New Jersey refuses to discipline an attorney for criticism of a judge on the Internet

As an attorney whose license was suspended for criticism of a judge committing misconduct in motions to recuse, I keenly monitor news as to discipline of attorneys for public statements criticizing the government, and especially the judiciary.

In a new development on this issue, the New Jersey Supreme Court recently refused to discipline an attorney who first agreed to pull from his personal website an article criticizing a judge's actions in a certain court case, and then did not actually remove that criticism.

While attorney #JayChatarpaul insisted that criticism of Judge Christine A. Farrington for bias and errors committed during a court proceeding that he described on the Internet was protected by the 1st Amendment - and the court, apparently, agreed with him - the sad reality is that attorney Chatarpaul actually removed that content from the website - it only remained visible through Google search, and even that became the subject of persectuion on behalf of attorney disciplinary authorities.

So, while it is a victory, the victory is incomplete since the attorney's speech was still chilled and the attorney was intimidated by the potential to lose his license and livelihood into pulling the "offending" content criticizing the judge.

But, at least there is a decision refusing to punish an attorney for criticizing a judge in the first place.

So, New Jersey rules contrary to New York on this issue, and that adds to the currently existing split among states.

I will continue to cover the subject of retaliation against attorneys through licensing process for criticizing judicial incompetence and misconduct.

Stay tuned.

Yet another confession by Delaware County - that it persecutes and harasses my friends simply because they are my friends

A future civil rights litigant against the Delaware County filed a Notice of Claim against the county to preserve her state-lawsuit rights - a lawsuit for the common law causes of action for battery, assault, unlawful imprisonment etc. (a civil rights action does not require a Notice of Claim or preliminary depositions).

She was callled to the Municipal Law 50-h deposition, handled by the Frank Miller Law Firm associate.

She arrived pro se, without counsel.

She arrived with a newborn in tow and her mother as a witness. 

It was hot outside.

It was cool inside the building, with air conditioning funded by us, Delaware County taxpayers.

The County's litigation attorney at the 50-h deposition are also funded by us, Delaware County taxpayers.

A 50-h deposition, a deposition that is preliminary to a public court proceeding, is also a public proceeding.

At 50-h depositions, Delaware County allows a lot of its own personnel to be present who are not directly involved in litigation, but come there to be present as witnesses and support group.

That is what the pro se litigant did - brought her mother as a support group.

The associate abused the situation that the litigant was pro se and without an attorney who could protect her rights and rudely asked the mother of the litigant to leave the deposition because it is a private proceeding.

Then, the associate of Frank Miller's Law firm proceeded to ask her questions - for 5 hours.

Several questions, according to the litigant, was - when exactly did I represent her, and was it after suspension of my law license (of course, the associate knew it wasn't because representation was concerning court proceedings in which Delaware County was participating and thus had access, and knew my representation ended a year before my suspension). 

I thought it would be interesting for Delaware County taxpayers to know that Delaware County is spending money on the "valuable time" of their litigation attorneys to ask irrelevant questions, simply to follow the grudges of Delaware County officials.

Even if they know the answer to the question - in the negative.

Eve though the question was irrelevant.

At least it shows how deep the grudge is and how connected actions of the Delaware County against my friends are to me.

The series of questions about me was practically an admission that Delaware County illegally persecutes my friends.

I will publish the transcript of the deposition when it becomes available.

Stay tuned.

My case is so easy, or, a message to an attorney from potential customers - we want you to do your absolute best for us, working as much as needed for the case, but we only want to pay you for "capped hours"

When I practiced law, I tried to stay away from people who claimed that their case is "so easy, it is a slam-dunk to win it".

There were many people who said that when initially calling for a fee quote for an entire case - which I, of course, could not give.

Once you file a case in court, you have an opponent, and you have the presiding court.  You do not have a unilateral control as to how the case will progress.

Nor do people with lack of specialized knowledge about the law know how their case may progress.

And, before getting to know the facts of the case, and sometimes, before doing discovery, or preliminary discovery, which often involves reviewing massive amounts of documents, an attorney cannot in good faith make up his or her mind as to the merits of the case, or the full scope of issues involved in the case.

