of the south Rozita came from (Tennessee) or unverifiable (at this time) details like exactly when and how long Rozita worked for Maggie, or that Maggie and Beta both employed Rozita together.

So how do we speculate at this point?

Was Rozita at one time, "locked in" Maggie's basement? This is a fair question to ask. Unlikely, but nonetheless fair. As I have said to Maggie and many others, lies tend to contain elements of the truth. I would guess from what Rozita said, she'd been locked up somewhere once, by somebody and it really bothered her. Not exactly a surprise.

Was Ms. Swinton's relationship with either Beta or Maggie ever sexual? If a male police officer had a long ongoing relationship with a female suspect in and out of trouble with the law that required rescuing, it had better be a relative, or the department will eventually ask "are you doing her?"

Was Ms. Swinton a snitch? A confidential informant? A "Narc?" Stories from one of my other sources (now unnamed) says she may well have been. At the time she was in Colorado, she was in her 20's and apparently was viewed as another High School student and "hung out" with them.

Was Ms. Swinton a convenient warrant factory? Can't get into some residence? Need help? Maggie has a nanny that can fake an abused kid's voice and you're in the door, no problem! Rozita at 33 convincingly passed herself off as 15. To several people.

These last two speculations gains more weight when viewed with how quickly CSPD was said initially, to have ID'd her. Texas calls. There was a lot of back channel chatter off the record as well. We were asked to believe that they said "Oh yeah, those are Rozita's numbers." If most lies do indeed contain an element of truth, what if CSPD really knew who Rozita was by the phone numbers she used? Texas calls. "No problem, we know that gal."

Some other questions that need answering are among others, is there some sort of accessible database on which Rozita and her number were already published. We know that since 9/11 there has been an effort to coordinate and consolidate information between various law enforcement agencies. Would it be possible for the FBI in Texas for instance to type in Rozita's number and it comes back with "PAID SNITCH, ROZITA SWINTON - CSPD?"

Would you type in the number and it says "NUMBER IN CASE IN COLORADO SPRINGS, PERP ROZITA SWINTON?" This was the goal post 9/11. Is that possible in this case and if so, was it done?

More "out there" but deserving of consideration as well is the idea that someone was calling around looking for a decent actress to play a part. Does this lead to Maggie and "Beta's" warrant machine Rozita? Does someone need to be checking into cases investigated by Maggie and her department for the veracity of the information or informants used in gaining warrants in Colorado Springs?

I've fed all this information to the press and their reaction? Meh. As a matter of fact, I mentioned on Brooke Adams blog at the SLTrib that there was a relationship between Maggie and Rozita. Her reaction? She didn't publish it. I didn't link, as I recall. I did not characterize the relationship with anything other than that which Maggie has willingly confirmed to me personally. Brooke comes on today, makes a comment herself, but won't publish that cold hard simple fact.

Why?

PS: As of this post I am making it official. If you post at this blog, you're going to have to make sense. Ranting this and ranting that and blindly ignoring evidence will only get you published here if it is a great example of how idiotic you are. Other than that, you're going to get rejected. Jam's last post is not published, but not because it was stupid. It was not published for reasons Jam knows.

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Brooke Adams "outs" her own bias.

Ever wonder what reporters really think of the FLDS/YFZ story? Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune, slips up (?) and tells us.

The Plural Life - "Those early official claims — which included unsubstantiated allegations of sexual abuse of boys and broken bones due to abuse, which DFPS acknowledged yesterday were unfounded — were unfortunate since they clouded the real discovery that the sect had spiritually married girls as young as 12 to older men."

Even though no trial has been held, and they have not been convicted. It's obvious isn't it? There is no hint of objectivity on Ms. Adams part. "The REAL discovery" (not the alleged discovery) is that older men were married to girls as young as 12 even though it couldn't have been known without real abuse of power. All the while every reporter is careful to hedge their bets acting as if they don't know Rozita was the caller, and without saying as I do, that "there is no Sarah, you morons."

I'm not disputing that FLDS men may be actually doing a good portion of what is alleged. Not in the slightest. I do think that there remains a strong, strong possibility that the youngest of the girls was in a "betrothal." The confusion there for the rest of society is that they don't understand that Biblical Betrothal was in essence, marriage. Marriage without sex, and a state that required divorce to sunder. Merrianne Jessop may well be in such an arrangement with Warren Jeffs.

To Brooke the ends justify the means. On the scale of heinous acts that humanity can commit, even more heinous it would seem than the genocide carried out by the various state and federal government agencies arrayed against the FLDS is "child abuse" as defined by those agencies.