Moreover, many potential clients withhold important information from an attorney when hiring an attorney, to make the case look like a simple case and in an attempt to make the fee lower.

Which is where I am going with this post.

Yesterday, I've read a blog of the fellow blogger from Pennsylvania who posts a lot of valuable information on her blog regarding the judicial system.

But, I wholeheartedly disagree with the message she has sent in the two blogs posted yesterday, which I will address in my blog due to importance of the message.

The blog Pennsylvania Court Watch advocated in the yesterday's blog for putting a cap on the hours worked by lawyers and, thus, the allowable fee upon attorneys to be charged in any particular case.

The issue raised by the article "Why Hurry When You Are Getting Paid By The Hour?" raises important issues, that per-hour (as opposed to a "per job" or "per capped-hours per-hour service" payment provides an incentive to lawyers to stretch litigation for years, to be paid by the hour.

That may be true - as it is true for any service providers who charge by the hour, such incentive does exist.

If you hire a contractor to work on your house, and you pay by the hour and not by the job, there is a potential that the contractor will "milk the job" and work for longer time than is required to conclude the job.

And, even in the contractor's situation, when a contractor is accused of "milking" the job, the contractor does not entirely control the time limits - there may be intervening circumstances such as the weather, requirements to meet certain regulations, unavailability of materials etc.

In an attorney's situation, issues beyond control of the attorney that may prolong litigation may be, as I mentioned above, and that is not an exhaustive list of issues:

1. opponents actions (counter-claim, discovery, motion practice, requirement of a jury trial);
2. court actions (adjournments, conferences, required mediation etc.);
3. non-disclosure of important issues by the client at the outset of the case that complicate or prolong resolution of the case;
4. issues that get discovered during the discovery process of which neither the client nor the attorney were aware at the time the case started - that is why the process is called "discovery".

Now, a potential client advocates to the court that an attorney the client hired to work for him on a court case must be MADE to charge the client only for a limited number of hours - while leaving intact the attorney's malpractice liability for negligence to the case, and while not lowering expectations to the outcome of the case.

You know what will happen next?

What is ALREADY happening in the State of New York, on appeals for indigent individuals in the Appellate Division 3rd Department - you do not know whether your appellate attorney did or did not work for you on appeal at all, because the appellate attorney's fee is capped at $4,700 per job.

Is it a lot of money?  It appears to be.

And, with an hourly rate of $75.00 that the cap is applied to, the fee covers 62 hours 36 minutes, or 3,756 minutes of an attorney's time.

Appears to be enough to do an appeal.

But, it depends.

I am aware of a case where the trial in Family Court, where the appeal was subject to such a cap, went for 3 weeks, and there were many proceedings before trial - the case was a combined child neglect/ child custody case.

Only the transcript of the three-week trial contained hundreds of pages.

An appellate's attorney due diligence duty is to first READ the record to be able to make a determination as to which appealable issues are present, which are important, which are more important than others.

An attorney who reads the record of an appellate case, should not be requried to turn the reading - and issue spotting - into a speed-reading stampede.

Sometimes it takes a minute to read a page, sometimes it takes an hour or more - because an attorney must deviate from reading, as soon as the attorney spotted the issue, to do research on the issues spotted and preserve it in preliminary notes for the brief.

If that is not done on the spot, a busy attorney - who has other cases - may forget what he or she spotted during reading.  It is not humanly possible to retain in one's short-term memory the contents of transcripts of a three-week-long trial.

Even if an attorney spends, let's say, 2 minutes on reading a page of court documents (that's without research and without taking notes), that covers reading of 1,878 pages of court documents.

So, if there are more pages than that in a court record - and often, there are, I was given a SUITCASE full of records by Delaware County Social Services full of discovery documents 2 days before a child neglect trial once - any reading the attorney does beyond that amount, is not paid.

Not paid - and that is with a $75 per hour rate which, while it is high for many people, as compared to the average hourly rate in the U.S., is lower than private law firms charge for a paralegal's services.  Attorney's fees in upstate New York start at $175/hour, and are a lot higher in large cities - with the rental, payroll burden of personnel going into the fees, and the cost of education and CLEs required by the attorney regulation going into the fee.

So, if an appellate attorney in the New York State Appellate Division 3rd Department is paid for 1,878 pages at the reading rate of 2 minutes per page, the attorney is NOT paid for:

1. reading any records over that page limit;
2. putting together the Record on Appeal - which is a lengthy process taking a lot of time;
3. arranging for stipulation of the Record on Appeal - as required by the court rules;
4. arranging for stipulation of the transcripts - as required by the court rules;
5. taking notes while reading those pages;
6. doing research of the issues;
7. making the necessary amount of drafts of the Appellant's Briefs - and I can tell you, from the position of an attorney who has won many appeals, that drafting appellant's briefs is a gruelling work that sometimes reaquires 8 to 10 drafts to complete.

We are not mentioning that the cap of maximum amount charged or maximum amount of hours worked on a case may also regulate prices in the legal profession - and price-fixing in any industry is not allowed by federal antitrust laws.

Without the price-fixing, the amount of hours worked on a case will still result in more money paid to attorneys who charge a higher fee - and that includes a higher fee for experience and skill.

If the same cap of $4,700 per appellate case is applied to a private attorney, the number of hours that a skilled attorney may work on a given case will shrink to as little as 13 hours.

This way, regulation that consumers bring upon attorneys to pay less, may result in (1) discrimination against skilled attorneys,  (2) a prohibition for skilled attorneys to charge more for their skill, because that will result in less hours they are allowed to work on the case will result in attorneys being paid less, yes, working less, yes - but to the detriment of the same client.

In other words, the requirement that the government, as a regulator, must fix prices of attorneys and the number of hours a given attorney is allowed to work per week will result in attorneys not providing the best quality of work, and neglecting cases - and that is not what a customer would want from them.

Also, there are stages of litigation that are less labor-intensive and more labor-intensive, and the intensity of the attorney's work is dictated by statute of limitations - established by courts, scheduling deadlines - established by courts, and rules of courts - also established by courts.

For example, in New York, discovery and motion practice in a criminal case is jammed within 45 days from arraignment.  If you didn't do that as a defense attorney - you waived your clients' rights.

So, you need to work for as long as needed to obtain, read, review, research on and make the motions based on as much information as you could uncover to help your client - and that's what your client wants from you.

After you filed the motions, there may be a slow period on the case where motions are under the court's review, and slow-pace plea negotiations may be under way - as well as some preliminary trial preparation, but not at a rush-speed.

When a court schedules certain amount of work to be done on the case by a certain deadlines, that requires of an attorney, through attorney disciplinary rules and rules of due diligence (violation of which may result in a malpractice lawsuit) to engage in all reasonable efforts to provide the best of service for the client for that particular portion of litigation.

I do not think that a client would want an attorney to engage in the following thinking exercises:

1) ok, so the court scheduled the deadline to complete discovery in case X at 3 months from now;
2) I am allowed to work on this case Z number of hours per week;
3) my client just delivered me two large boxes of documents for review;
4) I already spent my hours per week on the case reading through 1/10 of documents;
5) I will not cover my own bills if I do not take other cases, parallel to this one;
6) so, I will stop working on this case until the next week, because I have reached my cap of hours this week.

As a result, with a cap of hours imposed upon an attorney to work per week, the client will never know whether the attorney actually read the boxes of documents or not, when the attorney tells him that he/she did not find anything significant in those documents.

And, it will be beyond the point to tell the attorney - but, you know, on page 1,500 in the box 4 I've sent to you, it said - and you overlooked it.

Not only overlooked but, likely, did not even read it - because the capped-hour minimum per week expired before the attorney reached that page by the time he had to complete a certain stage of litigation for which the reading of that page was meaningful.

A requirement to cap off attorney hours or fix prices is a requirement to submit the attorney to slavery - because such a requirement does not take into account the cost of doing business as an attorney.

If attorneys are not able to break even - with the cost of education, maintaining a law license, a malpractice insurance, costly CLE requirements, cost of legal research, the overhead of the office including rental and the cost of auxiliary personnel - there will be no services provided at all.

If the regulation is making clients not be able to afford an attorney, the answer to the situation is not MORE regulation, but LESS regulation.