Ms. Adams. The REAL story is the flagrant disregard for OUR rights, the rights of the FLDS, your rights Ms. Adams and my rights, that the state exhibited when invading YFZ. Such informal precedents are dangerously real. They redefine words in our minds. "Justified" takes on new meaning. "Probable cause" deteriorates into any trumped up reason to search a home or business that results in a "find."

The real story in fact is how a woman, so TOWERINGLY stupid as Rozita Swinton, perpetrated a hoax on Texas so that they went on her story alone into YFZ with guns drawn. Does Ms. Adams think, for real, that the REAL discovery is that older men have sex with young girls? Does she HONESTLY think SHE JUST DISCOVERED this?

I have followed the Story of Rozita for almost a year now in a fashion that can only be described as obsessive by those watching me. The more I learn about her, the more I am amazed ANYONE believed her. She can't SPELL. She is a narcissistic sociopath (IMHO). She lies CONSTANTLY. She thinks she's part of some gigantic cause. Those that she thinks are her friends, her longtime associations, often don't even know who she is as she stalks them under multiple internet identities. She has pretended to be a HIGH SCHOOL student in Colorado Springs and pulled it off apparently, with those students, long after she graduated. Her opportunistic literary whore of a foster parent, Mary Catharine Nelson tried to hawk her miserable vanity press books by pointing to the good fortune that had her mention Rozita's name twice in both books. I READ one of them and found that Rozita was regularly cut OUT of the frame of the "Rev." Nelson's illustrations, because she was so UNIMPORTANT.

Yet she was believed. She now wanders around the country, going to Hospitals as a patient, visiting apparent real friends in Idaho, blogging incomprehensibly, sometimes about my "obsession" with her (no, it's an obsession with injustice, she's just there) and not having the good sense to realize that the "Hugh McBryde" who has been pursuing her, that she blogs about, is the same "Hugh McBryde" contacting her on one of her social networking accounts.

After a year of using my limited tools to find things out about Rozita, in the hope of showing how the raid was bogus, it's proven. I haven't found someone that anyone could believe. To perpetrate the Hoax, Rozita would have to have been someone else, someone she demonstrably, is not. Unless it is shown that she has real "other personalities," some of which are actually intelligent, no one can convince me that this dim Medusa has any power beyond the ability reveal people's minds, are already stone.

That's the real story. The real story is that our rights are trampled while Brooke, and virtually every member of the press deliberately ignores the fact that if you KNEW Rozita, you'd know Texas is lying. God forbid that they tell that story. The story of Texas believing what they want to believe and tossing away the rights of every man, woman and child in this country.

For most of the last 9 months, I have uncovered fact after fact after fact. I have dutifully reported on them. I have occasionally been wrong. I have put the facts in front of the people who cover them time after time. I have sometimes offered the story to reporters prior to publishing it myself. I have let others take credit for my own research, some of which those following the story have read under other people's bylines.

The REAL STORY is not that Older Men took younger girls, that does not threaten us all. What threatens us all is that an unbelievable woman was used to trump up charges and trample rights. That harms us all. The next story is that the press, entrusted with the freedoms that preserve all other freedoms, won't report that story, instead, leering and trying to catch a glimpse of old men and young girls to sell newspapers that are as bankrupt as their principles.

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The Deseret News captures Award over FLDS coverage.

Frankly I thought Brooke Adams did the best job individually with FLDS coverage, but the Deseret News did put on a late fourth quarter rally and apparently put more players on the field covering the story.

"The Deseret News swept the General Reporting category in its division with reporters Ben Winslow, Brian West, Nancy Perkins and Jasen Lee taking first-place honors for their coverage of the raid of the Fundamentalist LDS Church's Texas ranch.

'The Deseret News hit a grand slam with its coverage of the FLDS controversy,' the judges said. "The voluminous amount of stories covered every twist and turn of the saga with detail, depth and drama. The photos helped to further captivate the reader.' "

From my perspective, I found myself quoting the Tribune far more often as they seemed to have the story first, which in my book, counts for something. Both papers have covered the story less and less over the last month. It would seem to me that they rely too much now on having the story handed to them by government entities and think that because the child custody issue is largely over, so is the story.

Opinion and fact must be kept as far apart as possible when trying to objectively cover a story for all readers, I realize, but at some point an opinion, a muse, must guide you down the path when the going get's a little tougher. There are underlying reasons this fiasco occurred, and all media outlets are still calling it like a ballgame.

I continue to NOT understand why the media which hunted for the story in the early days, now waits on it, as if it is over. Too many questions have never even been asked as we approach the one year anniversary of the raid.

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