If the market of legal services is deregulated, and the cost of law education is not inflated any more by the regulation requirements, and the cost of maintaining a license is eliminated, and people have more choice as to who would represent them in court and at what price, then the issue raised in the article about dragging on with litigation will not be an issue any more.

But, stripping an attorney from the ability to set a price for his own services, making an attorney to work many hours on a case for free in order not to commit malpractice is not going to help consumers.

Because slave labor was never diligent or efficient - which is shown by results of indicgent appeals in the 3rd Department worked on by attorneys whose services are capped at $4,700 per case, at an hourly rate of $75/hour, no matter how big the record is.

The appellant will never know whether the attorney actually read the portions of a lengthy record - because the attorney was not paid for it.

And, a litigant in a trial court will never know whether the attorney did his or her absolute best for the client - because the attorney's hourly rate and hours were capped off, so, where the case required diligent work for longer hours than were provided by the cap, those longer hours were simply not provided by the attorney, and rightfully so.

Because in this country slave labor is a XIIIth Amendment violation, and the government taking people's property without due process of law - including by capping the fees they can charge for their services to break even as to the costs of doing business and earn a living - is a due process violation.

One cannot expect to have access to justice provided through enslaving the providers of such access.  That would not be justice, would it?

Fabrications of transcripts or failure to record in the recent reported court cases

I have put together a summary table of cases I have so far covered where either court transcripts were fabricated to hide mistakes or misconduct of trial courts, or where such transcripts were deliberately not made.

The cases reported were from New York, Louisiana and Georgia, and the table was made in reliance upon court documents that I either personally have or had in my possession or court documents reported on the Internet.

	Year	Name of Court	State	Name of reporter, if any	Name of Judge	Description of fabrication
1.	Approx. 2013	Delaware County Family Court	New York	Will post upon verification with the transcript, I report contents from personal knowledge of what happened in the proceedings and from memory of contents of the transcript	Carl F. Becker	Failure to reflect in the transcript the presence of children at a court hearing where Judge Becker demeaned and belittled a female child, claiming that she is not “college material”; refusal of the court to have the stenographer correct the mistake of transcript regarding appearances, settlement of transcript by law was by the same Judge Becker whose misconduct was being covered up
2.	2014 – hearing; 2015 – fabricated transcript of hearing from audio file	Delaware County Family Court	New York	Will include the name of stenographer upon verification with the source	Rita Connerton	Judge Connerton held an ex parte hearing where she discussed my motion, and then lied to me in a letter that she did not discuss my motion at that hearing.  The transcript of the hearing where Judge Connerton is shown to discuss my motion, contrary to her lies in her letter that she didn’t, included me as appearing at the hearing, even though that was directly contradicted by contents of the transcript and by Judge Connerton own statement in an earlier letter confirming that I was not present at the hearing.
	2011	Sidney Village Court	New York	The failure was by the judge	Steven T. Rose	Failure to record picking of the jury and conferences
	2011	Bloomville Town Court	New York	The failure was by the judge	Yvonne Pagillo	Failure to record picking of the jury
	2014	Walton Village Court	New York	The failure to record was by the judge	Richard Gumo	Failure to record court conferences, public reprimand
	2014	Delhi Town Court	New York	The failure to record was by the judge	Richard Gumo	After public reprimand for failure to record court conferences, and after a pledge to the NYS Judicial Conduct Commission to record conferences – another failure to record a court conference in a politically charged case People v O’Sullivan which was later dismissed because of an arrest warrant fabricated by Judge Gumo’s court clerk and Judge Gumo’s lying under oath
	2014	Delhi Town Court	New York	The failure to record was by the judge	Richard Gumo	Failure to record arraignment in a politically charged case People v Alecia Bracci which resulted in an acquittal, refusal to provide transcripts of the trial
	2014	Appellate Division 4th Judicial Department		Kenneth H. Crewell, Jr. who has also been employed since the time of the fabrication as court reporter in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in a racketering and corruption case	Referee Steven Sirkin, fabricated transcript accepted, despite an audio of the conference confirming fabrication. The fabrication was accepted by the 4th Department court	Transcript falsely claimed that: 1)     A conference was an evidentiary hearing held on notice – it was not a hearing, no notice of a hearing was ever given, and no such stipulation was ever made; 2)     That I made stipulations at the hearing; 3)     That signing of the transcript by any witnesses is waived –I agreed to no such thing; 4)     That I testified as a witness.
	2015	Appellate Division 4th Judicial Department	New York	Debra Garrison, see also the comment on my blog that Debra Garrison allegedly missed out a paragraph in another court proceedings and refused to provide audio file to verify veracity of her reporting	Referee Steven Sirkin, fabricated transcript accepted, despite an audio of the conference confirming fabrication. The fabrication was accepted by the 4th Department court	Transcript falsely claimed that: 1)     A conference was an evidentiary hearing; 2)     That I made stipulations at the hearing; 3)     That I was sworn as a witness; 4)     That I testified as a witness.
	2016	U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York	Federal court	Transcript sealed, identity of reporter unknown	Judge Lawrence Kahn, David Peebles, former magistrate whose term expired at the time of fabrication	Held a motion hearing regarding me without notice to me and sealed the transcript of the hearing so that I or any other member of the public would not be able to access the transcript
	2015-16	U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York	Federal court	N/a	Chief Judge Gary L. Sharpe	Hidden the entire record of disciplinary proceeding, including a court order, a motion to vacate, recuse and disqualify and the decision on that motion, with no hearing
		Delaware County Supreme Court	New York	N/a	Judge Robert C.  Mulvey, see online ratings for this judge here	Failed to provide a stenographer to take record of a conference, misrepresented in a court decision what happened at the conference: claimed I waived service of a motion when I did not, and brought my client as a witness to witness that; Judge Mulvey was promoted to Appellate Division 3rd Department despite my report of his misconduct to the NYS Judicial Conduct Committee
3.	2009	19th Judicial District Court, Lafayette	Louisiana	Kathleen D. Mathews who continues to work as an official court reporter in the Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court for the 15th Judicial District in the State of Louisiana	Phyllis Keaty	Transcript did not reflect that disclosures of the judge regarding her irreconcilable conflicts of interest were added into the audio file by an outside expert who “spliced” the court audio file without disclosure of that to litigants; the fact of splicing was proven by testimony and evidence at trial, the attorney who brought up the problem was suspended despite being right, the judge was promoted from trial court to appellate court, see also commentary about the case
4.	2016	Appalachian Circuit Court	Georgia	Rhonda Stubblefield	Roger Bradley (resigned)/Brenda Weaver	The transcript did not reflect the judge using racial slur against a participant in criminal proceedings; the journalist and his attorney who sought access to the audio file to verify contents of the transcript were sued by the stenographer, whose legal fees were paid by chief judge of the court out of court account, arrested, charged with a felony and thrown in jail by the judge’s former law clerk – turned prosecutor; were released only after a public outrage in the media

The above evidence shows that failure to create a proper and reliable court record is a pervasive problem in state courts throughout the United States, and that measures should be undertaken to have court records created not by court stenographers, by digitally, and to prevent tampering with such digital records, as well as punishment against those who seek verification of authenticity of such records.

When a judge is given by law a right to officiate at weddings, does he have an obligation to officiate at secular weddings?

First, we had a County Clerk in the State of Kentucky who refused to officiate a same sex marriage.

The County Clerk, Kim Davis, was held in contempt of federal court, and the contempt was recently upheld on appeal.

Now yet another public official from the State of Kentucky, Judge Hollis Alexander, who refused to officiate a wedding, now of a straight couple - because the couple wanted a secular, not religious, wedding.
http://lawnewz.com/important/freedom-from-religion-foundation-criticizes-judge-for-refusing-to-officiate-secular-wedding/

While the press dubbed the couple who judge Hollis Alexander refused to marry as "atheists", a couple who simply does not want a religious wedding, is not necessarily an "atheist" couple.

And, a judge who refuses to marry a couple who refuses to include "God" into their vows, very apparently means a specific "God".

Apparently, the judge will similarly refuse to marry people whose faith is non-Christian.

Yet, when judges are given by law a right to officiate at weddings, that right comes with an obligation not to discriminate.  A judge is officiating as a public official, with an implication that, since a judge is chosen to officiate and not a religious minister, the ceremony is meant to be secular.

Therefore, in my opinion, a judge who is called upon, through a filing in a public courthouse, to officiate at a wedding, has no right to refuse to do so because the wedding is meant to be secular.

I agree with the couple's attorney that Judge Alexander has violated Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In his campaign to become a judge (judge Alexander was appointed by Kentucky governor in 2013), Judge Alexander did not conceal that his views are "Christian".

Yet, in that same campaign, Judge Alexander claimed he wants to provide a "continued, proven, and professional leadership", and has a "heartfelt desire to serve Trigg County".

That service to Trigg County is a service to all residents of the County, in all capacities that the law bestowed on the judge - and that includes officiating at weddings, and there is no point for a judge to officiate at a wedding unless the wedding is secular.

If a wedding is religious, people choose religious ministers to officiate.

I wonder if Judge Alexander will now be taken off the bench for his refusal to serve Trigg County residents the way he is supposed to and for imposing not just any religion, but his own religion as a pre-condition to marry by a judge in Trigg County.

And, in refusing to serve the couple by officiating at a secular wedding, the judge seemed to have overlooked that marriage in this country, and in the state of Kentucky, is not legal unless approved by the state by issuing a state license - which means that the pre-requisite for a marriage in the State of Kentucky is a secular, state license.

This is just one other example of judges refusing to be faithful to their constitutional oath of office - which entitled them to wield judicial power and enjoy the benefits, including the financial benefits, of their position - when it clashes with their personal "beliefs".

Of course, Judge Alexander is not the first of U.S. politicians who insisted that Americans "need God" and jamming God down their throats in government affairs - Constitution or no Constitution.

Yet, since our public officials can only serve while they are faithful to their constitutional oath of office, their public opinions about their official duties contradicting their oath, and especially acting on such opinions, should result in immediate impeachment and removal from office, and Judge Alexander is not an exception.

And, Judge Alexander was allowed by law to express his religious views, under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, on one condition - to resign first, and, if not resigning, not to infuse his religious beliefs into his official duties as a SECULAR government official.

I will follow this story and report on it.

Stay tuned.

A year after the audit by the New York State Comptroller, the Delaware County admits in writing that its #TreasurerBeverlyShields is a thief, along with her subordinates

More than a year have passed after the audit of the Delaware County, New York, by the New York State Comptroller, and audit release of which "coincidentally" happened one day after Delaware County Judge Carl F. Becker announced his "early retirement".

Carl Becker was the last of the 3 Mohicans to resign.

Becker's buddy County Attorney (and profanity-spewing alcoholic with shaking hands) Richard Spinney "retired with honors" at the end of 2012 - see a "plaque of honor" being handed to spinney by Delaware County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Jim Eisel, Spinney's partner in crime who authorized all those multi-million no-public-bidding contracts to friends and relatives - for years, with Carl Becker as an Assistant County Attorney in tow, and Bill Moon and his satellite non-profits as beneficiaries of their shady deals:

 Social Services Commissioner Bill Moon retired at the end of 2014, but was since in the middle of controversy, civil and criminal proceedings - against Moon's apparent accomplice Carolyn Massey, who allegedly "got a poor advice from a fellow employee" (Moon?).  Moon, of course, was not prosecuted.

Carl "Fritz" Becker, Bill Moon and Dick Spinney were the trio of bosom friends and colleagues of nearly 30 years engaged in fixing social services cases and, as the audit revealed, finicking with County finances for all the time they were in office, preventing multi-million contracts of Delaware County from being publicly bid, as required by law, and spawning satellite non-profit corporation sucking taxpayer money from the County.

None of the trio were criminally prosecuted because Carl Becker's former law partner John Hubbard - now Acting Delaware County District Attorney running for the District Attorney's seat in November this year - was "prudently" installed into the District Attorney's office to block any efforts to criminally prosecute them, a job which #JohnHubbard fulfilled admirably.

The audit of the New York State Comptroller of 2014-2015 revealed that:

1) contracts of the county were not submitted to public bidding - and they are not submitted now either;

2) the use of cars bought with public money is not monitored, such cars are unnecessarily assigned to County employees, and some good cars were sold as scrap to county insiders and then flipped for profit as perfectly good cars;

3) there were multiple conflicts of interest in how funds were handled by the county.

Since the audit, I have made numerous FOIL requests regarding the contracts, the use of public funds on the newly acquired German shepherd, the "K-9 unit" Ozzie (nee Neron), contracts submitted to public bidding, use of cell phones by the county. 

This blog is word-searchable, so you can find those numerous blogs by putting "FOIL", "K-9", "Ozzie", "bidding" into the search window on the right.

The county universally stonewalled by FOIL requests.

From reluctant admissions and predominant denials of my FOIL requests this year, the following picture appeared:

1) the county does not have a system of public bidding on contracts - so multimillion contracts each year may still be awarded to insiders, which means that the price may be not competitive, and the taxes claimed by the County to cover their "services" and those contract, are not justified, and the tax foreclosures on Delaware County homes are not justified either;

2) some private individuals are corrupting the local police by paying for the upkeep of the police dog, while the County released to me the alleged numbers as to funds used for upkeep - but not the names of individual "donors";

3) the County's cell phone bill for 1 month is on 321 pages (!), indicating how many county employees enjoy cell phone service at taxpayers' expense.

Now, as to the 321-page cell phone bill, the County refused to provide to me a scanned copy of the bill, claiming from me to pay for the copies of those cell phone bill at 25 cents a page.

In response to that request, I made yet another FOIL request, asking for the inventory of copying, printing and scanning equipment, and print-to-pdf software, becuase the law requires the County to provide to me electronic copies of public records - free of charge - if the County has a means to turn a paper bill into a scanned format as easily as to copy it.

By the way, I doubt that the County gets its telephone bill in paper format and not by e-mail, and a phone bill obtained by e-mail can be easily forwarded in answer to a FOIL request, the effort requires just a couple of clicks on the mouse.

Here is what I received from the Delaware County's Clerk of the Board of Supervisor Ms. Christa Schafer in response to my FOIL request for the inventory of the printing, copying and scanning equipment, so that the County would prove to me that their claim of money for paper copies of the bill is justified and is not simply a way to make my FOIL request more expensive than the law requiers it to be:

What I've learnt in dealing with Delaware County officials over the years - you sometimes just give the idiots enough rope to hang themselves and then sit back and watch it happen.   

I was asking for the INVENTORY OF EQUIPMENT bought with taxpayer money - including my husband's and mine.

The County tells me that they DO NOT HAVE THE INVENTORY.

That means that the Treasure of the County is a CRIMINAL, because she does not create an inventory of what the county purchased and has at this time.

That means that any property that the County has is unaccountable as to how it was purchased, where it is and when, to whom, how and for what amount it was sold - goes to competence and integrity of the Treasurer (Carl Becker's likely girlfriend, judging from her statements in Carl Becker's 2012 election campaign - she revealed interesting knowledge of Becker's activities "after hours" and on weekends, while appearing in front of him as a party litigant; note Shields also lovingly calling Judge Becker as "Fritz"):

That means that whenever the Treasurer purchases new printing/scanning/copying/computer equipment or software, the Delaware County Treasurer Beverly Shields (the remaining link for the resigned trio of Becker-Moon-Spinney) does it illegally, because Shields does not have the inventory to prove that she does not ALREADY have such equipment, but sold it to some of the multiple relatives teeming in the employment of the County, "the land of kissing cousins", or their friends.

Imagine - the county does not even have records reflecting whether they bought expensive printers or scanners, repaired them, sold them or not!

As an attorney, I attended meetings in the backrooms of the County buildings at 111 Main street.

Believe me, there was A LOT of printing/scanning equipment, expensive combined printers/scanners, sitting on tables there.

All of those are unaccounted for.

All of those can be picked up and taken home by anybody at any time.

That's YOUR money, Delaware County taxpayers, going down the drain - or, rather, being stolen from you by the Treasurer and her accomplices.

So, on July 5, 2016, the Delaware County, New York, which is being funded by taxpayer money, including my husband's money and my own, voluntarily admitted to me, IN WRITING, that its Treasurer and whoever else is responsible in maintaining the County accounts, purchases, repairs and inventories - are criminals.

Well, thank you, Christa Schafer and Delaware County, for this rare 4th of July revelation, I will pursue this information further, with appropriate authorities.